The House resumed at 8 p.m.

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: I believe the hon. member for Sudbury has the floor at this time.

Mr. Germa: Mr. Speaker, you will recall that last Tuesday evening when I was speaking in this debate we were discussing the redistribution of wealth in the Province of Ontario. After a little discourse we had come to the conclusion, I think unanimously, that this government, over the past 10 years, had not distributed $1 as far as moving wealth into the lower 20 per cent of our society is concerned. The figures of 10 years ago match almost precisely the distribution figures as they are today.

I recall my colleague from Cornwall (Mr. Samis) had been speaking on this same item at an earlier point in time when he was speaking about the minimum wage in Canada. He put on the record the facts and figures to show that the Province of Ontario is now the sixth province in Canada as far as the minimum wage is concerned. The Province of Ontario is behind Newfoundland as far as the minimum wage is concerned.

The Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) at that point in time took objection to the statements by my colleague from Cornwall and tried to defend herself by saying that Ontario’s wage rate was ahead of Ohio’s. She did admit, of course, that we were behind Newfoundland.

Maybe it would make the Minister of Labour feel better if I were to tell her -- she is listening, I presume, from somewhere in the bowels of this building -- that her minimum wage rate is ahead of that of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Afghanistan and Madagascar and just a little bit ahead of Bangladesh’s. I would suggest that with her attitude she might be a good Minister of Labour in Rhodesia or South Africa but certainly she doesn’t represent the attitude of the people on Ontario.

Many people are speaking on this subject of the redistribution of wealth -- people in high places -- and this government is prone to listen to the powerful and privileged people in Ontario. I happened to run across a speech by Robert D. Armstrong, chairman of Rio Algom Ltd., that great humanitarian mining corporation in Elliot Lake. Mr. Armstrong was quite concerned about any government’s preoccupation with redistribution of wealth. He says:

“In essence, we have been continuing our uncritical acceptance of the notion that a main priority of the state should be to radically redistribute income.

“[He goes on to state] Government redistribution projects have been hugely expensive for the results obtained. Free hospital care, free medical care, payments to the unemployed and old age pensions are examples of the redistribution programmes. While properly introduced to meet social needs, they have been designed and administered in such a way that costs far exceed social benefits.

“[He goes on] My point is, however, that the many income redistribution welfare programmes that have been imposed upon Canadian society, while in many individual instances are desirable in principle, have been destructive.”

Mr. Armstrong tells us that old age security pensions are destructive and that health care programmes are destructive. In looking after those people who are not capable of extracting from society their fair share of the wealth we are being destructive. I would point out to Mr. Armstrong how Rio Algom has acted in the past as far as looking after the weaker people is concerned.

When Mr. Winters retired as chairman of the board of Rio Algom to re-enter politics in 1965, he was given a tax-free pension settlement of $499,000; and to the insiders it seemed a bargain.

Now, that is the attitude of one very important person in Ontario as far as redistribution of income is concerned. He doesn’t mind giving $499,000 to one of his confreres, one of his fat-cat friends, but he objects to the government of Ontario redistributing incomes to look after the health and welfare of the people in Ontario and our senior citizens.

Mr. Samis: Welfare for the rich.

Mr. Germa: It is welfare for the rich, that is for sure.

Another great humanitarian in Ontario -- and I just happened to come across a speech of his -- is the president of Noranda Mines. And his name is very popular in this House. Everyone knows what Mr. Alfred Powis stands for, the president of Noranda. And in his speech to the shareholders on Apr. 30, 1976, he said:

“In recent years we have become altogether too preoccupied with the redistribution of wealth, to the exclusion of its creation.”

Let me remind Mr. Powis that if the wealth of Ontario at its present level of production were distributed properly, I think Ontario could live from now till doomsday at a very high lifestyle level.

In Peter Newman’s book, “The Canadian Establishment,” Mr. Powis also had a quote:

“The terrible problem we’ve got in Canada is that everybody is preoccupied with the distribution of wealth, and nobody is paying attention to the fact that you have to create the wealth you’re trying to distribute.”

These people are all concerned about redistribution of wealth. I think that was one of the motivating reasons why this government, because of their close affinity to the corporate sector in Ontario, introduced in their budgetary estimates this restraint programme, which is cutting back severely on redistribution of those services that the Province of Ontario has pretty well taken for granted.

In the book, “The Canadian Establishment,” Mr. Powis goes on and says:

“Another difference is that fundamentally I am a hired gun, while people like Bud McDougald and Nelson Davis are looking after their own money.”

Mr. Powis admits to his attitude that he is only a hired gun and he is up for hire. Noranda has hired him and that is how he functions. Mr. Powis suffers very severely from income redistribution. He’s a member of Montreal’s Mount Royal Club, the most snobbish club in the country.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Next to the NDP.

Mr. Germa: The Mount Royal’s ashtrays still come equipped with silver toothpicks.

Mr. Samis: Are you going to defend the Petroleum Club in Calgary?

Interjections.

Mr. Germa: Who is this man to condemn senior citizens for wanting health care and drug care, and to argue about the redistribution of wealth when he can live in the style he does?

Peter Newman’s book also cites the luxuries these people have. Noranda Mines has a Grumman Gulfstream II, a 512-knot, 3,000-mile range jet aircraft for the service of Mr. Powis. There are six other companies in the Province of Ontario which enjoy $5 million aircraft in order to float around the country.

Jack Cline, the former MacMillan Bloedel chairman, said in the book, “The Canadian Establishment,” that if you do away with the profit motive you are acting in a manner totally contrary to the human instinct. Another famous person we know, I am quoting him, says, “If I had unlimited wealth and the CRTC would let me have all the electronic media I wanted” -- this is John Bassett, president of Baton Broadcasting Inc. to the Windsor Star -- “I would be a real pig. I like it and if you are in business you want more; you want to be a real pig.”

It is amazing that these men can go out and describe themselves as hired guns and real pigs as far as profits are concerned. I think it is important that the government of Ontario and every elected person in Canada should be aware of these people going around spouting such nonsense.

What else is Mr. Powis doing? I received a copy of a letter today, dated May 28, 1976, addressed to Mr. Alfred Powis, president of Noranda Mines Ltd., from 130 Wembley Court, Sudbury, signed by Stephen Heiti. It says:

“Dear Mr. Powis:

“I understand that Noranda Mines Ltd. will spend millions in partnership with the Chilean military junta to exploit copper at Andacollo.

“I most strongly protest the investment by your firm in the country where, according to the news reports and the UN Human Rights Commission, human rights are denied by restriction of freedom by arrest, detention and torture. Such an investment by your corporation implies internationally that I and all Canadians approve of that brutal and self-serving regime. The association disgusts me.

“There should be no investment in Chile and no dealings with the junta until democratic rights are restored to Chilean citizens.”

That is an ordinary Sudbury citizen, a citizen of the Province of Ontario and a citizen of Canada who objects to a Canadian corporation joining hands with a despotic military junta in Chile for the sole purpose of enhancing the profits of Noranda Mines.

I suspect I know why Mr. Powis has so much clout in the Province of Ontario. I happened to run across the donations to the Conservative Party in the last election. I see Noranda Mines donated $4,000 to the Conservative Party of Ontario for the last campaign.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: What is that supposed to mean?

Mr. Germa: Mr. Powis -- I am sure you are proud to be associated with a man who has joined hands with one of the most despotic regimes in the world today, the military junta of Chile.

Mr. Gregory: That’s your opinion.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: What about Hanoi and Peking?

Mr. Germa: Of course, you are not in this bag all alone. You are not alone; someone else is in the bag with you too.

Mr. Ferrier: Does the Minister of Energy support the present Chilean regime’s policies?

Mr. Germa: Noranda Mines also donated to the Liberals in the last campaign.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Germa: They also donated to the Liberals. Of course, the Liberals are only half what the PCs are so the Liberals only got $2,000 out of Mr. Powis.

I think you fellows should check into that and find out who is getting double duff.

What I really wanted to talk about was the area of the province I know best.

Mr. Norton: This is sour grapes.

Mr. Germa: It is that area known as northeastern Ontario, the geographic district of northeastern Ontario. It is the place from whence I come, where I was born and a place I have lived in all my life. The disillusionment and the disenchantment that the people feel towards this government, that has ruled Ontario -- misruled Ontario, I should say -- for the past 33 years.

[8:15]

Mr. Gregory: And they keep getting in.

Mr. Mackenzie: The end is getting closer and closer.

Mr. Germa: The disenchantment has grown to such a degree that a former Conservative, one Mr. Diebel of North Bay, has formed the Northern Ontario Separatist Party. We’ve seen this fellow down here on the lawn, plaguing the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the cabinet ministers. He is presently asking for a vote to allow the people of northern Ontario to separate into a separate province. He’s so disillusioned with this government that he’s willing to balkanize Ontario.

Mr. Haggerty: Do you agree with him? Are you in agreement with him, Bud?

Mr. Wiseman: Are you in favour of that?

Mr. B. Newman: Is that your policy?

Mr. Germa: I’m not a supporter of Mr. Diebel’s. Mr. Diebel, if he had his way, would only set up another regime like the one we have across the way. If we cannot afford one like that, how in the hell could we afford two?

Hon. B. Stephenson: There’s no way we can afford you.

Mr. Germa: The Conservatives are pretty politically astute. The member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane) has been beating around the bushes, trying to get the cabinet to accept a Ministry of Northern Ontario. This is going to be a superminister. He’s going to handle everything that happens in northern Ontario, be it welfare, health, transportation, mining, university or education. All 25 portfolios are going to be rolled into this one big package known as the Ministry of Northern Ontario. Of course, the member for Algoma-Manitoulin has admitted that this is only a political gimmick and it might serve to save their necks in northern Ontario, because we know that there are only four Tories left up there. I understand one of them is retiring, and I suspect that the next time around there could be only three left in northern Ontario.

Mr. Samis: Maybe two.

Mr. Moffatt: Maybe none.

Mr. Lane: You don’t hear very well.

Mr. Norton: You’re not an advocate of a northern Ontario province, surely?

Mr. Germa: I just happened to come across a clipping from the Sudbury Star of May 15, 1976, which states: “The last grand jury in the province went out with a bang, recommending that the Sudbury district jail be replaced.” I’ve heard that story very often about grand jury recommendations, but this government sits here on its apathy and the jail is still there, as it was about 75 years ago. It’s little things like that that don’t take any great thought. A committee doesn’t have to be formed to decide we need a new jail. Grand juries have told the government at least 10 times in the last 10 years that a new jail is required. But even if the government does build a jail, that’s really not going to solve our problems.

What I really want to talk about is the publication that came out of the Treasury, entitled, “Ontario’s Future: Trends and Options,” and the various recommendations in that study. I think everyone has looked through all of these documents, and even on page 1 we notice contradictions in the sense that the government has no consensus about what it really wants to do. On page 1 it says: “The conclusion may be summed up in a few words: the imperative need for prudent management of change in Ontario.”

Management of change is predominantly required in the Province of Ontario. How did the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) react to that? On April 30, 1976, speaking to the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities, meeting in the Holiday Inn at Sault Ste. Marie, the Treasurer said -- and he was referring to the recommendations in “Ontario’s Future: Trends and Options” -- and I quote:

“The role of the government, therefore, is not to impose any plan upon the people but to reinforce their chosen lifestyle, including the making of individual choices without the arbitrary or dictatorial intervention of government.”

How many times have we heard that? It is this government’s inability to interfere in the marketplace that has caused the urban sprawl problem in the Metropolitan Toronto area to the detriment of the sparse population in the northern part, with farm land going out of production and with the city of Toronto almost out of control, as far as transportation is concerned at least. Yet, when the report makes a firm conclusion and a recommendation that there has to be some management in Ontario, the Treasurer, out of hand rejects it.

The report being rejected by the Treasurer is of no value when we know it is not acceptable, but they go on and give us a lot of information which we knew. The benefit of this package of documents is that they have put it together in one package and we can very readily see what has happened. They say in the introduction, for example, “Economic difficulties in northern and eastern Ontario are at least in part related to the growing concentration of people and production in the south central part of the province.” That’s exactly what I said two seconds ago.

Nine out of 10 Ontarians live in the three southern planning regions at an overall density of nearly 170 people to the square mile, higher than that of India and approaching the densities of Britain and Italy. This is the magnitude of the problem we are facing here in the “golden horseshoe” area. Our density is equal to India’s, Italy’s and Great Britain’s and we all know the problems which have befallen those states mostly because of too dense a population. Yet we sit here and the Treasurer says he is not going to interfere with the redistribution of population in the Province of Ontario.

The northern and eastern regions are actually experiencing net migration losses. The north is even losing 10 per cent of its natural increases. I know something about that. I had a family up there and there was no way my family could stay in northeastern Ontario because we know there is very little work or none for females in that part of the province. I happen to have female children and there was just no way they could work in a lumber camp or down a mine. That is about all the Province of Ontario or the government of Ontario has offered us in the northeast part of the province.

Mr. Norton: Do you mean you would allow them free choice after what you just said about the government?

Mr. Germa: What does this do to the overpopulated area in the south?

Mr. Swart: We control the money. You control the people.

Mr. Germa: It has led to an intense competition for land in which success is determined, on the whole, by individual and corporate economic strength rather than by the needs of society. The corporations have us by the throat. The land speculators -- we know the acreages around this particular urban area which are controlled by the large land development speculative companies.

Mr. Swart: You should see what they give to the Tory candidates.

Mr. Germa: I have it here, if you want to look at it.

Mr. Swart: I have it, too.

Mr. Germa: Meanwhile --

Mr. Swart: The maximum.

Mr. Germa: -- other parts of the province experience slow growth; sub-optimum economies; and inadequate access to public services. Also utilization of the natural resources on which their economy depends is at a lower level than it could be, partly because of their remoteness from markets and processing centres. The Design for Development says that if present trends are allowed to take their course some of these problems will become progressively more serious and it makes recommendations that recognize the government’s responsibility to carry out and give direction to regional land use and economic development planning. It recognizes the government’s responsibility to ensure that all development in the province takes place as a result of good regional planning.

We know what happened to the development of the latest steel mill in the Province of Ontario, the one which is going to Nanticoke, in one of the most densely populated parts of the province, on prime agricultural land. We know full well that the ores which are going to fire that furnace come from northern Ontario. They come right past areas which the minister from Moonbeam knows are crying out for employment -- such areas as Blind River and Parry Sound. Does it make any economic sense to ship iron ore all the way from Wawa to 20 miles south of Hamilton? By the way, Hamilton doesn’t need any more pollution, and yet we go ahead and do a thing like that.

Mr. Haggerty: You can have some of it up north, Bud.

Mr. Germa: Also contained in this package of information was the “Northeastern Ontario Regional Strategy,” which gives us some of the details of the problem in northeastern Ontario. One of the general guidelines is that private enterprise has a vital role to play in the development of the northeast. I doubt that very much. We’ve had private enterprise in northeastern Ontario for the past 75 years and they certainly haven’t done much for that part of the province.

Mr. Warner: They’ve taken out all the wealth.

Mr. Germa: A further recommendation on economic strategy in the mining sector, recommendation No. 5, reads:

“To increase benefits from the mineral resources of the region, further treatment and refinement of ores domestically should be required... and processing within northeastern Ontario should be promoted by continued use of financial incentives.”

I just happen to have a copy of a speech by Mr. L. E. Grubb, chairman and chief officer of the International Nickel Co. In talking to his shareholders, he paid tribute to the Province of Ontario. He said:

“The Ontario government declared a five-year moratorium on the implementation of its earlier decision to disallow foreign processing costs. This was a welcome and sensible measure to help an ailing industry.”

We all know what that is about: When the government of Ontario saw fit to disallow, for tax purposes, the cost of processing Ontario ores outside of the continent. When the mining companies put a little pressure on this government, they backed down and said: “We’re going to give you five more years before you have to comply with the law.” There are many laws in this province that many of us don’t agree with, but at no time has the government of Ontario come to me and said, “We’re going to give you five years in which to comply.” Yet they went ahead and gave the International Nickel Co. five years to comply with the laws that they themselves had seen fit to pass and which they must have known were necessary.

The report goes on to say that we should give more financial incentive to industrialists in order to encourage them into northeastern Ontario. I have to reject that recommendation. We have probably pumped hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts and tax abatement programmes over the past 50 years to no avail. The incentive system just doesn’t work.

The resource base strategy, as indicated in the northeastern Ontario report, doesn’t say very much: “Efforts to prevent and remedy environmental pollution and degradation should be continued and intensified.” That is only common sense after having seen the destruction that has happened in my particular area around the city of Sudbury. Many hon. members have been there and have seen the destruction. I would venture a guess that if the company that did the destruction was assessed for the destruction that they have caused, it would not have been a profitable industry throughout these years. The profit they made was at the cost of the people of that area and at the cost of the environment.

Northeastern Ontario also suffers from a very narrow economic base and economic instability. We know that the world trends in the metal market have a profound effect on the employment picture in northeastern Ontario. It has been a boom-and-bust economy throughout the years. There’s no hope, while this government is in power, of that being corrected. The government has simply opted out of interfering in the free market economy to the detriment of the people in the area.

[8:30]

Something that really plagues northeastern Ontario is the job opportunities. The women in northeastern Ontario are particularly deprived of job opportunities because of the narrow economic base.

I would like to read some figures into the record, Mr. Speaker, as it relates to employment opportunities. I am quoting from “Northeastern Ontario Regional Strategy”:

“In 1971, only 30 per cent of working-aged women in northeastern Ontario had jobs or were looking for work as compared to 44 per cent for the rest of Ontario. Of the women in the labour force in northeast, 10.2 per cent were unemployed. By comparison, only 6.8 per cent of men in northeastern Ontario were unemployed.”

So we have a variance of 37 per cent of employed females in northeast, compared with 44 per cent for the province as a whole.

The youth also have a hard struggle in northeastern Ontario. The report says:

“The lack of job opportunities for young people has left large numbers of unemployed and prompted many to leave the region. In 1971, 17.2 per cent of 15 to 24-year-olds in the labour force were unemployed. This is in contrast to 13.5 per cent for 15 to 24-year-olds in the remainder of the province.”

Now, the location of the jobs are really not that good either. The variety is very, very limited. Unless you are a certain type of person who likes to work in the mine or in the forest, then you just don’t have a job up there. The security of the jobs is lacking as well. I will quote again:

“In many of the single-enterprise communities of the region, temporary employment layoffs present particular difficulties, because few alternative employment opportunities are readily available. The reduced purchasing power of those out of work hurts businesses in the community.”

Job satisfaction is also very low because of the menial tasks involved. And the report says regional employers have experienced difficulty in obtaining and retaining workers in a variety of occupations. Shortages still persist in such categories as miners, woodsmen, skilled tradesmen and professionals.

No one wants to go there because of a lack of services. And one can hardly blame them when one considers that it is possible to have to travel 250 miles to go to a dentist in some parts of northeastern and northwestern Ontario.

Incomes are lower in northeastern Ontario than they are in the rest of the province -- and I will give you some figures on that -- despite the fact that the cost of living is higher in that part of the province than in the rest of Ontario.

Average after-tax income in 1973 in northeastern Ontario was $6,009. For the rest of Ontario it was $6,530 -- even despite the fact that living costs are higher.

Housing costs when related to income also exceed that of Toronto. Cost of food is a major concern of householders. The report says:

“Most people living in the region have to pay food prices that are five to 10 per cent higher than those in Metro Toronto. At the extreme, people in Moose Factory pay food costs 28 per cent higher than those in Metro Toronto. The region’s agricultural production is relatively small, so most food must be brought in from importing, processing and distributing centres in southern Ontario.”

A market basket of 30 selected items in Kitchener on Feb. 28, 1974, would have cost you $21.51, whereas in Moose Factory the same 30 items would cost you $27.58.

Health care is also deficient. I made a speech last year in the House and I laid out the problem that we in metropolitan Sudbury endure, even though we are a community of 100,000 people. I put on the record the facts and figures to show that approximately 600 people a year have to come to the Princess Margaret Hospital in the City of Toronto in order to receive treatment for cancer. The litany of neglect as enunciated in these documents goes on and on and it condemns this government for its lack of concern and lack of initiative in northeastern Ontario. It is little wonder that the people in that part of the province have turned away from the Tories as far as supporting their programme is concerned.

Hardly anyone who comes from the city of Sudbury could sit down without mentioning the International Nickel Co. I did mention them lightly a little earlier but I’d like to bring to the attention of the House a situation which has developed recently. The Law of the Sea Conference passed a motion, proposed by the United States, that development of nickel from the Pacific Ocean should begin and be increased at the rate of six per cent annually.

The riding I represent has traditionally supplied nickel to the free western world at the rate of probably 60 per cent. I understand it is a little over 50 per cent now; the nickel for the western world comes from the mines of the Sudbury area. Here we have a proposition from the Law of the Sea Conference and while this is an international problem I think it should be brought to the attention of the House.

The government members should recognize that this great friend of theirs, the International Nickel Co. which they have protected all these years; protected their profits; allowed them to extract these depleting resources; allowed them to burn the landscape with sulphur dioxide, this friend is interested in the sea-bed nodules of nickel. The sea-bed nodules of nickel cover an area 10,000 miles long and 1,000 miles wide in a strip right across the Pacific Ocean.

The International Nickel Co., with money produced as the result of exploiting an Ontario resource, is deeply implicated in mining from the sea bed. Last Monday night in Nickel Park in Copper Cliff, the vice-president of International Nickel Co., Mr. Young, tried to alleviate the fears of the people of Sudbury by saying the International Nickel Co. really did us a favour by coming to Sudbury. He said, “We knew about the nickel deposits in Indonesia before we knew about the nickel deposits in the Sudbury basin. Despite the fact we knew about the Indonesian deposits, we still chose to mine the nickel in Sudbury.”

That’s pretty hard for me to swallow. I think the reason the International Nickel Co. mined the nickel resources in the city of Sudbury was that there was more profit. There was more profit to be made from extracting the ore body in Ontario than there was in Indonesia. It is true now that International Nickel Co. is opening up a production site in Indonesia. It should go on-stream some time this year, within a few months. Is the International Nickel Co. endangered by this exploitation of sea-bed nodules?

I happen to have a communique from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Team Nairobi. I’m quoting from Communique No. 6 and it says:

“It is hardly surprising that the world’s major mining trans-nationals have joined together in a number of undersea mining consortia. Inco is in partnership with Sumitom, the vast conglomerate which is the number one producer of metals in Japan, and the AMR Group of West Germany, in one such venture.”

So I think that we are endangered, not only in the city of Sudbury but in the Province of Ontario, in that if sea-bed mining can be made as profitable as the mining in northern Ontario, then we can very well see that the International Nickel Co. could very easily pull up its stakes and leave us stranded, despite all of the privileges this government has granted them over the past 30 or 40 years.

The council of the city of Sudbury took into consideration what was happening as far as sea-bed mining is concerned and they did pass a resolution. It was addressed to the Rt. Hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada. On May 11, 1976, the council passed the following resolution:

“Whereas the United States of America has included certain clauses in a new negotiation draft to be discussed at the Law of the Sea Conference that would allow the sea-bed mining of nickel to increase at the rate of six per cent per annum;

“and whereas such a clause would effectively flood the market with nickel at a rate much greater than the anticipated world demand;

“and whereas by doing so the United States would effectively ruin Canada’s position as a world leader in nickel production;

“and whereas such action would have a devastating effect on the economy of nickel mining towns throughout Canada, and particularly in northern Ontario, as well as drastically affecting the balance of payments of Canada;

“therefore be it resolved that this council hereby oppose any such action;

“and be it further resolved that this council requests, most adamantly, that the government of Canada firmly oppose the clause as submitted by the United States concerning sea-bed mining of nickel when the Law of the Sea Conference resumes in August.”

Since that time our Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mr. MacEachen, has talked with Henry K. -- I think they were in Copenhagen, and they did have a little tête-a-tête -- but just the same, when we leave the decisions to the free market then the motivation for profit is going to overpower any other consideration.

We also know what the International Nickel Co. has done in the past with the money they generated by exploiting our nickel deposits. We know that they spent -- I think it was $250 million a year or so ago -- to take over control of ESB of the United States, the Electric Storage Battery Co. This is money generated in Ontario. Rather than put it to use developing and establishing processing facilities in northeastern Ontario to supply further secondary industry, they chose to spend $250 million to acquire control of Electric Storage Battery in the United States.

Now that ESB has been taken over by the International Nickel Co. it appears that things are happening over there which they are not too happy with as well. I just happened to intercept a telegram, dated May 17, 1976; and it’s addressed to Mr. Jan Hodan of Stockholm, Sweden. He is the secretary of the Nordic Metalworkers’ Federation. This telegram brings us up to date on the International Nickel Co.’s attitude now that it has taken over ESB; and it reads:

“ESB taken over by International Nickel of Canada but US government suing to force divesting. Home plant ESB, Philadelphia, negotiating new collective agreement but management formerly accessible now tough, refusing profit information. IUE has set strike deadline June 1 a.m.”

[8:45]

That was signed by Dan Benedict, secretary of the International Metalworkers’ Federation.

What else is going on? ESB is now taking over control of another major corporation with money generated, of course, from the operation in Ontario. It is also going to take over Tudor subsidiaries of AGA in Austria, Colombia, Greece, Finland, Norway and Spain.

The money generated in Ontario out of the Sudbury ore body is being used to buy up corporations all over this world, now that International Nickel Co. has taken over control. These are the men who are advising this government and it is possibly the reason, when we have such a horrendous budget, that my caucus and I are motivated to resist when the time comes that the vote is called.

Mr. Cunningham: Mr. Speaker, it’s a privilege to follow the member who talked very authoritatively about hired guns and pigs, the Law of the Sea Conference and, I guess more appropriately, the area of his expertise, northern Ontario.

As the member for Wentworth North, I am particularly pleased to participate in debate on the budget at this time. For the information of my fellow members of the House, my riding comprises the township of Flamborough, the towns of Ancaster and Dundas and part of Hamilton Mountain, otherwise known as “Sanity Island.” Throughout these municipalities are a number of small villages that still retain their identities despite their amalgamation into a regional system of government.

Mr. Samis: Is this a geography lesson?

Mr. Cunningham: I refer to Carlisle, Millgrove, Freelton, Strabane, Carluke, Lynden and, of course, Waterdown, where I live. History would record the area to be dominated by a middle class type of society with a healthy appreciation of the benefits of small town or rural living. Perhaps this is the most important thing for the citizens of my riding. There still exists an active farm community, one that should continue to grow and serve the increasing needs of the urban area that surrounds it.

The riding itself was redistributed in 1966 to reflect the current boundaries. Over the years it has been represented by both the major parties. The years 1951 to 1971 saw a large part of it represented by the Hon. Ray Connell, former minister of Public Works, and yet another part of the riding was held by the late T. B. McQuesten, who served the province so ably as Highways Minister back in the Hepburn ministry.

I suppose one of the things I would like to speak to at this time is the decision by the Province of Ontario to move towards a home warranty programme. It is one that I think I have to commend and one that I think is long overdue.

Perhaps one of the most frustrating experiences I have had as a new member of this Legislature was to visit a young couple in my riding, who live in Freelton. They have taken on, I suppose at great risk, large mortgages, to embark upon the ownership of a house. They bought a brand-new house in one of the more modern type of subdivisions which we see throughout the province today. They bought it in good faith, I am sure, with the idea that they could live there and possibly raise children at some time.

I was called some time ago, I guess, to investigate the problem of water in their basement. When I was called upon, I had no idea that we would be in the position to examine 4 in. or 5 in. of water in their basement. After some examination we found that the house they had bought was built on an artesian well, Very briefly, Mr. Speaker, I’d like to share with you a report by Nyal E. Wilson and Associates, who did a report on the geotechnical conditions that have befallen these people as a result of their house being constructed on an artesian well, if you can believe it. Mr. Wilson, in his report of April 7, 1976, said:

“The two-storey house with a full basement is located in an area with a thin cover of glacial till over bedrock. The terrain is gently sloping downwards towards the house and an adjacent ditch. The basement for this two-storey house is at a lower elevation than the basements for other surrounding houses.

“It is understood that the local water supply comes from an artesian well in the subdivision. An artesian well by definition has water in the ground under pressure. The water seeping around and into the basement is clean water which is very cold. This indicates that it is water from the rock rather than ground water. The flow is excessive, many thousands of gallons per day, far in excess of the normal seepage into house basements. The small sump pump installed in a fruit cellar is barely able to cope with the pumping requirements. Reliability of the pump and/or a hydro failure provide a major concern.

“In our opinion, the water which is clean and very cold is artesian well water from bedrock. It is likely that this flow will increase with time as the channels could have been widened by construction operations or blasting.

“There is no simple remedy for this problem. A grout curtain around the house would be expensive and not fully reliable. Jacking the house is architecturally not feasible. It is recommended that the basement be abandoned and filled to a depth of 4 ft or 5 ft with stone and concrete. To provide alternative accommodation the existing garage should be winterized and converted into a furnace room, laundry room and recreation room. An additional garage could be built at the head of the driveway.

“This situation is the worst that the writer has seen in a domestic house. As there does not appear to be a simple solution it is necessary to abandon the basement. The builder would be well advised to follow this procedure as continuous pumping is likely to cause a water shortage for the entire subdivision.”

I suppose, very sadly, that would be indicative of the kind of situation which exists not only in my constituency but in so many areas across the province. Some builders have been allowed to get away with pure, unadulterated murder and while it is easy for me to offer my sympathies to the people who live in this house, short of any legislation to effect the contrary, I am without any kind of solution for these people at the present time. I must tell members that it is a very sad thing to tell young people that a remedy really doesn’t exist at this time. With this in mind I am appreciative of the direction finally taken by the Province of Ontario in coming in with some sort of warranty programme for people who buy houses.

In my speech in the Throne Speech debate earlier in the year I spoke on the need to improve the standards of our educational system. There are those, especially on the government side, who prefer to think that our declining educational system and standards are not a real problem at this time. One only has to take a cursory look at the current unemployment statistics to see that over half the number of people currently unemployed are young people. I sincerely feel that we may be turning out a generation of people who will be very poorly equipped to cope with the increased demands of labour in the not too distant future.

Those of us who are inclined to spend some time with teachers, parents and, more importantly, students realize a sense of frustration is building up in our educational system. Only last month, the director of education for the city of Hamilton, Mr. Ernest Hutton, stated, “The median of our grade 12 graduate is not the same standard as it was 10 or 12 years ago. The graduation diploma does not mean very much in Ontario today.” Mr. Hutton further stated that students are unable to read as well as 10 or 12 years ago.

Mr. Moffatt: Is that the director?

Mr. Cunningham: That’s the director. The chairman of the board of education, a good friend of mine, Mr. Tom Gallagher, was equally candid and correct when he seriously questioned the students’ ability to write and express themselves. To this end, I would again recommend a return to the more basic courses in English, French and mathematics with provincial-wide testing to be done on a uniform basis. Only then can the teacher, the student and the parents know where the student is and where he or she can improve in the future. It might also afford us the opportunity of identifying students with learning disabilities or identifying the student who might be better suited to a different programme, be it academic or technical in nature.

Possibly this kind of common-sense approach to our educational system would reduce the number of poorly qualified young people who are having such a difficult time finding meaningful employment. I am disturbed that we have not developed better methods of providing students with information as it would relate to higher levels of education and job opportunities.

A further problem we continue to ignore somewhat is the process by which we train our teachers, and I am sure many of our teachers who sit here in the Legislature would agree with me. Very few improvements, if any, have been made over the last 10 years.

Certainly we are going to have to bring our educational spending in line. I think some serious thought should be given to increasing the tuition fees at the university level for training those who will likely obtain a maximum benefit, such as doctors, lawyers, dentists, and so on. I find somewhat unacceptable that the average taxpayer in the Province of Ontario should be required to pay the high cost of educating these individuals.

One further thought on the subject of curriculum is the need, especially at the primary level, to place some greater emphasis on the study of Canadian history and Canadian government. And as well, some non-sectarian approach to dealing with the increasing number of contemporary moral problems that our children face with ever-increasing frequency in today’s society. I’m sure that while many of us would say that this would be strictly a parental responsibility, we all realize that many parents are reluctant or not aware of the need.

I would be remiss if I did not address myself to the relationship that we have with our teachers. In a few isolated instances teachers have earned part of the disdain that is directed at them. But, for the most part, our teachers are a dedicated collection of professionals. I know, Mr. Speaker, that members of my party, at least, would prefer to treat teachers as professionals, and not as members of some local or union. Such a move is coming, I’m afraid, if we cannot manage to bring more common sense and fairness to our system of collective bargaining.

The taxpayers in my constituency will face the highest tax jump in history. It would be unfair to allow any blame to reside with the local politicians to any extent, or the civic administrators. The problem rests with the cost of regional government. A system of government that none of them asked for. The tax increase for the average home will be somewhere in the area of $100, an increase of over $150 in taxes, with no apparent increase in services in the last couple of years. And in many cases, the services have deteriorated very rapidly.

How is the record of spending in regionalized governments compared to those in the rest of the province? During the years 1970 to 1975, the increase in government spending in regionalized governments increased 159 per cent, as compared to only 65 per cent in the rest of the province. The increase in Metro was only 102 per cent. We all recognize the need possibly to restructure the old county systems of local government throughout the province, possibly the government would have been much better off if some more meaningful consultation had taken place at the local level.

In my particular area, all that we really required was a form of regional planning. The old analogy -- Why buy a cow when all you want is the milk? -- still holds true. And in the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth we bought an entire dairy.

Mr. Peterson: Rent the cow.

Mr. Cunningham: Perhaps one of the most unfortunate ramifications of regional government in my area is the confusion that continues to exist in the minds of the average citizen about the various levels of responsibility. The confusion, coupled with the increase in municipal taxes, has led to a great sense of alienation and frustration.

You know, it wasn’t that long ago that all the residents of my area received a rather expensive brochure compiled by an advertising agency. The president of the agency was a well-regarded and well-respected former minister of the government here. He made, I think, a rather desperate effort to try and sell the merits of the region through this elaborate brochure.

I’d like to say to you at this time, Mr. Speaker, that no matter how much money this government spends in my particular area, it will never sell the idea of regional government.

As one who attended the various meetings that were held to discuss or, more appropriately, listen to the various experts from Queen’s Park, I must say that the rationale that was given for regional government has not been demonstrated to date. They spoke of better planning. To date, almost 2½ years later, there is no real plan.

The confusion that has taken place as a result of this is unbelievable. They spoke of reducing the competition between the various municipalities for industrial assessment. What they failed to appreciate was that in so many of the smaller towns and villages, they did not want industrial assessment under any circumstances.

One further reason given for the need for regional government was the need to save money. As you are no doubt aware, Mr. Speaker, the province provided a tremendous amount of start-up grants for the various regions. These decrease at a rate of 20 per cent per year.

It was just last week that I heard the conclusion of the budget contribution from the member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. J. R. Smith). And for the information of the member for Hamilton Mountain, there was no duplication in services prior to Jan. 1, 1974. For his information, police services have deteriorated in the rural areas especially. The police, through no fault of their own, do not know the people of the towns and the villages, and naturally they do not enjoy the rapport that existed before. This is not an improvement in my view, or in the view of my constituents.

[9:00]

Was the member for Hamilton Mountain suggesting on May 25 that the various public utilities commissions have merged into one? You know, you only have to read the Hamilton Spectator to know that the PUC continues to operate in Dundas.

Planning is an area that not only is functioning efficiently but is also carrying on very well at the local level.

The member for Hamilton Mountain implied that taxes have gone down. This is simply not the case and he knows it. The only area where that ever was correct is where he stated that the cost of many services has shifted to the area municipalities.

I would like to share with the members of the House the words of the member for Hamilton Mountain dated May 25 wherein he said: “Mr. Speaker, we see now that the people within the region are sharing the cost of services. Other municipalities were undoubtedly not carrying their full weight before.” Mr. Speaker, I want to say to you and possibly to the member, if he would read the record, that that is just a let of pure unadulterated nonsense.

For the edification of the member and the Treasurer, I would suggest that the people of Wentworth North are not receiving any extra services from the region; in fact, those services have decreased while the taxes, as I have stated, have continued to increase.

Notwithstanding all of this, these taxes are going up at an unhealthy rate. In many areas, I suppose, the people are paying twice, if you look at the cost of paying for the OPP and the cost of paying for a regional police service that you do not receive in a place like Greensville, Ont.

The ramifications of these increases have placed so many of the citizens in my riding in difficult straits, particularly the senior citizens and those on fixed incomes. When many of them retired, they never contemplated the kind of inflation that we have seen in Canada over the last five or six years -- things that we have had very little control over. This, and the recent municipal tax increases, have seriously jeopardized their standard of living and their ability to continue to own their own home.

One of the reasons for the continued growth in the cost of operating all levels of government is the failure by elected representatives and officials to re-examine the various programmes and priorities that they have. A classic example of this would have to be the Ontario government’s policy as it would relate to the establishment of the parkway belt.

For some time, I have questioned this concept and its related costs. Perhaps the aspect that disturbs me most, especially in a country like Canada, is the effect of the plan on the individual landowner.

In January of this year the Minister of Treasury, Economics, and Intergovernmental Affairs stated: “Some disruptions of lifestyle and individual plans and hopes is inevitable for some parkway belt landowners in an undertaking of this scope.”

This has to be the understatement of the year. I am called probably twice a week by some land holder who wants to sever a lot off for his son or his daughter so that he can continue to work on the farm, or by somebody who has land that is really of no use for anything but residential construction. The difficulties these people encounter in trying to get a severance and in trying to obtain a building permit is truly sad indeed. In the areas that fall within the confines of the parkway belt, or even adjacent to it, it is difficult to build a garage without having to have four or five government people involved at several levels of government.

A farmer often has a tremendous time trying to separate a lot off for one of his children, or often to obtain the necessary revenue to expand his farm or even to continue in existence. A builder must consult with the parkway belt people before he can erect even a sign to promote the development of his property. This kind of bureaucracy and the delays inherent in it are forcing many of our small builders out of business and I am sure that all members of the House would agree that this is the kind of trend that we don’t want to continue in the Province of Ontario.

It is almost impossible for the average citizen to conduct any property dealings without the assistance of a skilled real estate lawyer. I think this adds tremendously to the cost of the development and the cost of an individual’s property dealing.

To the residential builder and even the eventual homeowner, the myriad of delays that tend to occur are so very costly. Sometimes it takes as long as three years to grant approval, and the associated costs are tremendous. Naturally, the builder will want to build the most expensive type of home he can to try to recoup the loss on his three-year investment. One of my constituents has been trying for over a year and a half to get approval for an addition to his existing mobile home park.

The quality of the present development speaks for itself. The individuals involved were prepared to exceed all the normal requirements, especially in the area of sewage facilities. Now with the construction season upon us, as well as it being the time to sell such units, they are still awaiting approval.

Getting back to the costs associated with the parkway belt, Mr. Speaker. What kind of cost-benefit studies have been done to justify such an expense? By the Treasurer’s (Mr. McKeough) own figures, we will have to spend in the area of $500 million. Given that his figures are so often on the short side, we might expect to spend somewhere in the area of $650 million by the time this programme is completed. Recently Mr. Peter Martin, the former executive co-ordinator of the Ontario Housing Action Programme, questioned the province’s intention to create such a land reserve for future use.

Before I continue with several other areas, I would like to point out some of the difficulties we’ve had in relation to regional government and the duplication which would exist on the provincial level and the costs associated with it which so many of us, indirectly I suppose, are unable to perceive. A constituent in my riding, a former Tory -- at least I think he’s a former Tory -- very kindly passed on to me some clippings he has taken note of which he entitled, “Positions which appear to be in conflict with the jurisdiction of the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth.”

For the edification especially, I think, of the Chairman of Management Board (Mr. Auld) who will oversee these kinds of costs, I would like to share a few of these job applications which appeared in the Hamilton Spectator for positions which appear to be in conflict with what would strictly be a regional type of function, the cost of which will certainly be borne by the people of Ontario.

A release from the Ministry of the Environment in November, 1973, said,

“A reorganization of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment has been scheduled for implementation April 1, 1974. Involved in restructuring is a major decentralization into six regions and the establishment of regional offices in the province’s eastern central, west central, southwest, northeast and northwest regions.

“Environment Minister James Auld explained the step that will bring the services branches closer to the people they serve.

“Each regional director will be responsible for environmental protection and assessment of his area. He will also have responsibility for the operation of water and sewage treatment utilities in a region. The project co-ordinator will be responsible for new sewage or water treatment projects from inception to opening. A policy secretariat will deal with the analysis of ministry policies and plans as well as focusing on intergovernmental agreements like the Canada-Ontario agreement and the International Joint Commission.

“Finally, there will be four major divisions -- environmental planning assessment, field operations, utility and laboratory services, and finance administration.”

On May 28, 1974, the Ontario public service advertised the following:

“Manager, human resources development. Salary range $20,500-$25,800. [These are 1974 figures so they must be up considerably.] Duties: Will lead and co-ordinate the activities of a small staff in developing improved techniques in the utilization of human resources in local government and will provide technical support to regional offices of the ministry in promoting adoption of modern practices by local government in such areas as personnel planning, staff training, career development, personnel evaluation and labour relations.”

That’s wonderful. I think the person who wrote that is still around in Treasury, Economies and Intergovernmental Affairs. That individual is probably the same one who came up with that great phrase, net cash requirement.

The same advertisement requests local government advisers -- plural; we don’t know how many they want.

“-- salary range $16,300-$22,400. Duties: To undertake independently or as part of an interdisciplinary team project, studies and problem-solving assignments to assist municipalities and other local government agencies to improve their decision-making processes, including organizational structure, decision paths, management practices, resource utilization and information and control systems.”

Engineers: operation officers; director of municipal finances for local areas; local environment officers; assessment officers; policy advisers in municipal affairs; groundwater technicians, all located in Hamilton. Operation officers, more local government officers, this time with a salary range of $18,100 to $24,900 -- same advertisement -- a planning analyst, salary to $22,200; regional nursing home supervisors to the regional government; air assessment officers; the list goes on.

In total -- these are just the ads that we could find -- there appear to be 29 executive positions open. I would think that they would all have to have secretaries and, of course, pursuant to that, typical of the fashion of the government of Ontario, appropriate support staff, administrative benefits and space. I would say that the cost of this must be absolutely, totally unbelievable.

This all goes, I think, to support the regional kind of system that we have today. I would say that that cost is borne by every taxpayer in the Province of Ontario, regardless of where they live. I would submit that it is totally out of hand that this government can say that regional government is working, and that it happens to be efficient. I think this is just not being truthful with the citizens of the Province of Ontario.

Only recently in a TEIGA publication that we received, the Treasurer of the Province of Ontario said -- I think it was to the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce -- and I quote:

“Regional government has been less costly than many people believe, and where sharp increases in spending on taxes are evident, they have occurred for the most part for very good and understandable reasons.”

I am not sure what that means. I haven’t seen any justification as to why we should have such an increase in taxation, especially when we have had a constant decrease in services. But I know that statements like that, and the great public relations work that the ministry is doing, are not going to fool the people who ultimately have to pay for this kind of thing.

One further thing that I would like to put forward in this particular context, Mr. Speaker, is a policy that should be examined. That’s the government’s decision to shut down hospitals to save money. Notwithstanding the appeal by cabinet over the recent unanimous decision by the divisional court here in Toronto, the government should examine the entire philosophy.

None of us here would speak against the need for some general type of restraint programme in Ontario. Certainly, most taxpayers have had it. The Ministry of Health cannot exempt itself from the need to save money, but I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that closing existing hospitals is not the answer. People in those communities will continue to get sick. They will continue to require proper health care facilities. As citizens of the Province of Ontario, they are entitled to receive them. It is not the hospitals that are inefficient, it is the system in general.

We waste hundreds and hundreds of dollars a year in forms. I was told several weeks ago that the total administrative cost for the various forms we have is $63 million, and I think that is a figure that I would like to see verified at some time, because I find it absolutely, totally unbelievable.

In many areas there is an abuse by the people who are not entitled to receive health care for lack of OHIP payments, and in many cases some people abuse their rights to treatment. Surely, the time has come to provide a more efficient delivery of our existing services, the quality of which few people would question here in the Province of Ontario.

I would suggest the province consider the use of a non-tamperable type of identity card. It might assist doctors in identifying OHIP holders, and at the same time could serve as a type of charge card and an aid in possibly the development of a one-write type of accounting and billing system. All patients would then be able to see that the doctor is not submitting improper or unnecessary invoices, while at the same time the patient would know the value of the services obtained.

I think that’s so very important today, Mr. Speaker, because so few of us who go to doctors and obtain the medical services we require, appreciate the cost of those services -- because we rarely see that cost. Such a system, I submit, would aid greatly in a more efficient type of health care delivery system.

At the recent OMA meeting, the Premier (Mr. Davis) spoke about the possibility of a deterrent system. He mentioned that such a system has yet to be proved effective. Perhaps the time has come when we should examine the various systems that are currently operating. Basic economies would have it that when there is no price involved, consumption increases. I think our health care delivery system is no exception.

While I am talking about the health care system in the province, I should share with you, Mr. Speaker, my concern about the high cost of nursing home facilities in relation to the amount that our pensioners receive from both our federal and provincial governments.

One of my constituents has taken the time to do a rather detailed cost analysis, as it relates to increases in pension payments and the increase in nursing home costs. For instance in the 15 months between May, 1973 and July, 1974, one lady’s pension increased $22.04. During the same period of time, home costs increased $52.70. The ramifications of this can be pretty far-reaching. I know that my fellow members would be interested in hearing this man’s particular problem in his quest to see that his sister receives proper care at a fair cost.

[9:15]

I would like, very briefly, to share a letter sent to me, dated April 26:

“Dear Mr. Cunningham:

“I am writing in regard to the recent exorbitant increase requested by nursing homes, approximately $3 per day or $90 per month for a 30-day month, starting April, 1976.

“In the case of my sister, who has been a resident of the downtown convalescent centre in Hamilton since January, 1973, she has been able to pay her way through her pension and GAINS and her low bank account. Up to now there has always been a cushion of between $40 and $50 per month leeway to prevent her account from being depleted. However, now that this recent increase of $90 per month has come, there is no longer a cushion so no doubt her account will eventually disappear.

“This now means that I, her younger brother and presently her power of attorney, also a pensioner, will have to dip into my own bank account to pay for her keep in the home. This is not a good state of affairs as my savings are now going to become less.

“Others, I assume, must be getting into the same boat, so to speak. The downtown convalescent centre advises us that the grant from the Ontario government has been cut off to them, thus causing their recent larger increase for resident up-keep. No doubt this, I assume, is a result of the hospital cutback programme to save money and reduce excess taxes to all of us.

“I have some previous correspondence on this subject -- copies enclosed for your review -- which went to Mr. Graham of the Ontario government financial controls branch, Toronto, dated July 26, 1974; also drawing attention to the ever-widening gap between the pensioner and cost-of-living index in relation to increases requested by nursing homes.

“I realize the provincial government must control costs and that nursing home costs are always going up. May I therefore suggest that the way most people are spending money on lotteries, especially now when more cash will be building up with the new five $100,000 prizes in Wintario, that some of this reserve might be allotted to hospital and nursing homes to help in cases where need is required, as well as the grants now going to cultural groups only. Letters have been in the press re use of lottery reserves.

“Half of the majority of those now residing in hospitals and homes have paid taxes all their lives and have helped to make the Province of Ontario one of the best and richest in our country. I would be pleased to have you investigate this idea and whatever could be considered to alleviate the trend of costs mentioned herein.

“Mr. George S. Bell”

I must thank Mr. Bell for his detailed cost analysis here, which I am going to pass on tomorrow to the Ministry of Health, and hopefully we might see some more fair and equitable solution to the problem of accommodation for senior citizens.

It’s easy to see, Mr. Speaker, why so many of our senior citizens in the Province of Ontario are so bitter about situations like this. One situation, which I know we all face as members, is the serious shortage of senior citizens’ accommodation. All too often I think we’re asked to try and help find decent accommodation for senior citizens, and we are confronted with long waiting lists.

Mr. Warner: It’s getting worse.

Mr. Ziemba: Three dollars a day.

Mr. Cunningham: It may be.

How many times have we been in hospitals and seen a number of beds taken up by older people, who are not necessarily sick but rather have no place else to go. Their doctors, for reason of compassion, have managed to get them into a hospital; but they would be much better off and much better suited in a senior citizens type of facility, or at least in an extended care programme, the cost of which would be so much cheaper than those of our hospitals.

One of the more serious ramifications of the province’s restraint programme is the effect of the cutbacks on the various community and social service agencies across the province. So many good programmes will have to be discontinued while many of the dedicated agency personnel will have to seek employment somewhere else.

Last month I received a letter a good friend of mine. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you that he’s a Liberal; in fact he’s the president of my riding association.

Mr. Warner: And also your friend.

Mr. Cunningham: He is also the president of the Children’s Aid Society for Hamilton-Wentworth.

In his letter, which was distributed widely across the region -- I know some members of the House got it -- he indicated that due to the restraint programme the summer programme for children for which they have been responsible for some time will have to be discontinued. In his letter, Mr. Howard Hines, QC, said:

“To the friends of the children:

“In this year, 1976 we have found it necessary to delete summer programme planning from our government-funded operating budget. The 5.5 per cent increased limit in our revenue over 1975 as set out by the province does not allow for such programmes as the following: Attendance by many a needy child at a summer camp away from the hot steamy city; participation in day-camp outings while still living at home; involvement in arts, in crafts programmes and nature bikes, swimming parties, family camp experiences where mothers and their children can get away for a well-deserved break from their second and third crowded rooming-houses.

“To carry out such a programme in 1976 we must raise funds on our own so it is to you, our friends in the region who believe what we are trying to do for families and children, we now turn.

“Last summer our programme cost approximately $16,000. It was part of our operating budget approved by the province and the region and was offset by $9,000 contributed by people like you. In our commitment to the province and the region we stated that we would endeavour to raise $7,000 on our own if they would assume $16,000 in the first instance. We are pleased to say that not only $7,000 but $9,153 was contributed by our membership and special donors such as you.

“In this year we will not have the $16,000 to begin with so we are really starting from scratch, as it were. Won’t you please help us help them? A donation, either large or small, will enable us to provide something of lasting value to many a child and family. Cheques can be made payable to the Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton-Wentworth, marked Summer Programme Fund. Receipts will be issued and may be used for income tax purposes.

“On their behalf we say thank you.

“Sincerely,

“Howard Hines,

“President.”

I really can’t say how disappointed I am that the province would have such a misplaced sense of priorities as it relates to children. The opportunity especially for those children who are disadvantaged and living in a city to spend some time away at a summer camp is a great one. Unfortunately, too many families, especially the single-parent families, cannot afford to send their children to anything but a public sponsored summer camp. I am sure that history will record a number of scrapes with the law for those who are ignored during their formative years.

Experience in Ontario’s north can, in some small way, be of great assistance to a child growing up. It is a real shame that many children won’t be enjoying the benefits so many of us were able to appreciate when we were younger.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will also recognize the likelihood of an increase in anti-social behaviour among those already involved in probation services at the current time. The current restraint programme will reduce the number of case workers and probation officers and thereby increase the number of cases for the remaining staff. Clearly, so many of them are overworked presently. The ramifications of this will be a serious deterioration of the service which exists at the present time at a time when we should be considering methods of improving that service. I fear that the money we may save now will be spent many times over in dealing with these young offenders. It is not just stupid; it is wrong.

I spoke in the Throne Speech debate earlier this year on the need to improve our method of dealing with labour disputes. It is truly unfortunate that our lack of emphasis on increased productivity is placing our competitive position in real jeopardy. As a Liberal, I am not sure that our purpose in the government is to redistribute existing wealth but rather to see that the pie itself is increased. The only way we can provide more is to earn more, to produce more, to become more productive.

All too often it appears that the goal of organized labour is to get whatever they can and not what they would, by way of merit, deserve through productivity. I would say that some of the gains we are seeing at the current time are illusory and short-term to say the least. Our challenge as legislators is to provide an orderly and equitable method of distribution.

When there is a failure in labour-management relations -- that is to say when they are not co-operating -- it is the role of government on behalf of society, not big business or big unions, to promote agreement. Clearly such a leadership role would reduce the number of strikes we see in Canada today. I am told that our record of labour unrest rivals or is beginning to rival that of Italy as the worst in the world.

There are a number of mechanisms, which I think we should look to, to help us provide methods of alleviating labour-management strife. As has been mentioned previously, we should actively encourage final offer selection as a method of settling disputes. We might further consider the development of labour courts, profit-sharing and greater worker participation in management positions.

I believe we are going to go through a period of time when our trade union leaders will be able to demonstrate real leadership through responsibility. A failure here to recognize that role could seriously jeopardize or seriously limit the future credibility of labour union movements across this province and force not only Ontario but all Canada into the kind of polarized society that none of us would like to see.

As a former student of history, I would now like to express very briefly my concern about what I perceive to be a recent trend in the Province of Ontario; that is, the erosion of power and responsibility to the federal government.

During the last election in the Province of Ontario I detected on a number of occasions a desire by the Premier himself to blame Ottawa for the ills of the day. In some instances he was right. But all too often it smacked me as a clear and obvious attempt to abrogate our responsibilities as a government here in the Province of Ontario. The recent agreement signed by the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) to participate in the federal anti-inflation programme, without implementing a programme of our own here in the Province of Ontario, causes me to think that it is being done to provide an out for the Premier and his government. Everything becomes the responsibility of our federal government. If such were the case, I’m sure that our Fathers of Confederation would have made such provision.

Since the time of Oliver Mowat, Ontario’s position has been one of leadership within the national scope. For whatever reason, be it geographical, numerical or its tremendous advantage in natural resources, this has been the role of the Province of Ontario. At no time during Oliver Mowat’s 25-year tenure as Premier did he feel it was his function to abrogate what was constitutionally the responsibility of the Province of Ontario. I think we’re going to have to cross that bridge in the near future, and I only hope the wisdom of the members of the House will prevail so that we can provide some sort of intelligent solution to a problem that I think was created by the lack of foresight by the Attorney General, possibly the Premier himself and certainly the Treasurer in this regard.

It’s typical, I suppose, that we have seen as recently as in the debate this afternoon and over the last couple of weeks, with the hospital decision rendered by the divisional court here in the city of Toronto -- and I would anticipate a decision rendered by the courts in the near future -- that the Province of Ontario has not demonstrated very good planning. In fact, they have been somewhat remiss and almost ignorant of the basic law that exists within our national scope; at the same time, I think they’ve been insensitive and somewhat intransigent to the needs of the people of Ontario.

I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that none of us in the Liberal Party are anxious to pass off any of the responsibilities that are charged directly to us as members of the Ontario Legislature. It’s difficult to rationalize to people who want to receive increased social services -- and so many of these services are required -- or who are upset about our sense of priority as it would relate to the revenues we take in, to explain to them the position we are in as a result of the minority government situation. I think I would be remiss if I didn’t say the Liberal Party here has made some effort, since Sept. 18, to make the situation work; from my point of view, it’s just a sad experience that we have not seen greater co-operation -- not only from the government in this province but, more significantly, from members of the official opposition, who I think might take less time to create a position of posture and more time to look at substance and serve the best interests of the people of Ontario.

The difficulty I think we’re going to have within the next few months --

Interjection.

Mr. Cunningham: I’m sorry, I missed what the member for Local 1005 said,

Mr. Mackenzie: You can’t make a virtue out of necessity.

Mr. Cunningham: Mr. Speaker, the difficulty we’re going to have as members of this Legislature in the next little while, at least those of us on this side of the House, is to rationalize the waste that occurs in government in the sense of priorities, which I think we have to lay at the feet of the Premier.

It wasn’t that long ago that we were passing estimates for our good friend, the hon. Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Henderson); and to tell you the truth, Mr. Speaker, I still don’t know what he does, I’m still not aware of what those special functions are. But to spare the people of Ontario an unnecessary and, I suppose on our part, a difficult election to explain, we decided to grant the Minister of Government Services (Mrs. Scrivener) the necessary funds so that the good work of that minister can continue. I guess some of us appreciate what it is. Unfortunately, I have never had it articulated to me exactly what it is.

I must comment that I have a great deal or admiration for that minister. She sat there and she took a lot of pure, unadulterated guff from members like myself and my good friend, the member for Hamilton Centre, who I guess are sincerely concerned about this kind of expenditure. But really the person to blame for that whole exercise is the Premier himself. He would have the Minister of Government Services carry the responsibility for those two portfolios -- one I happen to believe is a function we require; one I happen to think is one of the classic wastes of government that will go down in the history of Ontario. But, I guess, common sense prevailed and funds were granted to our good friend, the Minister without Portfolio, and his good work can continue.

[9:30]

But I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, and members of the side opposite, that at election time that will be just one of the very many examples that we in the opposition will use to demonstrate the sense of priorities that exists in this province, and I would tell you it’s perverse.

No wonder the public of Ontario is getting cynical. We see and we can read the accounts in the Toronto Globe and Mail and in the other papers in the area of these annual meetings for the Progressive Conservative Party, which oddly enough, occur every three years. They’ve indicated they’re going to have one in two years, which would mean that would be in six years. It’s interesting to read that the members of that party themselves are requesting -- and I’m sure very legitimately so -- a more open type of government, and the kind of government that people can participate in.

If only they were exposed to this government on a daily basis. If only they could see the kind of perverse sense of priorities and the type of attitude that prevails around this place. I think it’s been the design of the Premier of the province to continue as if he had 75 seats or 78 seats. I would suggest to the Premier that he’d better re-examine that sense of priorities that he has and that direction, because statistically 65 per cent of the people, rejected the Premier of the province. Smug as he may want to be, and as smug as some of his ministers would like to be, I would remind them that I doubt that position has changed significantly.

Hon. B. Stephenson: We will never be as smug as you.

Mr. Cunningham: Oh, I would say, with respect, that I am not smug. Not in any way. In fact, people in my area, especially the ones at Chedoke Hospital -- a facility that the minister is very familiar with as a result of the tremendous planning that took place within the Ministry of Health to shut that facility down -- realize the last thing I am is smug.

In fact, I think they’re very appreciative of the efforts of myself and the member for Wentworth (Mr. Deans), who were the only ones, I would say, in the area affected by that hospital, notwithstanding the fact that the hospital wasn’t in our riding but serves our ridings, who took an active interest on behalf of those people. This was despite the fact that we didn’t receive the kind of information the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. J. R. Smith) received three weeks before we found out anything.

To say that I would be smug on their behalf I think would be an insult, not only to them but to other people within the area who tend to favour my point of view, be it that of a Liberal or one who in fact tries, from time to time, to demonstrate some common sense -- which I would say to the Minister of Labour would be something her government would do well to demonstrate. This is a principle that hasn’t been demonstrated to me --

Mr. Edighoffer: A lot of former Tories around.

Mr. Cunningham: -- be it through regional government, or the indiscriminate closings of hospitals, or the senseless -- and I mean senseless -- type of educational system. It is a system that will turn out a whole generation of second-raters, if it continues. If that’s the government’s idea of good planning, well then I would invite the minister --

Hon. B. Stephenson: Are you including yourself in that group?

Mr. Cunningham: I certainly am not. I think my participation here, as a member who is under the age of 30, would clearly indicate the results of my hard work and endeavours.

Hon. B. Stephenson: That is not smug at all.

Mr. Cunningham: It certainly is not as a result of the educational system. As an ordinary taxpayer, my mother couldn’t afford to send me to a private school. I was forced to go to a local school, albeit one of the better schools in the area. But it is certainly not the kind of educational system --

Hon. B. Stephenson: Join the club.

Mr. Martel: He is not oriented, that fellow.

Mr. Cunningham: -- not the kind of educational system that we --

Mr. Warner: You’re not serious.

Mr. Cunningham: -- require people to see in these --

Mr. Martel: One of the better schools.

Mr. Warner: He is not serious. He couldn’t be.

Mr. Cunningham: I hear something from the northern members. You know, they should be the last ones to interject in this regard on the subject of education. I think it is their area that is the most poorly treated area in the Province of Ontario in that regard. I think if we implemented a provincial standard of education --

Mr. Ruston: They have to send all their teachers as representatives here.

Hon. B. Stephenson: That’s why all the teachers are down here.

Mr. Breithaupt: The better ones.

Mr. Cunningham: If we implemented a provincial system of education and implemented some form of measurement --

Mr. Martel: They are more sophisticated and they are tired of the nonsense.

Mr. Cunningham: -- I would suggest that the statistics would bear out that the products of that system would, in fact, be inferior -- and by no fault of their own, Madam Minister. And nobody on this side of the House, I would say, would endorse that kind of thing.

Mr. Peterson: The problem with the north is that those guys teach them.

Mr. Cunningham: I won’t engage with the minister as a fellow rookie member of this Legislature. She is certainly one who is much more experienced --

Mr. Gregory: What a difference in rookies!

Mr. Cunningham: -- in matters of general health; although maybe not in common sense, as demonstrated by some of the statements that have come out from her ministry. But I would say to fellow members of the Legislature that I appreciate their indulgence and I appreciate being able to participate in the debate at this time. Thank you.

Mr. Mancini: There lies the example of sophistication in the north.

Mr. McCague: I would like again to congratulate the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker and you who are in the chair at this moment -- the deputy chairman of the committee of the whole House -- for the impartial way in which you are conducting the affairs of this house. I have heard today, although not in this House, from a couple of members of the NDP that they are considering asking the member for Nipigon for his resignation as Deputy Speaker because he is too impartial.

Since my election in the great riding of Dufferin-Simcoe I was determined as a new member to observe government in action and the procedure used in this Legislature.

Mr. Peterson: Where did you get that tie, George?

Mr. Warner: When does the action start?

Mr. Lane: There they go.

Mr. McCague: Unlike some of those I hear at this moment, I was prepared to listen more than speak -- to be more of a learner than a participant. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that this approach was not out of any reluctance to participate in debate, to voice the concern to my constituents or to challenge the headstrong points put forward by members opposite.

I decided to listen rather than to speak because I wanted to voice my views on public policy issues in a careful and thoughtful manner; to speak from an appreciation of the facts rather than make the facts dance on the pins of preconceived notions and fanciful abstractions far removed from the realities and the basic concerns of the citizens of this province.

Mr. Mackenzie: You’re leaving the Conservative Party?

Mr. McCague: On this occasion, I am most happy to present my observations and to put on the public record my views regarding the budget which was presented early last month.

While I am willing to concede a certain fascination with the torrent of words uttered by the NDP speakers, I have carefully sifted again and again their remarks for specific, useful and practical solutions to the many challenges which this government faces in economic and social terms.

Mr. Norton: Don’t hold your breath.

Mr. McCague: My hunting expedition yielded few specific and practical proposals. Like the observer viewing the beauty of the torrent of Niagara Falls for the first time, the initial fascination of the observer is ultimately replaced by an increasing boredom which yields little fruitful and productive thinking on the challenges which confront us.

Mr. Lane: That’s the NDP all right.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Touché.

Mr. McCague: As a politician who is constantly searching for good ideas which can help all of us to resolve some of the basic economic and social concerns with which we are now faced and some of the new ones which will lie ahead my search has yielded few useful ideas which can be applied, particularly at the government level.

Therefore, I have become a full-scale participant in this budget debate because boredom has replaced fascination with the NDP’s barrage of words, in many instances meaningless and irrelevant to the existing realities in Ontario.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: I’m sure you’ve got some specifics coming.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. The member for Dufferin-Simcoe has the floor.

Mr. McCague: One of the constant themes and specific words used by the members of the official opposition is the word “cutback.” The term cutback occurs again and again in their criticisms of this government. I say to myself, “How is it that budgetary limitations, whether it be an eight per cent limit for municipal services or a 5.5 limit for social services, are automatically termed cutbacks when more money is given to be spent in this fiscal -- ”

Mr. McClellan: Ask the Children’s Aid Society.

Mr. Mackenzie: Where did you learn your arithmetic?

Ms. McCague: “ -- year on these services than was spent during the past fiscal year?”

As my good friend, the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel (Mr. Johnson) said, in his remarks made during the Throne Speech debate, “an increase cannot be considered a decrease.”

Mr. Warner: We didn’t get an increase in Scarborough.

Mr. McCague: The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis) states that we must act in a responsible and reasonable way in restraining public expenditures, yet there is little attention paid by his followers in concentrating upon this theme. In fact, they have gone off in opposite directions. Is it a sign of less than effective co-ordination in their outlook and their actions? I take his reasonable approach and for the moment concede that a limit on public funds would be termed a cutback. If it does not match the rate of inflation, now raging at a little under 10 per cent, at the same time he must understand that if you restrain public expenditures then those public moneys cannot always match the rate of inflation. If you refuse to accept that line of thinking, you can never accept the possibility, let alone the reality, that government spending is the principal cause of inflation.

Mr. Norton: They like fighting forest fires with more wood.

Mr. McCague: Judging from the comments of NDP speakers, I can only conclude that very few, if any of them, accept the basic premise that the level of government spending, and the government itself, is the prime agent of inflation. The overwhelming and classic evidence of this type of spending is greatly illuminated in the proposals made by the member for Beaches-Woodbine in her expedition of seeking out new and vulnerable groups for heavy-handed and arbitrary NDP taxation.

Mr. McClellan: Corporations are vulnerable groups?

Mr. Martel: Like people on OHIP?

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. McCague: That is the bear trap into which the official leader and his New Democrats have fallen and perhaps from which they cannot extricate themselves. That explains to a great extent the failure of the Keynesian system of economics when you have both unemployment and high inflation.

Mr. Bain: Are you a Galbraith supporter?

Mr. McCague: The challenge facing our government today is to return to a more conservative type of public budgeting. Undoubtedly all the governments in the western world are facing the same problem, including this one.

Mr. Breithaupt: Like a $2 billion deficit.

Mr. McCague: This is a fact of life that the NDP resolutely refuses to face at any cost. Even economists of the New Democratic left acknowledge the quandary of their situation. When the NDP leader speaks of fundamental division between Progressive Conservative and New Democratic philosophy, he is recognizing reality. I congratulate him and some of his followers for this perception.

Interjections.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. Will the hon. members give the member for Dufferin-Simcoe the courtesy that he may continue his remarks?

Mr. McCague: What he needs to add is that, as a committed socialist, he finds himself on the horns of a great dilemma -- financing the growth of big government without having the real means of doing so. Real economic growth be damned. Higher government expenditures must be committed to expand government into every facet of our lives because, according to the NDP philosophy, only government has all the answers to each and every whim of our citizenry. Spend your way to prosperity and mortgage your children’s future for today’s wants.

Mr. Martel: You tried that last year.

Mr. Peterson: Why don’t you pick on the Liberals now, George? They have had enough.

Mr. McCague: I shall save a very little for the third party.

Mr. Gregory: That’s about right.

Mr. McCague: Back in the depression of the 1930s, President Roosevelt had in part the answer to get the world out of the great depression from which we were suffering, but in the 1970s we do not face the same set of economic and social circumstances. The same old answers and tried formulae do not apply as the NDP would like to think they do. Their problem is that they are fixed in a time lock, forever wedded to the concept of internal expansion of government. May I note, Mr. Speaker, the NDP is extremely sensitive to being labelled the party of big government; the real truth often hurts, but it must still emerge.

It is true that in this minority government circumstance there are deep and fundamental divisions which constitute differences in philosophy and differences in governing style between New Democrats and ourselves. Today, I want to set out some of these basic philosophical differences, which have led this government to the practical decisions it has made on public budgeting and which can be found in the budget.

The leading achievement of the 1976 budget is the practical implementation of our provincial restraint programme as a supplementary and parallel reinforcement to the national anti-inflation programme. For the past three years, Canadians have suffered from the impact and side-effects of double-digit inflation. Regardless of income, social position, occupation, profession, age or sex, everybody in Ontario has suffered from the ravages of inflation. If members opposite care to reflect back to some two years ago, they will instantly recall the request of the Premier of this province to the federal government to convene a national conference of the Prime Minister and the 10 provincial Premiers to deal with the impact of that inflation.

[9:45]

If memory serves them correctly, they should also recall that the response was an outright rejection by the Trudeau government. Following on the heels of that request, a federal election resulted from the defeat of the federal minority government’s budget. During that election the Trudeau Liberals rejected outright the common sense proposal of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to bring about a practical, economic control programme. That constructive proposal was viciously attacked by the Liberal Party as a means of freezing people’s incomes. They argued up and down the roads and streets of Canada that inflation was an international phenomenon beyond the control of Canadians and, I might add, that it would go away very quickly.

What happened? The federal Liberals won control of power in Ottawa and waited and waited for inflation to worsen. In the long run, the federal Liberals contradicted themselves outright by announcing, last Thanksgiving Day, that a new national economic controls programme was being put into place to reduce the pressures of inflation.

Mr. Haggerty: Your leader endorsed it.

Interjection.

Mr. McCague: Finally, the federal Liberals had come to their senses.

An hon. member: That’s the Liberal freeze.

Mr. McCague: They had to do something to bring inflation under some reasonable degree of control. Canada has experienced these controls for the past six months.

Mr. Mancini: Have you given some thought to regional government?

Mr. McCague: What have been their specific results? I think it would be too early to make definite conclusions about their impact. Certainly, they have momentarily watered down the expectations of many Canadians. For the first time in many months we have seen some modification in the ever-upward spiralling trend of the consumer price index.

Mr. Good: Good government.

Mr. McCague: While this government has certain reservations about the ongoing administration of the anti-inflation programme, Ontario continues to support the goals and projects of the federal anti-inflation programme. That is why the 1976 Ontario budget is an outstanding document for it comes to grips with the No. 1 objective of economic policy, namely, reducing the rate of inflation.

Ontario’s New Democrats and their national counterparts continue to delay and to obstruct this leading goal of economic policy for Canada.

Mr. Warner: It’s called fighting back.

Interjections.

Mr. McCague: While it may be somewhat unfair to categorize them as the champions of even greater inflation, even the most casual of observers is hard pressed to figure out exactly what the policy of the New Democrats is at this precise moment.

An hon. member: They don’t know either.

Mr. Warner: Tell us about unemployment now. Tell us about jobs.

Interjections.

Mr. McCague: They who fervently depend on the interest of those on low and fixed incomes seem to be oblivious to the side-effects which this very rate of inflation is having on these groups. In policy terms it would appear to be a basic unwillingness to come to grips with the challenge of inflation.

New Democrats appear to believe that, like rape, inflation is inevitable. We might as well enjoy it by indexing it. We might as well accept it by bargaining for wage and salary increases in the 25 per cent to 70 per cent range. It is good for all of us. Is that what the casual observer of politics might ultimately conclude about the position of the NDP on double digit inflation?

Mr. Warner: This is written by Lewis Carroll.

Mr. McCague: While indexing of pension plans and the like has certain merits over the short-term, it is a policy device essentially designed for not coming to grips with the real issues of inflation, namely, the wholesale printing of money and the Johnny-come-lately approach of the federal Liberals to the concept of income and price controls.

Mr. Warner: Tell us about the $2 billion debt.

Mr. McCague: Ontario’s 1976 budget represents the essence of reasonable, balanced and responsible restraint programmes. Contrary to the claims of opposition parties, a 10.4 per cent limit on public spending does not ignore the real social needs of Ontario citizens. For example, in their attacks on this government’s attempts to bring some reasonable degree of spending control over the health care delivery system --

Mr. Kennedy: Doesn’t grow on trees.

Interjections.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. McCague: -- by more efficient and rational use of hospital beds. Their sole rationale for keeping community hospitals open is that these institutions employ such and such numbers of staff.

Mr. Ferrier: They provided services for the people of Guelph.

Mr. McCague: In other words, the opposition’s tack is that you can never close community hospitals for any reason because people are gainfully employed in such institutions.

Mr. Bain: Why did you not close Northeastern? You only built it a few years ago; why did you build it if it wasn’t needed?

Mr. Warner: No respect for the courts.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. McCague: They portray this government’s restraint efforts in this direction as heartless and inhumane for the employees of these institutions and the general economic and social welfare of the communities involved. If the sole purpose of any community hospital is to remain open simply for the employment of people then they have no concern for the ordinary taxpayer’s public dollar used in keeping that hospital open.

Mr. Mancini: Not one of those hospitals was empty.

Mr. McCague: The NDP attacks this government for increasing the premiums under the Ontario Hospital Insurance Plan. Again, they conveniently ignore that there has been no increase in these premiums for either a single or family situation for the past five years. They conveniently ignore the fact that OHIP premium assistance has been broadened to cover single persons having taxable income of $1,534 or less and to families having taxable incomes of $2,000 or less.

Mr. Bain: How generous. That’s below the poverty line.

Mr. McCague: As the budget points out, this additional premium assistance increases the number of people who receive partly free or subsidized OHIP coverage to about 1.8 million. Yet, on the other hand, Mr. Speaker, the same people advocate the use of public funds to conduct --

Mr. Germa: Wrong, wrong.

Interjections.

Mr. McCague: -- an inquiry into the physicians’ use of OHIP. Again evidently, the NDP want it both ways.

Incidentally Mr. Speaker, the former NDP government in British Columbia was not very averse to imposing extra fees on the automobile users of that province to pay off the huge deficit that resulted from the operations of the insurance corporation of British Columbia,

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Don’t mention that.

Mr. McCague: But, as we have already seen, you must never mention how the NDP operated the government of that province or the other two western provinces.

Mr. Bain: Fine governments.

Mr. Lane: Great insurance.

Mr. McCague: The opposition parties have consistently portrayed themselves to the voting public as the paragons of fiscal restraint. They argue that the deficit of the Ontario government is too large, yet when attempts are made to reduce that very deficit they are portrayed as cutbacks.

Mr. Haggerty: You haven’t reduced it.

Mr. McCague: So, you end up with a situation whereby the opposition parties want the deficit reduced, or entirely wiped out, but on the same wavelength they are advocating new sources of potential revenue to be tapped.

An hon. member: They don’t know whether they are coming or going.

Mr. Warner: Who created the deficit?

Mr. McCague: Particularly is this true for the NDP. I just cannot fathom how they manage to voice the two positions simultaneously.

Interjections.

Mr. Gregory: Whatever happened to that government out in BC?

Mr. McCague: A year ago, when I was not a member of this Legislature, the third party of this House attacked the rationale and the provision for the first time home buyers’ grant. Members of the third party agreed that this grant was the practice of cynical politics, or simply another give-away programme.

Interjections.

Mr. Warner: Yes, didn’t work did it?

Mr. McCague: Why is it then, Mr. Speaker, that over 90,000 applications were received and approved under this programme? Why is it that members of the third party particularly went to all lengths to ensure that their constituents were eligible for this programme? Why is it that we now have 90,000 new homes in this province and indirectly a large number of places now available for rental accommodation to newcomers?

Mr. Breithaupt: We don’t have one more new home.

Mr. McCague: Presumably, as on so many occasions, Liberal member were simply confused about their party’s position on this matter. It is much more understandable for the NDP to support this programme only reluctantly, because they do not want to be regarded by the voting public as opposed to home ownership.

I cite the reaction of the opposition parties on this particular programme in order to illustrate the complete bankruptcy of their housing policies. They attack this government for helping people to acquire new and old homes, and yet grill the Housing Minister in the resources development committee on the Housing Ministry’s estimates for shortcomings and not helping to get more housing on the market.

Mr. Warner: He admitted there isn’t enough affordable housing.

Mr. McCague: Ontario’s 1976 budget is a model document in several other respects; while the federal government persists in its commitment to expand the total number of public servants in the federal bureaucracy, Ontario has daringly launched a reverse process.

Mr. Haggerty: But they’ve increased the contract workers.

Mr. McCague: I think that is a significant achievement in not only reducing the staffing of the public service system but in attempting to ensure a great productivity and efficiency on the part of all public servants.

I believe that it would be wise to proceed even further down this path by developing a system of incentives for public servants related to their job efficiency within the overall context of public service bargaining. That would be a terribly difficult job, but I believe an essentially significant one for truly ensuring the maximum value of each public dollar expended and for each public servant hired.

A modest proposal will immediately be perceived by New Democrats as anti-labour. In fact, the direct opposite conclusion can be made, for the purpose of such a proposed measure is to improve overall on-the-job morale and to instil a greater sense of purpose into the operation of Ontario’s public service through ongoing negotiations between the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union representatives and representatives of the Management Board. I think that such a proposal could be enshrined within any settlement reached with any particular level of employees.

Ontario’s budget is noteworthy for its vital and realistic assistance to small business. As a businessman, I understand the necessity for tax cuts that can lead to new jobs and maintain existing ones.

Mr. Warner: You bet you didn’t. When do we get to the serious stuff?

Mr. McCague: In the coming decade, intense competition will result from scarcer and scarcer capital resources in developing the necessary infrastructure for Canada to maintain both its domestic and international economic health. Two of the larger financing projects that can be cited in this context are the Syncrude operation in Alberta and the necessity to construct a natural gas pipeline down the Mackenzie Delta.

What concerns me greatly is the recent report issued by the securities and stock research firm of Touche Ross and Co. The basic outline of this report warns business, labour and government that a severe financial crisis is looming on the horizon for a number of Canadian industries. I just want to quote a brief section from that report which puts into question many of the policy premises shared by the two opposition parties, and to a lesser extent by this government. To quote:

“The weakened financial position of business resulting from erosions of capital and present levels of earnings raises serious questions about its ability to meet the expectations of the economy during the next few years. Even if inflation is stopped, the considerable damage caused during the past four years will severely handicap business during the next decade.”

This study proceeds to illustrate the mounting debt position of Canadian companies as evidenced by their inability to keep up with the cost of inflation. Although capital assets are shown in the books of industry at $94 billion; it is calculated that it would take about $150 billion to replace them. In other words, the report points out an additional $56 billion, not indicated in companies’ balance sheets, would be needed to replace capital at 1974 levels.

That is an alarming situation, not because one report graphically illustrates the problem of developing new sources of capital to finance present and future industrial projects, but because the trend toward ever-massive government intervention becomes the logical sequence in this series of events.

We do not have to accept the views of this report as to the looming capital shortage just down the road. Even critics of the Mackenzie Delta pipeline have acknowledged that a minimum of $5 billion and probably $7 billion would be required to finance the largest capital project ever undertaken in Canada. So I believe it is essential that Ontario work with the federal government in creation of venture investment corporations. The supply of risk capital to small business is already too low. We need the venture investment corporation concept as a strong incentive in the development of small business. Lest we forget the role of small business in the development of this country, the small businessman has, by and large, created at least 40 per cent of the total number of employment opportunities available to Ontario and Canadian citizens.

[10:00]

If the Touche Ross study is a fair indicator of the economic problems facing Canada in the next decade, it will tax all the ingenuity and energy of New Democrats to re-examine their basic philosophy of greater government involvement and intervention in the Ontario and, indirectly, the Canadian economies. If there is a capital shortage -- even the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) has acknowledged there is a problem -- and a problem exists in trying to persuade Canadians to invest in their own enterprise system, then the challenge of income redistribution becomes almost insurmountable.

We are experiencing the symptoms of that problem in 1976. We cannot get blood from a rock. New investment capital is the great generator of social progress. In turn, a healthy investment climate produces new wealth. When you have such an ongoing process government can, through a series of innovative tax measures, help ensure that a more equitable and fair system of redistribution results.

The great dilemma facing the NDP could be characterized by this question: How can you redistribute income when the process of creating new wealth is stifled so effectively as to end up by shrinking the economic pie? Or at what precise point in time and at what level of taxation do you end up killing the golden goose -- or geese as the case may be -- which produced and generated the new wealth?

Already, mounting evidence suggests that this is a real problem facing the Social Democratic government of Sweden. At present, the Swedish taxation system stipulates that self-employed people such as farmers, writers and artists must not only pay income tax but also an employer’s tax. The result is that self-employed people with high incomes can pay almost 100 per cent of their earnings in taxes. The social effect created by such an absurd taxation system forces many working people into taking a --

Mr. McClellan: How come they have been in office for 45 years?

Mr. McCague: -- part-time or second job, accepting only cash for their work because they do not want to declare the extra money on their income tax returns. Taxation in Sweden has reached saturation point and pay raises are virtually wiped out by the high rate of tax.

Mr. Warner: Did you take part in the budget debate over there?

Mr. McCague: Instead of having a voluntary tax assessment system with all its imperfections, as is now operated in Canada, we end up with a widespread tax revolt on our hands. One does not have to guesstimate in figuring out the total impact of such a tax approach on our whole way of life. Whether or not the NDP has listened very carefully to this analysis it is imperative that it rethinks its system of socialism as it applies to its existing system of economic incentives --

Mr. Davison: Someone needs an analysis.

Mr. McCague: -- and our tax system. I realize the NDP members are very slow learners when it comes to basic economics.

Mr. Bain: At least we don’t give contracts to our friends.

Mr. McCague: However, where there is a will, there has to be a way.

Mr. Lane: Sometimes you never learn at all.

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

An hon. member: Most of them are teachers. They should be able to learn.

Interjection.

Mr. McCague: However, where there is a will, there is a way yet I fear their prospects are minimal at best.

Their basic inability to rethink the implications of ever-growing involvement, regulation and intervention in an already circumscribed free market system is best illustrated in a recent plan presented by the Manitoba Premier, Mr. Schreyer. Rather than being accused of taking his remarks out of context I want to quote the specifics of the Schreyer plan to redistribute income in Canada. He has stated:

“What I mean to say is, the only thing that really makes a good standard measure in this context is that a top man’s salary should be only 2.5 times the national average wage and I am talking about take home pay. So if the national average is close to $10,000, we are saying that a company president should take home $25,000. That means a gross salary of over $30,000.”

Mr. Warner: Best thing you have said all night. Let’s have a vote on it.

Mr. McCague: Remember, I’m still quoting Mr. Schreyer, and I don’t see anything on with the differential as wide as $10,000 to $30,000.

Further on, he elaborates:

“But I do regard that objective as socially desirable and as one of the ways of obtaining greater co-operation in the operation of a modern economy. It could happen in a generation; I would like to speculate on that.”

What the Manitoba Premier was referring to was that the ultimate objective of the NDP governments, provincially or nationally, must be to ensure total equality of income, irrespective of a man’s job. If there ever was a prescription for killing the private enterprise system, then the Schreyer approach is unequal to any socialist plan of income redistribution which I have ever come across. The whole thing is mind-boggling, to say the least.

Mr. Warner: I didn’t expect you to understand.

Mr. McCague: What it infers is that overall mediocrity must replace excellence in the performance of a job.

Mr. Bain: You haven’t a thesaurus; you have a lexicon of platitudes.

Mr. McCague: The Schreyer plan means that people on a low income scale would, forever and a day, be robbed of the real opportunity to move up to a higher income level through hard work and application.

Mr. Warner: You guys are endangering the economy.

Mr. McCague: NDP governments would dictate the rate of investment return or prescribe what would constitute a fair return on the use of money and the effort in the development of any new business enterprise. Little incentive would remain for the miner or the policeman --

Mr. Martel: You control wages now.

Mr. McCague: -- to try to become something a little better if he so desired. What I fail to understand is why the NDP government of Saskatchewan failed to adopt the Schreyer proposal to income redistribution in the latest retroactive wage increase which they awarded to their loyal followers just recently.

Mr. Warner: You like to run every province.

Mr. McCague: And that makes me curious --

Mr. Warner: When do we get to Nova Scotia?

Mr. McCague: -- in wondering why the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) has forgotten about the Schreyer application for his oft-repeated proposal that members of this Legislature should be receiving up to $36,000 per year.

Mr. Hodgson: The member for Sudbury East advocates that too.

Mr. McCague: How on earth, Mr. Speaker, would any of these standard NDP approaches in the long run improve the real prosperity of Canadians?

The NDP portrays itself as a paragon of financial restraints and at the same time practises financial extravagances beyond belief. All you have to do is look at the record of one of the defeated and two existing NDP governments in western Canada.

Mr. Warner: When are you going to get to this province?

Mr. McCague: The NDP works in strange ways. Honoured as the new official opposition, the NDP is desperately trying to put forward its best step in relation to the business community of this province. NDP members and followers are busily engaged in wooing boards of trade, the Investment Dealers Association of Canada and small business. They are saying, over and over, that they are the only reasonable alternative to the present government.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will the hon. member for Sudbury East put his feet down off the desk, please?

Mr. McCague: They have suddenly discovered the virtues of championing the whole business community. If it weren’t awfully dangerously misleading, Mr. Speaker, I would find their exercise somewhat amusing. They are secretly hoping that members of the business community will not look too far nor probe too deeply into the recesses of NDP policy.

The latest champion of small business is the member for Etobicoke (Mr. Philip). Through regulation and greater intervention in the economy, that member is seriously proposing legislation which would prohibit the major oil companies from participating in the retail service station business. He wants to prevent what might be called the vertical integration phenomenon of agriculture. He wants to replace limited competition in this field, and at the same time protect businesses which do not succeed because of poor business judgement.

In providing greater self-protection for such a group, the Canadian consumer ultimately pays a higher price for its petroleum products. Government regulation becomes the arbiter of successful business; profits become a secondary consideration, if that.

I have talked to many small businessmen in my riding and have pointed out an NDP government in Ontario simply wants to accelerate the process of making government the dominant actor in the triangular relationship of business, labour and government. I have pointed out to them that their Progressive Conservative government is making every effort to reduce the incidence of government regulation and control; of attempting to reduce bureaucratic roles, without affecting vital public and human services. As I have said before, the NDP simply cannot comprehend the basics of our private enterprise system.

I listened with considerable interest to the speakers in their promotion of an energy policy. They ridiculed this government’s attempts to make constructive and responsible proposals regarding energy pricing in Canada.

Mr. Warner: Will you explain what happened to the $100 million?

Mr. McCague: They attacked their favourite corporate villain -- in this case, Imperial Oil -- by proposing that public ownership is a sudden, marginal and overnight solution to energy pricing in Canada. Now we have Petrocan, but this superstate oil agency to be has not as yet found any new vast sources of energy. Look at the performance of the Italian state-owned oil operation. If public ownership of oil and natural gas is such a wonderful concept, how come the Italian economy isn’t prospering more than it is with such a state-owned agency?

Mr. Davison: Around the world in 40 minutes.

Mr. McCague: If we assume, as the member for Beaches-Woodbine correctly phrases it, that energy is the lifeblood of the Canadian economy, then we are surely headed for a strangulation of the life-supporting system should we proceed with the NDP proposal to rationalize -- to nationalize Imperial Oil.

Mr. Bain: Rationalize is right.

Mr. McCague: Thank you.

Instead of increased exploration activities, future energy supply would be predicated on a flow of bureaucratic directives and a whirlwind of red tape. Of course, it will take a lot of red tape and memoranda to heat an Ontarian’s home and to serve as a logical substitute for the scarcity of oil or natural gas.

I trust that the NDP will undertake immediately an agonizing reappraisal of their socialist convictions. I would recommend that the removal of their blinkers would help in bringing them around to exercising common sense in the solution of economic and social problems.

Mr. Davison: At least we are not worried.

Mr. Warner: Which defeated member left you his speech?

Mr. McCague: I am not asking them to forgo their socialist principles, rather just to face the facts and try to understand that their trust in the capacity of the public sector to provide all the answers to our problems is sadly misplaced.

Mr. Martel: The Liberals have all gone home.

Hon. Mr. Snow: The member for Kent-Elgin (Mr. Spence) is over there.

I see my Liberal friends couldn’t wait --

Mr. McCague: As for them, I am beginning to wonder if they have gone beyond redemption in terms of policy. I can recall that, during the past election, land-use controls of any kind constituted a sort of threatening dictatorship against the institution of private property.

The member for Grey (Mr. McKessock) questioned the existence of the Niagara Escarpment Commission and distorted beyond all reason the goals of that body. Yet his colleague from Kent-Elgin has continued to propose a land-use scheme for the whole of Ontario. Furthermore his own leader has suggested that possibly selective freezes are required to halt what the Liberals claim is a declining acreage of productive food land.

To make any sense of these contradictory and inconsistent approaches is impossible. I can also recall, during the past election, the member for Grey constantly criticizing the need for a beef-calf income stabilization programme. Yet in the first session of this Parliament he was one of the first people to request of the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. W. Newman) that the programme be extended beyond its close-off date. Other colleagues of his have argued for a voluntary farm income stabilization programme.

We in this party believe that a combination of preserving productive farm land through local municipal zoning bylaws and a well-co-ordinated, voluntary farm income stabilization programme, are the keys to maintaining a healthy agricultural industry throughout Ontario.

Mr. Mancini: You set up regional governments because you believe that.

Mr. McCague: Within the next period of time, I can assure my friends opposite, we intend to carry out both of those proposals.

It’s very interesting Mr. Speaker, that the members of the third party should abandon ship at the first signs of turbulence.

Mr. Foulds: Right -- and joining you.

Mr. McCague: Or let’s call it a divorce of convenience, the alimony for which will be a long-term debt. I am sure the electorate must be very impressed with a party that calls itself Liberal --

Mr. Mancini: Who lost a third of their seats?

Mr. McCague: -- and yet in uncertain times chooses to sever, or would lead us to believe so, any connection with the governing party of Canada.

There are many other vital issues about which I would like to place my views on the public record.

[10:15]

Mr. Mancini: Are you moving down to the front?

Mr. McCague: One of these involves the NDP myth that the budget is a direct attempt to shift the taxation burden from the province to the municipal level of government. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Interjections.

Mr. McCague: For years the Ontario property tax credit and other related tax credits have helped to remove some of the regressive nature of the property tax system. In using the term regressive, however, I do not fully accept the interpretation of the regressive impact which the NDP constantly ascribes to property taxes. In fact, a recent University of Toronto study of the regressive impact of the property tax suggests that in certain instances the tax has a greater built-in progressive feature than they would care to admit.

Regardless of that generalization this government has committed itself to a careful examination of market value assessment and needed shifts and variations between residential and commercial properties throughout this province.

Mr. Warner: Right on, speak to Scarborough.

Mr. Mancini: Have you ever talked to any local officials?

Mr. McCague: I have no problem whatsoever in giving my full support to the 1976 budget brought down last month by your eminent Treasurer. He and his Treasury people have done a commendable job in reducing the public debt and developing economic incentives for a healthier business investment climate and for the ensuring necessity of greater job creation --

Interjections.

Mr. Mancini: He is going to work his way down to the front.

Mr. McCague: -- in bringing health care under some reasonable degree of control and, to my mind, in attempting to spread social assistance expenditures to those people who are truly in need of such help.

Mr. Warner: Like closing hospitals. You are doing a great job.

Mr. McCague: In my mind this budget sets a balance between the spirit of progressive policy in a vast number of public issues and in redressing the important balance between public and private sectors.

I wouldn’t wish to sit down without expressing my gratitude to those opposite for being so quiet.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, it sounds like one of those speeches we used to hear when we first came in here nine or 10 years ago. It’s like resurrecting the red flag.

Mr. Warner: That’s where he got it from.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, this member spoke about the great debt and indicated to us in fact that we wanted to spend our way into oblivion and high finance. Do you know just what the Tories did?

I should remind the Legislature that when you and I came here, nine short years ago, the budget was $2 billion. That government has been around all this time and they’ve managed to increase it to $12.5 billion. That was no pie-in-the-sky socialist plot. That was done by none other than the party of the member who just spoke.

Last year, in an effort to buy themselves back into power, they were willing to sink this province $2 billion in the hole. They did everything to buy votes. Let me give you a few examples, Mr. Speaker.

Sales tax exemption -- and by the way that was interesting; the one salvation for business, having sat on the select committee of economic and cultural nationalism for 3½ years. Every businessman who came to us gave us the same song and dance: Give us another tax break, Charlie.

Well, what do they call that? That’s out of the public purse. Last year the government gave $108 million to the exemption on machinery. That wasn’t the socialists, that was the Tories. And this year it’s going to be over $300 million. The sales tax cut, in an effort to buy themselves back to power, cost the province about $330 million in that nine-month period.

I used to say during the election last year to the people in the area I represent, “Remember friends, when the honeymoon is over, like after the Sept. 18 deadline, you’re going to have to pay for it all.”

Mr. Norton: Oh yes, they created more jobs.

Mr. Martel: And it came to $2 billion. That’s the debt created by the Tories.

Let me give you a few more examples. Sales tax exemption for cars; the Treasurer said it created more jobs, but in fact they had a boom year last year. They didn’t have to give away $50 million or $60 million.

Mr. Norton: Sales picked up after the exemption.

Mr. Martel: Home buyers’ grants; that was a one-shot deal to buy votes, because there’s no policy in place with which to ensure homes for people today. It was a one-shot deal, that we’re paying the price for new.

Mr. Warner: To buy votes. To buy votes.

Mr. Martel: Done by Tories to buy votes. Fuel tax exemption -- another reduction for the industrial sector. About $14 million for the mining industry, a group that can hardly afford it. The bill last year -- probably $600 million-plus; and this year another $347 million-plus. We are talking a billion, as the government tried to buy its way back to power last year. That wasn’t done by the Liberals. That wasn’t done by the New Democratic Party. That, in fact, was done by the Tories as they tried to buy their way back to power. And you know the interesting part? The people said no.

Mr. Mancini: It didn’t work.

Mr. Martel: The people said: “You’re phony.”

And that speech the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe just gave is the type of speech we used to hear 10 or 15 years ago. Because I want to tell him, he might look at the select committee report which his colleagues signed, which calls for the takeover of 50 per cent of the mining industry. Those are his colleagues. They called for money of equal value of any industry we got involved in becoming the taxpayers’ share.

I suggest the hon. member read the select committee report -- it would be too left-wing for him -- but his colleagues signed it, and they predominated on that committee. In fact, two of them are in the House tonight -- none other than the Minister of Agriculture and the chief government whip (Mr. Kennedy). The hon. member might ask them what they signed.

Mr. Kennedy: Would you repeat that, please?

Mr. Martel: The hon. member just might ask them what they signed. It would do him good. Talking about budgets, let me quote from the friend of the Tories about budgets. Norm Webster writes about the Ontario budget and the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) and he entitles it, “Surplus Probable.” There’s more. He says: “The likely increase in oil and gas prices this year will give the province a healthy budget.”

But he’s not talking about Ontario. He says: “There was still to be no sales tax in Alberta and the personal income tax rate remains 15 per cent lower than Ontario.”

He adds: “Albertans will remain the lowest taxed people in Canada. No longer is Ontario the fat cow of Confederation.” Eat your heart out, Darcy. The article says:

“Equally vexing in its own way is last week’s budget from the Saskatchewan government, for that province, the NDP pacesetter in Canada, will show a small but definite surplus in the coming fiscal year.”

Mr. Warner: Surplus?

Mr. Martel: Surplus! Did you hear that? Surplus! He didn’t say --

Hon. W. Newman: Yes, do you know why? Because they closed a lot of hospitals.

Mr. Martel: He didn’t say a $2 billion debt. They didn’t have a debt.

Mr. Speaker, you know the Treasurer and his giveaway programme. If he had looked after the province when times were good, we might not have a $2 billion debt after 34 years in power.

Mr. Foulds: He couldn’t run a peanut stand.

Mr. Martel: Let me tell you what the president --

Mr. Deans: They should be ashamed of themselves -- over-spent; over-borrowed.

Mr. Foulds: They can’t even run Minaki Lodge.

Mr. Deans: Incompetent.

Mr. Martel: That’s right. Let me tell the House what the president of Motorways, a rather large trucking firm, says: “Saskatchewan: an island of prosperity.” The mayor of the city of Regina says: “A boom of almost embarrassing proportions.” And that isn’t Ontario that these gentlemen are talking about. This is Saskatchewan, you know.

Mr. Eaton: You stand over there and complain about oil prices. That’s how they’re getting their money.

Mr. Martel: This government is giving away our natural resources out of the ground for nothing. Let me give the members an interesting statistic. The minister concerned with mines in his statement in Quebec two or three weeks ago said at that meeting that in 1974 the value of mineral production in Ontario was $2.42 billion, and we took in $150 million in mining tax. He said in 1975 things weren’t quite as good, mind you. The industry dropped to $2.33 billion. Well, that’s a $90 million decline in the value of mineral production in my book. The decline in revenue was to $45 million, a decline of $105 million. More, Mr. Speaker, more. With the decline in the value of mineral production, the taxes were more valuable to the company. It paid the company to go down $90 million in the value of mineral production because it paid $105 million less in taxes.

Mr. Warner: They should be ashamed.

Mr. Martel: A $90 million reduction in the value of mineral production -- what kind of calculation is that? If the Tories want to give away the natural resources we’ll always have the problem we’ve got -- and that’s what they’ve been doing -- because it represents less than two per cent of the budget of Ontario.

Mr. Warner: They should be ashamed.

Mr. Norton: The high prices of oil our northern Ontario residents pay are supporting Saskatchewan.

Mr. Martel: I want to turn very quickly -- I only have four minutes left until next fall, I’m told -- to the hospital situation in Sudbury. It’s time we straightened out this mess which the then acting Minister of Health (B. Stephenson) got us in to because she misled the House on at least three occasions.

She misled the House -- I’m not saying deliberately.

Mr. Deans: She did -- she misled the House?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: You can’t accuse an hon. member of misleading the House.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, if I were to say that she deliberately misled the House, that would be one thing. I’m not saying she deliberately misled the House but I am saying the House was misled --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: You cannot accuse another member of misleading the House.

Mr. Martel: I have no alternative, Mr. Speaker, as I will document rather carefully.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: You must withdraw it.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I might say she inadvertently misled the House but before I am through I will say something else.

In the question period on April 22, I asked the minister why the Ministry of Health was willing to use what is now considered an obsolete board and to replace that board with another board. She said that judge Waisburg had made the recommendation. I asked her a day later if Judge Waisburg had made the recommendation, why did she allow the regional chairman for the regional municipality of Sudbury to name a new board?

The minister said quite categorically on that occasion that the regional chairman did not name the new board. The following Monday, she had to admit that she had misled the Legislature into believing that the regional chairman had not made the appointments. I am trying to find the precise location.

She said “They selected three people from each of the two regions which I have mentioned; the regional hospital council and the regional council each nominated three persons.”

That is not true; was not true then and has never been true. The regional chairman for the Sudbury area, Mr. Fabbro, named them all. The minister had to come back and make amends and say this wasn’t so. Some time later we continued to pursue this matter and we asked why the chairman of the hospital board who was responsible for the inquiry and who had resigned as chairman but not as a board member, was not removed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The time for adjournment has arrived. Would the hon. member consider this a good time to break?

Mr. Martel: It’s not really, Mr. Speaker, but seeing that I have no alternative I move the adjournment.

Mr. Warner: I think we should stay for a while.

Mr. Martel moved the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

[10:30]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: As previously announced there are two matters to be debated at the adjournment of the House. I now deem a motion to adjourn to have been made and I recognize the hon. member for Port Arthur for no more than five minutes.

REVERSAL OF OMB DECISION

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, the matters I raise are so complex that I will not have time to give the House all the background necessary to understand fully the situation surrounding the Towland-Hewitson asphalt plant in Thunder Bay.

Briefly, however, Towland-Hewitson is a subsidiary of Ashland Oil Co. The company was encouraged to move the base of its operations from Catherine St. in Thunder Bay to property it owned in the Oliver Rd.-Belrose Rd. area of the city, so that the city itself could push through Balmoral St., a connecting road between the old cities of Port Arthur and Fort William.

There is no doubt that the city treated the company badly, assuring it that the Oliver Rd. site was okay, when in fact it was designated green belt and rural. However two wrongs do not make a right, and the company may have grounds for a legal suit on the matter against the city. This is no reason why the residents of the area should be made to pay for the city’s folly and the company’s presumption.

Many of the citizens chose to live in the area before the Thunder Bay expressway was pushed through, the necessity of which the company makes much of in its petition to cabinet. They understood the area to be a rural and a green-belt one. The company’s plant is in fact a heavy industrial use. Its asphalt plant does not depend on sand and gravel from the site, but trucks most of its materials from outside the site. In one of its few recent decisions of sanity the OMB found in favour of the citizens.

The company then waited until the last minute to petition the cabinet. All the information up until the cabinet mad its decision is public. The OMB decision, the presentation at the hearings, the petition and the counter-petition presented to the cabinet are all public. Why then does the cabinet refuse to complete the public process?

When I questioned the minister on May 27, he said:

“The decision... for reversal of the board’s order was a cabinet decision and it is customary that we do not give the reasons behind our decisions. It’s obvious we considered the board mistaken. Only in a very limited number of cases do we reverse, alter, vary or in any way tamper with the Municipal Board order, but in this case we considered that they were wrong, that they did not have all the facts before them...”

That is simply not good enough. What are these additional facts? Why can they not be made public? What has the cabinet got to hide?

I defy the minister to cite the additional facts in Ashland Oil’s petition to cabinet that were not before the OMB. If the decision is above board, then let it be public knowledge. The case is another one in a long series that underlines the government’s mania for secrecy and the necessity for a freedom of information Act.

Cities are for people, Mr. Speaker. The residents of the Oliver Rd.-Belrose Rd. area have been badly served by their own city in this matter, but they have been betrayed by the provincial cabinet.

The only additional fact that the cabinet may have been aware of that was not brought to the attention of the OMB was the fact that Ashland Oil contributed $4,000 to the Ontario Conservative Party during 1975, the maximum amount allowable. The amount was contributed during the height of the controversy, $2,000 of it was contributed after the OMB decision; and subsequently the cabinet found in favour of Ashland Oil and overturned the OMB decision.

I call on the minister to give the full facts in the case.

Mr. Warner: That’s shameful.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, the last statement by the member comes as a complete and absolute surprise to me. I would not have known, and I did not know, and for that matter I will have to check and determine whether that is a fact. I presume since the hon. member has made the statement that it is, but I can tell the hon. members of this House that cabinet did not have at any time, nor did my committee, nor so far as I am aware any member of that committee, any knowledge, whatever, of any contribution by Ashland Oil to this party.

I have no knowledge, for example, as to what contribution may have been made to any of the other parties, including the NDP. It is entirely possible that a similar, or even --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Well up to that maximum. A similar amount might well have been made to the New Democratic Party. I simply have no knowledge of that.

I can tell the hon. members that this decision, made by my colleagues and by me, was not based on any contribution or any knowledge of any contribution by Ashland Oil to the Progressive Conservative Party.

All information which was obtained by the cabinet was made available to the solicitors for the parties. Cabinet, by its order in council, varied the decision of the board and allowed the appeal of Ashland Oil to amend the zoning by-law, permitting the continuation of the asphalt plant and the erection of the mechanical devices building at Oliver Rd., in the city of Thunder Bay.

Cabinet has prescribed, and I would emphasize this, certain safeguards as to noise and as to the time of operation within which this operation would continue. The objections raised by the 12 residents were to the noise and to the dust from trucks on Oliver Rd. and I can tell the hon. members that these objections were very seriously and carefully considered by my colleagues and me, both in the legislation committee of cabinet and in cabinet itself.

I would point out that the trucks must pass to and fro along Oliver Rd. for about 1,000 ft between the plant and the expressway. There are eight residents on this stretch of highway. The main objections, as we understand them anyway, were not to the noise of the plant itself -- and I would point out that it’s on a site of 154 acres. They weren’t objecting to the noise of the operation on this site -- and I would point out that that site is also 1,500 ft back from Oliver Rd. As to the trucks, by the best advice we could have available, the noise of the trucks is not likely to be felt for more than a few months each year as the work is essentially of a seasonal nature.

Cabinet was also concerned about the potential loss of jobs. Let me just at this point interject in my reasoning on all of this that we concur with the observation made by the member for Thunder Bay that the city did indeed encourage the company to relocate. I think the member for Port Arthur, in nodding his head, concurs that the company was misled.

I don’t know whether it was deliberate or otherwise, but for whatever reason, the company was misled to believe that they could relocate their operations -- they could sell their existing plant in the city to the city, take over another piece of property located outside the main central core of the city, and carry on their basic operations.

Now, they had and we had on file, so did counsel for the two parties involved, copies of this information which indicated that, indeed, they had this legal opinion from the city. I made the observation at the time that legal advice is worth just about what you pay for it; in this case Ashland Oil got this, you might say free, buckshee, legal advice from counsel for the city. The fact of the matter is they acted on it, and certainly we were led to conclude that --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. minister’s time has expired.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I will wind up very quickly then, Mr. Speaker. We were led to conclude that an injustice was perpetrated upon the company.

May I just point out that the company employs 85 persons besides independent truckers and contractors. Many of these employees work in the company’s paving operation and the number of persons who would lose their jobs on the closure of such a plant, although it is unpredictable, is nevertheless definitive in the sense that there would definitely have been some.

I want to emphasize to the hon. member for Port Arthur that were this order of the board to have been upheld, definitely certain jobs would have been prejudiced. It was the view of cabinet that in all the circumstances there would have been an injustice perpetrated had the order of the board, however technically correct it may have been, been upheld. And that is why the cabinet decided that the order should be varied.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I will now recognize the hon. member for York Centre for five minutes.

SCHOOL FACILITIES IN YORK

Mr. Stong: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The question that I asked the minister on May 27 past arose out of a meeting I attended with the German Mills Homeowners’ Association last week. That meeting was attended by a member of the ministry who recognized the problem of the inadequate school facilities in the German Mills area of the town of Markham. It was indicated by her at that meeting that the situation was ranked with the highest priority. In jest, she even indicated that there was a red star behind this priority and I could not get any higher on the minister’s list.

On May 27 I asked the minister about this situation and when he would honour his commitment to these people to provide adequate facilities both for the public school board and the separate school board. He did not know the facts and he indicated that he would review his file at that time.

By May 31 he had had opportunity to review his file and in this House he answered with a projection of figures recognizing the need as well as the inadequacy of the school facilities. He also indicated that the list was presently being studied and he said that if there was a real need in that area the project would probably move ahead very shortly -- the question then being the words “If there is a real need then that project will probably move ahead very shortly,” I quote from Hansard.

The German Mills area of the town of Markham is a very rapidly growing area. The projected figures are 70,000. In May, 1975, a public school was opened which housed 550 pupils. The projected figures for the next two years -- less than two years -- is as high as 880 pupils. There are already three portables on that site. By September the portables will have increased to seven.

St. Michael’s Separate School presently has 12 portables, no permanent buildings, and by September will be made up of 14 portables.

The German Mills Homeowners’ Association met with the school board of York county in November, 1975, with respect to this problem. The board of education for the county passed the problem to the ministry indicating that the ministry’s prerequisite of an 80 per cent fulfilment requirement must be met before a school will be planned, much less built.

Those figures have already been met and unless the situation is met immediately and plans are set out immediately there will be no buildings built to meet the projected figures by 1978.

I must say as well that we learned it takes at least two years -- in reality three years -- from the initial planning stages though survey, though architectural consideration and financing to build a school. This situation has been allowed to degenerate to the extent that the homeowners in the German Mills area are paying tax dollars equal to those of every other taxpayer in this area but their tax dollars are not being met with quality.

We are interested in obtaining from the minister a commitment -- not an if, not a probably -- but a commitment to the people of the German Mills Homeowners’ Association and the people of the town of Markham that he will at this point commit moneys to the projection and to the fulfilment of the commitment he has made to provide adequate school facilities in that area.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Minister of Revenue.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education, who is unable to attend the House at this time, tells me he expressed all the relevant points on this matter during the original questioning and that he has no further points to add at this time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I deem the motion to adjourn to have been carried.

The House adjourned at 10:45 p.m.