Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House resumed at 8 p.m.

MINISTRY OF NORTHERN AFFAIRS ACT

Debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 21, An Act to establish the Ministry of Northern Affairs.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, you’ll recall that when I introduced Bill 21, the bill to establish the Ministry of Northern Affairs, I indicated I would have a statement on second reading. I gave copies of that particular statement to both of the opposition critics and I would like to put the text of the statement on the record.

As you recognize, this is a very historical occasion, a very historic day for those of us who live in the northern part of the province where we have about 10 per cent of the population and command about 90 per cent of the landmass.

Mr. Speaker, as the Premier (Mr. Davis) commented during the introduction of the original bill, this legislation represents a renewed commitment on the part of this government to overcome such obstacles as great distances, dispersed population and dependency on a narrow, resource-based economy.

Mr. Nixon: We notice you do that every six years.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I’ll get to that point too, Bob.

All of this makes it difficult for northerners to receive the services and have the access to government which the people of southern Ontario have learned to take for granted. This legislation, as the Premier said, also recognizes the wishes expressed by many people in the north for a ministry that would have special responsibility for ensuring that when government decisions are made the special needs and problems of the north will be fully taken into account.

As was stated earlier, a number of my ministry’s responsibilities are ones that were previously vested elsewhere in this government. The Ministry of Northern Affairs will take over responsibilities for community and regional priority budgets and townsite development in the north, all of which were formerly the responsibility of the Ministry of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs. Northern Affairs will also assume responsibility for the northern Ontario resources transportation program, the resource access road program --

Mr. Reid: That bothers us.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- and the isolated communities assistance program, formerly administered by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Similarly, the establishment of priorities for northern road construction will be transferred from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

Mr. Reid: That bothers us.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: And on July 1 1977, Mr. Speaker, my ministry assumed responsibility for the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission --

Mr. Reid: That bothers us.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- including norOntair and the telecommunications system which serves the entire north.

Mr. Nixon: We haven’t had a committee investigating that for quite a while.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: In the association with the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, Northern Affairs will be seeking opportunities to create new recreational attractions. This will be done in close co-operation with municipal councils, the tourist industry and other related businesses in the north.

Many industries in the north will benefit enormously from the continuing program of improvements which the government will make in transportation systems of northern Ontario over the next five years. New and improved highways, resource access roads, municipal and remote air strips and stepped up services by rail and air. Some of these initiatives, Mr. Speaker, are already under way.

This program, to be coordinated by the new ministry, will augment the hundreds of millions of dollars which this government will meanwhile be spending on the maintenance of the north’s existing highways and other new road construction, either directly or through provincial grants to municipalities. This government’s total investment in all forms of transportation facilities in the north through the next five years will amount to more than $800 million.

As has already been announced, the Ministry of Northern Affairs will also be working with the Ministry of Natural Resources on a three-year program to step up mineral exploration and development, to improve the stability of the mining industry by ensuring future sources of supply. Meanwhile, through the regional priority budget transferred from Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs, the new ministry will undertake regional projects to benefit the north generally and to see that the installation and improvement of basic municipal services and the establishment of industrial parks make it possible for the towns and cities of the north to attract new industries.

As well as co-ordinating the work of other ministries in the north, the Ministry of Northern Affairs will bring government closer to the people of the north. With five regional and district offices established in key centres and six new northern affairs offices --

Mr. McClellan: All in your riding.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- that are being set up to augment the existing offices taken over from Natural Resources, the great majority of personnel in this new ministry, including both the assistant deputy ministers, will be living and working in the north.

In my view, the advantage of having a ministry of the north in the north will be enough in itself to justify the passage of this bill. I know that members on both sides of the House agree with that statement.

Mr. Reid: We like the bill but we’re not so sure about you.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I can be replaced, I guess.

Mr. Reid: In that case we’ll vote for it.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Since the earlier version of this legislation was presented, we have made a few additions and changes, mostly to do with matters of a minor administrative nature.

Mr. Nixon: Do you mean since Allan Lawrence’s legislation?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I would like to draw members’ attention, however, to one new section which is designed to provide the government with a reasonable amount of flexibility in responding to emergencies in the north, such as national disasters and fires which threaten the lives and property of residents. The wisdom of giving the new ministry this capability to respond swiftly and effectively in such emergencies was demonstrated rather dramatically at the time of the disastrous fire which destroyed 152 homes in the town of Cobalt and left 450 persons homeless.

Mr. Nixon: You were responsible for the assistance or the fire?

Mr. Martel: No, for the fire.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Our government responded to that crisis very quickly with an immediate allocation of $500,000 for clean-up and emergency housing, and later pledged additional assistance at the rate of $4 for each dollar raised locally for disaster relief. I should mention in passing that the government also allocated $500,000 for the Ministry of Housing to provide 50 mobile homes for families whose houses were destroyed in that fire.

Mr. Reid: You create a new ministry for that?

Mr. Nixon: Look at what they could have done if they had your salary to apply to that fund?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: In another emergency situation I was able to announce that my ministry, in co-operation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, would provide well improvements for livestock farmers facing serious drought in Thunder Bay, Kenora, Rainy River, Algoma, Manitoulin Island and other parts of the north.

Mr. Martel: It takes you that long to write a cheque even.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I would just like to take a few moments now, if I could, and read into the record some of the comments that were listed in the various newspapers across northern Ontario, to give you some idea, Mr. Speaker, of the impact this announcement had on northern Ontario, and the thrust and the direction in which we hope to be going.

Mr. Martel: I could read a few too. You have misplaced them.

Mr. Reid: They all say they want the ministry but not the minister.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Is that right?

Mr. Martel: You’d better get a new deputy minister. He has got to have those ready.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I think it’s only right that I start with the Espanola Standard of February 9, 1977. Just to quote briefly it says: “Lane says new ministry to increase development.”

Mr. Nixon: Is that good old “for”-Lane?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: “Besides responding to the strong sense of need throughout northern Ontario for a distinctive voice in cabinet at Queen’s Park, Mr. Lane said the government’s move will speed up development.”

Mr. Nixon: He promised that two elections ago.

Mr. Martel: What lane are you talking about, the passing lane?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: John Lane, the member for Algoma.

Mr. McClellan: Suicide lane.

Mr. Nixon: It’s “for”-Lane.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Another interesting comment was the enthusiastic response from the mayor of Espanola: “The mayor, who had supported the idea when it was proposed by Mr. Lane, added that it was about time that something was done about the lack of help from government in dealing with northern problems.”

Mr. Reid: We’ve been batting this around for 10 years.

Mr. Nixon: The mayor is Mr. Foucault.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Right. “Everything is handled by Queen’s Park and people in the south don’t know what’s going on up here. We need something for northern Ontario.”

Mr. Bolan: It sounds like Merle Dickerson.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: “Maybe it’s not the 100 per cent solution but it’s a major move in the right direction.”

Also, from the Sudbury Star --

Mr. Nixon: Oh, a fantastic phrase.

Mr. S. Smith: Quite pathetic.

Mr. Reid: Are you going to read all your press clippings?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: My hon. critic from the third party comes from that particular city. This is what the editorial page said on February 10, 1977: “A Good Choice to Head Northern Ministry: The New Democratic Party has been bitterly attacking establishment of a Ministry of Northern Affairs. It may not be so smart, but the north has been asking for just such a ministry for years.”

Mr. Wildman: How about the Chamber of Commerce?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: “The demand has centred in northwestern Ontario, it is true, but it has also been heard in the central north. It can’t help but be welcomed right across the north.”

Mr. Nixon: They had it when Al Lawrence was here.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The article goes on. “He will keep a liaison and this is important. It is important politically as the opposition parties charge. It is also of public importance in that it gives recognition and stature to the north, which this section of the province deserves and needs. Anything which makes them feel more in the family can’t help but be worthwhile.” That’s from the editorial page of the Sudbury Star.

Another comment --

Mr. Reid: Moving west now.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- from the Espanola Mid-North Weekly, is dated February 9.

Mr. Martel: I thought you had read from the Espanola paper already.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The editorial is headed: “New Ministry Could Be an Advantage.” And it says:

“Lo and behold, we have now a new Ministry of Northern Affairs. There was not unanimous approval for such a ministry. The NDP are strong in the north and they were opposing the idea. Then there was the natural cynicism of northerners who have been hearing for years that the north was getting a raw deal and that things would get better.”

Mr. Cunningham: Ed Diebel.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The article goes on to say: “The future looks brighter than it has for some time and one of the fundamentals of the ministry should be using northerners as much as possible in their own setting. We do not want another empire dictated and operated from the south.” As I pointed out, that was from the Espanola Mid-North Weekly.

Mr. Reid: The first thing you should do is hire a speech writer.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: A little closer to home for my hon. friend from the riding of Rainy River is the Times-News of February 7, with an editorial headed: “Recognition at Long Last.” It goes on to say:

“Suddenly we are given something northerners have been urging for many years. A Ministry of Northern Affairs has probably been the subject of more resolutions to governments by northern chambers of commerce, boards of trade and political organizations than anything anyone could imagine, with the possible exception of roads and highways. To have it come about now indicates Queen’s Park has been discussing us and our discontent and has concluded finally that we have a point.”

The article goes on:

“It could mean a real breakthrough for the north in dealing with government. Heretofore, our needs in any particular area were only a small part of the concern of the various ministries, more often than not handled by people who had little knowledge of or experience with our special situations.” It adds: “Leo Bernier says he wants to bring a new clout for the north at Queen’s Park, and we wish him well.” That’s from the Times-News at Thunder Bay.

Mr. Hodgson: Where are all your northern members, Elie? They’re getting scarce, aren’t they?

Mr. Martel: We will be back.

Mr. Reid: Is the minister going back to Espanola again?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No, I will be going back northeast again.

I think it’s important that we put this on the record, Mr. Speaker: The February 4 edition of the Sudbury Star contained an editorial headed: “Important Works for New Ministry.” To quote a couple of brief paragraphs:

“There had been previous efforts to better co-ordinate provincial services in the north but the success level varied with the degree of importance the department seemed to rate with the cabinets of the day.” It goes on to say:

“He [the minister] will appoint assistant deputy ministers to live and have their homes in the north in order to give the minister himself the kind of organization he will need to do his job.”

Mr. Wildman: They will get at least two new houses then.

Mr. Hodgson: Is the minister giving Elie some consideration as a deputy?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: “As the Star has said many times too, the idea makes sense because it is necessary. Now, let’s see to it that it gets to work; there is much to be done.”

Back again to another article in the Sudbury Star of January 29.

Mr. Wildman: You like that paper, don’t you?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It goes on to say: “The northern ministry is a useful project. Algoma-Manitoulin MPP John Lane is pressing the government to set up a ministry of northern Ontario for the purpose of co-ordinating relations between Queen’s Park and these far-off hinterlands of the province.”

Mr. Reid: Where is he tonight, he is so interested?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It goes on to say: “Certainly a ministry for northern Ontario would help provide a valuable improved link between the northern communities and our governors to the south. Keep it up, Mr. Lane, it makes sense.”

That’s just a sampling, Mr. Speaker, of the broad general support that this announcement had across northern Ontario. In fact, I have another one here that I should put in the record from the North Bay Nugget. I know the member from North Bay would want me to put it on the record. It’s an editorial dated Monday, April 11, and the headline of that particular editorial is, “Northern Ontario Future is Riding with the New Ministry.”

Mr. Cassidy: In uncertain hands.

Mr. Reid: We are in trouble then.

Mr. S. Smith: Don’t you have more confidence in the north than that?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: “Unquestionably,” it says, “the most important announcement to emanate from Queen’s Park in many a year is the plan for the operation of a Ministry of Northern Affairs. It must be given a fair amount of time to do this. Instant miracles won’t happen, but within a minimum of a year there should be tangible evidence that the Ministry of Northern Affairs is working, and working to the benefit of the people of a vast portion of Ontario.”

[8:15]

Mr. McClellan: You don’t have to listen to this.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It goes on to say that the location of the offices of the deputies matters not much. “What matters is that these offices function well and take hold of the programs which have been designated to them under their jurisdiction.” The new ministry won’t be understaffed, it goes on to state. “It will eventually grow to 150 persons, only 35 of whom will be located at Queen’s Park. The remainder will work and live in northern Ontario.” And that’s from the North Bay Nugget, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Martel: You are trying hard to prove you are wanted.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Another editorial just a few months earlier than that from the same newspaper, dated February 26, was captioned “Northern Ministry Deserves a Chance to Prove Its Worth.” And the Sudbury Star later on, in another editorial: “New Ministry Might Help Bridge the Communications Gap.”

So that gives you a good idea of the broad support, not only in the newspapers of northern Ontario, but certainly on the radio stations, in the editorial comments of the television stations across northern Ontario. Certainly the response to this ministry in northern Ontario was shown very clearly on that event that we have just gone through on June 9.

Mr. Nixon: It’s where you do all your advertising. The editorials were right next to the Conservative government ads.

Mr. Cassidy: Where are those new members for Timiskaming and Cochrane South?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I know I will have more to say after the members contribute in a very positive way to the establishment of this new ministry. But I just want to make one correction in the minds of some people. We did have a ministry dealing with northern affairs at some earlier date under the former direction of the Hon. Allan Lawrence.

Mr. Cassidy: Where’s the member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane), and the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Rhodes)?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It was then called the Ministry of Mines and Northern Affairs, but the members know that northern affairs branch was only an information package for setting up of the 25 northern affairs information offices across northern Ontario.

Mr. Cassidy: You could have made it an effective ministry but you didn’t.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Some members will try to leave the impression that we did have a northern affairs portfolio at that time in total, but that is not totally correct. It was an information package, and that information package now moves over to this new ministry along with the other programs which I have already announced and which I have already spelled out in some considerable detail.

Mr. Cassidy: You blew it and you know it.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I indicated some time ago in my own public discussions about the Ministry of Northern Affairs that it had to be more than a co-ordinating ministry; it had to have some administrative responsibility and of course it had to have a budget, it had to have clout.

Mr. Cassidy: Right, including the minister’s salary.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: As the members will know from examination of the budget estimates, we have about $120 million for which we will be responsible.

Mr. McClellan: You will have plenty then.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: This is a substantial increase over the same programs that were in place about a year ago, and this of course will have a tremendous impact on the development and improvement of the quality of life and the development of other matters necessary in northern Ontario.

Mr. Nixon: You have got your hand in it right now.

Mr. McClellan: How much have you got on you tonight?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: As the members examine this bill and study the compendium of background material which was delivered to both parties some time ago, they will see that this legislation creates the general framework required for the establishment and the administration of the Ministry of Northern Affairs. In this regard, it is similar to legislation which has established other ministries. It does not, of course, go into the details of the ministry’s programs, which are spelled out in the estimates. Instead, it makes possible a broad range of actions.

My ministry welcomes suggestions from all members of the House for programs and initiatives to be undertaken within this legislative framework to improve the prosperity and the well-being of the north and all of those of us who live in northern Ontario.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Liberal Party, and I will tell you at the outset that we will support the bill on second reading in principle. We feel there is an opportunity for something to be done with this ministry regardless of the way the ministry happened to evolve or come before us tonight.

Those of you -- and I’m sure you’re one, Mr. Speaker -- who have been around here for a while realize that the present Minister of Northern Affairs was in a drastic need, or I should say the Premier and the government were in drastic need, of having that particular former Minister of Natural Resources get a horizontal promotion. Where could he put the former Minister of Natural Resources when the former member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. J. R. Smith) was still with us at that time?

Mr. Nixon: If he’d only waited.

Mr. Reid: If the Premier had known what was going to happen we wouldn’t have the Ministry of Northern Affairs. It’s a sad commentary that for 34 years the Conservative government has had the responsibility of governing in the province of Ontario, and yet it’s only in the last year that they have come up with the brilliant idea, that we’ve heard from opposition members over the years, that there should be a Ministry of Northern Affairs.

I applaud the government. I don’t think their motives were of the purest and cleanest and brightest. I think they had to find a slot for my friend from Kenora. Regardless, this gives us from northern Ontario an extra voice in the cabinet and it also takes some of the responsibility away from Treasury particularly, which has continually loused up things in northern Ontario.

Mr. Makarchuk: Wait until Leo gets at it.

Mr. Reid: What bothers me is the fact that now we have somebody else who’s being given that opportunity. The bill is very general in nature.

Mr. Wildman: Very vague.

Mr. Reid: I would have liked it to be a little more specific in just what the responsibilities of the minister are. We have the statements of the Premier -- they bother me a little as to what the Minister of Northern Affairs is going to do -- and we have the statements of the minister himself. There possibly will be some amendments to the bill, but we’d like to get sorted out tonight what the objectives of the ministry are going to be.

The Premier in his statement to the House on the introduction of the bill on April 7 indicated that one of the responsibilities of the ministry would be to decide what studies of a social and economic nature were going to be done.

I could have every page in this House busy for 10 minutes bringing in from my office studies that have been done on northern Ontario. We are studied to death up there. There are more studies, on everything under the sun; there are reviews of studies, there have been briefs on studies --

Mr. Wildman: It is the main industry.

Mr. Makarchuk: It is the major industry.

Mr. Reid: -- and to little purpose at all. As a matter of fact, it kept I don’t know how many Tories employed over the years, and also many people -- especially in the Treasury ministry -- running around.

The main reports we’ve had over the years have been the Design for Development Northwestern Ontario and Design for Development Northeastern Ontario. I’m sure the minister would be disappointed if I didn’t quote from the brief that was presented by the Sudbury and District Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Martel: McKeough has membership there.

Mr. Reid: It was in response to the Northeastern Ontario Design for Development, emanating from that repository of all knowledge and wisdom somewhere down in the bowels of the Frost Building, that little group who are experts on northern Ontario because they’ve all been there at least once in their lifetimes as civil servants in the province of Ontario.

The title, Mr. Speaker, if I could have your attention, gives you the sort of impact of what the brief is all about. The title is A Profile in Failure. Actually that’s the nicest part of the document, because after that it gets rather nasty.

Mr. Martel: It’s downhill.

Mr. Reid: It’s downhill after that.

On the first page it says: “The northeastern Ontario regional strategy is devoid of any strategy of development -- physical, economic or social.” I’d hate to tell you how many years and how many people are involved in these studies. “It represents the pinnacle of the intellectual bankruptcy of the southern establishment in even analysing the problems of the north, let alone dealing with them effectively.”

That almost sounds like a speech from the hon. member for Sudbury East. But I have to agree with the sentiments expressed.

Mr. Martel: I don’t make any claims to writing that, although I said it many times.

Mr. S. Smith: You are not a member of the Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Reid: We don’t need any more studies in northern Ontario. We know what we need in northern Ontario. We have to, because we have been disappointed so often in the past by the existing governmental ministries that we have to hope again that we will get something out of the Ministry of Northern Affairs.

However, my optimism is tinged just a little with my knowledge of how the minister has operated in the past when he was Minister of Natural Resources.

Mr. S. Smith: A sad example.

Mr. Reid: I gather that the minister’s speech writer so far has been restricted mostly to clipping out columns and editorials from the newspaper, or perhaps that is what the Deputy Minister has been engaged in doing.

Mr. Nixon: That’s all there is for him to do.

Mr. Reid: It is rather interesting that he clipped out, of course, those that were somewhat approving of the new ministry, but he didn’t cut out any of the editorials in relation to the minister’s first official act, in deciding where he would put the regional offices in northern Ontario.

For the new members who may not have been aware, the minister in his wisdom, looking at northern Ontario as a region to deal with, doing his best for all of northern Ontario, decided to put the one regional office in the city of Sault Ste. Marie -- as far west as you can go pretty well in northeastern Ontario, the most geographically difficult location for most of the people in northeastern Ontario.

Mr. Martel: They weren’t even in touch with him.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask you a question, as well-versed as you are in northern matters, just ask yourself who happens to represent the riding of Sault Ste. Marie.

Mr. Nixon: Who indeed?

Mr. Reid: Who indeed? I believe it is the present Minister of Housing (Mr. Rhodes).

Mr. Martel: Switch, switch.

Mr. Reid: Now that, I am sure, had nothing to do with putting that office there, because we know the minister is a man of integrity and honour and that political considerations would not have entered into putting the office in Sault Ste. Marie.

Mr. Nixon: We are lucky it didn’t go into Moonbeam.

Mr. Reid: I imagine there was a fairly strong lobby for that as well. It would go with your ski hill, Rene.

Now I don’t believe for a minute there were political considerations, Mr. Speaker, but if we take a look at where the other regional office went in northwestern Ontario, it went almost to Winnipeg. I was surprised, quite frankly, it didn’t go into Hudson, but I understand the minister sold all his holdings there a while ago. He put the other office, Mr. Speaker, in Kenora, which is the farthest west community in the riding of Kenora.

Mr. Nixon: It should have been in Emo.

Mr. Reid: It should have been in Atikokan -- at least that would have been central -- or even Dryden; I would have gone for Dryden. But no, the minister, playing the political game, put the ministry office in Kenora. Now I hoped this was only a temporary aberration on his part, but he has had them -- I have been here for 10 years and that temporary aberration has lasted 10 years, so I don’t know if there is going to be much of a change.

Mr. Speaker, the minister mentioned in his opening remarks that he would be interested in hearing what is needed in northern Ontario. Well I applaud the fact that he is willing to listen to suggestions, but I would think that after his almost 11-to-12 years of being an MPP from northern Ontario, he would have a pretty good idea of what we need in northern Ontario and what is our number one problem in northern Ontario.

[8:30]

Mr. Cunningham: Leo Bernier.

Mr. Makarchuk: You guys rehearsed that.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Very charitable.

Mr. Reid: You are supposed to be the straight man.

An hon. member: Here comes the number two problem.

Mr. Reid: And there’s number two.

Mr. Nixon: He’s trying harder.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I try harder, yes.

Mr. Reid: I must say that we appreciate the job the Minister of Natural Resources is doing. We haven’t seen him since he got appointed, and we do appreciate that.

What are the problems we have to grapple with in northern Ontario? Obviously, jobs have got to be one. The minister used that; that was his theme in the entire election. Others are lack of services, lack of employment opportunities and the high cost of living. But I say to the minister that all of these, really, are a function of what I consider to be our major problem, that is transportation and transportation costs; both the lack of transportation facilities and the cost of those facilities when we have them.

We are not going to attract any secondary industry in northern Ontario, we are not going to even attract processing plants, if the cost of transportation is going to militate against those products being shipped out of our region. If we are going to attract secondary industry to begin with, then in many cases we have to bring the materials into northern Ontario to manufacture whatever it is -- boats, furniture or whatever we want to do there -- and then ship it back out. We have do something about the transportation system. All the studies you want to do and all the studies you already have all point to that very fact. There was a study done for the Ontario Economic Council -- I wondered why it wasn’t in this little compendium -- by, I believe, Professor Bonsor of Lakehead University.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Do you support that approach?

Mr. Reid: Which?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The professor from Lakehead University?

Mr. Reid: How do you mean support his approach?

Mrs. Campbell: Who has got the floor?

Mr. Reid: I think generally his theory was that products going out of northern Ontario for designation to somewhere else outside of northern Ontario were being shipped out of northern Ontario at a lower rate than goods coming into northern Ontario. The reason is simple. The material that is going out of northern Ontario is in bulk volume -- raw materials, generally speaking; ore, unprocessed in most cases; wood forest products, lumber, pulp and paper and so on. These are high bulk volume freight rates that attract a lower price than manufactured goods or goods that are difficult to handle or that have to be handled more than the raw materials.

Mr. Martel: Do you know this fellow John Reid?

Mr. Reid: Yes, I do.

Mr. Martel: Well, would you ask him to do something about that?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Reid: We can go into that but the minister is now responsible for the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission and so he’s got a vehicle at his disposal that perhaps we can use --

Mr. Wildman: They just bought a few new ones.

Mr. Reid: -- not only for northeastern Ontario but for northwestern Ontario.

Mr. S. Smith: Reconditioned Swiss ones do a good job too.

Mr. Reid: Until we solve these transportation costs we won’t get any secondary industry in northern Ontario. I’ve got a couple of problems in my riding right now. It’s a viable commodity that we are producing but the transportation costs almost twice as much as the product we are selling. It also adds to the high cost of living for us who live in northern Ontario. Our groceries are more expensive. Our gasoline is going out of sight. For our clothing, furniture and everything we need, we have to pay those higher transportation costs.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Licence plates are cheaper.

Mr. Reid: As for licence plates, let’s see how much clout the minister has. Has he got the $10 licence plates on half-tons? How could that have gone through cabinet without his fixing that up in the first place?

Mr. Peterson: How about cigarettes?

Mr. Reid: The minister knows that half the population in northern Ontario drives half-ton trucks.

Mr. Wildman: Forty-five per cent.

Mr. Reid: People who work at the mines are not going to take a $10,000 car over those roads. The people who work in the bush are not going to be driving cars -- you know that. For a lot of people it’s the only vehicle they have. If you were serious about giving people a break on high gasoline prices then you could have done something about the half-ton vehicles. I hope that before the night is over the minister will get up and say, “I can prove to you that the Ministry of Northern Affairs is doing something. We’re approving this,” or “It’s been approved by cabinet.”

Mr. Roy: There’s your challenge.

Mr. Reid: There you go, there’s your chance -- one tiny step for the minister, a large step for northern Ontario.

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: While I’m still on the matter of freight rates and the high cost of living, it harks back to memory that great splurge of a few years ago. That was their last great initiative in the north for the Conservative Party. That was, I believe, John Robarts, when he announced to great fanfare and the rolling of drums and the TV cameras banked up outside that the Conservative government had achieved the impossible. We were going to have equalized beer prices across the province of Ontario.

Mr. Wildman: What about milk?

Mr. Reid: What about milk? What about gasoline? What about everything else? If we could do it for beer why can’t we find some mechanism --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You know the reason.

Mr. McClellan: Public ownership of distribution.

Mr. Reid: We’ve got high prices now. We don’t want them any higher.

Mr. S. Smith: Publicly-owned beer companies, Mr. Reid?

Mr. Reid: The member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Ziemba) wouldn’t like that too much.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Reid: I know one of the reasons, but the point is that things can be done, and they always seem to be done, around election time. If the Conservative government can come up with that kind of ingenuity, I’m sure they can do something about high freight rates.

The minister has also suggested he is going to be responsible for northern communications. I have had correspondence with the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) and I want to put it on the record -- I’ll send the minister a copy of the letter -- that one of the things we lack is a good communication system in northern Ontario, certainly anything on a regional basis. In some cases, some of our communities have very little communication at all, other than telephone, perhaps radio, and if they have television some are stuck with nothing but the CBC. Believe me, if you think sometimes when you go into some of these communities and people are a little strange, you should live with nothing but a diet of CBC.

Mr. Cunningham: Can you imagine having the CBC, and Leo Bernier as your member?

Mr. Reid: The only benefit is that on CBC, which most of us get in northwestern Ontario, we don’t get to see the minister -- that’s one of the benefits.

Mr. Cassidy: Why don’t you talk to your brother about that?

Mr. Wildman: You don’t see those Tory ads either. That’s an advantage.

Mr. Reid: If we just had more Tory ads up there we’d probably get all the seats between us.

Mr. Cassidy: Did you know the CBC was founded by a Conservative government in Ottawa?

Mr. Reid: They must still be running it because it’s in bad shape.

Mr. Wildman: It is too late for that.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to talk -- well not at length, but just a little -- about the television reception particularly. The gist of my letter to the Minister of Transportation and Communications was that some of the private broadcasters had tried to get together and deal with Bell Canada -- I believe it was Bell -- to rent space on their microwave towers. I don’t pretend to understand the technology of how these systems work, but I understand that using these microwave towers you can link up computers, you can link up TV reception, radio reception and of course telephone reception.

They went to Bell and they tried to negotiate a deal to rent space on the existing towers, and the price that came back from Bell was just outrageous. There was no way that the people could afford to pay the rates that this consortium or this particular company would have to charge.

It seems to me that the government, through the Ministry of Northern Affairs and MTC, could use their good offices to negotiate with Bell, because certainly an individual company cannot get anywhere with Mother Bell. As a matter of fact, I think sometimes Bell tells both the federal and provincial governments what to do.

The minister’s reply to me was there’s already an existing microwave system, which I had already told him in the letter -- it gives you an idea how closely they read the letters -- but that if the government was to apply some pressure that space would be available at a reasonable price. There are private entrepreneurs who apparently are interested in providing multi-channel TV and improving the reception for those areas in northern Ontario. As I say, if the minister doesn’t know about it, I’ll send him the information.

Which brings me to the other side of the coin and that is educational television. The government, after procrastinating and cutting off Sudbury and Thunder Bay from ETV, has finally gone ahead -- they’re putting in the transmitters and so on in those two places -- except that my riding, the minister’s riding, the member for Lake Nipigon’s riding --

Mr. Martel: Nipissing.

Mr. Reid: -- and Nipissing, a large part of northern Ontario, are still going to be without educational television.

I’ve made this speech before, but it was my understanding when we brought it in that educational television was to provide a service to those people who didn’t have the benefits of, say, living in downtown Toronto, or downtown Burlington, or wherever it happens to be -- it was to provide them with another tool in the outer areas of the province. And yet we in northern Ontario are the last ones to get the service. So I would hope that that would be a priority that the minister has.

I want to talk also about health services. I want to talk about unorganized communities.

I wanted to talk about NODC. I didn’t hear the minister mention that NODC would be moving over to his ministry. I don’t know if that’s decided or not. It hasn’t been? It should. Why loans for northern Ontario have to be approved down, again, in southern Ontario is beyond me. The process takes too long. They’re virtually useless. You’re either bankrupt or you’re making enough money you don’t need them, but we’re employing a bunch of civil servants to keep them happy, I suppose.

We’ve got to do something about providing better health care, particularly dentists, in northern Ontario. You’ve heard me speak about this before, Mr. Speaker. We’re all paying the same OHIP premiums and yet we don’t have access to the kind of medical facilities that everybody in southern Ontario takes for granted. Myself and my friend from Lake Nipigon for years have been asking that the government provide a subsidy to people in northern Ontario who have to travel to see a doctor. If you live in Toronto, you don’t have to go more than a few blocks to see a doctor. You pay the same OHIP.

Mr. Warner: Are you kidding? You have to go out on the nearest golf course.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Are you kidding? It is only the school teachers who are out there.

Mr. Reid: We pay the same rates. So I hope the minister will be looking at that.

The other thing is in regard to unorganized communities. Their biggest problem really is that they have no kind of official structure that can accept assistance from the government, either federal or provincial, because there’s no one in the community to take responsibility and the concomitant accountability for any funds that might be made available. There have been ways of getting around these matters in the past, but we went through the isolated communities Act a few years ago and didn’t satisfy anyone. We must find some kind of mechanism to give those people representation within their communities, so that someone there is responsible and can provide the leadership in those communities. As it is now they’re relying pretty well on a service club perhaps, or some ad hoc committee, to get a fire truck, which is needed in all these areas. Some formal mechanism has to be found to provide this kind of leadership and authority in these areas.

[8:45]

I’m going on at more length than I had intended, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to speak about the forest industry in northern Ontario. I realize that comes under the Ministry of Natural Resources, so I won’t dwell on that. But I do want to talk about the tourist industry, because it’s our third largest industry in northern Ontario and one that provides perhaps the largest potential for immediate jobs.

I want to outline for the edification of the House -- not of the minister, because we’ve had correspondence on this -- one way that I believe we could do something to improve tourism in northern Ontario and the availability of jobs. I’m not required to do so, I realize, Mr. Speaker, but I should say that perhaps I have a small conflict of interest in this matter as I’m involved financially in a tourist operation myself. However, I have been making similar speeches for a number of years, as the minister knows from his time as Minister of Natural Resources; I was constantly giving him heck for his lack of policy in regard to tourism and Crown land camping in northern Ontario.

The thesis is generally this: Right now, we are allowing tourists to enter the province of Ontario, particularly northern Ontario, and all they have to buy is a fishing licence for $10.75. They can bring their camper-trailers, park them wherever they like; and they can bring their booze, their food and their fishing tackle. All they have to do is buy that fishing licence. They’re not required to stay at a licensed tourist camp or a provincial park or at anything that’s licensed by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism. We call them pork-and-beaners.

Mr. Laughren: Tin-can tourists.

Mr. Reid: Tin-can tourists or pork-and-beaners, we’re not getting anything out of these people financially in a revenue sense. Let’s face it, that’s the bottom line of tourism; you try to extract as many dollars out of that tourist as possible.

Mr. McClellan: Maybe they should go to the Maritimes this summer.

Mr. Reid: My proposal is that visitors to the province be required to stay in licensed tourist camps, licensed provincial parks -- something licensed by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism. This would have all kinds of effects, I think. First of all, obviously it would create a demand for more tourist camps and more accommodation. It would perhaps require the hiring of guides in the summer so that students and some of the native population would be hired by these camps to provide these services for these people. It would allow the conservation officers to check these people much more easily. It would save us $500,000 or better in garbage cleanup -- and I don’t say they’re the only ones who leave their garbage in the bush.

My proposal has all kinds of benefits to the economy and job creation in northern Ontario, and I don’t understand why, for so many years, we advertised to come fish and hunt in northern Ontario, which they do, and yet we extract very little in the way of revenue from them.

The minister, I’m sure, reads very avidly the Kenora Miner and News. They’re not always as kind to him as the Dryden Observer. Incidentally, does the minister own part of that newspaper?

An hon. member: Part of it? All of it.

Mr. Reid: You can’t read the Dryden Observer. You don’t have to read it, because it’s more like a pictorial magazine of the Minister of Northern Affairs doing all kinds of things.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: That’s good judgement.

Mr. Reid: That’s why I say the minister must have a conflict there. He must own 75 per cent of it.

Mr. Laughren: Is it true they now call the minister the John Wayne of the north?

Hon. B. Stephenson: They will never call the hon. member that.

Mr. Reid: I understand it was the Mickey Rooney of northern Ontario, but that’s neither here nor there.

Mr. S. Smith: Trigger, wasn’t it?

Mr. Reid: In any case, there are all kinds of benefits to be had from that kind of an approach to our land in northern Ontario because the pressure on the game and fish has become so extreme that many of our lakes, as the minister knows, are fished out. The moose population seems to be fairly steady, but they’ve been driven back into the far regions by the pressure and we just don’t have that kind of proper approach to conservation. It is better, I say to the minister, to find one tourist spending $200 than to have 10 of them, these pork-and-beaners, each spending $20, because the pressure on the resource is then not so extreme.

I was going to say something about Design for Development; we all know that it is outmoded. TEIGA has been working on that; I presume, from the Premier’s statement, the minister is going to take that over.

I suggest that we don’t need any more studies like that. What we need is well-understood guidelines for the social and economic development of northern Ontario. What we need, if we are going to have a new townsite, based usually on a resource, or even an existing community -- but let’s talk about new development, like what might happen at Lake St. Joe.

What has to be understood by one and all is who is going to provide what facilities and who is going to pay for them. Where do the native people fit into these matters and, incidentally, that is something that I found a little strange when I read through the bill. There is no reference to the native people in the ministry. I presume that means they are going to remain under Social and Community Services -- no doubt at their own request; they know what they’re getting into.

That strikes me as rather strange, to tell you the truth. Here we have a Ministry of Northern Affairs. We’ve got I don’t know how many reserves in northern Ontario; I think I have 10 or 12 in my riding. And yet the Minister of Northern Affairs is not going to be responsible for the native population in that area. As I say, they probably were given the choice and they decided they would stay where they were. They know what they’re doing.

But to get back, Mr. Speaker, what we need are well-understood guidelines. Who is going to provide the hard services? Who is going to provide the soft services? What is going to happen to these resource towns when the mine moves out or the forest industry has taken everything out and there is nothing left? What happens to these communities? Who is going to look after the people who are left there with their houses, with their mortgages, with their schools to pay for, with their hospitals to pay for? What programs do we have to handle these matters?

Mr. S. Smith: Take care of Frank’s two saplings.

Mr. Reid: We don’t have any plans for the development of communities and we have no plans for the decline of resource communities. And all these studies we’ve done deal with everything else but the matters that are really important.

I have asked the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) on numerous occasions, “What are you going to do for, say, Atikokan?” Look what happened to Ignace.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Look what we have done already.

Mr. Reid: That’s right, but if the mine goes --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: We have to try to counteract the gloom and doom you advocate.

Mr. Reid: I wasn’t gloom and doom. Do you know who those guys were? They were prominent members of the Conservative Party, that’s who they were, but they got fired. They are down in the United States.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I heard it from the local provincial member.

Mr. Reid: Oh no, you never heard me talking gloom and doom.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I have it on tape.

Mr. Reid: Oh, I’d like to hear that some day.

I must give somebody credit -- I know it is not to the minister’s credit or we wouldn’t have it; he’d have put it in Hudson. Last week, or actually Monday, the minister and I were in Atikokan to announce the construction of the 800-megawatt thermal plant in Atikokan. I must commend Hydro particularly for the excellent job they did -- and I must compliment the government for having the good sense also to put that plant in Atikokan. But it seems to me that Hydro is almost a perfect example of what the government should be doing on a government scale.

Hydro seems to have a pretty clear-cut idea of who is going to provide the housing, at what expense, who is going to pay for it, what they require for the community and what they may pay for it. At least they thought of these things. As I say, these studies that have been ongoing in the Treasury for so many years never deal with these problems. I see that the Provincial Secretary for Social Development is here with us. Who is going to pay for the schools that are needed? Who is going to pay for the hospitals? Who is going to pay for all these services when an industry moves into perhaps a small existing community or even into a new one? Who pays for these services? Do the people who work in the mine or in the forest industry pay for them through their taxes? Then when that industry is gone, they are still stuck with their mortgages.

Mrs. Campbell: That’s the way they plan over there.

Mr. Reid: How do we do it? Ignace boomed. It used to be a CPR point on the railway. That’s pretty well all that was there, that and gas stations. I think Ignace has more gas stations per capita than anywhere else in the world. It used to be in the minister’s riding. Until I took over, nothing happened there. When it took off, when the population quadrupled in a matter of three years with Mattabi Mines, what did the government do to provide services for that community? They did nothing and the community went bankrupt.

All of a sudden, they had this influx of people. It went from approximately a population of 700 to 2,800, and yet the government provided no assistance to that community -- hardly any -- until it went bankrupt. Once it went bankrupt with all these officials of TEIGA sitting round like vultures watching it go bankrupt, then the government stepped in and said: “Now we are going to countersign every cheque that you spend and we are going to tell you what to do. Now we will give you a little assistance.”

Where were they in providing the services, the housing, the sewers and water, hospitals, which we still don’t have there, and even policing? We have had to fight tooth and nail for policing. What do all these thousands of civil servants do when they are writing these reports? What goes on in this ministry? What has it been doing? Where are the guidelines? Why don’t we have a policy on these things? Are we going to get one or are we going to get another study? The government knows what has to be done. Why don’t we do it?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: We will.

Mrs. Campbell: With Northern Affairs?

Mr. Roy: Look at your track record.

Mr. Reid: We will? As for the track record, I don’t know if the minister ever goes to the racetrack. I am told by a former colleague of mine from southern Ontario who, once a year whether he needed it or not, would go out to the horse races. He told me once: “Pat, if you ever go, look at the form, the chart of the horse and the races he has run. If he has never won a race, don’t bet on him.” That’s my concern about the minister. He hasn’t won any races yet.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Five elections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Lost at horseshoes, too.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: How many seats have we got in northern Ontario now? Seven.

Mr. Reid: I hadn’t intended to go on so long, but the minister was obviously enjoying my remarks so much, he obviously needs a great deal of direction. Actually, I am speaking not to him but to his deputy minister who is under the press gallery tonight. That is one of the bright lights as far as I am concerned in this new ministry.

Mr. Martel: You just got him fired.

Mr. Reid: This is the kiss of death, by the way. If we can attract people like that to the ministry -- it has a couple already I’d like to see fired and I’ll send the minister their names -- if they were all of the calibre of the deputy minister, then I would have some hope for the ministry.

I’d like to ask the minister a couple of questions before I do sit down. Has he fixed up The Mining Act, that amendment or that interpretation yet?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: We are working on that.

Mr. Reid: He is working on it? It would be really nice if before the end of this session was over the minister could stand in his place and make a statement on some of the ills that his ministry has rectified in northern Ontario. One of the simplest would be this interpretation of The Mining Tax Act.

[9:00]

This is how -- I don’t understand how these people can ask us for their confidence when they can mess things up the way they have. Let me explain to you, Mr. Speaker, about this interpretation of The Mining Tax Act. Basically, what it says is that if a company makes a contribution to the community for a recreation centre, or a hospital, or any kind of social capital -- I hope you’re listening, Margaret -- social capital, then that contribution is not going to be interpreted as a taxable deduction from the income of the company.

Hon. F. S. Miller: The 15/65 rule explains that cost.

Mr. Reid: You mean you’ve straightened it out?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I spent all evening on that.

Mr. Reid: Could we make him Minister of Northern Affairs, please? That minister hasn’t done a damn thing for us and here just in the space of tonight the Minister of Natural Resources has got that cleared up.

Mr. Martel: You want both jobs, Frank?

Hon. F. S. Miller: 15/65 cleared up the situation.

Mr. Reid: Pardon? It is cleared up, or isn’t it?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I’ll show it to you.

Mr. Reid: No, no. Just nod your head, yes or no.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order.

Mr. Reid: Is it cleared up or not? It isn’t? Well, this is just unbelievable. We’re into July now. When did that interpretation come out? January or February, I think; February. Yet the government by a simple regulation, which they’re very fond of making, could have said that the interpretation by the mining assessor is incorrect, or his interpretation is fine, but we’re amending it by regulation to allow that as a deduction, because the government doesn’t provide those services in northern Ontario to the extent it should. If the companies are discouraged, which they were by that interpretation of the Act, then where are we going to get those services from?

I don’t believe, as perhaps my friends here do, that the government should provide all the services in these communities, or anywhere else. That’s one of the benefits of living in northern Ontario, especially a place like Atikokan or Ignace, where the people get together and say, “We want to do this and we’ll do it with our own sweat and blood -- and if the government wants to give us a little contribution that’s fine, but we’re going to do it on our own anyway.” But don’t discourage that, and that’s what you’re doing. It’s no big thing to remedy that situation.

I said at the outset that we would support the bill. We’re optimistic. We’re hopeful that perhaps the minister will actually be able to do something in regard to northern Ontario. One of the hopeful signs is that responsibility for many of the functions that have been performed by other ministries of the Crown -- particularly TEIGA -- will be taken away from them. Unfortunately, we will probably get a lot of the same people.

Mrs. Campbell: We always do.

Mr. Reid: That bothers me. But if we could perhaps put them back in northern Ontario, where they’re in that kind of setting, perhaps then we’ll get that proper perspective and balance renewed, and that we in fact will see progress in Northern Ontario.

Mr. Roy: Way to go, Pat.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury East.

Mr. B. Newman: Be easy on him, now.

Mr. Eakins: Brace yourself.

Mr. Martel: I have a few moments. Let’s put it that way.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Should I stay?

Mr. Martel: You should stay. I’m going to quote a few editorials for you, by the way. Some you’ll really enjoy.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. Martel: I’m particularly happy to speak to this bill, particularly in view of the comments made by the fellow who occupies that seat over there during the election. Some call him the Premier (Mr. Davis). He set the stage, you know, for this last election. He set it the Monday night before he called it in one of the most vicious attacks on the two leaders on this side of the House that in my 10 years I’ve ever heard.

Mr. Warner: Right on!

Mr. Martel: And he carried it into the campaign up to Thunder Bay on the Ministry of Northern Affairs. I have Jonathan Manthorpe’s article on what dirty little Bill had to say that day in Thunder Bay.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I think the hon. member knows he should refer to the Premier by his title.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I kind of have the same feeling about the Premier as he demonstrated the Monday night before he called the election and the way he conducted himself throughout the election campaign.

Mr. Warner: Disgusting.

Mr. Martel: I want to tell the House it was dismal, and all of the press said it was dismal. He went to Thunder Bay, and here it is called “Davis’s Outburst Hurts His Cause.” “Davis’s Performance Was Unworthy of Him.” But he had the audacity to tell the people in Thunder Bay that the New Democratic Party in fact was going to oppose the bill. That was after the election was called. But he didn’t bother to check with the Minister of Housing (Mr. Rhodes), when in fact I as the critic had indicated to the minister we in fact were going to support the bill. In fact I have some of the statements I made during the debate in the Legislature.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Your leader’s first comments.

Mr. Martel: I happen to be the critic and I happened to say --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Who is the leader over there and what were his comments?

Mr. Martel: “I intend to give Northern Affairs some teeth, Mr. Minister.”

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You are changing your leader so it is all right.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Elie for leader.

Mr. Martel: “I announce it now, if we ever get to it, contrary to what your colleague has said, I am going to support the bill”; you see.

The Premier went to Thunder Bay and he shot his face off. But he didn’t bother to look at what I as the critic had said during the Housing estimates. That was just one of the incidents that the Premier indulged in -- the type of campaign he conducted throughout the entire 37 days of that campaign and, in fact, leading up to it. It was a despicable exhibition, and he didn’t gain any stature. He has always wanted to go down in the history books as a great parliamentarian. I want to tell the House, any possibility he had went out with the last campaign. His chances for the federal thing just died with the last campaign. Now the knives are out. I suggest he watch some of his colleagues.

Mr. Peterson: You are not very trusting.

Mr. Martel: Not very.

Mr. Peterson: He likes you.

Mr. Martel: Yes, I know.

My friend, the minister responsible, was in Sudbury in February and he had some kind comments too about what we were going to do with the bill. He said, “Fair-minded persons would recognize that the government has made progress in coping with northern problems.” I want to know where. “Bernier charged that the NDP breed on dissatisfaction and discontent to foster their socialist philosophy.”

An hon. member: Right on.

Mr. Martel: I want to tell the minister he should look at his track record when he was opposing an inquiry into the Elliot Lake situation, which he for years defended, he and his friends in that ministry.

Mr. Laughren: That’s right. You covered up.

Mr. Martel: Covered up.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, on a point on order, please.

Mr. Cassidy: You can’t deny it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: At no time as Minister of Natural Resources did I oppose any efforts to clean up the situation in Elliot Lake as it related to silicosis. It was myself, ahead of any contribution from the opposition --

Mr. Laughren: After 10 years.

Mr. Warner: It is called cover up.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- who established the royal commission under Professor Hamm that brought in the recommendations in respect of that situation. I want to make the record very clear.

Mr. Laughren: Nonsense. How come we found the records in your files?

Mr. Germa: We had to raid your files.

Mr. Laughren: We had to get them out of your files.

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. member direct his remarks through the Chair?

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you that the battle surrounding improvements for the workers in the mining industry were started when -- I know that the first question I raised in this Legislature was directed at the Minister of Mines, involving tipoffs of investigations, and it took seven years to get that cleared up, and you were involved in that.

Mr. Warner: Still continuing.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will the hon. member speak through the Chair, please?

Mr. Martel: Now he goes to Sudbury and says we breed on it. Mr. Speaker, through you to the minister, the track record in forestry is great too. The professional foresters have had to really come out in the open to make the government respond to the need in the forest industry. And you defended that for years too. Don’t tell us about breeding discontent. You created it. You were minister. You had an opportunity to do something about it and you did nothing.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: We will. We will.

Mr. Martel: In fact it is so bad that my friend, the present minister, in a letter before the Premier’s announcement with respect to Algonquin Park -- I wrote him and asked, “How many trees have you planted in Algonquin Park seeing as you logged 135,000 cunits? Was it tree for tree?” He wrote back and said, “You don’t understand, Elie, how these things are done. We don’t plant a tree for a tree. There’s natural reforestation, the whole business.”

And the charter, two for one. I didn’t understand in February and March. I’m being chastised. The first letter from the old minister, the second one from the follow-up, both telling me I don’t understand anything about reforestation. Then the Premier makes his great announcement in the charter: two for one. But we don’t understand.

When we are questioning, “Are you putting back 135,000 cunits of trees in Algonquin Park to compensate for the ones you remove?” we don’t understand. It’s not done that way. And then Billy the Kid says, “We’ll plant two for one.”

Mr. Roy: It is a surprise to them as well.

Mr. Martel: I want to tell the minister his track record has been less than enviable; it’s interesting. The minister quoted editorials and my friend from Rainy River hit the nail right on the head with respect to the location of both the new offices. The one in Sault Ste. Marie makes it farther for people in Nipissing and all along that corridor to go to Sault Ste. Marie than it is for them to come to Toronto.

Mr. McClellan: What a brilliant stroke.

Mr. Martel: That’s a brilliant stroke. It’s 300 miles roughly from North Bay to Sault Ste. Marie. It’s what -- ? 200 from North Bay to Toronto?

Mr. Bolan: Two hundred and twenty.

Mr. Warner: Two hundred and twenty-five.

Mr. Martel: Two hundred and twenty. So it’s easier to get to Toronto and there’s better transportation. But that’s okay. We know what it’s all about.

But there is also a second newspaper in Sudbury and they wrote an editorial after the minister’s visit to Sudbury. Let me tell you what it said: “Frankly, Leo, you might as well take your toy ministry and put it ...” and then there are four dots. I am going to read the editorial. The minister quoted at great length the editorials of other newspapers.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: All in support.

Mr. Martel: “I suppose one should make an effort not to be rude --”

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It is not your editorial.

Mr. Martel: No, it is not my editorial. It is written by a man by the name of Michael Atkins.

An hon. member: He’s a Liberal.

An hon. member: He’s a Tory.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Elie wrote it for him.

Mr. Martel: He said, “I suppose one should make an effort not to be rude, in that if one is rude one suffers more than one is criticizing. It is difficult to be restrained when it comes to Leo Bernier and his toy ministry, the Ministry of Northern Affairs.

“It is edifying to note that the most noteworthy accomplishment of the ministry thus far is to announce the location of its twin head offices in Kenora and Sault Ste. Marie. Yes, that’s no joke. The difficulty about complaining too bitterly about the absurd location of the ministry is to credit the ministry with too much importance.

“I am still of the opinion that the Ministry of Northern Affairs is nothing more than political claptrap, a fraud and an embarrassing waste of time and money. We have more to worry about than a few transplanted Queen’s Park bureaucrats, one of whom no doubt will spend half his time in twin Otters getting to his official offices in the western reaches of Leo’s riding. The Tory logic is not difficult to understand:” --

Mr. Laughren: It’s a good editorial.

Mr. Martel: “The NDP has been critical of the Northern Affairs ministry. The NDP holds all the seats in Sudbury and Thunder Bay ... therefore, we’ll put our little showpiece where the NDP is not.’”

Mr. Laughren: The Globe and Mail should write this editorial. Such insight.

Mr. Martel: “ ... Nothing serious ... No doubt we should be expected to be thankful at least. Kenora and Sault Ste. Marie get a few more bureaucrats even if they are redundant.

“Leo, in your silly little press release you claimed the offices were established to provide better access for northerners. Leo, is it that you can’t count? Is it that there are no adding machines for your ministry? Can you not read transportation routes? Or were you and your advisers all chewing gum at the same time?

[9:15]

“It is an unassailable fact that Sudbury and Thunder Bay are accessible to more northerners than any other location in the north. You say in your press release that Kenora is 1,250 miles from Toronto. So what? How far is Moose Jaw? Have you flipped out? Have you been eating too many fish up in your neck of the woods? Or have you been sniffing that wild rice up Kenora way?”

Mr. Warner: You’ll turn into a thermometer.

Mr. Germa: Suffering hallucinations?

Mr. Martel: I could go on with the editorial. It just gets worse in terms of how it is --

Mr. Roy: No. Don’t go on.

Mr. Martel: The member for Ottawa East doesn’t want me to go on. Well, seeing as he insists, I’ll go on.

Mr. Warner: The press gallery wants you to go on, Elie.

Mr. Martel: Seeing as he puts it that way, I’ll do it.

“What is upsetting is that you are playing us for fools. You’re wasting taxpayers’ money. You are gurgling up such stupid rationales, even the most meek and mild of us are annoyed. I’d like to say, pick up your ministry and go home, but there’s nothing to turf out. While you’re flitting about like a dancing bear, pitching the line on northern alienation, Kingston gets the promises of hundreds of new jobs, Oshawa the same, Whitby gets a multi-million dollar LCBO investment, and we watch ads stating we are our own liquor control board.

“Leo, look in the mirror; do the honourable thing: resign.”

Mr. Warner: Resign.

Mr. Roy: You should frame that one, Leo.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You wish I had done that before June 9. You would have loved to have got rid of me before June 9.

Mr. Martel: “It’s springtime -- time to open up the cottage and go for a boat ride and look at the birdies. On special days you could drop into the old northern affairs office in Kenora and pick up the business season’s charts. But just get out of politics; it’s bad for all of us.”

Mr. Martel: The minister quoted editorials extensively but in the Sudbury region and in many other regions of the north they don’t look so kindly on his ministry, and I must say too that his track record gives us reason to believe it will be a disaster.

I well recall, Mr. Speaker, as I’m sure you do, the last clambake; it was led by the then Premier, the member for London North, the Hon. John Robarts. They went to Timmins and Sudbury and, I believe, to Thunder Bay; and they promised us everything, contrary to what the minister said tonight. In fact, the new Premier went to Parry Sound -- and my friend, the member for Parry Sound, is here -- and he promised a railway from Parry Sound to North Bay in the fall of 1971.

Mr. Laughren: A railway?

Mr. Warner: Would he be the engineer? Where is that railway? Whatever happened to it?

Mr. Martel: The man who brought in the northern affairs offices in those days was the one who fought the idea for us when he was the near-Premier.

Mr. Warner: It went off track, eh?

Mr. Martel: Remember the near-Premier? During the shenanigans on the northern affairs offices then, he made a great variety of promises. He promised a railway from North Bay to Parry Sound to help the development of northern Ontario.

Mr. Roy: Elie, we were all promised a railway. Remember Krauss-Maffei?

Mr. Martel: Right. We had one in Toronto too.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Oh, no.

Mr. Martel: But when the air had cleared and the smoke had settled down in 1969, what we had was 25 information offices and a near-Premier. Remember Allan of Lawrence? If only the ballot machine hadn’t gone wrong, he might have been the Premier. The people from northern Ontario had to catch the train back home and William Davis became Premier. It was that close.

As I say, when the smoke settled we had 25 northern affairs offices, and I want to quote from those debates that brought them in. I want to compare them to the Premier’s statements when he made his great announcement on February 3, I guess it was, and then on April 7. It’s intriguing to read the statements from the Premier and the near-Premier. The near-Premier, on page 3474 of Hansard of June 1970, spoke of the unique problems of northern Ontario. Unique. Nothing unique about our problems. It’s just that they’ve been ignored.

Hon. Mr. Norton: By Elie Martel.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Well, you’re up there.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Poor representation, that’s why.

Mr. Martel: The near-Premier -- the Hon. Allan Lawrence -- says: “Those problems crystallize down to two major aspects -- first of all, the feeling that in a lot of ways the province was reacting to crises in the north, rather than planning to avert the future crises that may come along.” And also there was a feeling that we were remote from Queen’s Park and that the problems were unique problems that the people in northern Ontario had to work against.

Now, what does the Premier say on February 3? Exactly the same. Seven years later, the Premier says --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: What did the people say on June 9?

Mr. Martel: Well, they didn’t give you a majority.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: In northern Ontario they did.

Mr. Martel: No. The Liberals gave you that. The Liberals flew that fellow in from Toronto, 72 years of age, and he got seven per cent of the vote in Timiskaming. Seven per cent on the night of the election.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Oh, big excuses. We got the majority in northern Ontario. Admit it.

Mr. Laughren: Nice trade off.

Mr. Wiseman: Next time it will be you, Elie.

Mr. Martel: Yes, you’re right.

Mr. Warner: Neat deal.

Mr. Martel: Yes, a neat deal. We know about it in Timmins too. It’s happened every election federally and provincially.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Who lost in northern Ontario?

Mr. Martel: Well, now, let’s see. The Premier says: “Recognizing the great distances that exist between communities in northern Ontario, it is inevitable that the people have felt on occasion that the government in Queen’s Park has been distant from them.” That’s exactly what Allan Lawrence said in 1970.

Hon. Mr. Norton: We are consistent.

Mr. Deans: Consistently wrong, but consistent.

Mr. Martel: It only took them seven more years to do something about it.

I could go on. They talk about unique problems. The Premier talks about unique problems. The near-Premier talked about distance and then Allan Lawrence on page 3475 went on to say: “there will be a separate department of northern affairs, hopefully ... with headquarters perhaps in the north ...”

Well, my oh my, seven years later we have headquarters so far north, I thought you were going to move to Inuvik.

Mr. B. Newman: They were thinking of it.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Be careful. Remember what you said about Red Lake.

Mr. Martel: I remember the Red Lake statement.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Careful.

Mr. Martel: I remember the Red Lake statement.

Mr. Lane: You won’t get to be leader if you don’t watch your statements.

Mr. Martel: But seven years later we have two offices, one in Kenora and one in Sault Ste. Marie, which are more isolated, at least in terms of getting there by a variety of transportation methods, than is Toronto. More difficult. Yes, more difficult.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You don’t want us in Sudbury.

Mr. Martel: The city of Sudbury representatives asked me if I would ask the Minister of Northern Affairs to put an office in Sudbury. I said? No thanks. I said I want the minister to do as he did with the other aspect when he moved the mines section out of Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: This is not true.

Mr. Martel: What do you mean?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The mining section is still in Sudbury.

Mr. Martel: The minister moved a great section of his ministry from Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie a number of years ago.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The mines division is still in Sudbury.

Mr. Martel: The regional office. I wouldn’t ask the minister then to keep it there and I certainly wouldn’t ask him to put part of his ministry -- I categorically refuse.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, please.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Your point of order.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The member for Sudbury knows full well --

Mr. Warner: Are you going to resign? Tell us now.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- that in the reorganization of the Ministry of Natural Resources that the mines division of that particular district remained and still remains in Sudbury, not in Sault Ste. Marie.

Mr. Martel: And the minister moved his regional office with what’s his name --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You mislead the House.

Mr. Martel: -- who was head of mines, went over to --

Hon. B. Stephenson: Tell the truth, Elie.

Hon. Mr. Norton: You have got to know.

Mr. Martel: Who is talking about the truth? That isn’t the Minister of Labour talking about the truth. Oh, that’s a novelty. Boy, that’s a novelty.

Mr. Lane: You wouldn’t know it if you saw it.

Mr. Martel: I remember the three questions I raised with her on three consecutive days about the hospitals, and not once did I get the facts.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Oh, yes, you did.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Oh, come on, Elie.

An hon. member: Elie has a long memory.

Hon. B. Stephenson: It is no longer than mine is.

Mr. Martel: The near-Premier also said, on page 3475 in those days in 1969-1970 that that ministry would be a co-ordinating ministry. The Premier this year says it is a co-ordinating ministry. It’s the same garbage. They talked about transportation problems when Lawrence brought the bill though the House. The Premier in his statement talked about transportation problems. The minister responsible in 1970 on page 3475 spoke about highways and problems. The Premier in his statement talked about highways and problems seven years later. Do you wonder why we’re cynical?

Hon. Mr. Norton: You were born that way.

Mr. Martel: We heard the exact statements that were made by the Premier in 1970 seven years before he made them when they were made by Allan Lawrence. When the smoke cleared and all was said and done in 1970, we had 25 information officers and nothing else. Does the government expect us, based on its track record, the record and the statements of the former minister responsible for mines and northern affairs, to believe that it’s serious? I’m going to talk about the bill to show why it’s not serious. It really isn’t.

Mr. Laughren: Would you give this minister real power?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: I’m going to try to give him real power. I presume he’s going to say no.

Mr. Laughren: How about an amendment?

Mr. Martel: I want to ask the minister a couple of questions. Why do young people leave northern Ontario? What jobs are there for women in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Norton: You are the Premier now.

Mr. Laughren: Answer these questions.

Mr. Martel: How do you get any services into the unorganized townships?

Mr. Lane: You guys don’t want any.

Mr. Martel: Why don’t you crawl back in your hole? If you’ve got nothing to contribute, then go out in the hall.

Mr. Lane: You don’t want improvements. You are afraid the ministry will work and you will lose votes on it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I would like to suggest to the member for Algoma-Manitoulin that he does not have the floor. Will the member for Sudbury East please continue?

Mr. Martel: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your assistance.

Hon. B. Stephenson: It was sorely needed.

Mr. Martel: I want to ask the minister a number of other questions. Why are one-industry towns allowed to remain so vulnerable?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Which ones?

Mr. Martel: What has the government done to prevent ghost towns?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Where are the ghost towns?

Mr. Martel: Blind River, where there isn’t an industry left and the government has had years to do something about it.

Mr. Warner: That is a start.

Mr. Germa: What is left in Cobalt?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Blind River is not a ghost town.

Mr. Martel: How do you get adequate tax returns to the dormitory communities? The minister should be able to answer that one. How do you get adequate tax dollars back to the dormitory communities, those communities which provide the homes for the workers who work in the pulp and paper industry? None of those six questions -- and they’re the most important problems to northerners -- is answered in the bill. The minister hasn’t a thing in the bill to overcome one of those problems. I’ll detail it in a few moments.

I happen to believe that the bill doesn’t speak to the problems of northern Ontario. I’m sorry, but we’re going to move the amendment. I must say that I gave them to the House leader this afternoon to give to the minister, as I did to my friend, the House leader for the Liberal Party. In fact, I attempted to get the amendments to the minister very early so that he’d have an opportunity to look at them. I apologize that they haven’t been passed on to him but I made an effort to make sure.

I happened to get my hands on a document -- I won’t tell the minister how -- prepared for the ministry.

Mr. B. Newman: In a brown bag.

Mr. Martel: These brown envelopes even in the new ministry manage to get out.

There was an interesting document prepared for the ministry by a planner. It says: “Create a ministry to solve a problem? Such is the popular myth which can be put to a rigorous test in the case of the newly created Ministry of Northern Affairs in Ontario. The news has been received with utter cynicism in some quarters and benign indifference by most, including the northerners.” That’s from a planner from northern Ontario.

Mr. Laughren: Because of the minister.

[9:30]

Mr. Martel: All these brown bags. You are going to have to get the gendarmes in there already to make sure that these aren’t slipped out.

Interjections.

Mr. Martel: I have got a friend over there in your ministry.

Hon. B. Stephenson: The only one you have got.

Mr. Martel: Well, that’s better than you. I have got one friend. Can you claim that?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Oh, yes.

Mr. Martel: Not around here, you can’t.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Not over there.

Mr. Martel: Not even on your own side, except young Mr. Grossman, the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick. You and he became fast friends over the hospital crisis, I understand.

An hon. member: Very close.

Mr. Martel: Yes; very, very close.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Got no friends in Red Lake?

Mr. Martel: You are right. That’s why I am not going up there.

An hon. member: They say they couldn’t separate them.

Mr. Martel: Well, you know, in this paper which was prepared for the ministry, I am going to quote about six different parts which tell you that if your role is simply co-ordinating, get out of the business. If it’s simply to resolve the odd problem, get out of the business because you are not going to do it.

Let me tell you what he says as to why the south emerged and the north remained stagnant: “The emergence of the dynamic south was assisted by the movements of principal factors of production -- which are capital, labour, entrepreneurialship and raw materials from the north. Historically, the secular trend in the integral terms of trade has been more favourable to the south because the manufactured goods produced in the south have grown progressively more expensive than the traditional exports of the north, vis-à-vis minerals and forest products.” And you aren’t going to change it. That’s the unfortunate part.

This paper also goes on to talk about not only why the south was expanded and why the ministry, if it is to solve problems, is going to be a total failure, but it also talks about the “one-industry syndrome.” Again I say to the minister -- it’s a problem that isn’t even tackled in the bill.

“The central problem of the north is the one-industry syndrome. The settlements are devoid of diversified economic structure and are subject to wild fluctuations determined by the national and international demand structure for the resources. The perennial problem of migration by the young and the venturesome continues unabated. The vast economic landscape has been marred by a single urban industrial matrix which exhibits self-sustaining dynamism. Diversity or die must be the guiding motto for the operation of the ministry.”

You have nothing in your bill which is going to help you to develop the north; nothing.

I will go on, Mr. Speaker, and in it is one of the key statements of this planner’s position paper: First, the utilization of wealth generated in the north for northern development must occur. Second, a concerted effort to examine location in the north whenever investment decisions are made at the provincial level. Unless the province confronts this critical issue and resolves it in favour of the north, the creation of the ministry will only resolve into a legitimatization of another fiefdom to oversee a vast wasteland.”

Get this: “Attitudes and behaviour associated with the conception of the north as a large productive cow surviving on pulp, pollution and platitudes, with a teat for every southerner who can milk it at will, must give place to shared wealth and mutual respect.”

That isn’t in your bill and there is nothing in your bill that’s going to alter it one jot -- not a jot. The minister says it is more than a co-ordinating ministry; the Premier says it’s a co-ordinating ministry. I don’t know who to believe

An hon. member: I do.

Mr. Martel: I don’t know who to believe.

An hon. member: Don’t believe either of them.

Mr. Martel: Now, Mr. Speaker --

An hon. member: In conclusion?

Mr. Martel: No, I am sorry. I hate to disillusion you. I am going to be around for a little while yet.

An hon. member: That may be just as well.

Mr. Martel: It says, “The main thrust of the strategy for the north must reject the implicit policy of do something everywhere.”

My friend, the member for Algoma-Manitoulin, spoke too. He said, “Sometimes you New Democrats oppose things.” That’s right, we opposed Maple Mountain --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Point of order.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The hon. member has left the impression that this document was originated in my ministry by one of the planners in my ministry.

Mr. Martel: No, I didn’t say that.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: That’s the impression I was left with.

That’s not entirely correct. It is a letter that was well circulated from a planner in the Sudbury area, as I understand it.

Mr. Martel: No, I didn’t say that. It was --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You referred to it as a leak from my ministry.

Mr. Martel: No, no, with the greatest respect, Mr. Minister. I did not say that originated with one of your planners. I said I got it out of your ministry; I didn’t say it was one of your planners. I said it was a planner from the north. You check the record, okay?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: From Sudbury.

Mr. Martel: I know it’s from Sudbury. I didn’t get it there.

Mr. McClellan: Is that in the north, Leo? Did you know that was up north?

Mr. Lane: One of the great NDP.

Mr. Martel: Well, let me go back to “do something everywhere.”

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It’s dishonest.

An hon. member: Say that out loud, Leo.

Mr. Martel: Maple Mountain. Remember Maple Mountain, and the people in northern Ontario? Some of them would have bought it, because they thought it meant a few jobs. You don’t know what the word means.

Mr. Mackenzie: Fairness, Elie. He doesn’t know what it means.

Mr. Laughren: That’s the tragedy.

Mr. Martel: Getting back to my point, Mr. Speaker -- “do something everywhere.” That isn’t going to develop the north, to throw a Maple Mountain in now and then, without any planning, without any basis, to mislead the people into believing something is going to happen. They’re desperate -- the government makes a mockery of the people in the north when it does that sort of thing. And, “do something everywhere.” Well, this planner says that’s nonsense, the minister knows it and I know it.

“The primary role should be that of advocating the need and desirability of northern development among the southern establishment. That’s one thing that you have to do.

“The secondary role should be one of establishing a coherent construct which will provide guidelines for other ministries in organizing their activities in the north. The ministry should specifically avoid getting into the motherhood activity of co-ordination and should not end up duplicating the functions of other ministries.”

That’s part of what is going to happen, and that you can’t do. But, as I stand here, that’s what it will be -- a co-ordinating ministry duplicating the efforts of other ministries.

Because you know, with 120 staff -- no disrespect to their abilities -- the minister is going to do with 120 what the 25, 26 or 27 main ministries couldn’t plan? Nonsense. The minister doesn’t even have the staff.

We haven’t been enthusiastic about the ministry, and with good reason. As I said earlier, we have seen the former ministry evolve and go to pot.

Mr. Lane: There wasn’t any former ministry.

Mr. Martel: Well, there certainly was. I was here.

Mr. Lane: This is the first minister of northern Ontario. There wasn’t any former minister.

Mr. Laughren: He didn’t get re-elected?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, with the greatest of respect, there was a Ministry of Northern Affairs --

Mr. Lane: Mines and Northern Affairs.

Mr. Martel: -- and if the member from Manitoulin wants, I will send him the Hansard debate and the promises made by Allan Lawrence on what it was going to be.

Mr. Lane: It was a provincial ministry --

Mr. Martel: Ah, claptrap.

Mr. Lane: It’s not claptrap, it’s true. You don’t like the truth.

Mr. Martel: I don’t like the truth! There was a ministry called --

Mr. Lane: You wouldn’t know the truth if you met it, as a matter of fact.

Interjections.

Mr. Martel: Would you ask him to withdraw?

Interjections.

Mr. Martel: You know, the guru of grunts has just made his contribution for this session.

Interjections.

Mr. Peterson: The rumours of his death were greatly exaggerated.

Mr. Martel: He is still alive.

Mr. Laughren: Is Ed Havrot alive and living in John Lane?

Interjections.

Mr. Martel: In fact, I want to talk about the member for Algoma-Manitoulin, Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: Yes, speaking to the principle of the bill.

Hon. B. Stephenson: You haven’t been on it all night.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I don’t believe the member for Algoma-Manitoulin is mentioned in the bill.

Mr. Martel: He’s not. But you see, Mr. Speaker, as I understand it, the member from Algoma was the one who pushed to get this bill through. And he used as an example the two northern bills from Manitoba and Saskatchewan as the basis for his argument, little realizing that in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, in that part which is covered by a Ministry of Northern Affairs, there’s something like a total of 18,000 people in one province and 26,000 in the other province and they’re both above the 53rd parallel, which means that they’re dealing primarily with native people, in unorganized townships.

Mr. Lane: Totally wrong.

Mr. Martel: I have it here. Don’t tell me I’m totally wrong. I have it before me.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Thompson, Manitoba.

Mr. Martel: No it’s not. It’s not covered. You see? You should get your facts straight.

An hon. member: If Leo saw the facts he’d cover them up.

Mr. Martel: When you go around suggesting that you do what you do in Manitoba, we’re going to move some amendments, because in the bill -- in this little document that’s now in the minister’s name -- he provides for the establishment of a ministry and a minister -- and the Premier told him to spend half his time in northern Ontario -- and it appoints a deputy minister and a couple of assistant deputy ministers. It provides a great seal. It gives Campbell control, under section 7 of the bill, of that particular ministry, and by regulation many things are going to happen.

That’s the bill -- except for one thing. It provides for the greatest potential for pork-barrelling I’ve ever read in a bill. Listen to what section 11 says: “Subject to the approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, the minister may establish advisory committees to the minister and subcommittees thereto, appoint chairmen and members of such subcommittees and committees, and fix the remuneration and expenses of the chairmen and members of such committees and sub-committees.”

Mr. Warner: I wonder who will pay.

Mr. Martel: What’s your campaign manager’s name?

An hon. member: He’s all right.

Mr. Martel: Well, I want to tell you, we’re going to move to delete section 11.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Oh, no, Elie.

Mr. Martel: Yes, we’re going to move to delete section 11, because that just gives the minister too much power.

Mr. McClellan: Too much slush.

Mr. Martel: Well, I didn’t want to say slush. I didn’t want to be unkind. But I want to tell the minister what we will have -- if he accepts the amendments. Mr. Minister, we want to move in a couple of directions in your bill. We’ll move the amendments --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Two directions at the same time? Typical of you, Elie.

Mr. Martel: Well, for you, Mr. Minister, direction doesn’t seem to matter.

An hon. member: It’s all downhill.

Mr. Martel: Because your bill fails to deal with unorganized townships; and because your bill fails to spell out what services the minister is responsible for and where; and because your bill doesn’t deal with economic development; and because your bill fails to deal with providing taxes to the dormitory communities; and because your bill fails to prevent ghost towns -- we’re going to beef it up.

We’re going to move in the bill to, what I want to call, a community council, which will be the elected representatives in unorganized townships. It’s done under the Saskatchewan and the Manitoba bills. And these democratically elected people -- democratically elected, not appointed --

Mr. McClellan: Hard to understand, isn’t it?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Turned down, turned down.

Mr. Warner: It is not nice to have elected people, is it?

Mr. Martel: Well, you’ll probably turn it down. I have no doubt you’ll turn it down.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It was turned down in 120.

Mr. Martel: Well, 120 -- which? Oh, 102 --

[9:45]

Mr. Martel: In 102. I didn’t say we’d incorporate the towns. They are unorganized. It was your government that withdrew the bill and let it die on the order paper.

Mr. Laughren: It was this minister.

Mr. Martel: It was the former minister. We are going to move an amendment to create, in the unorganized communities, community councils, democratically elected, who will be able to receive grants and funding to provide the amenities which the unorganized communities presently don’t enjoy.

They can’t even get a street light, as the minister knows, because there is no way of getting money into them legally. The only thing they have got is local roads boards, and I think they can get a few recreational facilities if they go through a school board.

Mr. Warner: Begging.

Mr. Martel: But beyond that, it is near impossible. We are going to move it. And I hope you accept it then, because we are going to give you all the unorganized communities, Leo -- lock, stock and barrel. We are going to give you something to do. And we are going to move, through a series of definitions, what services you should provide funding for.

Let me list them. We believe you should provide funding for water supply, garbage and waste disposal, local roads, local drains, fire and police protection. Fire and police protection -- my colleague will tell you that the only thing this government has done is provide smoke detectors for fire protection in the unorganized townships.

Hon. Mr. Norton: They are very effective.

Mr. Martel: Yes, I know they are very effective -- to get you out of the house. You have nothing to save your house, mind you.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Save your skin.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, we want to provide street lighting, planning, recreational facilities.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Your point of order.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I can’t allow the hon. member to mislead the House with some of his comments.

Mr. Martel: No, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: He is misleading the House because he is saying that we do not assist in the unorganized communities with fire protection. Under the isolated communities assistance program we have been giving direct assistance to the unorganized communities for the purchase of fire trucks, portable pumps -- all those things that relate to fire protection -- over and above the assistance for the purchase of fire detectors.

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Cassidy: You are being very sensitive, you know.

Mr. Lane: You are really off track, Elie.

Mr. Deans: That is a point of view.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I do not believe that is a point of order.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It is misleading the House.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I believe it is becoming more of a discussion than a point of order. Would the hon. member for Sudbury East continue?

Mr. Martel: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your indulgence. What the minister is talking about is a couple of pilot projects. They bought firefighting equipment in my colleague’s, the member for --

Mr. Reid: And Nestor Falls.

Mr. Martel: Two of them. Two of them for the north, I believe, is the sum total.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I will send you a list.

Mr. Martel: Yes, you might. You might send a tank while you are at it to Awrey township, to Alban, to Wanup, to Estaire, all in my riding, while you are sending out these fire trucks in the list. Would you send four there? I’ll put my order in now.

Hon. W. Newman: Why don’t you sit down?

Mr. Roy: He wants them yellow, not red.

Mr. Martel: It doesn’t matter what colour as long as it puts some water on the house, so that it doesn’t happen in Awrey like last summer where the Natural Resources people came in and watched the house burn, and sprayed the trees so they wouldn’t catch on fire. But the house burned to the ground in Awrey township.

Mr. Roy: Leo does that all the time.

Mr. Martel: That is the type of protection you are talking about, is it, Leo? Well that happened in Awrey. But that’s okay.

Mr. Laughren: In Gogama they used the Bill Newman statute.

Mr. Martel: Right. So, Mr. Speaker, we are going to move this list of services which Tom Campbell, with the assistance of the minister --

Hon. Mr. Norton: Are you going to suggest he also be fire chief of the north?

Mr. Martel: Well, you might find a job that he is good at.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Elie for fire chief.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: Make him the big kahuna for the north.

Hon. Mr. Norton: You can be the mascot.

Mr. Martel: He can be the chief firefighter.

Mr. Deans: What is the matter with fire chiefs?

Mr. Martel: When my friend over here asks you questions about your ministry, you can’t answer. Don’t contribute here. You don’t know what you are talking about.

Hon. Mr. Norton: He hasn’t asked me lately -- I have been waiting. Sparky from Sudbury is speaking -- come on, Sparky.

An hon. member: You have all the answers.

Mr. Martel: Well, back to the bill, Mr. Speaker. Would you get them in order?

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I would suggest that the member direct his remarks through the Chair.

Mr. Martel: I’m looking directly at you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Breithaupt: But you are listening over there.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, not only are we going to move the community councils and not only are we going to attempt to move in the bill the services and the funding which the government can provide, we are going to move a number --

Hon. Mr. Norton: And the direction of the hoses.

Mr. Martel: The what?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Norton: The direction of the hoses.

Mr. Martel: Well, we could use hoses. We are tired of just smoke bombs.

Hon. Mr. Norton: That should be included in the legislation for sure -- the direction of the hoses.

Mr. Martel: We don’t want smoke bombs. We want hoses.

Hon. Mr. Norton: You are going to get it.

Mr. Martel: I’d say something else but I won’t -- with respect to hoses.

We also in the bill want to move that the ministry would, in fact, have some responsibility for ensuring the total delivery of health services and communications in northern Ontario. My friend, the member for Rainy River, spoke to that earlier so I won’t enlarge upon it, save to say that if one looks at the shortage of doctors, the shortage of dentists, surely this is a great role for the new ministry to guarantee -- and I’m sure the member for Algoma-Manitoulin is going to support the amendments that we are going to introduce because obviously he is with us.

We are also going to provide three economic moves.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Now listen, what do you know about economics?

Mr. Martel: I don’t. I’m like the minister for Community and Social Services. He doesn’t know anything about social services and yet he is the minister. That’s probably the best thing that happened to the ministry.

Hon. Mr. Norton: I don’t know anything about economics either -- I don’t pretend to make economic suggestions. I am just concerned about people.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I wish the Minister of Community and Social Services would refrain from interjecting.

Mr. Martel: They tell me he makes his best speeches when he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

An hon. member: It takes one to know one.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, we are also going to move three economic amendments which we hope the minister will accept. He’s got them before him. One of them we want to call a Tomorrow Fund --

Hon. Mr. Norton: A what?

Mr. Martel: A Tomorrow Fund.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Tomorrow begins today -- or yesterday.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Yesterday begins tomorrow, isn’t that it?

Mr. Martel: I thought it had a nice ring to it.

Hon. B. Stephenson: You would.

Interjections.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of that fund will be --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mañana.

Mr. Martel: No, no. It will be based on the resource taxes which are now extracted, and a certain percentage of those funds we would like to see diverted into a special fund. So that when a Blind River occurs or a Matachewan or somewhere else, we in fact --

Interjection.

Mr. Martel: Yes, don’t talk about Matachewan and the Tory literature during the campaign.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Where is Bob Bain? Where is Bob Bain?

Mr. Martel: I remember the member for Timiskaming --

Hon. Mr. Norton: I am glad you can still remember him. He hasn’t been gone that long.

Mr. Martel: -- getting up during the campaign and saying, “The NDP closed down Matachewan.” He forgot to read Frank Miller’s statements in the House. Dishonest? Call it what you want.

An hon. member: Shame. Shame.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I remember Bob Bain.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, we want to guarantee that there is a fund developed so that when a one-industry town starts to go downhill because of its one industry being based on some natural resource which is depleted, that it will not become a ghost town. We are saying that there should be a fund so that the government could help.

The real problem in Blind River, as I understand it, is that the wood is there but it’s the difficulty in getting the wood to North Bay to dry it out. Because of the amount of moisture in the wood, there is a great loss in weight during the haulage. It reaches a point where financially you can’t do it. So there might be a case of trying to establish an industry based on the woods that are there, and maybe some type of drying process in the area which would allow that to become economically viable.

I well recall going through this time after time with everybody over in TEIGA saying, “We have no money for that sort of thing.” We want to move an amendment which would take a certain percentage of the taxes from the non-renewable resources and deposit them somewhere, so that when the day comes we will not see the destruction of a one-industry town, but will be able to turn to a new viable industry.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Norton: The member is going to direct the hoses and take the moisture out of the wood, is that right?

Mr. Martel: I think we are going to direct the hoses at the minister.

Hon. Mr. Norton: It is the member who is going to get hosed. I want to know whether I can support the member’s amendments or not.

Mr. Martel: I would expect the ministry to. It’s Leo that I need to convince.

Hon. W. Newman: Isn’t the member finished yet? Does he like to listen to himself talk all night?

Mr. Martel: Did you wake up, Bill?

Mr. Laughren: Quiet there.

Mr. Martel: Go back to sleep.

Mr. Laughren: Be quiet or I will deface your statue.

Mr. Martel: The second amendment we want to move with respect to economics is the one that was in the 1974 budget, so that you don’t get too fanatic about a socialist plot. It was moved by John White. Do you remember John White? He used to be a minister around here. In his 1974 budget he indicated that the government was going to establish a Crown corporation to do exploration for new resources, because, as the minister is well aware, we don’t have a new mine on stream -- we don’t have one close to coming on stream. In fact, exploration in northern Ontario has gone downhill.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You fellows scared them away.

Mr. Martel: We scared them away! The minister’s government has been in power for 34 years.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You scared them away.

Mr. Breithaupt: Socialism.

Mr. Martel: Is that socialism?

Mr. Breithaupt: I think that was the reason given, wasn’t it?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: I knew he’d blame us. Somebody has got to be responsible for the fact there are no new mines going into the north.

Interjection.

Mr. Martel: That’s right, we have been in power. I didn’t realize it. I wish somebody had told me.

Mr. Mackenzie: Tory efficiency.

Mr. Martel: Yes, but it’s interesting that John White in his 1974 budget proposed a Crown corporation because the mining industry was spending very little money in exploration. That died somewhere along the way. I don’t know why, because it is still functioning, as I understand, in Quebec. The problems in Ontario continue to mount; there is very little exploration going on. The minister has tried to buy them into the north. He established a fund worth $3 million a year or so ago for exploration in and around Cobalt and that hasn’t panned out all that well. So we’re going to move an amendment along the Tory lines as espoused by the former Treasurer. You should be able to accept that because it did come from the Treasurer, and some of you were around here when John White was here --

Mr. Laughren: A heavyweight.

Mr. Martel: We want to move a lengthy amendment dealing with the lending of funds. I realize the minister is going to say, “Well, we’ve got NODC.” But NODC doesn’t do the job. It provides some money for tourism but in its efforts to encourage not only processing but the manufacturing of raw materials in the north, it has been very tight-fisted with its funding. My colleague, the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes), will elaborate on that quite extensively when he speaks in this debate.

NODC has failed miserably to help develop the north and that’s what it was created for. I remember that 1967 promise as well -- it was called the NODC, and it was primarily for northern Ontario, but, in fact, it doesn’t do much to develop northern Ontario; it really hasn’t. It has developed some tourism, thank you, but it hasn’t done much to develop the natural resources and manufacturing related to those natural resources.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Things won’t be so bad when they return a majority of Tory members.

Mr. Mackenzie: Why don’t you try it?

Mr. Martel: Does the member want to run against me? He is the one who said they are going to knock me off. They’ve got 9,100 to catch up.

Mr. Lane: You’ve got them all brainwashed.

Mr. Breithaupt: Back to the bill.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Back to the bill.

[10:00]

Mr. Mackenzie: You new boys might not come back

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. That hardly pertains to the bill.

Mr. Martel: We want to move that particular amendment because we don’t think NODC has provided loans in a sufficient number of areas in order to develop the full potential of northern Ontario.

I’m sure the minister agrees with me. He might not want to say it publicly, but I think he too feels that way about NODC. Maybe the guidelines it operates under are too restrictive to encourage the processing or the manufacturing related to the natural resources.

We want to move that amendment and tie it in to natural resource development, providing loans to co-ops, or to industry, or to businessmen, whoever might want them. And that’s something that NODC doesn’t do. And I think it’s one of the reasons we don’t have processing and manufacturing, which leads to the reasons why young people leave the north, which leads to the other reason why women don’t have jobs.

We’re simply trying to move three economic amendments -- one, a tomorrow fund to prevent ghost towns from developing; the second, an amendment establishing a Crown corporation to do exploration, because the minister knows that it’s not going on; and, thirdly, a much broader interpretation on the lending of money in order to entice industry related to natural resources to the north.

I want to tell the minister, I’ve spent a lot of time on this bill.

Mr. Hennessy: Have you?

Mr. Martel: Yes.

Mr. Hennessy: I didn’t even know that.

Mr. Martel: You wouldn’t.

Mr. Mackenzie: You never will.

An hon. member: I’m sure that that’s not all you don’t know.

Mr. Martel: I try to be nice but they keep making these snide remarks --

Mr. Hennessy: Say what you’ve got to say.

Mr. Martel: -- these new boys, these one-trippers. Don’t buy a home here yet, okay?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lane: Where are your one-trippers from last time?

Mr. Martel: Some of them aren’t here, but some of yours aren’t either. Where’s Marvin?

Mr. Lane: They’re not around. We haven’t got any.

Mr. Martel: Where’s Marvin? I can’t see him over there. I can’t even see his seat.

Mr. Lane: We come to stay. We don’t just come for a trip.

Hon. W. Newman: You can’t see yourself. Why don’t you --

Mr. Martel: Willy, don’t get exercised.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Where is Bill? Where is Bob? Where is lain?

Mr. Martel: Well, where is the former Minister of Correctional Services? Is he here?

Interjections.

Mr. Hodgson: Elie, you were better in last night’s estimates.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: The extended one.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Martel: Listen, why don’t you people get back to the principle of the bill?

Interjections.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Elie, you have been there all night.

Mr. Martel: We’d also like to see the minister move with respect to taxation providing some assistance for the dormitory communities. Those communities, as I said earlier, provide the work force, but in fact the camps or the plants are in other townships. Or the mine. And there’s no way of getting the funds necessary back to those communities to provide the services which are lacking.

The minister knows of what I speak, particularly in his area, because there are a lot of small communities where the workers travel to somewhere else and there’s no tax base to provide the amenities that those communities need. It’s a problem that my colleague, the member for Lake Nipigon, has raised time and time again. The minister’s aware of it. But it’s not in the bill either and the government isn’t moving on it. It really isn’t.

The minister has a fund of $500,000 and maybe another $500,000 coming, but that isn’t enough to provide any amenities for one community. It might provide a drinking water system. Who provided that drinking water system in Gogama?

Mr. Laughren: Bill Newman.

Mr. Martel: Was that Bill Newman?

Mr. Laughren: Bill Newman.

Mr. Martel: Oh, yes, he provided the one tap, the community tap for how many people?

Hon. W. Newman: And how many of your guys were up at that gathering?

Mr. Pope: All the drips were together.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Did you check your election brochure?

Mr. Martel: Can you imagine that in Ontario in 1977, a community tap? My God!

Hon. B. Stephenson: It is better than none.

Mr. Pope: And all the NDP standing around collecting the drips.

Mr. Martel: A community tap in northern Ontario. Boy, oh boy. I want to tell you --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You all took credit for it. I will bring the election brochure tomorrow. Tomorrow. Standing beside the water tap.

Mr. Martel: Hopefully, Mr. Minister, you will. Hopefully, Mr. Minister, you will in fact get into your ministry the provision of a taxation base for these dormitory communities, because they simply can’t exist.

Mr. Speaker, what I’ve attempted to indicate is the six amendments we want to move in the bill; a large preamble at the beginning and six major amendments which would give the ministry some substance beyond the co-ordinating role: (a) the major ones to deal with the unorganized townships to provide the services which are lacking; and (b) a series to deal with the economy, to give the minister the power to deal with the proper economic development of the north.

My colleague, the member for Nickel Belt, will speak to the matter of the Sudbury Chamber of Commerce report which the member for Rainy River spoke about earlier.

I want to tell you they’ve made Darcy McKeough an honorary member of the Chamber of Commerce in Sudbury based on Darcy’s response, which was, for the new Tories: “You won’t have secondary industry in northern Ontario for 20 years.” That’s what Darcy said.

Mr. Warner: That’s great.

Mr. Martel: The member for Fort William pounds the desk. We won’t have secondary industry in northern Ontario for 20 years, and the member for Fort William obviously supports that, Mr. Speaker. That bodes well for the people in the Fort William area, it really does.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: He will be back.

Mr. Martel: We want to move those amendments to provide this ministry, because McKeough doesn’t want it, with some of the tools necessary to provide the proper economic development in northern Ontario.

Finally, there’s a new rule in the House which says we can move these bills to committee. It also says, in the new rules, I believe, that we can establish subcommittees. I want to propose, Mr. Speaker, that we establish a subcommittee of the standing resources development committee which in fact will tour northern Ontario, which will go to northern Ontario instead of northern Ontario coming here, and I venture to tell you that those people, and I spoke at their convention recently --

Mr. Laughren: In Gogama.

Mr. Martel: -- will not be interested in a co-ordinating ministry but in fact are more interested in resolving the problems of the unorganized townships and the proper economic development of the north than anything else; they want some action.

Mr. Warner: They want action; they don’t want you.

Mr. Martel: This minister and a subcommittee should go to maybe 10 or 12 of those municipalities and hear from the local people. I want to tell you they’ll accept these amendments and they’ll give you the power, because that’s what we want to give you, the power.

I hope the minister has had an opportunity to see the amendments we’re going to move; and I hope he’s amenable to accepting them, because we’re going to support the bill on second reading, but -- if the amendments don’t come I want to tell you we’ll oppose the bill on third reading.

Mr. Lane: I’ll dare you to.

Mr. Hodgson: That is okay; we don’t care.

Mr. Martel: We want to give you a bill that will in fact develop the north properly and get rid of the unorganized townships. We want to give you the tools to do it. It’s up to you, as a government, to accept those tools and get on with the job. If you’re going to maintain your role as merely a co-ordinating ministry, then get out.

Hon. B. Stephenson: You couldn’t run a peanut stand.

Mr. Martel: That is a hell of a lot more than you could run, I suspect.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: That is not very nice; that is not very parliamentary.

Mr. Laughren: You can’t run a ministry.

Mr. Martel: You’re not doing very good at running a ministry or the Workmen’s Compensation Board.

Mr. Laughren: That’s right; you’re a disaster.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You’re completely out of order.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, in finalizing my remarks, after 341 --

(Applause.)

Mr. Martel: Having just changed my mind, I suspect I’ll go on for another hour.

Mr. Lane: We’ll do even better when you sit down.

Mr. Eakins: Take 20 minutes to summarize; don’t rush the summary.

Mr. Lane: Save it for your leadership convention.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, after 34 years -- I guess it’s 34 years --

Mr. Lane: Are you that old?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Thirty-four coming up.

Mr. Martel: -- of Tory rule in Ontario, we hear the minister saying: “We don’t have any mining in northern Ontario, and it’s your fault; we don’t have any exploration in northern Ontario, and it’s your fault.” As though we’ve been in power; the Tories have been in power.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You are scaring them off.

Mr. Martel: You’ve shafted the north for 34 years.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Don’t you like this province?

Mr. Lane: You don’t want it to be changed.

Mr. Martel: Oh yes; and we’re going to try to provide the tools for it. Is the member for Algoma-Manitoulin going to make a speech on this bill?

Mr. Lane: I just may do that.

Mr. Martel: You just made it. I thought you did. Your contribution was significant, I really want to tell you.

Mr. Lane: I’ve done more for the north than you ever thought of doing.

Mr. Martel: Yes, the miners in Elliot Lake believe you; they moved south. The Elliot Lake miners believe you.

Mr. Laughren: Tell us about that.

Mr. Martel: After 34 years of neglect.

Mr. Walker: Ask the people up there.

Mr. Martel: I did; in Elliot Lake they voted against him, after 34 years.

Mr. Walker: He won it big; won Elliot Lake big.

Mr. Laughren: No, he didn’t.

Mr. Martel: When was that, the first time he ran?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Can we get back to the principle of the bill?

Mr. Walker: He won Elliot Lake this time.

Mr. Laughren: You can’t count.

Mr. Martel: After 34 years of Tory neglect.

Mr. Eakins: Take your time in summing up, Elie.

Mr. Laughren: The Archie Bunker of the north.

Mr. Martel: It is going to take some rather bold initiatives to change what has been going on up there. We are going to give those amendments to the minister --

Mr. Lane: We have already got them.

Mr. Martel: -- and, hopefully he will accept them. We will support them, and the minister will have the tools to do the job. I only hope the Premier doesn’t phone the minister at midnight tonight and say: “Leo, you can’t accept any of those amendments” and he will come back tomorrow and stonewall.

Mr. Pope: At least they communicate. How about you and your leader?

Mr. Martel: Do they? I wish they had communicated on whether we were going to support the bill or not. Obviously they didn’t.

Mr. Pope: I wish you and your leader would decide what your nationalism policy was.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sudbury East has the floor. Would he address the Chair, please?

Mr. Martel: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Walker: Why should he start now?

Mr. Martel: I hope that if the minister wants this, he will accept the amendment and the suggestion of going to the north to hear those northerners, community by community with a small subcommittee, and then we will do the things necessary to make the north economically sound. Hopefully, we don’t have to vote against the bill on third reading. Hopefully, the minister will accept the amendments.

Mr. Hennessy: Mr. Speaker --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Some words of wisdom.

Mr. Roy: Give them hell, Mickey.

Mr. Warner: Oh, that was excellent.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Fort William has the floor.

Mr. Hennessy: The hon. member for Sudbury East mentioned 34 years. I thought he was speaking for 34 years here.

Mr. Martel: I could be around for 34 years, not like some one-trippers.

Mr. Hennessy: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a great pleasure for me, as the newly elected representative of Fort William, to have this opportunity to speak in support of second reading of An Act to establish a Ministry of Northern Affairs. I may be a one-timer, but I am speaking.

Being a native northerner myself, I feel that establishing a ministry for the north, in the north, is the only way in which we will truly bring the northern Ontario story across to the rest of the province -- and that’s quite a distance to travel, as the north comprises almost 90 per cent of the entire land mass in the province of Ontario, making it roughly nine times the size of southern Ontario, which is where the northern story usually gets somewhat distorted by those who have never been farther north than their cottages in the Muskokas.

Mr. Eakins: Wait until the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. F. S. Miller) hears that.

Mr. Stokes: You are doing fine, so far.

Interjections.

Mr. Hennessy: I can wait.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Fort William has the floor.

Mr. Warner: The member for Fort William is on the floor.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order.

Mr. Hennessy: I don’t know how these fellows got out.

Mr. Warner: Stand up.

Mr. Laughren: Don’t tease the bears.

Mr. Hennessy: No, the northern story has to be told by those who know the north and its conditions which create unique and difficult problems which are unlike those experienced in the south.

Mr. Martel: There is that phrase again: “unique problems.”

Mr. Hennessy: I refer to such things as the harshness of the land, the climate, the sparse population and the expense of everyday necessities which most southerners take for granted.

Mr. Mancini: Did the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope) write this for his colleague?

Mr. Hennessy: When I was campaigning, I noticed that a lot of northerners were concerned that many laws and regulations had been made for the south and simply were out of touch with the conditions experienced in the north.

Mr. Warner: Hope they never break their crayons?

Mr. Hennessy: What is necessary and justified for the urbanized, densely populated south is not necessarily very practical for the dispersed population of the north. But this does not mean that my constituents in Fort William, or those in any other northern area for that matter, are content to forgo modern living standards just because they live a great distance from heavily populated south.

Mr. Warner: If you keep this up, you will get Leo’s job.

Mr. Pope: That’s more than you will get.

[10:15]

Mr. Hennessy: In view of this, many northerners are very enthusiastic about the new ministry of Northern Affairs that would have special responsibility for ensuring that when government decisions are made, the special needs and problems of the North will not be overlooked. Thus, what the north really requires is a ministry such as Northern Affairs to bring together the ideas and policies coming from the various ministries, and a minister -- there’s your chance, fellas -- like my colleague Leo Bernier, to be the northern spokesman --

Mr. Warner: You’ve missed a cue.

Mr. Martel: Leo, you will have to train them better than that.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: They’re doing very well.

Mr. Hennessy: -- to be the northern spokesman in the Legislature and in the cabinet on behalf of all northerners.

Mr. Laughren: Except the miners.

Mr. Hennessy: In sum, the ministry should be the eyes, the ears and the voice of northern Ontario.

Mr. Reid: What about the rest of the body?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. These interjections are not adding to the calibre of the debate. Will the hon. member for Fort William be allowed to continue? Order, please. The member for Fort William.

Mr. Hennessy: Along with the various programs of the other ministries in the north, I think it is very important that the great majority of the personnel in the new ministry, including both assistant deputy ministers, will be living and working in the north. In this way government can be brought closer to the northerners and the age-old problem of trying to get the brass down in Toronto to pay attention to their problems will be less.

I understand that since the earlier version of this legislation was presented, a few adjustments have been made. One of particular importance which I would like to draw to the members’ attention is the provision that the Ministry of Northern Affairs will have almost full play in responding to the emergencies in the north, such as natural disasters and fires which threaten both the lives and property of residents. Another emergency program that should be applauded is the emergency water supply assistance program to aid livestock farmers in drought-stricken areas of northern Ontario, jointly funded by the ministries of Northern Affairs and Agriculture and Food. This program will provide well improvements for livestock farmers facing a serious drought in Thunder Bay, Kenora, Rainy River, Algoma, Manitoulin Island, and other parts of the north.

I realize, of course, that the Ministry of Northern Affairs will not be able to find instant solutions to the many problems confronting northern Ontario.

Mr. Laughren: That’s part of the problem.

Mr. Hennessy: I do believe, however, that if all the members of this House agree that the people in northern Ontario have every right to expect the same standard of living as the rest of Ontario, then the Ministry of Northern Affairs must be fully endorsed to ensure that these northerners --

Mr. Deans: Who has been denying them?

Mr. Hennessy: -- have more development and social progress than they have ever experienced before. I thank you for your attention.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker --

An hon. member: A ministry for western Ontario.

Mr. Peterson: -- I feel obliged to participate in this debate to put just a little different perspective on it from a different point of view.

Mr. Stokes: You are not even London North.

Mr. Peterson: I don’t rise as an expert in northern problems or all of the things that are expressed here tonight. I have sympathy for my colleague from Rainy River and the member for Sudbury, who spoke eloquently and well, as did the minister, in fairness. He has articulated some of the problems.

What disturbs me so very, very much is that these problems have existed forever and we have created a new bureaucracy to attempt to attack them. We hear these pleas of sympathy, we hear this nonsense about people not understanding the north, year after year after year in this House, the same old rhetoric, the same old stuff, with no creative new institution to handle them.

Mr. Lane: Better late than never.

Mr. Peterson: What disturbs me, albeit somewhat from afar, is the belief that this new ministry is going to solve one problem. When I look at this bloated, inflated cabinet that you have, this new co-ordinating body of the Ministry of Northern Affairs -- it’s just going to co-ordinate all of the past functions that should be done by other ministries anyway -- it seems to me that it’s a mute testament to the failure of various departments over a long period of years. I have spoken at great length on many other occasions, Mr. Speaker, about this great, fantastic growth in government. And had you been a success in your other portfolios this portfolio would not be necessary.

Mr. Hodgson: How would you know?

Mr. Peterson: We have 26 people in the cabinet today in this government. In England they only have 23. We are creating more and more and more bureaucracy.

I looked through the estimates. We’re going to be spending $120 million next year. Yet I look at the estimates of almost every other bureaucracy, every other portfolio that the minister has presumably taken some functions from -- and it has yet to be determined what functions specifically he is taking from whom and how and how much.

I look at TEIGA and he’s taking a lot of the TEIGA functions. TEIGA’s estimates are up 13.3 per cent for this year. I look at Transportation and Communications. They’re up 13.4 per cent. So I think the minister is going to have a very serious job to prove to the members of this House and to the people of this province where he is getting that money and what in fact he is saving. It’s just a reallocation. It’s just a juggling of numbers sideways. At least in my search -- and perhaps I’m mistaken on this -- I haven’t seen any places where anyone else is saving any great quantities of money.

The minister said tonight in a statement with great pride that he’s going to locate his two assistant deputy ministers in the north. Mr. Speaker, they are so behind the times. This should have been done years past. They should have decentralized. There are many ministries here that should be located in the north with the deputy ministers. There’s nothing new. There’s nothing revolutionary.

Mr. Lane: Better late than never.

Mr. Peterson: It’s long, long, long after the fact. We have argued in this party at great length --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You are on both sides.

Mr. Peterson: Totally consistently, totally consistently -- that we have said that certain of the ministries, Natural Resources, the Resources Secretariat, those major bureaucracies should be in the north, just as other bureaucracies -- for example, Agriculture or whatever -- should be in all other parts of Ontario that need the stability of a civil service payroll, that need the stability and the ripple effect that that promotes in that local community.

The minister comes here to this House tonight and in the past few weeks and talks as if he’s bringing something revolutionary to the people of the north. In my judgement, albeit I don’t have as much experience as he does, it looks to me terribly, terribly, terribly superficial. And it really, as I said before, is a testament to the failure of your past programs --

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Don’t be an expert in government.

Mr. Peterson: -- and you have had enough problems in other ministries, I say with great respect, Mr. Minister, that you are entering your job with a very serious credibility problem, not only with the people of this House and particularly on this side -- some on your own side also, I should add -- but also with the people --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Would the hon. member address the bill through the Chair, please?

Mr. Peterson: Probably if the government was serious about this they would not have distinguished the portfolio with this particular minister.

This whole thing is being used for such blatant political purposes, and we could see that during the campaign. It’s interesting. I saw an ad for the member for Parry Sound (Mr. Maeck) during the campaign. It was a most interesting ad. This was just after the government redesignated Parry Sound into northern Ontario -- and I assume that’s going to be its philosophy, let --

Mr. Mancini: Cheap political trick.

Mr. Peterson: -- northern Ontario creep south if it’s into political trouble or whatever, for additional grants or whatever.

I remember the ad for the member for Parry Sound was, what is -- I forget exactly how it read -- “What is Lorne Maeck?” or “What is the Progressive Conservative Party?” It says: “$10 licence plates.”

Hon. W. Newman: We will get Charlie Farquharson after you if you are not careful.

Mr. Peterson: Charlie Farquharson is very fond of me.

An hon. member: You’d better read the ad again.

Mr. Peterson: I saw that ad. I’ve got a copy of it.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Peterson: But I tell you it smacks of the smelly kind of politics that you’re playing with this bureaucracy, that you’re playing with this kind of ministry, and frankly it’s not the kind of thing that you should be very proud of. I’m ashamed that you’re back here.

Mr. Mancini: That’s right, Lorne.

Mr. Speaker: Would the hon. member please address his remarks through the Chair?

Mr. Peterson: Would you promise to convey this on?

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Mr. Peterson: But it’s interesting to me also, Mr. Speaker, that the minister comes in -- a minister who is not yet designated. I am not sure, and I’d be interested in knowing under what authority he is operating now, whether he’s Minister without Portfolio responsible for northern affairs --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Peterson: -- whether he is Minister of Northern Affairs, because the legislation is not in place. He can’t, as far as I know, in my naivety, call himself the Minister of Northern Affairs. Yet he brings in a bill to introduce his own portfolio. That seems to me at the outset to be a highly presumptuous approach to this kind of problem, particularly in a minority government where you don’t have the options that maybe you once had.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You are naive.

Mr. Roy: Yes, where is the authorization for paying you?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member will continue.

Mr. Peterson: I want to see the authority under which he has been paid for these past few months --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Peterson: -- until the creation of this thing. I think that the whole thing, the whole way it has been set up and the whole way it has been operated, has been presumptuous and doesn’t speak to some of the real problems.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: With that kind of homework you will never be leader.

Mr. Peterson: I was also interested in the minister’s statement, tonight. He talked about co-ordinating.

Mr. Roy: You certainly haven’t been earning your pay, I’ll say that for you. You never did, even when you had a ministry.

Mr. Peterson: He talked about co-ordinating housing projects with the Ministry of Housing; he talked about co-ordinating with the Minister of Agriculture for agricultural programs; he talked about co-ordinating with TEIGA for industrial parks and services and for mining with Natural Resources.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Only one person has the floor. Do the other members not realize that? Surely, you don’t have to be chastised eternally on this matter of interjections. The hon. member for London Centre is the only one who has the floor at the moment. Would he continue for the next 30 seconds?

Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker I appreciate that. What is interesting to me, going back to the minister’s statement of tonight, is that he talks about co-ordinating with all of these bodies. It seems to me that if there is a job to be done, one ministry should do it. We end up with all these nameless, faceless bureaucrats, co-ordinating, dependent one on the other; so much time spent fussing around.

As was eloquently stated by my colleague from Rainy River tonight, there are more reports on the north, there are more people co-ordinating, more people trying to understand the problems. And the results are dismal. There is no one in this House, on either side of the House, who is happy with what has gone on heretofore.

We hear all these cries about what we need in the north; we hear them from all sides; and assuming that some percentage of it is genuine, we see very, very few genuine attacks on the specific problems. It seems to me at a certain point that rhetoric has got to stop and a lean, efficient delivery of services has to come about, not just in the north, but in all areas.

Mr. Pope: What specifically are you proposing?

Mr. Peterson: What disturbs me about this one is just one more ministry -- 25, now 26. All of us who have been here, even for as little time as I have been here, realize why this minister is in that job. It is no secret to any observer of the scene here.

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. member have further remarks, because it is now 10:30?

Mr. Peterson: Perhaps we should adjourn. The debate will be going on tomorrow?

Mr. Speaker: I’m trying to determine. If the hon. member just has a minute or two perhaps we can get the permission of the House to --

Mr. Deans: No.

Mr. Peterson: I haven’t decided yet, Mr. Speaker. It depends on how much they aggravate. If they aggravate me I’ll keep going on forever.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, perhaps in the interest of fairness to my other colleagues and the other people across the floor I’ll just conclude very briefly.

What disturbs me, and I just want to put in this one different perspective, is that I am very pessimistic about the creation of this ministry solving the problems. I am very sympathetic to those problems and I wish they could be solved. We don’t necessarily think they are going to be solved in this way, even though in the circumstances we are going to support the legislation.

On motion by Mr. Laughren, the debate was adjourned.

On motion by Hon. Mr. Parrott, the House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.