The House resumed at 8 p.m.

CORRECTION OF PRESS REPORTS

Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege, and I want to say, I do so reluctantly. This is the first time in my six and a half years in this Legislature I have felt constrained to correct a press report.

Shortly after the routine proceedings this afternoon, the four-star edition of the Toronto Star came to my attention in which there is an article dealing with a speech I made in St. Catharines last night. I want to say the reporter is known to me as a normally conscientious, accurate and competent reporter, but unfortunately in this case there is an impression left that I was criticizing what has happened to the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations since I left it.

Mr. Laughren: Heaven forbid. You wouldn’t do that, Sid.

Mr. Handleman: I want to make it quite clear that the statements in my speech referred to the situation in the ministry -- and I referred to the date when it was formed -- in 1972. If I may, Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the record by reading a very short portion of that speech.

I said, “The government of Canada and all of the provinces have established vast bureaucracies to develop and administer the rapidly expanding body of legislation designed to improve consumer rights. What we now have are bureaucratic mazes, like Ontario’s Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. It was created in 1972 out of a number of regulatory bodies.” I want to make it clear that I was referring to what I consider to be the situation of the ministry since its formation and while some may disagree with my description as a bureaucratic maze, I stand by that description.

While I am on my feet, I also would like to draw attention to what may be perpetuated as a misconception of the position I took earlier this week. The same reporter says I had criticized the Premier (Mr. Davis) for holding a reception for the Premier of Quebec. I want to make it quite clear -- and it was corrected later on in the Sun -- that I said that the Premier did what the Premier should do, act as a courteous host to a visiting premier, but that I did not feel constrained to attend. I think that there is a great difference between criticizing the Premier for holding the reception, which I did not do, and myself refusing to attend, which I did do and that is well known.

Mr. Warner: Boycotting it.

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Resumption of the adjourned debate on the amendment to the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.

Mr. Warner: Mr. Speaker, obviously not all the members of the assembly were aware that I would be speaking this evening --

Mr. Handleman: I wouldn’t have been here.

Mr. J. Reed: If I had known, I wouldn’t be here.

Mr. Warner: -- otherwise we would have filled the benches immediately.

There is a very important matter which I wish to address myself to but before I begin I can’t help but comment upon the boycott by the member for Carleton of the --

Mr. Handleman: That is your word, not mine.

Mr. Warner: Yes it’s my word, but it’s a very sad commentary when a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario will not attend a very important official function to welcome the premier of another province into our midst. Although it got buried somewhere in the pages of our local papers, members must remember it was up-front news in Quebec.

Mr. Handleman: Show me where. Which paper?

Mr. Warner: That kind of action does nothing but deteriorate the situation between Ontario and Quebec.

Mr. Handleman: Tell me one paper it was in.

Mr. Warner: It weakens the opportunities for us to try to reach out to those people in Quebec who are federalists and say to them that it is important f or Quebec to remain as a member of this Confederation.

Mr. Handleman: It certainly is.

Mr. Warner: Surely, it behoves every member of this assembly to make every effort to try and save Confederation and that includes extending the courtesies to the Premier of Quebec when he comes to visit here in Toronto.

Mr. Handleman: You do it your way, I’ll do it mine.

Mr. Warner: I put the boycott of the member for Carleton in the same category as those bigots who booed at the CNE when our national anthem was sung in our two official languages. A very sad comment.

Earlier today, I found it necessary to take what I believe to be a unique approach to the assembly in petitioning the government on behalf of another member of the assembly. I did so in the long-standing tradition which dates back to 1669 in the Petition of Rights in the British House of Commons. It was on the basis, as stated in 1669, that it is the inherent right of every commoner in England to prepare and present petitions to the House of Commons in case of grievance, and incumbent on the House of Commons to receive the same.

Further, as stated by Sir Valentine Blake on August 30, 1841; Sir James Graham, April 30, 1846; and Fergus O’Connor, July 9, 1850; “A peer or member may petition the House to which he belongs; but if a member desires to have a petition from himself presented to the House, he should entrust it to some other member, as he will not be permitted to present it himself.”

I petitioned the assembly today because of the block that took place yesterday by both the Liberal and Tory members in the rent review committee when they rose to block my motion to have an extension of the present rent review system, due to the pending legal problem which will face both tenants and landlords as of September 30.

Mr. Haggerty: You are premature.

Mr. Warner: Particularly for the edification of the Liberal members who happen to stumble upon the House this evening, I would bring to their attention that --

Mr. J. Reed: Speak for yourself.

Mr. Warner: -- the rent review committee is directed to report back to the House no later than June 15. It is anticipated that the assembly will rise on June 23 and will not sit again until October. That means that in keeping with the legal restriction of September 30 for new legislation the government must then take the committee’s report on the 15th, digest it, have adequate discussion of their drafted legislation, have it fully debated in the assembly and out in committee, where the public can take part, and have it passed within eight days.

Mr. Speaker, I can readily appreciate that that is not likely to be physically possible and, therefore, when we reach September 30, at which time the House will not likely be sitting, we have reached a very serious legal problem for both landlords and tenants in the province of Ontario because of the 90-day provision of the Landlord and Tenant Act and of the parallel feature in the rent review act --

Mr. Kerrio: It’s all your fault.

Mr. Warner: -- which is to expire on December 31. So therefore my motion yesterday was a very reasonable one --

Mr. Hodgson: I think it was a terrible motion.

Mr. Warner: -- that while the government is considering its legislation, whatever that is going to be, they simply extend the present legislation for a period of up to six months, during which time they can obviously introduce whatever legislation they deem to be fit and necessary. A perfectly reasonable motion. The Liberals joined with the Tories to block that motion --

Mr. Hodgson: It’s a good job common sense prevailed.

Mr. Warner: -- and obviously the only comment that can be made is that they care not about the tenants of Ontario. That’s a very sad comment. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I guess you could say that they care not about the landlords of Ontario either, since they will be equally affected by the legal impediment which would be placed upon them on September 30.

Mr. Kerrio: We care not about the socialists of Ontario.

Mr. Warner: In questioning today in the House, Mr. Speaker, you will recall that the minister of corporate protection indicated that he was not ready to extend the rent review legislation, but what he was considering was shortening the length of time that is included in the rent review legislation for due and proper notice to the tenants. And that must signal a warning to the tenants of Ontario that while this government remains in power the security of tenure or the tenants of Ontario is in jeopardy.

Yesterday I also had the pleasure, along with my colleagues, to place before the committee a proposal, a lengthy proposal, an in-depth proposal containing at least 30 major points on the future operation of rental protection for the tenants of Ontario. And I think what is important to note is that there is a basic fundamental difference with respect to our position and that of the other two parties. And it is included in the very first sentence of our proposal which reads, and I quote: “That the recognition of decent and affordable housing as a social right in Ontario is long overdue.” The essence of it being that decent, affordable housing should be in fact a social right and not some sort of privilege granted to those who happen to earn a sizeable sum of money. And that point, that very basic philosophy, is the point of departure between the New Democratic Party of Ontario and the other two parties in this assembly, both of them of course sharing a different kind of philosophy -- if we indeed raise the Liberal party to that high elevation of having a philosophy -- but both of them are in opposition to the basic philosophy which I’ve enunciated. That was brought in a dramatic way to the committee yesterday afternoon when they rose to block that.

[8:15]

They also indicated they didn’t appreciate having a position put in front of them. In fact, I was accused by a Conservative member of making this a political issue.

Mr. Hodgson: He was so right, wasn’t he? He was so right.

An hon. member: Horrendous.

Mr. Warner: Making it a political issue? Mr. Speaker, can you think of any other issue in the last three years which has not been so political as this one?

Mr. Hodgson: That’s all you use the rent committee for, political purposes.

Mr. Warner: The tenants of Ontario cried for protection in 1974 and 1975, and the government denied them protection.

Mr. Kerrio: Come up with a plan.

Mr. Hodgson: You haven’t got a plan, you haven’t got a policy.

Mr. Kerrio: You haven’t got a plan; you make a lot of noise.

Mr. Warner: The tenants were exploited during those years with skyrocketing rents, and in response the government said nothing and did nothing. It was only when it was fully developed as a political issue during the election of 1975 that it got resolved in a political way, with the government brought screaming and kicking into a rent review program.

Mr. Hodgson: Tough, David; tough, tough; you teachers have it so tough.

Mr. Warner: A member of that government had the nerve yesterday to say I was making this into a political issue. I don’t know what kind of a gentlemen’s debating society he thinks this place is, but this happens to be a political arena and this happens to be a place where political issues are brought before the representatives of the people to be debated in a very open and forthright way, but in a political way.

Mr. J. Reed: Oh, wonderful revelation.

Mr. Kerrio: Open, yes; forthright, I don’t know.

Mr. Warner: I don’t know what the government of Ontario intends to do with respect to the rights and privileges of people in this province who happen to be tenants, I have no idea.

Mr. Haggerty: Keep them guessing, Bill. keep them guessing, it will confuse them more.

Mr. Warner: I do know a committee sits right now and it discusses items. It rarely debates issues, but it discusses items.

Mr. Hodgson: Got to get a quorum call in; time!

Mr. Warner: It will complete its work no later than June 15, as per the direction of the assembly, and it will report back here. Then the matter rests squarely with the government, because as we all know, there is no obligation upon the government to adopt any report The government is certainly free to bring in any legislation it cares to, and it doesn’t have to be in accordance with a report.

Mr. Worton: Mr. Speaker, may I interrupt the speaker? Now we’ve lost one more member, could we have a quorum call?

Clerk of the House: There is not a quorum, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Acting Speaker called for the quorum bells.

On resumption:

Mr. Acting Speaker: The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere may proceed.

Mr. Warner: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We still don’t have 125, but we are working on it.

Mr. Kerrio: Be nice, don’t drive everybody out again.

Mr. Sweeney: That did it.

Mr. Warner: Before I continue, I would like to relate an interesting little anecdote which the member for Sudbury (Mr. Germa) was sharing with me while the bell was ringing and which the member for Carleton (Mr. Handleman) may be interested in.

Just prior to the official visit here at the assembly by the Premier of Quebec, my good colleague the member for Sudbury (Mr. Germa) encountered the Premier of Quebec in the Yorkville area, north of Bloor Street, and stopped to chat with him. He mentioned casually that he would be seeing the Premier later on down here at the assembly, to which the Premier responded, “Oh, you are not boycotting me? The news had travelled so fast.

An hon. member: He is boycotting the speaker.

Mr. Warner: My good colleague responded that of course he wouldn’t be boycotting him; the Premier of Quebec would receive a good reception, at least from the NDP members of the House, who are always delighted to have a visitor from another province come to be with us at Queen’s Park.

Mr. Foulds: Even if it was Peter Lougheed.

Mr. Warner: So the boycott rumours had spread pretty quickly.

I have a feeling that the member for Carleton didn’t realize at the time that his singular act was such a loud alarm throughout quite a portion of Ontario and Quebec, and his inappropriate action was causing concern --

Mr. Handleman: I didn’t know that anybody had heard about it.

Mr. Warner: -- in that it wouldn’t just be him; it signalled an attitude of the government of Ontario, perhaps even of Ontario itself, with respect to a visit from the Premier of Quebec. A very sad thing.

Mr. Kerrio: That’s like inviting to dinner the guy who’s going to break up your marriage.

Mr. Warner: Perhaps, if we are lucky, the member for Carleton will apologize at some point to the Premier of Quebec and to this assembly for his actions. I certainly hope so --

Mr. Handleman: Don’t hold your breath.

Mr. Samis: You are a great Canadian, Sidney.

Mr. Warner: -- because his efforts weaken Confederation, not strengthen it.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I would be quite happy to yield temporarily if the member for Carleton is ready to apologize to the House.

Mr. Handleman: I have no intention whatsoever.

Mr. Warner: The member has no intention to apologize?

Mr. Foulds: You and Jack Homer. Sinc Stevens had more grace than you have.

Mr. Samis: You’re a great Canadian, Sidney.

Mr. Germa: You probably boo at the ball park too. Do you boo at the ball park?

Mr. Handleman: Yes I do.

Mr. Warner: Yes he does. I hope that Hansard picks that up. The member for Carleton --

Mr. Handleman: I go to the ball park. Mr. Warner: The member goes to the ball park.

Mr. Breaugh: What do you do when you are there?

Mr. Warner: And when our national anthem is sung in both official languages, the member boos when it’s sung in French, is that correct?

Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Handleman: I would like the honourable member to withdraw that accusation. I do not boo. I disagree with those who boo. I think they’re boorish, that they shouldn’t do it, but I don’t think you just leave it at that. You find out why they do it. But I do not boo, Mr. Speaker, and I want the member to withdraw that comment.

Mr. Germa: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. That is not a point of order. Would the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere continue, please?

Mr. Germa: It was not a point of order?

Mr. Warner: Yes, I asked a question. It was not an accusation.

Mr. Acting Speaker: It was not a point of order.

Mr. Germa: Oh, good. I think he was a boor by boycotting the Premier of Quebec anyway.

Mr. Warner: The member for Carleton missed it. I asked a question. I did not make an accusation. That is not the way in which I do things.

Mr. Hall: Back to the budget, David.

Mr. Warner: I think the really important part of the budget is our response to the Confederation crisis. Mr. Speaker, as I was saying prior to the ringing of the bells -- speaker.

Mr. Hodgson: There goes the member for Oshawa. He is not going to listen to you anymore.

Mr. Warner: I think it should be on the record, as I indicated earlier today, that I certainly welcome the overnight change by the Liberal Party with respect to their position on rent review.

Mr. Kerrio: Baseball? What are you talking about?

Mr. Warner: Mind you, that was today’s position. Who knows what bright things tomorrow holds.

Mr. Foulds: Or even this evening.

Mr. Warner: Or even this evening. Yesterday’s position was repudiated by the leader of the Liberal Party today. We don’t know, of course, how deep the rift goes in that party with respect to rent review. We do know that not all of the members are in favour of rent protection for the tenants of Ontario. We do know that the Liberal Party does not have a position on the subject --

Mr. Hall: Back to the budget, David.

Mr. Warner: -- nor do they feel compelled to even discuss it. However, I’m sure that all of that will sort itself out, as it must before June 15. It should also be noted that one of the suggestions which came out of the Liberal Party --

Mr. J. Reed: Of all the members of the House you are the one that should talk.

Mr. Sweeney: Not necessarily from you, David.

Mr. Hall: You don’t know much about the committee system do you, David?

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, would you bring this House to order?

Mr. Warner: -- was that rent review might be valuable for Metro Toronto but no other location in Ontario.

Mr. M. Davidson: That is the Liberal position.

Mr. Warner: That seems to be rather strange. Those of us who live in this area and understand the nature of the urban centre, knowing that it encompasses areas to the east, Pickering, Durham, Oshawa and Mississauga to the west, know that we have developed a large urban complex that goes beyond the political boundaries of Metropolitan Toronto. We know there are a great number of people who reside in those communities but work within Metro Toronto, and they commute daily.

Mr. Hodgson: That is where they get all the work.

Mr. Warner: If there was rent review simply for Metro Toronto and no other locality you would see a shift in the problem out to those outlying areas which now are experiencing an increase in their population and an increase in the building of apartment buildings. We don’t know, of course, whether or not that is the Liberal position because no position has been stated. But rumour has it that is what they’re looking for.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege.

Mr. Germa: Come on, Margaret.

Mrs. Campbell: A statement has been made that the Liberal Party has no position. It is quite a different point of view. We will be announcing a position after we have heard from everyone. We do not believe that we should issue a report before we have the deliberations <f a committee of this House. But it certainly can’t be said that we don’t have a position.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Warner: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. The Liberal Party will now run out and formulate a position.

[8:30]

Mrs. Campbell: Oh, come on.

Mr. Kerrio: When is the NDP going to start formulating its?

Mr. Warner: One of the things that certainly has troubled me over the last little while, certainly prior to the inception of rent review and through the rent review procedure --

Mrs. Campbell: Who introduced rent review? Not the NDP.

Mr. Warner: -- is that somehow the government --

Mr. Haggerty: Take it easy, Maggie. He’s only an overnight guest.

Mr. Warner: One down, 31 to go.

Mr. Foulds: Has the member for St. George gone out to formulate a position?

Mr. Warner: One of the things that has troubled me for some time over the business of rent review, certainly through the years of 1973, 1974 and 1975, and during the present time of the rent review process, was that somehow the government divorced the rent review procedure, protection of rents, from the housing situation, and have pretended that if they imposed rent review it would somehow have an effect on the housing market. What’s interesting is that in Metro Toronto, the housing starts and the vacancy rates were down prior to the inception of rent review and haven’t altered significantly during the period sf time in which rent review has been invoked. Further, what we have discovered in the committee --

Mr. Hodgson: Tell us, though, before you start -- which are you, a tenant or a landlord?

Mr. Samis: What are you, Bill?

Mr. Hodgson: Neither one.

Mr. Warner: -- by way of a consultant and his investigation is that rent review has had no visible effect on the construction of new housing. That’s not just from this party which always believed that That’s from the consultants who have studied the positions and the information put forward by the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, the Ministry of the Attorney General, the Ministry of Housing, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party and the public hearings which we held around the province.

The consultants have drawn the conclusion from all of their information that the rent review procedure does not have any discernible effect upon the housing situation and the production of new housing.

You will find this interesting, Mr. Speaker, as it gets a little closer to your home turf. When we were in Thunder Bay we had a presentation made to us --

Mr. Cureatz: That’s a thousand miles away.

Mr. Foulds: That’s to the left of Sudbury.

Mr Warner: To the left and a bit to the right.

Mr. Cureatz: You’re all wet.

Mr. Foulds: Sam, just be quiet and sign those first-time home buyer grants, will you?

Mr. Warner: It’s interesting that the member for Durham East talks about being all wet, climbing out of his home-buyer-grant pool.

Mr. J. Reed: You’re driving everybody away.

Mr. Warner: When we were in Thunder Bay the presentation made to us was to the effect that since the inception of rent review some new buildings --

Mr. Haggerty: You’ve lost all your audience now.

Mr. Warner: -- had been constructed. They were about to be completed. They had begun after 1975 and they’re now about to be completed. The people who were responsible for that --

Mr. M. Davidson: Good job.

Mr. Warner: As Acting Speaker the member for Nickel Belt has performed his duties as usual in an excellent fashion.

Mr. M. Davidson: As all New Democrats do.

Mr. Warner: What we were informed of was that the production of rental housing in the city of Thunder Bay had not been affected in one way or another by the rent review procedure. The problem which appears to exist in Thunder Bay is that there are a large number of small units, a sixplex, perhaps buildings with 10 units or less, where maintenance is a problem, and where it’s not possible for the tenant to get the owner to make the necessary repairs. Maintenance is a passthrough cost in the rent review procedure and there is no reason why the landlord should not make the repairs. It’s not costing him anything, and yet despite that, there was a difficulty for the tenants in Thunder Bay to get those repairs made.

What we discovered was there are approximately 15,000 families in Thunder Bay who live in rental accommodation. In one year, the number of complaints received by the rent review officer who testified before us, and the city social services department which operates a landlord-tenant bureau, totalled more than 4,000 complaints in a year, out of a total of 15,000 families. It seems to me there is a pretty severe problem in Thunder Bay with respect to the maintenance difficulties, the rights of tenants and other related matters. The tenants are unable to do much about it because they’re not organized. They live in small buildings, there aren’t many of them in a building and so they are not able to be organized.

Mr. Haggerty: Your former leader found it cheaper to rent than to own a home.

Mr. Warner: The plea was quite clear and quite desperate: If you leave, if you abandon rent review, the tenants will be abandoned.

Mr. M. Davidson: Can you justify that in Fort Erie?

Mr. Warner: I think the member for Fort Erie can appreciate if you abandon rent review, you abandon the tenants of Ontario. What will happen is we will see skyrocketing rents as we saw in 1973 and 1974. The gouging by the landlords will take place as it did in 1973 and 1974 and early in 1975. There won’t be any protection for the tenants. I think it’s important here, Mr. Speaker, to point out the basic differences as we now see them emerging. The Conservative Party, through its green paper, in the red cover, indicates it wishes somehow to slide out of rent review.

Mr. M. Davidson: End it, end it.

Mr. Warner: Decontrol is the little word, the term that is used quite often. What that means, in more understandable language, is cut off the protection for tenants --

Mr. M. Davidson: Sid knows all about it.

Mr. Warner: -- and let them be the victims of the so-called free market.

Mr. M. Davidson: Sid Handleman knows all about that.

Mr. Warner: I think the ex-minister of corporate protection understands that quite well. He didn’t want to administer the program. One of the reasons he didn’t want to administer it is, of course, because he didn’t believe in it. He believed in the viciousness of the so-called free market. Let the tenants he at the mercy of those landlords who charge whatever they want to charge with no accountability. That’s what the member for Carleton believed in. I give him credit for it, at least he stood up and said, “That’s what I believe and therefore I don’t think I should be operating the program.” I give him credit for that. It’s pretty straightforward. His views may be wrong, misguided; but at least he was straightforward about it. I appreciate that.

Mr. Handleman: Thank heaven for small mercies.

Mr. Warner: I like to be fair and reasonable about things. I give you credit.

Mr. Handleman: It’s very much appreciated.

Mr. Samis: You must feel uncomfortable sitting with the Tories.

Mr. Warner: You know by what that has been replaced. The member for Carleton at least dealt with it in a straightforward manner. There is some slippery language in that green paper, a sleight of hand, Mr. Speaker, because while some alternatives are provided, the message runs like a thread through the entire paper and the end line is “get rid of rent review.” That’s the bottom line for the Tory Party, get rid of rent review.

Mr. M. Davidson: Well, it was Sid’s policy.

Mr. Warner: This party has clearly stated, not only on previous occasions, but again yesterday in a comprehensive paper filed with the committee and its adoption moved, that the tenants need protection. They need better protection than what they’ve got now, but we’ve got to find some ways to clean up the bureaucratic problems. That’s why we suggested you take all the landlord and tenant matters, the rent matters, the housing standards matters and put them under one umbrella.

Deal with them with a tenancy commission and make sure you have all the hearings for one building held on an annual date. Once a year you’re going to determine the problems in the rents, et cetera, for all the units in one particular building. That, in itself, would cut down on the bureaucratic problems which have plagued the rent review offices over the last couple of years and cut down on the cost that’s involved, since we’re conscious of the cost-saving effort which is needed. It’s been our position, a very strong one, a very forthright one.

Now we come to the Liberal Party.

Mr. J. Reed: Hurray.

Mr. M. Davidson: Spare us.

Mr. Warner: I’ve now discussed their policy.

Mr. Speaker, it’s clear that before we can make any meaningful progress on the rent review problem and the protection of tenants with respect to the Landlord and Tenant Act by way of legislation in this assembly, a statement of principle should be made. That is, that housing -- decent, affordable housing -- is a social right. That’s the place from which to start. That’s the base. From that base, you look at the rental and ownership policies.

How are we going to solve the problem of not having an adequate supply of affordable housing? This government throws up its hands and says it can’t do anything. It’s all up to the private market, which up to now has not been able to supply decent, affordable housing in an adequate amount. This government doesn’t have the leadership, doesn’t have the programs or the policies. For example, I look at one extremely important segment I recall raising in the 1976 estimates of the Ministry of Housing, where they supposedly had allocated, it said so in their budget, a sum of money for the support and the development of non-profit co-operative housing. I’d like to know where it is. I’d like to know where all these units of non-profit cooperative housing have been developed.

Aside from the units developed by the city of Metro Toronto and a few other scattered units around the province of Ontario, there is no evidence of government leadership in that field, none whatsoever. One of the reasons the same problem is not so acute in Sweden is that approximately 40 per cent of their housing stock is in co-operative non-profit. They’ve had government leadership. The people are able to obtain homes at a reasonable cost and in line with their salaries. It doesn’t happen here. We view it as some sort of privilege.

If I could digress a moment, the part I know best is my own early life. I grew up in a duplex and my parents had the opportunity later to purchase a small five-room bungalow. There are no five-room bungalows any more. They’ve disappeared. That was a house developed for a specific market, working people and veterans from the Second World War. Those people could afford to move into the bungalow.

[8:45]

Not only is the bungalow gone now, but the people can’t afford to buy the replacement for the bungalow, which has been the larger house and the townhouse. In Metro Toronto the cheapest townhouse you are going to find, that is decent, is somewhere around $36,000 to $39,000 -- and with a high mortgage, because the government doesn’t even have the leadership to guarantee low mortgages. That is incredible, absolutely incredible.

The government fully realizes that the credit union league of this province made a proposal to handle housing mortgages at eight per cent and a bookkeeping charge of perhaps a quarter of one per cent; to him over money which this government is able to get on the market in New York or other places at eight per cent, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more, but around the eight per cent mark -- and the credit unions in Ontario were quite willing to handle that money and put it out as mortgage money for houses.

This government is not interested. Of course, they are not interested because their corporate friends are in the established banks, the national banks, the established ones. Without a federal government committed to low mortgages for housing, nothing is going to be done. Contrast that with the United States, where even in that extreme capitalist country, the federal government guarantees seven and three quarters per cent for housing. They even go so far as to deduct that mortgage interest payment from the income tax.

This province shrugs its shoulders and says: “Well, if you can accumulate enough wealth, go ahead and buy yourself a house.” A single-family detached home in Metro Toronto: a new one is going to cost you somewhere around $70,000; a used one something like, I suppose, at least $55,000. Working people don’t have that kind of money. They can’t afford the down payment, they can’t afford the carrying charges, they can’t afford the high interest rates, they can’t afford this government. That goes on unabated; there is no change.

What bothers me is that when the report comes in from the committee about rent review, and the government then comes back with its legislation, we are still not likely to see any initiative in housing. We are not going to see any commitment to land banking, making sure that land is available at a reasonable cost. That is part of the route; the government was told that more than 20 years ago: that the government should land bank, hold on to the land, release it as it is needed for the development of housing, at cost, so as to reduce the overall price of the home. But their faith in the corporate sharks wouldn’t allow them to embark on a program of land banking.

The only major effort was in the Malvern area. You know, if we wanted to spend the rest of the night talking about it -- and two or three days -- we could try to unravel the mess that was created in Malvern, starting with the hassle between the federal government, the provincial government and the municipality over who should pay the taxes on the vacant land before it was developed. That went on for several years.

Then we reached phase one of Malvern where some people had the bright idea that you land bank, allow people to move in and then sell it on speculation. That is incredible. That is not a commitment to housing; that is a commitment to personal greed. If it was a commitment to housing, they would have guaranteed that there wasn’t going to be a speculation and they would also have protected those first-time buyers from having to meet a new interest rate and cost of land at the five-year level. They didn’t do that.

Some of those new buyers then got stuck at five years when the mortgage opened and went to the bank rate; then they had to make up for lost time and lost money. It created real financial pressures. The Malvern project could have been extremely successful. It has not accomplished what it should have. And that was the so-called flagship of the Tory housing policy, as I could see it, and they have no other successful housing project in large scale which they can point to.

If that isn’t enough, this government has decided to get rid of its Ontario Housing Corporation stock It starts in an insidious way by turning the projects over to Royal Trust, allowing Royal Trust to manage what is really their responsibility, the government’s responsibility; and making sure that, no more units are built in Metro Toronto. We have a waiting list right now of more than 10,000 people in Metro Toronto who qualify for Ontario Housing and are waiting -- 10,000.

Many of those desperate problems come in to my office and into the offices of other members of this caucus who are in Metro Toronto. Their situations are desperate. All I can say is: “I will do the best I can but the present government is not building any units. They are trying to get out of their housing responsibilities. They have a very serious responsibility for housing and they are trying to get rid of it.”

The government was given, a few years ago, an excellent plan. It was suggested to them that instead of building ghettoes as they had done in some areas -- and the former Minister of Housing, Mr. Rhodes, would be aware of the 400 McCowan area which was developed as a ghetto; there’s no other way to describe it -- they should embark on subsidizing the rents of some tenants in a building. Maybe they would take a building and 10 per cent of the tenants would have their rent subsidized. That would be preferable to building ghettoes. Well, that kind of a program takes a lot of initiative; it takes a lot of good planning and it takes some dedication. Housing is the responsibility of this government and it is a social right for people in the province. But no such commitment exists. So that program of subsidization lags far behind the pace that it should be going at.

Meanwhile, no more housing is being built by Ontario Housing Corporation. They are turning over their responsibility to Royal Trust and, I assume, other trust companies as well. I don’t know how the government has the conscience to live with that, knowing that there are at least 10,000 people in Metro who need housing and can’t get it. Many of those senior citizens, obviously, many of those single-parent families, people who are disabled. It’s an incredible mess. This government is responsible for it. I don’t see any leadership to clean it up.

I guess what I am saying is that the housing situation in Ontario is indeed a very complex one. There are many components to it, the rental being part of it; the construction of new housing being part of it; the reconstruction of urban centres being a part of it; the first-time ownership of resales being a part of it.

I would digress there for a moment, Mr. Speaker: I don’t understand why the federal program -- and, of course, that program being plugged into by the provincial government -- was just for new homes for first-time buyers. Young couples who are looking for their first home would be quite happy with a resale but the advantage lies in purchasing the new home -- or did before they started terminating the program -- not in purchasing a resale.

Surely the advantage should have been towards the resale, for several reasons.

In Scarborough, where we are having a decline in the school population, we are getting an increase, obviously in older citizens who don’t have children in school, and that is an area where the older homes are. If the government had an active program whereby young couples would have some advantage in purchasing resales, they would be moving into those older areas. Instead of having to close out a school, as we’re now having to do, the schools would still have their population of children in that area. But that’s not happening in Scarborough. We’re closing out schools in the south part of the borough and building brand new ones in the north part. In some small measure, the housing policies with respect to assistance on first-time buying is helping that process along. it could have done the reverse.

So there are many aspects. Unfortunately, what the government has chosen to do is fragment the housing policy into several little areas and not co-ordinate them in any way, not have any overall plan for them, and somehow think they can deal with rent review in isolation. They do that, and then blame the lack of housing on the rent review program. That kind of nonsense just won’t be bought by almost anyone. It just won’t sell. It’s not true. You can’t look at rent review in isolation, just as you can’t look at the development of single-family dwellings in isolation. It’s a complex package and you have to look at every aspect of the housing market, every single one.

I will terminate where I began. We won’t make any progress in this province until the government acknowledges that decent, affordable housing is a social right and not some sort of privilege for the rich.

Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, there are really only two times during the session when a private member may address this assembly on matters of urgent concern to him and his constituents. One of them, of course, is the debate on the speech from the throne. I was able to participate in that and --

Mr. Philip: Going to help the separatist cause here tonight?

Mr. Handleman: -- I am very pleased to take this second opportunity, because there are some matters of great concern to me and to my constituents. I intend to deal with that particular topic tonight. I hope to do it systematically, without rambling. I had hoped to do it last Thursday prior to the meeting between the two Premiers. My colleague from Oriole (Mr. Williams) had some important statements to make that night --

Mr. Samis: Important!

Mr. Handleman: -- and I deferred to him. I make my comments tonight, first of all, because Mr. Hoy in his column last Sunday in the Sun said I had made them and I certainly wouldn’t want Mr. Hoy to be guilty of a misstatement. I’m making them after he has written about them.

For many years, the people of eastern Ontario have felt victimized by the Quebec government in a variety of ways. Since the Quebec election of November 15, 1976, people in my area have spoken out with increasing frequency of their concern about this feeling of discrimination and the feeling that they have been abandoned by the Ontario government.

Mr. Samis: That’s right.

Mr. Handleman: I don’t suggest for a moment those feelings are well-founded, but there is that feeling and it must be dealt with.

The situation has been described by me as the Quebec-Ontario interface. It has been described by other people in the media as the Quebec curtain. Some people have demanded certain actions, and the member for Cornwall today reluctantly introduced, and I agree with his reluctance, legislation which I think reflects that feeling.

All too often those feelings have been met by people in the media, and some politicians who are sheltered in their little suburban ghettoes in Scarborough, with the plea to exercise moderation in the interests of national unity, because if we criticize that government we are destroying the country.

Mr. Varner: I didn’t say that. I said it was your boycott.

Mr. Handleman: I have to come to the conclusion that emotional cause of national unity is being misused. It’s being thrown around carelessly when a logical argument cannot be developed to defend the actions of the government of Quebec. “Be nice to them. We don’t understand why they’re doing that, but for goodness sakes, don’t criticize them, because our country may come to a halt.”

Mr. Samis: He didn’t say that.

Mr. Warner: I didn’t say that and you know it. It was your boycott I was upset about.

Mr. Handleman: The actions I speak of tonight have nothing to do with language; they have nothing to do with culture; they have nothing to do with constitutional reform.

Mr. Kerrio: I like the way Sid says it.

Mr. Handleman: They are entirely in the area of economics, employment and the quality of life for the people I represent.

[9:00]

Mr Samis: That is still no reason for boycott.

Mr. Handleman: The genuine concern of Canadians for the future of our country can result in the overuse of the words “national unity” and can become a buzz word without meaning.

Mr. Laughren: You are not kidding.

Mr. Handleman: I deplore that tendency to keep using it in spurious causes.

Mr. Samis: Do you remember the last election?

Mr. Handleman: Yes, and shortly after the last election I urged the Premier at that time --

Mr. Samis: Remember those ads on TV, Sidney?

Mr. Laughren: What about your ads?

Mr. Handleman: I urged the Premier at that time to meet with Premier Levesque.

Mr. Laughren: Tell us about your ads.

An hon. member: Disgraceful.

Mr. Warner: Disgusting.

Mr. Handleman: Well, Mr. Speaker, I would defer to the member from the Lakehead and ask if he would quote ads that I used in the last election dealing with national unity. I deny it categorically. If he can find one, I will be glad to apologize to him.

Mr. Samis: I am not referring to you.

Mr. Kerrio: You’re like Sinclair Stevens, you don’t have any evidence.

Mr. Handleman: The list of actions by the Quebec government which have impacted adversely on the people of eastern Ontario is very long. Many of my colleagues from eastern Ontario are fully familiar with them and I want to put them on the record. Each of the items on the list would provide material for at least a half-hour speech so I have no intention of dealing with each of them at that length.

Mr. Philip: You could have talked to Levesque himself. You are responsible.

Mr. Handleman: Following the Premier’s meeting with Mr. Levesque this week, I should put forward at least a short list of those problems which the people of eastern Ontario want solved as quickly as possible.

Mr. Samis: You could have done it directly.

Mr. Handleman: Having read the communique, Mr. Speaker, I find we are not that much closer to solutions today than we were on Tuesday.

Mr. Warner: You won’t even talk to him.

Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I have asked the Premier to meet with Mr. Levesque. He has done so. I have asked him to put these items on the agenda. He has done so. I really feel that we :must continue to talk to the people of Quebec and their government. That doesn’t mean we have to fraternize with them, and there is a great difference.

Mr. Samis: Ah, get off the pot.

Mr. Handleman: There is the question of the effect of the new automobile insurance legislation which I am sure my friends in the New Democratic Party completely endorse. However, the people in eastern Ontario are concerned about the effect of that legislation on them because they do not have equal rights in Quebec with Quebec drivers, and something must be done about it.

I have drawn these problems to the attention of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Grossman). It is in the communique. The minister has promised to take it up with his counterpart in Quebec. I must say that I found his counterpart in Quebec to be most noncooperative in dealing with these matters.

Mr. Warner: The member for Cornwall raised that too.

Mr. Philip: She’s a heck of a lot better minister than you were.

Mr. Samis: Madame Payette is more constructive than you are.

Mr. Handleman: I hope he will have more co-operation from her than I have.

I would just like to read the communique on the question of automobile insurance:

“The Premier has noted that officials of both provinces have met recently to consider possible ways of resolving this problem.” Having participated in the drafting of communiques, it isn’t difficult to interpret that to mean that no progress was made.

They noted that they had met and they hoped the ministers would make an early recommendation to resolve the situation. Well, I hope so too, because there may be a very tragic incident involving an Ontario driver in Quebec very shortly and then perhaps our friend Jonathan Manthorpe won’t consider these matters to be trivia. They are quite important. They are not trivial, and I hope that matter is resolved. I must say that I am not very confident they will be resolved, but certainly hope they are.

All members in this House are aware of the actions that were taken several months ago by the Quebec government in collecting gasoline taxes from Ontario-based commercial vehicles. The information from the Ministry of Revenue that I have been able to obtain is that the activity has slowed down or even ceased, but I still receive complaints of harassment from my constituents, from Ontario businesses who receive demands for payments of these gasoline taxes.

Calls for reciprocal arrangements do not appear to have been responded to with any sympathy by Quebec officials, other than to say they really don’t consider it to be a major problem and they don’t have a police force watching for Ontario drivers on Quebec highways. I must accept that as their word. However, we still keep getting complaints about activities in this area.

We are aware of the problem involving transport licensing and the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) in this House announced a few weeks ago that he had reached a reciprocal agreement. However, the minister said there were a number of items of concern to him which still remained unresolved: The very fact that an offender from Ontario is still subject to be thrown into jail and held for ransom while a Quebec driver who offends our legislation is issued with a summons.

Mr. Philips: That isn’t true. He loses his plates now under the new legislation. Why don’t you read your own legislation? He can have his plates taken away.

Mr. Handleman: The new legislation has not yet taken effect.

Mr. Speaker, I asked the Minister of Transportation and Communications to come to grips with this matter forthwith and the first time this ever happens again I suggest that our minister let them know that we won’t stand for it, and it’s been reported widely in the press.

Mr. Philip: Why don’t you learn the facts?

Mr. Warner: You should join the diplomatic corps. You would be a smashing success.

Mr. Handleman: At one time, Mr. Speaker, in order to protect Ontario residents against the sale of uninspected vacation properties in Quebec, it was necessary for this province to send inspectors into that province and, ironically, it was done under the authority of the foreign land sales legislation. That really is ironic when we’re trying to keep Quebec non-foreign and yet we use foreign land sales legislation in order to provide some protection to land buyers in Ontario.

Mr. Warner: Maybe you can get posted in the Paris office.

Mr. Handleman: At that time, the Quebec minister refused even to certify that the properties were in accordance with certain standards He could very easily have stopped this nonsense about going into Quebec to inspect properties, the inspection being required under our act.

It is not unknown for the Quebec government to retaliate against actions taken by the Ontario government which they consider not to be in their interests. As many members know, the Quebec liquor commission has opened a massive bottling plant in Montreal where they import European wines and bottle them under their own labels.

At one time, they asked the Liquor Control Board of Ontario to list those house brands. It has been the policy of this province not to list house brands at all, regardless of where they come from. It had nothing to do with Quebec. The standard is that the vintner’s label must appear on the bottle. However, when this policy was conveyed to the liquor commission in Quebec, very coincidentally and very shortly thereafter, the products of two Ontario wineries were delisted in Quebec.

It was coincidental, of course, that both those wineries happened to be the wineries that do not have plants in the province of Quebec. They’re not about to make a public complaint and I’m not about to identify them because their view is they don’t want to invite further retaliation.

The dairy farmers of eastern Ontario are up in arms. I’m sure many of my colleagues are more knowledgeable in this area than I am. They’re concerned about the sales of Quebec powdered milk in eastern Ontario. I’ve never been a strong supporter of marketing boards or supply management and I don’t want anybody to get --

Mr. Warner: It’s a free market.

Mr. Handleman: I’m sure that message is quite clear.

Mr. Warner: It is clear.

Mr. Handleman: But there is an agreement designed to bring orderly marketing to a particular industry and that agreement is being unilaterally ignored by one component of the industry at the expense of another. I expect our government to take action in such a way as to protect the residents of this province. I’m sure that other members from eastern Ontario who, again, are more knowledgeable and have a much larger dairy farming constituency, will continue to bring our constituents complaints to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. W. Newman) with the expectation that he will forcefully carry their message in discussions with both the federal and Quebec authorities.

For quite some time we have had a contract wall between our provinces. Small businesses in Ontario cannot look forward with any degree of confidence to obtaining contracts from school boards, municipal governments, or any activity at all in the province of Quebec which is supported in any way by provincial funding.

I ran across a very short newspaper clipping which reflects this in a short and concise way. It is dealing with the matter involving the Hull Catholic school board which, like school boards everywhere, is mindful of dollars and cents in education. They did what they thought was best for their ratepayers and awarded a lunch milk contract to the lowest bidder. It happened to be Sealtest Dairies of Ottawa. “Oh, no,” said the PQ government types in Quebec City. “Have our kids drink foreign milk? Never.” They overruled the school board and awarded the bulk of the contract to Chateau Dairy of Buckingham which buys milk from Quebec farmers.

It’s the kind of thing that we have. It’s insidious, Mr. Speaker. We have complaints from a variety of businesses in eastern Ontario. I’d like to quote briefly from a letter which was sent to the then Minister of Industry and Tourism by Fentiman and Sons Limited, a window contractor well known in the Ottawa area” having been there for many years. Their letter reads in part:

“Approximately three months ago we were invited by CEGEPs, which is the equivalent to our community colleges, in Hull to submit a price for changing over certain windows in a building under their jurisdiction. Prices were submitted and after many hours of discussion with the people from CEGEPs responsible for this project, it was decided by them to cancel the project. The project was cancelled, not because it was over budgeted or for any other reason, but because the low bidder, F. Fentiman and Sons Limited, did not have their head office in the province of Quebec.” They went on further to say:

“Our company must now follow their new hiring practices in regards to all construction workers,” because, being in the window business, they’re considered to be in the construction industry, “which means that people we have trained over the years will probably never be allowed to work in Quebec because they will not have sufficient hours to qualify?” it goes on in that vein.

There are many other instances of this type of thing. It was interesting to note that the Premiers dealt with this problem in their communique as well. I would like to talk just very briefly about it. It’s under heading “A-2 -- government purchasing policy. The Premiers discussed the government sector purchasing policies of their respective provinces, the economic impact of these policies and the way they are perceived by the general public and the private sector.”

I don’t think there’s any mistake in the way they’re perceived. They’re perceived that there happens to be a loss on the inside door facing Quebec in terms of contracts. You can go through it one way but you can’t go through it the other way. That’s hardly reciprocity.

The items I’ve listed indicate quite clearly, to me, anyway, perhaps not to others -- that our sense of nationhood, our feeling of togetherness, is being destroyed systematically and continuously and very successfully while we continue in the cause of national unity to deal politely with our friends in Quebec.

Mr. T. P. Reid: But do you feel that pushing from the other side is going to solve anything, Sid?

Mr. Handleman: I think it has to be made clear to our people in eastern Ontario that we disapprove of these actions. We should say that we would very reluctantly take the action which was taken today in the private member’s bill introduced by the member for Cornwall. I certainly feel that if we lock the door from our side we will have achieved a de facto separation. I have been criticized -- all the members from my area have been criticized -- for not speaking out strongly and voicing the views of our constituents in this matter.

When a man is out of a job and he sees somebody from outside taking his job while he has no opportunity to go over and take a job in the other jurisdiction, national unity descends in his list of priorities. I deplore that tendency. I don’t think it’s right. But it’s pretty difficult to tell a man out of work that he should put national unity ahead of putting bread on the table for his family.

I have always felt that one of the tests of a nation is that a resident, whether he’s a citizen or a landed immigrant, should be able to get anywhere in that country to seek employment -- anywhere. A Newfoundlander should be able to go to Quebec City and seek employment without any bar.

Once that free flow of labour is destroyed, you’ve destroyed one of the bases of nationhood. That’s what’s happening in this country today. I think we have to speak out against it. Let the people of Quebec know that we feel this way, that we want them to stay with us --

Mr. T. P. Reid: And they are fair people. It is the government that is doing it.

Mr Handleman: Exactly. But we have to let them know that their government is systematically doing this with intent. I don’t want to be paranoid but there’s nothing -- Mr. Samis: They had the same problems with the Liberals.

Mr. Handleman: -- accidental about this program that’s being undertaken by the Quebec government. I have warned all my colleagues --

Mr. Samis: And the Union Nationale. Mr. Handleman: -- that when Claude Ryan takes over, as he will, I hope, in the very near future, he’s going to be tougher to deal with than Mr. Levesque.

Mr. Levesque doesn’t want to deal with us. He wants us to get mad. He wants the English separatists in eastern Ontario to say “Go, Quebec. Who cares?” That’s what I find frightening; he’s being very successful.

Mr. Samis: Your boycott helped his cause, Sidney.

Mr. Handleman: There is one issue discussed by the two Premiers and which was brought up in this House on May 11 --

Mr. Germa: You are playing into his hands -- redneck Sidney.

Mr. Handleman: -- and if it wasn’t so tragic it would be comical. That is the long history of pollution treatment on the Ottawa River.

I often wonder how our friends in the media can talk so sincerely about the English and Wabigoon problem which affects a few hundred people, even a few thousand, when what we have are half a million people in eastern Ontario whose quality of life, whose very essence of life, their drinking water, is in danger. That’s not trivial. If Mr. Manthorpe thinks so I’m prepared to take him on any day in an argument. That is important: it is critical and it is crucial.

Mr. Warner: Why don’t you boycott him?

Mr. Handleman: Before I came to this Legislature, before II had any thought of coming here, I was somewhat involved in local affairs. I recall in the late 1960s, around 1967 when Mr. Pearson was still the Prime Minister, reading Mr. Robarts on the occasion of his signing a tripartite agreement with Mr. Johnson, the then premier of Quebec, and the Right Honourable Lester Pearson to clean up the Ottawa River.

Four years later, in 1971, the terms of reference were eventually finalized. They are now in written form. Since then we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to clean up half a river. That’s quite a trick, if you can do it. In the meantime, 98 per cent of the effluent into the Quebec side of the Ottawa River is raw, untreated sewage.

[9:15]

Every time this is brought up in a provincial conference, the minister responsible, whoever he may be -- and I’m talking about Victor Goldbloom and on -- has said, “Yes, we’ve got to join in on this,” but they haven’t got any money. There are other priorities, Expo and quite a few other things that took place. They can’t treat the river, one of the great rivers of the world, not a little creek --

Mr. Samis: No better than the St. Lawrence, Sidney.

Mr. Handleman: Your part of the St. Lawrence is looked alter.

Mr. Samis: You mean the Quebec side.

Mr. Handleman: Yes. We have this problem and we’ve got this long history of negotiations. I thought I might take a few clippings of very recent vintage from the two Ottawa papers, because just the reading of the headlines is almost hysterical.

This is from the Citizen of May 3, 1978, “Sewage Treatment a Political Football.” From the Citizen on April 22, “Sewage Treatment Plant Delayed Again.” On May 9, 1978, “Sewage Plant OK’d.” The Ottawa Citizen, editorial: “A scandalous disgrace. That harbinger of spring, the annual bad news about pollution in the Ottawa River has arrived.” There we see it again.

May 12, “ORC” -- that’s Outaouais regional council -- “Expects Sewage Plant Start in the Fall.” May 12, 1978, by Dan Kearns, a Citizen staff writer, “Sewage Plant Delay Looms.” As well the Ottawa Journal, “Pollution’s Murky Politics.” The citizens on both sides of the Ottawa River did not need to be told what was wrong by a committee of public servants representing three governments. The Ottawa Citizen on May 9, 1978, “Sewage Plants Urged for Ottawa River” -- after Mr. Johnson, Mr. Robarts and Mr. Pearson in 1967 agreed that we needed some sewage disposal plants.

On May 11, by Mr. Kearns again, a good reporter who seems to have specialized in this, and it might be a lifetime career for him: “Sewage Treatment Approval Postponed.”

Then the report of the tripartite committee, “Quebec Singled out in Report on Ottawa River.” Of course, at the request of the government of Quebec, certain deletions were made and questions were asked in this Legislature.

I have received a response from the Minister of the Environment (Mr. McCague) which I will read verbatim, because it is in reply to a question that was asked in this Legislature: “The report originally included a full outline of the terms of reference f or the federal-provincial working group.” Those were the terms of reference that were finalized in 1971. “In view of the fact the report only deals with the first term of reference, namely an update of pollution control along the Ottawa River, Quebec was reluctant and in fact insisted on deleting reference to the remaining four terms of reference.” These are the minister’s words. “It appears that the province of Quebec is not prepared to commit itself at this point in time to any additional triparty” -- probably meaning tripartite -- “review of the Ottawa River.”

He goes on to say: “In the summary of findings as well as in the text of the report, Quebec requested deletion of specific dates by which requirements for waste control of the pulp and paper industry are to be met -- 1978 and 1980 for non-sulphite and sulphite mills respectively. Quebec requested this change in light of the fact that a parliamentary committee had been formed which is in the process of reviewing these dates.” These are dates that had been agreed upon.

I suppose the most scary headline of all, on May 10 in the Ottawa Journal, is, “Ottawa River Drinking Water Potential Hazard.” I live on the Ottawa River and I was one of those who praised the first ministers for coming to the agreement. It took them four years to finalize the terms of reference. I still held out hope. But when my drinking water and the drinking water of half a million people on the Ontario side of the river is a potential hazard because of lack of action on the part of Quebec, then I say it is time to do more than what the communiqué says, which is that the ministers will meet again and discuss this matter.

Mr. Warner: Sure helps to boycott them.

Mr. Handleman: I have suggested, and I suggest again here tonight, that this has got beyond a joke. We can no longer continue to negotiate this kind of thing. I suggest that since we have no jurisdiction in the province of Quebec, the federal government can build that plant. They can let that contract to an Ontario contractor who was turned down by the Quebec government because he happened to be in Ontario, the low bidder. They can award it to him immediately and deduct the Quebec share of the cost from funds owing to Quebec. If it requires legislation --

Mr. T. P. Reid: What do we do with the Great Lakes, which the Americans are polluting?

Mr. Handleman: My friend can deal with that. I’m talking about my river; the one I live on, the one my constituents live on. Whatever he feels like doing with the United States is his problem.

Mr. Warner: If you think it is your river, go live in it.

Mr. Handleman: If the federal government does not wish to do that, then obviously there is no early solution to the problem. But at the very least -- and I know how long these things take -- we should launch a civil action against the government of Québec for damages on the principle, which I think my friends agree with, that the polluter shall pay. There’s no question about who’s polluting the Ottawa River; it is the government of Quebec.

Mr. Warner: You’re a great help to Canadian unity.

Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I’ve dealt with these points not at great length; I thought I might take longer than that. But before I concluded I did want to tell the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere that I see no need to apologize either to the members of this assembly, who I don’t think were offended --

Mr. Germa: I do.

An hon. member: Who was offended?

Mr. Handleman: On many occasions I have been invited to functions and on many occasions I have turned down the invitation, sometimes because I didn’t want to go and sometimes because I was otherwise occupied. I think I’ve generally told the truth about why I haven’t gone, and in this case I told the troth why I wasn’t going to go. Despite the statement made by the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere, and I have searched for it, I don’t think it even created a ripple in Quebec. If he can show me one Quebec paper that featured my actions of last Tuesday, I would be prepared to apologize to him for saying that there wasn’t any such reaction in Quebec.

Mr. Warner: Oh, you would?

Mr. Handleman: They don’t care, and it’s about time you found out down there in Scarborough-Ellesmere. We live close to the problem --

Mr. Warner: Baloney! You don’t understand Quebec and you don’t understand how deep the problem is.

Mr. Handleman: I haven’t seen it. They don’t care.

Mr. Warner: You don’t think they care.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Haggerty: The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere has become an expert overnight.

Mr. Handleman: Mr. Levesque himself said many of the things that we dispute here are irrelevant in terms of the national unity debate, and to that extent I think he’s right.

J just want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I think I speak for my constituents. The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere may be speaking Los his. I suggest he discuss it with them.

Mr. Kerrio: No, he is not. He’s speaking for himself.

Mr. Handleman: I want to read a very short portion of a letter I received which I think reflects some of the feeling in my area. It’s quite articulate and very well put. It’s from a man who is dedicated to the cause of national unity. He says this:

“However much one would wish, one cannot be friends with muggers on the national scene. Those who would clobber the whole country for their own short-term provincial or quasi-national ends, as the Quebec separatists would court us to do. Surely now is the time to spell all this out to the Laurins, the Levesques and all of their kind. Let them all know that we know exactly what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.”

We aren’t being taken in by it, Mr. Speaker. I’m not being taken in by it, my constituents aren’t, and I hope that the members of this assembly aren’t being taken in by the hand of friendship while at the same time they’re seeking to destroy this country.

Mr. Warner: You want a new Plains of Abraham. We beat them once; we’ll beat them again. Shameful.

Mr. J. Reed: Mr. Speaker, I first of all have to express a debt of gratitude to the nine or 10 members who were courageous enough to stay here and wait.

Mr. Germa: I have been waiting all night for you.

Mr. J. Reed: I realize that the previous speech was most scintillating and energizing, either in a pro or con way, depending on how one viewed the remarks that were made. I will try to follow on without putting too much of a priority on what I know is going on on television tonight and driving members there as the more interesting alternative.

If I may, I would like to deal, in this reply to the budget, on perhaps a little broader base than that of the member for Carleton, who spoke about his own constituency and the people from eastern Ontario; and rightly so, of course, because he is elected by them and serves that constituency.

I would rather spend the time in my capacity as the Energy critic for my party and perhaps try to take the House through what I view as a basic economic issue that we’re facing in Ontario; that is, the subject of energy, our energy state at the present time and our energy future. As time has gone on, I’ve come to believe more and more that one of the links in the chain of our economy in Ontario is our energy -- the way we use it and the way we supply it to ourselves. It has been stated many times before that in terms of traditional energy forms the province is quite devoid except for a limited amount of hydraulic power and a certain amount of nuclear power. It has been stated that there is a little bit of lignite in northern Ontario but in the long term that does not represent a very large amount of energy supply. In fact the people of Ontario now import about 80 per cent of their requirements from outside the borders of their province.

What this does is give us a deficit budget position of about $5 billion every year, and it is a tremendous challenge. It is a challenge I believe we have to meet if Ontario is going to maintain its very important part in the industrial life of this country, and I believe it is a challenge that we can meet. There are all sorts of purveyors of doom and gloom in the energy picture. From week to week, we find ourselves dealing with a new challenge and a new revelation and it is very difficult sometimes for those of us who are keenly interested in the subject to get a handle on exactly what is happening. But there are some fundamentals I think we can understand and some directions we can take the province that will provide us with a healthier economy that is going to result in fuller employment and a better life for the people of Ontario.

There are some questions that somehow or other in this new era that has come upon us since 1973 -- since the Yom Kippur War and the oil embargo and so on -- we still haven’t asked ourselves in this province to any deep degree. I think that if we ask ourselves the questions and ponder where the answers can come from, it might give us a base or a springboard to start from.

The first question would be what kind of energy do we actually need in Ontario. One of the big mistakes I think we tend to make is that we say a Btu is a Btu is a Btu. It is like a rose is a rose is a rose. It is interesting to point out that in terms of energy consumption that is not the case. The kinds of energy that we utilize go to a different end use and they come from a different source. Each of those has its own translation in terms of the kind of lifestyle it gives us and the kind of utilization we have of it in a different way.

Another question would be who actually requires the energy in Ontario and how much. We know that the householder sees us to require a certain amount, and industry requires a certain amount, and so on; but when we stop to think of it, we really haven’t rationalized just how much each of us require and who will require what, for what purpose and to what end use.

We are using electricity at the present time to heat homes, to turn wheels and so on. We use natural gas to make electricity. We use all sorts of things and we have never stopped to ask ourselves for what purpose are we using this particular energy? We should ask ourselves for how long we need a particular kind of energy and in the end how much. Our domestic consumption of energy in Ontario has doubled since the late 1960s and yet it has not resulted in any increase in our standard of living. It hasn’t improved our economic position. Indeed, the only accomplishment that has been made with it is it has required we pay a larger percentage of our income for energy as the years go on.

[9:30]

We have adopted, in the province of Ontario, a consumptive -- perhaps one should use the word “consumption” -- philosophy. It is really a consumptive philosophy, because it is a self-defeating kind of thing. We toy with the philosophy that all we have to do is continue to expand our energy systems and they will meet our needs. We continue to believe that what we are consuming we need.

There are some old fallacies which have given us, in the province of Ontario, the dubious record of being the highest per capita consumers of energy in the whole world. It is a very interesting observation. The fallacies go something like this; using less energy is going to mean we are going to suffer from a lower standard of living. That’s a philosophy that I think has been ingrained into every one of us. In other words, we parallel a lower standard of living, possibly, with driving in an automobile with a more efficient engine which will get us from point A to point B on half of the Btu’s.

Another of the fallacies we deal with would be the huge, capital-intensive projects we are engaged in at the present time in Ontario relieve unemployment. This is a fallacy the Minister of Energy (Mr. Baetz) has alluded to in recent months. It has been his excuse for continuing on an expansion program in Ontario Hydro that is related to the kind of growth that took place in the utility up until about 1974 or 1975, by projecting backwards because that was really the only way a load forecast could be predicted. What we said was and I think the ad is still on television from time to time, it may even be on tonight, traditionally our utility has grown at the rate of seven per cent per year.

Yet when we look at what actually happened in the last year and at the beginning of this year, we find some very startling changes. The growth rate has dropped. It has dropped to a rather startling degree; last year 2.2 per cent in total growth in the system, and this year a real growth of one per cent so far. On a temperature-corrected basis -- that is if you consider the fact we had a very cold spring and so on -- you could actually say the growth of consumption in the utility had fallen to zero. Yet the government has continued with these capital-intensive, large, centralized projects, because it is said if we don’t have them we won’t have the employment. What I hope to do tonight is to try to establish, that in my own view, the development of large, centralized energy-producing utility sources in the province of Ontario is not, indeed, employment-producing at all but on the other hand is employment negative.

There is another fallacy we have come to live with regarding our energy consumption. That is when some of us say we should be developing renewable energy resources with at least the equal of the interest, both from a financial viewpoint and in terms of brainpower input and so on, that we have shown in the nuclear program in the past years. The fallacy is that renewable energy technology is not well enough developed. Two years ago, or a year and a half ago, sitting on the select committee on Hydro one heard predictions that renewable energy technology, if applied beginning now, could account for no more than two per cent of the energy requirements of this country, or of North America if you like, by the turn of the century. Another one of the great fallacies.

Let’s look at some of these fallacies and these concepts and find out, if we can, or get a bit of an insight, into just what we’re dealing with in the province of Ontario; what the potentials are and what challenges lie ahead.

One of the fallacies I alluded to is that renewable energy is not well enough developed and we have to continue to expand this present system. What are renewable energies? We have all heard the term solar energy, and some of us tend to think about solar panels on top of the roof and the retrofit in buildings and so on. But when we take stock of just what we have available to us in terms of what I like to call, instead of solar energy or renewable energy, energy income, it covers a much broader base.

For instance, we have growing in our province a potential from biomass -- that’s one of the buzz words we learn when we get interested in the subject -- which far exceeds the demand for heat that is required by the population of this province, on a renewable basis and on a perpetual basis. There are some who criticize, for instance, the use of forest products or forest waste, or even I suppose the growing of agricultural crops for the use of energy in the future. We’ve heard some naturalists criticize this concept because they believe we would advocate denuding the province of its forests. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. All we’re doing is recognizing that the growth caused by the process of photosynthesis, and the sunlight falling on our great province, gives us a certain potential from that area which can be of great benefit.

If we look at it just a little more deeply, without passing on to other areas just yet, we find something else that is very significant in terms of the utilization of biomass. First of all, the competitive nature of the end products of biomass -- that is wood, alcohol and so on that can be used as very adaptable, storable energy forms -- have as their base a very employment-intensive industry. The harvesting of the product, whatever it is, whether we are going to grow a special crop on the farm and harvest it or whether we’re going to take it out of the forest; or whether it becomes part of the mill waste in our lumbering industry -- and each of these, of course, has a contribution to make -- we find they are labour-intensive.

Another thing we discover about this kind of technology is that while it may be sophisticated to a certain extent, it doesn’t have the demand of sophistication that the nuclear program has in Ontario. That means, then, that the opportunity for employment is spread among a much larger body of people. I certainly am not, and most of us certainly are not, nuclear physicists or whatever, nor are we trained to operate the great atomic engines in Ontario, but we can all learn and have the ability to harvest wood products or grow agricultural crops or participate in that kind of thing.

If you look at the economics of that biomass energy, methanol -- and I’m glad the Minister of Transportation and Communications has come in on his duty-time tonight, taken time from the hockey game to come in.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I heard you were speaking. I tried to stay away.

Mr. J. Reed: What we’re finding right now is that the cost of production of some of these fuels is on a line which is very close to being competitive with the price of petroleum-based motive power. When we reach that point, we know then that Ontario has an incredibly interesting transportation fuel available to it where the money spent can be turned over inside the borders of the province; and that can amount over a period of time to many billions of dollars.

Of course, we have the direct use of biomass energy which many of us grew up with when we were young people, and that’s the burning of wood directly. I had the pleasure of being up in Bobcaygeon a week ago, in the fair riding of Victoria-Haliburton with my colleague the member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. Eakins), and we visited a wood-stove manufacturer --

Hon. Mr. Snow: There’s a lot of biomass from there.

Mr. J. Reed: -- who is not manufacturing the kind of wood stoves that we thought of in the old days, the thing that we had to stoke up every three or four hours or it would go out, and whose heat rose and fell depending on how we managed the draft.

Hon. Mr. Snow: It used to get damn cold in the morning.

Mr. J. Reed: Well these stoves don’t get cold in the morning, I must inform the minister, because wood-burning technology has taken on a whole new significance.

The interesting part of it is that the markets for these wood-burning products are widespread across North America now. We have a whole new technology developing in the use of that biomass.

As the years go by, within the next eight or 10 years, with or without the help from any government, that is going to take over, perhaps a small but certainly a significant amount of our low-temperature requirement in the rural areas.

On that trip I was also intrigued to see the first really competitive solar-heated greenhouse industry in North America.

Mr. Gaunt: It makes the waste heat concept obsolete, doesn’t it?

Mr. J. Reed: It not only makes the waste heat concept for use in greenhouses obsolete, but it makes the whole business of greenhouse growing so much more flexible than it has ever been before and it means that these greenhouses are consuming only about five per cent of the added energy of the traditional greenhouse.

The frustrating part for the manufacturer, of course, is that the government of Ontario does not see fit to help with the research and development of this great industry.

Mr. Cureatz: What about Durham East?

Mr. J. Reed: If we talk about the employment potential in energy, we have to look at the employment potential for the manufacturer of this new technology in greenhouse development as one example.

If we were to relate the comparative energy consumption between the traditional greenhouse that we have at the present time and, say a province or a continent of North America that would gradually convert to this kind of technology, the impact on our energy consumption suddenly becomes enormous and it is a very significant breakthrough.

I might add that Victoria-Haliburton, Lindsay and Ontario can be proud that this technology is well ahead of any of its competitors, certainly across North America. So we know that from an employment point of view, renewable energy really does have a place.

[9:45]

It is also interesting to know, when we do the numbers on the cost, that the time is quickly approaching when Ontario will be in a position to be able to raise all of its own vegetable products on a year-round basis and they will be competitive with products we import, as we do at the present time, from California and Mexico and so on. It also will enable us to grow some of these vegetable products in the mid-north and in the farther north because, as many of us know, while we don’t have as high an ambient temperature up there we do have much more sunlight in some areas than we do here. The sunlight, the insolation if you like, is greater in northern Ontario than it is in southern Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Snow: There are pretty long nights up there.

Mr. Eakins: Great nights in Lindsay.

Mr. J. Reed: There’s another area that we pay very little attention to and --

Hon. Mr. Snow: I didn’t know that Lindsay was in the north.

Mr. J. Reed: -- that is what I suppose I like to call end-use conservation.

As the members know, there are two kinds of conservation when it comes to energy consumption. One is the conservation of quantity. That’s where we use less; where the little dog on television says turn it off, and so on -- the message from your Hydro. That’s quantitative conservation and that’s the kind all of us can practice very easily in Ontario, because we have so much to practice with, being the biggest wasters of energy in the world.

It’s perhaps no wonder that our utility growth has slowed down naturally, as a result of a number of factors; the economic downturn in the province, perhaps a certain downturn in the growth in population, but also the fact that by simply becoming a little more conscious of energy conservation we have had a significant impact on the growth of our utility.

But there’s another kind of conservation. This is the end-use conservation, or if you like the qualitative conservation, Mr. Speaker. It’s the kind of conservation that has probably more potential for realization, more potential for actual reduction in energy consumption than the other kind of conservation.

When I think of it I think of the fact that Ontario Hydro, for instance, is now about 70 per cent a thermal system. That is, about 70 per cent of the power generated is generated by the production of heat and the conversion of heat into steam. What happens during that conversion is that two thirds of the energy that is put into the system is simply delivered into the biosphere, or into our environment, without doing any work. In the process we call it cooling water and --

Hon. Mr. Snow: I thought it was the troposphere.

Mr. J. Reed: It’s the biosphere, and perhaps the minister might make himself familiar with some of these terms as we go along.

Hon. Mr. Snow: The troposphere goes up to 39,000 feet.

Mr. J. Reed: This is an educational speech as well as for the record and I’m trying to do my best for the minister.

Mr. Eakins: An excellent speech.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Everything under 39,000 feet is the troposphere.

Mr. J. Reed: But with that 70 per cent that is converted thermally, our utility puts two thirds of the energy that it consumes in the production of that electricity into the biosphere as waste water.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I think it’s the troposphere.

Mr. J. Reed: That means for every 10,000 Btu -- or let’s say to make it simpler, for every three shovelsful of coal that goes into the furnace, the equivalent of only one shovelful comes down the line in the form of electricity and the heat from the other two shovelsful goes into the Great Lakes.

In my mind, that is a potential for tremendous conservation. The challenge is, how do we accomplish it? Do we accomplish it by using the waste heat? That’s perhaps one way. But one of the other ways of accomplishing that conservation is not by using that kind of utility at all.

I wonder if any of us has considered that if we just used electricity to its highest end use, and applied the other available energy forms for those end uses for which electricity was not needed, what the outcome would be.

Some of the most prominent people in the world who have studied this subject have told us that electricity used to turn a wheel or to turn a motor is a very high end use. They’ve told us that electricity is necessary in electronics. Electricity in lighting is a very high end use. Electricity to produce high temperature heat is also, surprising to me, a very high end use; but nonetheless, it is.

Where do we use a lot of our electrical energy? A tremendous amount is used to produce low-temperature heat. That is one of the worst end uses to which we can put this high-grade form of energy. As a matter of fact, Amery B. Lovans has told us that if we used electricity exclusively to its highest end use and chose the other forms to their highest end use, our consumption of electricity would drop by 90 per cent. It’s quite an interesting observation. We know that in the real world and in the practical world that bottom line is probably not possible. But we know it’s a goal we can strive towards; and we know that considering where we are and where we can go, the opportunities are tremendous.

When we go back and ask to what end use are we going to put these energies, it becomes very interesting when we reconsider the potential for the soft technologies. I mentioned one of them, the biomass. We have mentioned solar energy. We can mention, probably, the potential for the remaining small potential for hydraulic power that is available in the province of Ontario. I know I’ve been accused by certain people of wanting to dam up every stream and extract power from heads as low as three feet. The truth is that the application of small hydraulic power and its conversion to that great form of energy is a very important contribution in the province of Ontario.

If we accept that, if we know that if we’re going to become self-sufficient in energy in Ontario we’ve got to go in that direction, if we know that is the ultimate down the line; the challenge then becomes how to undergo the transition. I would submit to this House that one of the things we do not need to do, that we should no longer be doing, is simply trying to amplify our existing hard energy systems.

In terms of our electrical utilities, we’re well overbuilt. As of right now, our thermal system is overbuilt about 49 per cent. At the rate construction is going, our overbuilding, if the growth continues on a pattern similar to what it has been in the last few years, we will have an overbuild of about 60 per. cent or so by 1985. One wonders if the people who pay for that electricity can stand the gaff. One also wonders if we’re not committing ourselves to one of the great dinosaurs of our age.

The challenge is what do we do in terms of the transition; how do we get from here to there if we accept the fact that there is the place we have to be? I think even the Minister of Energy has accepted the fact that we are going to leave the era of hard technology and probably move toward the era of soft technology, but he projects it over a period of half a century.

One wonders why the ministry and all the brains behind the ministry would take such a very narrow and protracted view of the future, first of all, in order to convert a megawatt of consumption from one form to another form -- for instance, from the hard nuclear form to a solar form in terms of a solar greenhouse and so on -- is very much more quickly done in the soft energy term. It takes us now about 15 years to build a nuclear power plant from the time of conception to when the system is on line.

I would submit that 3,000 or 4,000 megawatts of equivalent power could be produced through soft paths in a very few years -- in two, three, four or perhaps five years. When one does the costing of the relative expense and considers the capital demand and when the interest clock begins to go around and so on, it seems to me to be rather obvious that we must proceed down that path as thoroughly and as quickly as possible.

There are some very interesting side effects that can occur when we go down that path. First of all, we raise the potential for employment very markedly by transferring capital out of a potential nuclear growth or a large centralized growth into a more decentralized soft energy path. Indeed, it has been stated, and I think it’s reasonably correct, that a job can be produced with about 10 per cent of the investment on a soft energy path as it can on the nuclear program; it works out to something like $25,000 per job versus about $250,000 per job in the nuclear area.

We can start with a program of very simple things. For instance, the potential of insulation alone in Ontario equates to roughly 4,000 megawatts of consumption. Another fallacy is that to undertake an insulation program is somehow our response to freezing in the dark as an alternative. That’s a lot of nonsense. As a matter of fact, insulation programs are so successful that many of the American utilities, which have to operate at a profit and pay stockholders, and which pay taxes and so on, are undertaking insulation programs as part of their operations because they darn well make more money for the utility. There is more money in insulating a megawatt of electricity than there is in building a megawatt of generating capacity.

The actual capital requirement for insulating a megawatt of electricity, according to the provincial Ministry of Energy in its book Turn on the Sun, is roughly 50 per cent of that for building a megawatt of generating capacity. That means we have the potential in Ontario, with a concerted insulation program, of saving the equivalent of 25 per cent more than one Darlington at about half of the capital cost.

The other side effect is that we diversify our energy load demand in such a way that we don’t rely as much anymore on the large centralized utility. The same can be said, I think, for virtually every kind of soft energy path. If we build a greenhouse, which we have the technology to do, that will use only fifteen per cent of the energy that was required prior, that means our reliance on the utility becomes markedly less. This in turn has an effect on improving our energy and employment security in this province and makes us much freer of and much less dependent on Big Brother. I hope by that to explain that I believe the transition can be accomplished more quickly than even the building of large-scale centralized nuclear plants.

[10:00]

Of course, as we go into the technology more deeply and as we begin the transition, we find that we develop more rapidly.

As a result I have in the last few months placed on the order paper a number of resolutions that I would like to read into the record tonight. They all relate to what I believe is that kind of transitional period we should get off with as quickly as possible.

Mr. Deans: Why don’t you read Conway’s as well?

Mr. J. Reed: The first one is that all of Hydro’s future thermal expansion be tied to the utilization of cooling water. What that means -- and I think it has some rather broad ramifications that in order for the cooling water to be utilized from the utility, it’s going to mean that the utility will have to locate its facility in proximity to the point of utilization of that cooling water.

Mr. Gaunt: The government is just frying to bail out some of those defeated Tory candidates.

Mr. J. Reed: It seems rather ludicrous to me that the government would choose a site like Bruce, for instance, to build, already in the works, 6,000 megawatts --

Mr. Hodgson: Don’t agree with you on that.

Mr. J. Reed: -- of nuclear power where it is, incidentally, potentially spewing 12,000 megawatts into Lake Huron and not really being able to utilize that cooling water.

It’s also interesting that if a resolution like this follows through, it would mean that the technology and the design of that nuclear reactor should be such that there would be a higher temperature discharge than there is at the present time; although I do know that by the use of heat pumps, or whatever, we can recover it, it could be done for much less cost.

There’s nothing new or radical about that kind of idea. It’s being used in Europe and has been used in those countries for many years, countries that have had to come to terms with the thermal problem from the beginning of their generating careers. We’ve had the Rolls-Royce of electric power generating in Ontario with our hydraulic power; we’ve gone on since then and tried to treat the thermal generation of that power in the same way that we treated the hydraulic, and they just don’t compare. We’ve got to learn to use as much of the energy we put into the system as possible.

The second resolution I put in was that all homes in Ontario should be energy rated. When we first considered this as something to raise the consciousness of each individual consumer of electricity, I really thought of it as being something that was perhaps complicated and involved. I can’t take the credit for this as being anything new. I understand Prince Edward Island has been doing it quite successfully for a couple of years. It’s simply based on the Btu consumption that each individual home has had over the prior three years.

That does give the incentive to the home owner, in terms of the value of his home, to upgrade or reduce the amount of consumption per cubic foot, and that energy rating can then be tied to a listing if one is selling one’s house. It can also be used by the purchaser when they’re deciding how much they’re going to pay for it. I think it’s a rather valid resolution.

The third resolution we brought in was that in the opinion of this House time-of-day pricing should be incorporated into any rate structure changes by Ontario Hydro. As most of us here know, electric power is not purchased on a straight line, It’s purchased through two peak periods that occur every day. We know now that every percentage point we can take off the consumption peak can save the people of Ontario $200 million in capital costs.

One of the ways that we can reduce the peak -- I really have to say this is only one of the ways -- is by incentive pricing. If we can provide enough incentive during those peak times so that people will see that it is to their advantage to store their energy over those times, whether it is through larger hot water heaters that are controlled to go off and on and so on, or whether it is home heating with built-in storage, I think it is immaterial. The fact is that if we can provide that kind of incentive, it will certainly happen.

We have presented a resolution that says the government should attach at least equal importance to the development of renewable resource technology in Ontario as it has to the development of nuclear power. The salesmen of nuclear power tell us that it is the only way to go. We have been getting quite a bit of it, especially if one is an energy critic or involved in debate with those people who are involved directly in nuclear technology.

It seems to me -- perhaps I said this before in the House -- that if the province had attached as much importance to renewable energy technology as it has to nuclear technology the nuclear debate would be academic. We would probably have some of it -- it would take its rightful place in the province -- but it would be in no danger of becoming Ontario’s sole energy destiny.

We have to be very careful in this regard that the pressures to continue to expand and develop and participate in this nuclear proliferation do not overcome what we know, in the long run, is going to be the ultimate destiny of Ontario and for the world so far as that goes. That is the utilization of our energy income rather that our energy capital.

I brought in this next resolution because I felt that it was time the government undertake to lead the way. One of the very frustrating things about being down here is to see that the government talks a good line a lot of the time but never seems to follow through. We have great, grandiose statements from time to time connected with all sorts of things, I think it was the Minister of the Environment some years ago, the new Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. W. Newman), who talked about resource recovery systems for Ontario. I think that was 1973, yet there isn’t one now operating in an Ontario municipality successfully that I know of. So there is a good line talked.

We talk about the necessity to conserve energy and yet our building here doesn’t have a storm window on it. If you look at the size of the windows -- I haven’t undertaken to calculate the kind of losses that take place every winter here, but it would be interesting to know just what could be saved if there were storm windows at Queen’s Park. If you have an answer, Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate it.

Mr. Ruston: The hot air has to get out though.

Mr. J. Reed: My colleague talks about the hot air getting out, but one of the things we can do at Queen’s Park is to save the hot air, we just might be able to heat the whole place. Thus this resolution calls for the installation of storm windows at Queen’s Park so when anyone comes here and visits this building they will know the government is serious about energy conservation.

When I was in Winnipeg two years ago I was interested to see that the provincial government was installing solar water heaters on legislative buildings simply for the purpose of letting people know that they were interested in the subject They were doing test work with it; it wasn’t just a publicity stunt. It was, I thought, a very positive thing.

I went on to suggest in this resolution that the government also carefully examine all the costs in heating and cooling public buildings by solar means, and that a timetable be set to build all new buildings with solar orientation and to retrofit present structures for solar energy as it becomes economically feasible.

My colleague is just showing me a copy of the Toronto Sun which shows two beautiful ladies on the front page making very good use of solar energy -- of course, this is the time of year for it. But the kind that I am advocating is also useful in the middle of winter.

We think that this kind of thrust on the part of the government could be an example to the rest of the citizens -- to people who design homes, who design buildings -- to get on with the job. Because the numbers are there. All we need is a little punch in the right direction.

The final part of my resolution deals with the obvious outcome of these kinds of initiatives; and that is, if you are going to utilize the sun you’ve got to have access to it, Mr. Speaker. So the resolution calls for the government to proceed immediately with the right legislation. The sun right, or the right to sunshine and sunlight, is traditional in British law. It was part of our law here in the city of Toronto until I believe 1885, when I suppose the pressures of the day and the high-rises of the day seemed to necessitate that sun-right laws be abandoned, or obliterated from the books.

If one goes to Tokyo and some other places around the world, one finds that even tall buildings have incorporated into their design shapes that allow the sun to shine on the fellow next door, so that he will have access to sunlight, too. The importance of having that access is accepted in most parts of the world. As usual, of course, especially with the modern-day government, Ontario may be the last to take up these challenges and deal with them. But we have to start in this direction.

The reason I injected this subject matter into the budget debate tonight is because I do believe that the development of our energy future in Ontario can have its base in economics; and if we do it in the proper way and in the proper direction it can be a very economically sound experience. It can result in much fuller employment than we have at the present time. It can result in a much wiser use of the energy resources at our disposal now. It can also give us the capability and the technology to take our rightful place in the world in terms of the ultimate use of energy income devices, and give Ontario its share of that kind of potential market.

As you know Mr. Speaker, the market in Ontario is dependent very much on export. We’ve depended on it since Ontario first became an industrial province and this is one way, through our energy utilization, that we can --

[10:15]

Mr. Haggerty: Export our natural resources, export our energy and export jobs.

Mr. J. Reed: -- export our renewable resources and take our place and be recognized as being in the lead in renewable resource development around the world.

Mr. Foulds: I move the adjournment of the debate, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: If there are no other speakers --

Mr. J. Reed: Jack is going to speak.

Mr. Johnson: I’m sorry to hold the members up tonight. I realize they want to see the rest of the hockey game, but the score is four to one.

Mr. Kerrio: In no way are you holding us up.

Mr. Ruston: We’re here to work.

Mr. Kerrio: We’re here to listen. As long as you give us the score.

Mr. Foulds: It’s okay. We’ll just call a quorum, Jack.

Mr. Johnson: I had quite a few pages here tonight that I’ll delete due to the lateness of the hour. I would like to mention a few things briefly and one point in detail. I did want to discuss our unemployment problem, the confrontation that seems to exist between business, labour and government, the reassessment of our expectations for youth and the tremendous need to improve our apprenticeship program, the need to preserve our agricultural community and the proposition that farmers deserve a fair return on the goods they produce.

Mr. Ziemba: Where do you stand on all those positions?

Mr. Johnson: I’ll forgo that tonight and possibly speak about it at some future date, but I would like to dwell on one program. I would urge the government to consider it. It’s an expansion of the farm vacation program.

The government’s current involvement in this program consists of the distribution of some 1,000 pamphlets. The program has two purposes. First, it provides the urban dweller with an opportunity to vacation in rural communities and to acquaint himself and his family with life on the farm. Secondly, it provides an additional revenue to the farmer. This type of program is currently being carried on in Prince Edward Island where some 90 farmers participate in it. There was an article in the Saturday edition of the Toronto Star two weeks ago explaining the program, and it mentioned that was attracting guests from Europe, the United States, Japan and Indonesia. Similar results might be achieved if the government, on an experimental basis, provided long-term, low-interest loans for building accommodation for farmers wanting to participate in this program. This would benefit the farming community in two ways.

First, it would provide the farmer with an additional income on the farm rather than having him work in urban centres. If he needs an additional income, this would be one way of achieving it without his leaving the farm. Secondly, it would provide another market for the goods sold in the smaller communities. In addition to these factors, a week or two of vacation on the farm would help urban families understand the challenges that face the rural communities and, I might add, the joy of rural life.

I would also add that the purpose of the program would not be to turn a farm away from agriculture. As a matter of fact, it’s the reverse. Its primary purpose is to provide an opportunity for urban families to gain an understanding of farming as a day-to-day business. In addition, I would emphasize again that the purpose of the program is to supplement the farm income, not to replace it.

Any time there is a question of priority between agriculture and recreation, we would surely all agree that we have more land suitable for recreation than for agriculture. Therefore, the priority must go to agriculture. I’m not promoting a farm vacation program at the expense of agricultural land, but indeed the opposite. It would be my hope that the young farmers and farmers on marginal land or operating on a very fight budget would be able to make extra income, thus making their farming operations more viable.

At the present time, if the farmer does not have sufficient resources to buy more land to enlarge his holdings, to buy better equipment, to improve his operation, to buy more stock to increase his profits, he is forced to take a second job and work off the farm. Under this farm vacation program, that meant to improve his operation, to buy more or three small cottages or cabins, a maximum of possibly five, depending on the location and his potential ability to handle the operation. In five or six years be could sell or transfer his operation to another farmer and the cycle could start again.

We have a type of farm vacation program in existence in Ontario today but there are fewer than 30 farmers in the program. They operate on a very modest budget and receive very little recognition or encouragement. They receive some support from both the federal and provincial governments but not enough from either.

In 1976 I was in Prince Edward Island and met with the Minister of Tourism; we discussed that province’s program and I was told that several years ago it was not meeting with much success. They decided on a drastic policy. They prepared a questionnaire and asked farmers and tourists why the program was not working. The answer came back that the people involved, both the farmers and the tourists, wished to have some privacy. In many cases they did not feel comfortable sharing the same home.

Therefore, Prince Edward Island came up with the idea of separate, small cottages or cabins adjacent or close to the farmer’s home. This worked and the program is now extremely successful. That is why I propose small, self-contained one- or two-bedroom portable cabins or cottages. They would have a Franklin stove or fireplace, heating and cooking facilities and be geared to family vacations. They must be portable so they can be moved from one farm to another or sold to private individuals to recoup the cost. They must be winterized so that the program can be extended beyond the summer months. There are many families who would like inexpensive winter vacations as well as summer vacations in Ontario if accommodations were available.

These cottages or cabins would be constructed on an assembly-line basis, identical one- or two-bedroom units. They could be tendered out to private enterprise or, better still, they could be built in our Correctional Services institutions; for example, the Guelph training centre.

I am sure the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Drea) could make use of such a program. In fact, I discussed it with the minister today and he offered his fullest support to the province.

This would create a job training program for these unfortunate young men. They would receive beneficial training as carpenters, a trade they might continue to pursue in the future. They would provide inexpensive units that could be purchased by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism and leased to the farmers engaged in this program.

Mr. Foulds: Undercutting free enterprise.

Mr. Kerrio: I thought you were a free enterpriser?

Mr Johnson: I am.

Mr. Kerrio: But you’re going to have the state build everything.

Mr. Johnson: It would be hoped that after the first successful year’s operation the farmer would purchase the units and perhaps add one or two more. The farmer’s wife could provide some meals, if not all, sell some made-at-home produce, and provide employment for some of their neighbours, thus contributing to the general prosperity of the operation.

Mr. Foulds: Sounds like a socialist scheme to me.

Mr. Johnson: To be successful it would have to be an operating farm -- naturally not a specialized operation like a dairy farm, but nevertheless an operating farm.

I would propose that my riding of Wellington-Dufferin-Peel be used as a pilot project. My riding is nearly as large geographically and in population as Prince Edward Island and could support 40 or 50 farm vacation businesses.

Within a two-hour drive, 100 miles, there are nearly four million people living in large urban areas in Ontario plus another 1.5 million in Buffalo.

Within one day’s drive, 400 miles, there are approximately 20 million living in large urban centres; and this does not include Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York or Boston, which are not far outside this range -- a potential 50 million customers for this farm vacation program.

When Canada faces a deficit of between $1 billion and $2 billion in tourist trade, any tourist vacation program deserves a trial period. The federal government asked people not to vacation in the south this winter and will likely try to entice the tourists not to travel to Europe this summer, but many will; and this is quite understandable.

But how about providing an alternative, especially for the young families with limited incomes and small children? Why not a family-plan vacation in Ontario, in Wellington-Dufferin-Peel? We’re only an hour from the beaches of Georgian Bay, Lake Huron or Lake Ontario, an hour from the major Ontario settings, with dozens of arenas, curling clubs, swimming pools, golf courses, tennis courts, ball parks. We have the headwaters of several major trout streams and many small fishing lakes. We have the scenery that will match any in Ontario, the Elora Gorge, the Luther Marsh, the Caledon Hills, beautiful towns and villages and the friendliest people in the world. Come back to the land, back to the farm, back to rural Ontario and visit us in God’s country.

Perhaps I’m a dreamer. Perhaps it won’t work. Perhaps this farm vacation program is not feasible, hut surely it has merit enough for us to pursue it, to investigate the possibilities and, indeed, to set up a pilot project. If it is successful in my riding it could be successful in many ridings across our fair province. Perhaps we can experiment in other ridings as well. I would encourage them to participate.

The Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Rhodes) has indicated his interest in this program. His ministry has been most co-operative, but to make this program a success we need the assistance, the advice and the cooperation of all members in all parties in the House. I hope the members would at least give serious consideration to these proposals.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, in my speech tonight I had intended to emphasize the need for business, labour and government to co-operate with one another to resolve our economic difficulties. I intended to emphasize the need for these sectors of the public to re-evaluate their expectations in terms of what they expect from one another and from society as a whole.

Expectations are a very precarious commodity. We all want a comfortable and prosperous life within the communities in which we live. But the time has come to establish priorities for ourselves as individuals and for society as a whole. Our expectations must be based on a careful assessment of what we want and what we can afford.

If we want a community free from crime and tension, for instance, then we must be prepared to support the fine efforts of our police departments who contribute so much to our society. All too often we expect perfection from our law enforcement agencies and when we find a flaw we dwell on it. Instead, we should remember their efforts and the dangers they face to protect us from those who threaten our property, families and way of life. Thus, our expectations must be realistic, whether it be in what we expect from the police, from government, business and labour or from society and the economy as a whole.

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

On motion by Hon. Mr. Brunelle, the House adjourned at 10:20 p.m.