Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

NEW PLANNING BILL

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure in tabling for the House the white paper on the Planning Act, which sets out the approach this government will take in drafting a new planning act for our province. Honourable members are all aware, I am sure, that the white paper has been through a long review period. There are reasons for this.

First, it should be pointed out that this white paper does not refer to a series of simple amendments to the existing act. Rather, it proposes a new act to ensure that the planning process in Ontario meets current needs and future expectations. The Planning Act, like many other acts, receives limited attention from the public. Yet it is one of the most important acts of this province as it sets the rules by which municipalities control development and hence determines to a great degree exactly how this province will evolve.

When the original act was passed in 1946, Ontario was heading into an exciting and demanding period of growth. The province was on the verge of a baby boom. It was facing a time when hundreds of thousands of immigrants were arriving to start new lives for themselves and their children in our province. It was a period of rapid development, unparalleled in our history, when the needs for housing and for industrial and commercial expansion were paramount.

The success of that act in bringing order to development, while ensuring that all segments of society were able to benefit, is readily apparent. For more than 30 years, the original Planning Act stood us in remarkably good stead. Yet times change, and the act must also change. Our concerns about providing more housing, more industry and more commerce have been enlarged to include concerns about protecting our heritage and environment and to ensure that valuable resources such as agricultural land, are retained. In addition, we recognize that municipalities are much more capable of looking after more of their own planning interests than in the past.

Without going into specifics at this time, I would like to state briefly that the main changes proposed by the white paper involve: Refining the role and interests of the province in local planning so that there will be no interference in municipal matters, unless it is necessary to protect the provincial interest; streamlining the planning process in Ontario by cutting red tape and by providing municipalities which are capable with more autonomy in deciding their own local planning issues; and altering the role of the municipal board when it deals with planning matters so that it becomes solely an appellate body able to deal with issues more quickly and efficiently.

I wish to make clear that the white paper represents a firm commitment by this government. Recommendations have been arrived at only after careful deliberation. I would add that because of the extensive public input we encouraged throughout the review process we are convinced that a firm basis exists for the changes that we propose.

In 1975, a committee chaired by Eli Comay, professor of environmental studies at York University, began a complete review of the act. Other committee members were Earl Berger and Eric Hardy, with Dennis Hefferon as legal counsel. Meetings were held across this province by the committee to elicit public response. More than 300 briefs were received to help the committee in preparing its recommendations.

In June 1977 the committee’s report was tabled in this House and distributed across the province for review and comment. Upwards of 350 briefs were received related to the recommendations of the Planning Act Review Committee. At the same time, we initiated further studies and consulted with other ministries and agencies to arrive at a position that we are convinced is both farsighted and responsible. The results of these labours are contained in the white paper.

It is the intention of my ministry to again contact local governments and other organizations and groups to explain the proposals before final legislation is introduced in this House, which should occur early next year. We will sponsor eight regional meetings across the province to explain the proposals in the white paper. These meetings begin next week in Ottawa. In the following three-week period, other meetings will be held in Sault Ste. Marie, Dryden, Thunder Bay, Kingston, London, Barrie and Toronto. During these sessions, we would hope to provide an overview to the heads of council and to planning boards on the intent of the proposed legislation.

In September, we intend to hold workshops with municipal staff, during which the proposals for change will be detailed. We have asked the municipal liaison committee for suggestions on where and when these meetings should take place. While we are committed to the white paper and the draft legislation, we are prepared to consider modifications during this final review period.

I would at this time like to acknowledge the contributions of my predecessors, the Honourable Donald Irvine and the late John Rhodes, who gave this process thrust and direction. I think also we owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Comay of the Planning Act Review Committee and to his associates. Last but not least, a special acknowledgement must be given to ministry staff, particularly those in the local planning branch of my ministry’s community planning wing, and to the hundreds of other provincial and municipal officials and other interested persons who contributed through briefs and comments to the preparation of this white paper.

We have set a deadline of November 16 for comment on the white paper proposals and on the draft legislation. It is my intention to introduce to this House for debate legislation for a new act as soon as possible thereafter.

Copies of the white paper, together with a summary which has been printed as a special edition of my ministry’s magazine, Housing Ontario, are now being forwarded to all municipalities, planning boards, school boards, committees of adjustment and all others who have participated in or are likely to be affected by this review. Copies are also being forwarded to all members of this House and should be in their mailboxes at this time.

This, we hope, will provide a contemporary and forward-looking act which will do as much for this province in the next 30 years as was done by the existing act for the past 30 years.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I have a statement from the Ministry of Natural Resources and one from the Ministry of Energy. I don’t know whether the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the third party have received a copy of the one from Energy regarding radiation at Pickering.

Mr. S. Smith: No, we have not.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I hope it will be here shortly; it is on its way.

DOVER TOWNSHIP FLOODING

Hon. Mr. Auld: I would like to table the report of the Dover Township Flood Review Committee. As members will recall, I established this committee of non-ministry people to document the events and actions taken before and during the flooding this March in Dover township. I also instructed the committee to advise me how flood warning and response systems could be improved.

The review committee was chaired by Walter Giles, Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environment. His members were Bill Brisco, a local drainage engineer, and Rosaire Sterling, a local cash crop farmer. The review committee’s report is based largely on discussions with the agencies that have flood emergency responsibilities and also on interviews with many of the people who suffered hardship and property damage during the flooding.

The report contains 32 recommendations, 26 of which are aimed at reducing the chances of more flood disasters in the area. Without going into detail, let me say that these 26 recommendations cover four main areas that need to be addressed: preparation of an ice management plan; re-evaluation of the partially-constructed dikes along the lower Thames; preparation of a co-ordinated flood contingency plan for Dover township; and, finally, the need to increase awareness among local residents that floods will occur again and to provide better communications between local residents and the appropriate agencies when those floods occur.

Many of these recommendations can also be applied to other areas of the province where flooding occurs. For example, one recommendation is that interagency flood committees should be established and meet annually to ensure that flood contingency plans for a particular watershed are up to date and properly co-ordinated. The committee also recommends that conservation authorities should promote flood contingency planning by municipalities more aggressively. The committee also points out that an ice management seminar should be sponsored by the province.

I am also pleased to see the committee members, after a thorough review, judged the province’s policy on planning for flood emergencies to be, in their words, “basically sound.” The committee found only a limited number of areas where the policy could be improved. This was the first real test of that policy since it was established three years ago. In that time, we have not experienced widespread flooding until recently. My staff now intends to review that policy on the basis of the report and the experience that has been gained elsewhere this year. I am sure members will agree that this is the kind of policy that needs to be constantly improved wherever possible.

I would like to thank the committee members for a thorough and timely report. My ministry will certainly review in detail all the recommendations. I am sure the report will also receive the careful attention of officials in Dover township and the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority.

Copies of this report will be sent to those residents whose homes were flooded and will be available in the Chatham public library. They will also be made available to local news media. Other copies will be available at the Dover township office and the offices of the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority and the Ministry of Natural Resources. Comments from the public on this report will be most welcome.

TRITIUM IN DRINKING WATER

Hon. Mr. Auld: Due to the anxiety caused by the Toronto Star’s banner headline on “Radiation Traces Found in Pickering Drinking Water,” I have asked Ontario Hydro to provide the following information which I would like to share with the House and the public.

First, despite the implications in the newspapers, I have positive assurances from Ontario Hydro that the traces routinely found in the water present absolutely no danger to people, wildlife, plantlife, Scotch drinkers or anybody else.

[2:15]

Ontario Hydro has been monitoring the drinking water ever since the station went into operation. The tritium measurements are recorded and placed on record as part of Ontario Hydro’s quarterly technical reports which are available to interested members of the public. The measurements are under the heading, “Pickering Township Drinking Water.”

The maximum permissible amount in the drinking water is set by the Atomic Energy Control Board at a level which ensures that anyone drinking the water would not exceed their annual permissible limit of 500 millirem. Ontario Hydro’s own standard is such that no release exceeds one per cent of the AECB figure. That is five millirem.

The amounts of tritium in the water supply are far lower than Hydro’s own conservative standards. In fact, drinking the water in question would result in far less than one millirem per year. To put this one millirem a year in perspective, natural background radiation is about 100 millirem a year.

The total amount of radiation from all sources at Pickering is about three millirem a year. Of that, less than one millirem represents total tritium emissions and an even smaller amount represents the drinking water measurements. In fact, the amounts of tritium released to the lake from Pickering contribute only a small proportion of the total levels which come mainly from cosmic rays and weapons testing.

Mr. S. Smith: Point of order: The Minister of Energy also sent a statement on the damaged boilers at Pickering nuclear station. I don’t know if he intended to read it.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I didn’t get a copy of that.

Mr. S. Smith: The minister didn’t get a copy?

Hon. Mr. Auld: It was kind of a busy morning this morning. I would like to thank the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Peterson: Do you know what’s in it?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Ah, yes, I went over it at 20 to two. It took a little while to get the copy.

Mr. Peterson: We have a lot of confidence in the minister.

Mrs. Campbell: Yes, we do.

Hon. Mr. Auld: The honourable members are so wise.

NUCLEAR PLANT SAFETY

Hon. Mr. Auld: Following my last statement to the House on May 25 concerning the damaged boilers at Pickering B generation station, some honourable members posed further questions regarding the contracts for these boilers. I said at that time that I would seek further information from Ontario Hydro on these questions and provide it to the House.

On May 28 the Leader of the Opposition asked why competitive tenders were called for the Pickering A boilers in 1965 and for Bruce A in 1970, but not called in 1973 and 1974 for the Pickering B boilers.

The main reason for ordering a repeat of the Pickering A boilers for Pickering B station from the same supplier was to obtain the benefits of economy, efficiency and operating standardization. I think I mentioned that in the previous statement.

The Pickering A boilers had performed well and continue to provide excellent service. I should like to emphasize that Pickering A has achieved world renown since its four units began operation between April 1, 1971, and May 1973. It has broken many production records and, in 1977, on a world-wide basis, Pickering A’s four units ranked first, third, fourth and sixth for reliability among more than 80 nuclear units of 500 megawatts or over. Hydro’s objective in reordering the boilers for Pickering B was to achieve the same high level of performance as for Pickering A.

As I mentioned in my statement of May 25, Ontario Hydro advises me that at the time Hydro placed its orders with Babcock and Wilcox Canada Limited for the Pickering B boilers, that company was the only one in Canada which had the necessary manufacturing facilities in place -- and I underline “in place” -- to build this type of boiler.

It is quite likely, as suggested by the honourable member for York South (Mr. MacDonald), that had another Canadian company been awarded a contract for nuclear boilers in the early 1970s, it could have tooled up and delivered the boilers. However, I am advised by Ontario Hydro that the typical schedule for a repeat order requires about 14 months less than for tendering for new designs.

As honourable members will recall, the 1973-74 period was one of great turmoil and uncertainty in the energy field due to world crude oil price increases and embargoes. In this context, Ontario Hydro felt there was some urgency to order the boilers for Pickering B and to have them delivered. Clearly, this was an additional factor favouring a reorder from Babcock and Wilcox Canada Limited.

Nevertheless, as mentioned earlier, the predominant consideration in Hydro’s decision not to go to tender for the Pickering B boilers was to obtain the benefits of economy, efficiency and operating standardization.

As the attached chronology indicates, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited placed the order for the nuclear boilers for the Candu station being built in Korea with Foster Wheeler Limited of St. Catharines after a competitive tender in 1976, some two years after the Pickering B orders were placed.

Despite the fact there is a constant flow of information between AECL and Hydro, Hydro informs me it received absolutely no information from AECL which suggests that AECL’s decision was based on any concerns AECL may have had with the Babcock and Wilcox design. If the Leader of the Opposition has information to the contrary, I should be happy to receive it.

The honourable Leader of the Opposition further inquired as to the financial status of Babcock and Wilcox to rectify the defects found in the Pickering B boilers. Ontario Hydro’s objective is to get the boilers installed in order to limit delays for the in- service dates for the Pickering B units and to ensure the provisions of the contract are met. I can only repeat this is undeniably a complex and difficult legal question which will require considerable discussion before it is ultimately resolved.

The fact that Hydro did tender for the Darlington boilers answers the question asked of me by the member for York South. The scheduled delivery dates for these boilers ranges from March 31, 1982 to May 15, 1985. However, Hydro has directed Babcock and Wilcox to hold off on any significant work on the contract.

I would like to assure the honourable leader of the New Democratic Party that the risk certainly does not rest solely with Ontario Hydro. The contracts with Babcock and Wilcox require the boilers meet performance specifications. The manufacturer will be required to rectify any deficiencies in performance resulting from deficiencies in design or manufacture.

Attached to the statement, Mr. Speaker, is the chronology of large Candu nuclear boiler awards, starting with Pickering A in 1965 and going through to the last one, Darlington, in 1978.

[Later (2:28):]

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid this isn’t my day.

Mr. Cassidy: You’ve had most of it so far.

Hon. Mr. Auld: The copy of the statement which I read had some pages typed on one side and some on two, and I missed a couple of pages. If I may, I’d like to read them now for the benefit of Hansard.

Mrs. Campbell: It didn’t make any difference.

Mr. Cassidy: Nobody noticed the difference.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Between one thing and another it’s been a busy day.

Mr. Foulds: Two portfolios are getting too much for you.

Ms. Gigantes: Dispense.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I thought it seemed longer when I read it this morning. I would like to add pages four and six. Page four follows after “economy, efficiency and operating standardization.”

Mr. Foulds: This is called an addendum.

Hon. Mr. Auld: It reads as follows: The Leader of the Opposition also asked about tendering by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited for boilers between 1970 and 1974. Attached to my statement for the information of honourable members is a chronology of large Candu nuclear boiler awards, indicating who placed the orders, which of the contracts were tendered and which companies were awarded the contracts. As the chronology shows, AECL tendered for boilers for three reactors in 1973 and 1974, namely, Gentilly, Argentina and Lepreau, and in each case AECL awarded the contract to Babcock and Wilcox.

The Leader of the Opposition also asked if I was unaware that Babcock and Wilcox did not receive the AECL contract for a Candu station in Korea, partly because of AECL’s concern that the Babcock and Wilcox design would produce the tube crimping that did in fact occur. He further suggested that Babcock and Wilcox had been awarded the contract for Darlington, despite the fact that Hydro had been warned that that design would lead to these very problems.

Then page five follows and now I am reading from page six.

Mr. Foulds: These pages aren’t concurrent.

Hon. Mr. Auld: As I reported last week, these discussions -- the discussions about the repair of the boilers -- are currently under way between senior officials of Hydro and Babcock and Wilcox. It would be inappropriate for me to comment further.

The leader of the New Democratic Party asked whether in the case of previous contracts or of the Darlington contract there is any guarantee from Babcock and Wilcox that the very complex and sophisticated boilers will in fact work.

Ms. Gigantes: You don’t need the boilers at Darlington at all. Delete Darlington.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I should point out that the order for the Darlington boilers was placed with Babcock and Wilcox in 1978 in competitive tender and theirs was the lowest evaluated tender. Ontario Hydro decided to go to tenders due to design and scale differences from the previous orders.

The Darlington boiler contract was awarded before the discovery of defects in the Pickering B boilers. Ontario Hydro advises me that there was no intimation, prior to the placing of the Darlington order, which suggested that any difficulty would be encountered in the manufacturing of boilers at Babcock and Wilcox.

Ms. Gigantes: You don’t need the Darlington boilers. Forget them.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I apologize to the House for the mixup that I have caused.

Mr. Breithaupt: It is much clearer now.

[Reverting (2:23):]

MUNICIPAL LEGISLATION

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I will be introducing a bill which contains a number of amendments to the regional acts. Many of these proposed amendments are common to all 10 acts. Each region will be able to contract for insurance to protect the members of its council or any local board, to invest in credit unions, to accept historical documents, and to control parking on regional property. Similar amendments were made to the Municipal Act last fall.

The bill will also increase the maximum rate of interest a regional council may charge an area municipality for failure to pay its levy, from one per cent to 1.25 per cent per month.

Other amendments would apply only to certain regions. In regions where all water and sewer services are a regional responsibility, the region will be authorized to enter into agreements to maintain and repair pipes in condominiums.

In regions where the planning powers of the council are described as being the powers of a planning board, it will be made clear that the quorum for the council on official plan matters is the same as for all other regional responsibilities. In Ottawa-Carleton and York, two changes are being made that were inadvertently left out of the Metric Conversion Statute Law Amendment Act.

In regions where the region provides sewage treatment facilities and the area municipalities provide local sewers, the region will be authorized to control the discharge from local sewers into regional sewers and treatment plants.

A number of amendments proposed in this bill are unique to one region and are included as a result of local requests. In Ottawa-Carleton these amendments will abolish the library boards in Nepean and Vanier and will increase the size of the Ottawa-Carleton Transit Commission. In Niagara, the bill will remove the right of appeal of the method used in calculating sewer rates. In York, it will transfer the responsibility for solid waste disposal to the region.

In Waterloo a minor boundary change is being made at the request of the region and the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo. In addition, because of the method by which the city of Waterloo selects its regional councillors, a small change is included to provide a procedure in the event of acclamations or tied votes. A further amendment will allow the regional municipality of Waterloo to establish uniform sewer rates.

ORAL QUESTIONS

TRITIUM IN DRINKING WATER

Mr. S. Smith: If it’s not the Minister of Energy’s day, perhaps I should try asking him a few questions. I will ask him, first of all, about the subject of the tritium in the drinking water of the town of Pickering, appreciating the minister’s statement that the amount is extremely small and well below anything that would even remotely constitute a hazard.

Would the minister, nonetheless, assist the House by providing us with some additional information? In particular, can he tell us when this tritium was first discovered in the drinking water, whether this is a regular monitoring process and what the level was?

[2:30]

Can he also tell us whether tritium is related to the leakage at the Pickering nuclear station, and if so, where the leakage is taking place, what is the size of the leakage and whether there is a particular leak that is responsible for the recent findings?

I guess basically what I would like from the minister is a more complete report on the level of tritium that is leaking. What is the allowable level? Has there been any change recently? What is the nature of the monitoring process? And so on. Can we have a more complete report?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I believe that monitoring has been going on since before the plant actually came into operation -- I think from about the time a decision was made to site the plant at its present location.

I believe the background level would be something in the neighbourhood of the existing level. There might be a slight increase because of the fact that the plant itself does have some general emission, as everybody knows; a very minuscule one.

I would remind the honourable members that there was a shutdown because of a leak of heavy water in one of the heat transfer -- I’ve forgotten the term. Not in the boiler but in the heat exchanger. As I recall, it was such a minuscule leak that it was quite a while before the unit was shut down because it took some time to locate the leak.

I think there was one other incident in one of the units at Pickering where there was another leak of heavy water -- again, I think, in a similar kind of operation. I’ll get all the details of that.

Mr. McClellan: You are really up to date on everything, aren’t you?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Since the amounts are so small, and there’s so much dispersion from the cooling water effluent, I’m not sure whether it is possible to say whether the current level that is found in the drinking water has been increased because --

Mr. Wildman: I think you’d better share the work with the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Wiseman).

Hon. Mr. Auld: -- of this heavy water leakage or whether the tritium level is about the same as it was this time last year. I’ll get the records, which are available, and the best guess I can get as to the source.

Mr. S. Smith: I thank the minister for his undertaking to obtain the information, although I may parenthetically express some surprise that he doesn’t already have the information as to where the leak is, if there is a leak, and, if there’s been an increase, what the amounts are.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I understand there is no current leak but there was one which I think all members were aware of not too long ago.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary --

Some hon. members: Oh! oh, no.

Mr. Speaker: That really wasn’t a question.

Mr. S. Smith: I sat down in respect of the fact that the minister stood.

May I ask, by way of supplementary, whether the minister can comment on the reported statements by Mr. Steeves, of Hydro, that tritium is a health hazard of a very innocuous nature, considering the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council, as quoted in the Porter commission, has said there has not been any major research on the biological effects of tritium? In view of the fact that it was pointed out that this really is, in a sense, a Canadian responsibility, can the minister say if there has been any such research that he knows of and can he report it to the House?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I can inquire. I imagine there has been, but I am not aware of the details. I read that in the paper about 10 o’clock this morning and it took a little while to track down the necessary people to get the information.

Ms. Gigantes: If, as the Porter commission suggested, the minister finds there is no major research on the biological effects of tritium, will he undertake to have such research done, so we can know that these minuscule amounts are not having serious biological effects?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I’ll take that into consideration when I’m looking into the answers to the Leader of the Opposition’s questions.

Mr. McCaffrey: Point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I think this is a legitimate point of privilege, and if it’s to be otherwise described as clarification, I will take your guidance on that. Because this has happened a number of times in the last session I think it might be an appropriate time for me to raise this matter.

Increasingly, under ministerial statements -- and I think it’s particularly so since the widespread concern about nuclear matters -- there have been quite detailed as well as lengthy statements. Properly, the opposition leaders and opposition critics have access to those statements as the minister is reading them. It seems to me, now that we are in a position where there are a number of supplementary questions on this very important matter, it’s right and proper that private members of the Legislature also have the statement at the same time.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: That seems to have almost universal accord. I’ll discuss that with the House leaders and report back.

Mr. S. Smith: That’s a good point.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, so the record will show the straight facts, lest the impression be left that the ministers are not providing them for all of the members of the House, I think it should be pointed out this is in accordance with a decision made by the House leaders -- in consultation, I believe, with the Speaker.

Mrs. Campbell: We’re aware of that.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s why I wanted it to show on the record. All of my colleagues and I would be pleased to make those available, if it’s the desire of the House.

Mr. McClellan: It’s a good suggestion.

Mr. J. Reed: I have a supplementary of the minister. Can the minister tell us, as this statement is made with regard to the element tritium and if tritium is used as the monitoring agent for radiation leakage, are other elements in the system searched for at the same time? In other words, is tritium simply a baseline search that is undertaken or does the ministry look for things like cesium, strontium, iodine and so on?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I understand the figures I was given are for the total radiation from all similar sources.

NUCLEAR PLANT SAFETY

Mr. S. Smith: I have a question of the Minister of Energy on his statement regarding the Babcock and Wilcox boiler matter.

First of all, he says on page five of his statement that AECL had provided no information for Hydro concerning the reasons it switched from the Babcock and Wilcox boiler to the Foster Wheeler boiler for the Korea reactor.

May I ask the minister why he keeps repeating this without finding out from Hydro why it didn’t ask AECL what the reasons were for this sudden switch? The minister can see from the chronology that Babcock and Wilcox got all the awards from 1965 to 1975. There is a sudden change with regard to the Korea reactor. The minister has said it was a competitive situation, but we have reason to believe the Foster Wheeler one was more expensive than the Babcock and Wilcox one. Therefore, I ask the minister why he is satisfied without finding out from Hydro why it didn’t ask AECL the reason for this sudden change.

Ms. Gigantes: We don’t know that they didn’t ask.

Hon. Mr. Auld: My understanding is that it was a competitive tender and that Babcock and Wilcox’s was not the lowest evaluated tender.

Mr. S. Smith: Neither was Foster Wheeler’s.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Then who was?

Mr. S. Smith: Maybe they didn’t even evaluate the Babcock and Wilcox tender.

An hon. member: The government won’t be able to get away with it much longer.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I will be delighted to ask Atomic Energy of Canada Limited for any information the honourable members want. It is a federal agency and I would assume the information is available to the Leader of the Opposition if he would get his research office to call them. But I will keep on asking questions of Hydro. I am sure they would have been informed by AECL had there been anything AECL thought was wrong with any of the suppliers with whom they were dealing.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary: I want to relate this to another matter in the minister’s statement on page five.

The minister says Hydro’s objective is to get the boilers installed in order to limit delays. That’s in response to the question of the financial status of the company to rectify the matter. Since I offered the minister an opportunity to deny that Ontario Hydro had in fact decided not to go after Babcock and Wilcox Canada Limited for fear of rendering the company bankrupt, and since his statement does not speak of the public interest in terms of recovering that $35 million but only of limiting delays, may I ask him again if he endorses the notion that Babcock and Wilcox should be let go without being chased for this money, and if he endorses any decision Hydro might have made to let Babcock and Wilcox alone for fear of rendering them bankrupt?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I believe I said, in answer to a similar question some time ago, that my understanding was Hydro wanted the work done according to the contract and according to the specifications. I assume that means all the repairs that are the responsibility of Babcock and Wilcox would be done at Babcock and Wilcox’s expense.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: There has been absolutely no question in the minds of the authorities responsible at the Point Lepreau nuclear power station in New Brunswick, where similar deficiencies in boilers have been uncovered, that full responsibility lies with Babcock and Wilcox. Can the minister be clear, or can we read the end of his ministerial statement today to mean that Babcock and Wilcox has got to come up with boilers which meet all of the original specifications, even if it means rebuilding them from scratch?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I think that is what I said before. I have no idea of the terms of the contract with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited for Lepreau. It may be the same or similar to the Hydro contract; it may not. Ontario Hydro tells me it wants the work done according to the specifications and the units to perform according to the specifications, and that is the supplier’s responsibility.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: I wonder if the minister could inform the House, or the members of the resources development committee representing his party, of the urgency and complexity of this matter, because his members and the members of the New Democratic Party have voted to postpone any consideration of this matter by the committee.

Mr. Wildman: That’s not true.

Mr. Nixon: Would the minister not agree the matter should be considered by the committee to which it is referred without further delay?

Hon. Mr. Auld: The committee makes its own decisions and I do not purport to interfere with them. I am anxious to see Hydro get on with the job, to tell members the truth.

Mr. Wildman: A point of privilege, Mr. Speaker --

Mrs. Campbell: You get so uptight.

Mr. Wildman: The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk knows full well that right now there are negotiations going on in the steering committee of the resources development committee in order to try to bring that matter before one of the committees of this House.

Mrs. Campbell: Which one?

Mr. Wildman: Nobody right now is trying to postpone it.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, surely you would be aware of the vote taken in the committee on Tuesday evening.

Mr. Wildman: There was no vote.

Mr. Warner: There was no vote.

Mr. Nixon: There was a vote taken, appealing the ruling of the chairman who indicated the committee did not have the right to change the order of its business which, with respect to the committee, was really preposterous.

Mr. Warner: There was no vote.

Mr. Nixon: There was a vote taken; you and the Tories voted together.

Mr. T. P. Reid: As usual.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are getting into the same difficulty we got into on Tuesday afternoon. There is a difference of opinion, a difference of interpretation about something that went on elsewhere; I am not going to countenance any further debate on it.

Mr. Martel: It’s a false statement. They are not telling the truth.

Mrs. Campbell: Oh, come on.

Mr. Nixon: Make him withdraw that.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The honourable member for Sudbury East has accused another member of lying. He knows that is not acceptable in this chamber.

Mr. Martel: That’s two days in a row they have come in with that nonsense and I’ll not withdraw it.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Warner: Total distortion.

Mr. Speaker: Would the honourable member care to reconsider?

Mr. Martel: No, I would not care to reconsider because I’m tired of this guy’s lies.

Mr. Martel withdrew from the chamber.

Applause.

Interjections.

[2:45]

Mr. di Santo: On a point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker. I was the one who spoke in the committee on this very subject.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I said I would not hear any more argument or debate on something that happened outside of this House. I don’t think it is appropriate to be trying to accomplish in this House something you weren’t able to accomplish in the committee. It is the responsibility of the committee to report to the House and to the Chair if there is something it can’t resolve there.

Mr. di Santo: Can I ask that the record be corrected?

Mr. Speaker: What record? I am not in a position to know what went on in the committee so I am not in a position to know whether the record is correct or not.

Mr. Riddell: It’s a broken record back here.

Mr. Foulds: I would like to ask the minister as a supplementary whether or not the implication of his last reply is that the specifications by Hydro were inadequate?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Let the member reread my reply.

Mr. Foulds: That is not an answer.

Mr. Speaker: In connection with the last incident, lest the matter go any further, I think I would be remiss if I did not remind all honourable members that it is taken for granted in this chamber that all honourable members are indeed honourable members and would not do anything to misconstrue something that took place here or elsewhere.

I am in no position to determine from the facts available to me what are the facts or what is the proper interpretation. I would just like to caution all honourable members that anything they say in this House is fact in their own honest opinion. I would like them to keep that in mind when they are making allegations back and forth. I have to assume that all honourable members are indeed honourable members.

Mr. Cassidy: I have another question for the Minister of Energy relating to the safety of the Rolphton nuclear power plant in eastern Ontario.

On May 10 and again last Thursday, the minister made statements to this House indicating that the nuclear power station at Rolphton was shut down only for normal housekeeping maintenance. Was the minister informed by Hydro that radioactive heavy water has been leaking from tubes in the heat exchange system at that plant since September 1978?

Is the minister aware that these leaks constitute a danger to safety because of the danger of release of radioactive tritium into the atmosphere? When did the minister become aware that Hydro has decided to postpone the reopening of the Rolphton power plant at least until June 16 because it has been unable until now to complete repairing these problems?

Hon. Mr. Auld: As far as the first part of the question is concerned the information I have from Ontario Hydro is that it was doing routine maintenance. I do know from previous reports that routine maintenance may include a number of things which may have happened some time before but were not severe enough or serious enough to cause a shutdown until the normal maintenance period came along.

As far as the second part of the question is concerned, I was informed yesterday that it was apparent the maintenance was taking longer than originally anticipated and they were now thinking the plant would reopen about, give or take a few days, June 16.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Since the plant is now going to be closed until June 16 and since it is clear there are safety problems, despite the minister’s statement that the plant was shut down only for normal housekeeping maintenance, can the minister explain why, as recently as a couple of hours ago at the House leaders’ meeting, both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party refused to have a debate on the select committee’s report, which recommended the Rolphton plant stay shut until this matter of safety could he considered by the select committee.

Will the government now reconsider that position so this House can consider that report and so that the safety questions at the Rolphton nuclear power plant can be explored by a committee of this Legislature before that plant is reopened?

Mr. S. Smith: Why doesn’t the leader of the NDP let it go before the committee? That is where it should be discussed, not in the House. We don’t need a debate here on it.

Mr. Foulds: The committee has reported, you dummy.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I haven’t changed my position, which I thought I made pretty clear in the statement I gave the House about 10 days ago. As far as my information is concerned, the Atomic Energy Control Board, which is the licensing agency, is quite satisfied with the safety aspects of the plant.

In fact, I understand the 10 things that it had been suggested be done over a period of time have all either been completed or found to be unnecessary after further study. Two of the modifications, I guess I’d call them, which have been installed are not yet in use because they are being tested. When they have been tested satisfactorily I assume that the control board’s approval will be altered to include the use or the application of those modifications.

Ms. Gigantes: Supplementary: I wonder if the minister realizes the full implications of what he is telling us? Does he understand that these leaks in the heat exchange system, in combination with an emergency core cooling system which has not even been modified in the patch-up kind of way that the AECB recommended, when these two things are going on at the same time at that plant there are grave questions about the safety of the plant, and doesn’t he think it’s time for the government to recommend to Hydro that there should be a complete investigation of safety at the plant, given these two circumstances?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I think I just answered that.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary, would the minister encourage his members -- and one only hopes that the NDP will do the same -- on the steering committee of the Hydro committee, now that Rolphton will not be open for another few weeks, to now take up the matter of Rolphton in front of the select committee on Hydro affairs -- where witnesses can be questioned, where people can have documents presented to them line by line and be asked for explanation -- which is obviously the place for the Rolphton matter to be discussed, rather than have a debate in the House, where no witnesses can be questioned and no expert evidence obtained?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I’ll think about that.

GOVERNMENT PURCHASING

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry and Tourism about Ontario’s buy-Canadian policy and the specific promise of government to give a 10 per cent preference in the Ontario government’s purchasing of Canadian goods. Can the minister now say how much is spent annually on the purchase of goods and services by this province, what percentage of this spending is on imported goods and services, and when the government intends to begin releasing the progress reports on the replacement of imports of goods and services by ministry, which the minister promised to provide at the government purchasing conference last November?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We are attempting to compile that information. There are some difficulties in doing so, which are partly on account of the fact that for a lengthy period of time there wasn’t a statistical analysis kept in this or, I might add, any other government in Canada, which would give a definitive answer to that question. We are trying to set up systems to do that now and I’ll have a report for the honourable member shortly.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: In recent speeches the minister has been saying that the government will consider preferences that are greater than 10 per cent for Canadian goods which are critical, high capital and high technology purchases. Is the minister aware that the Ministry of Government Services purchasers are not aware of that guideline and say that it is not applied in the purchases that are carried out through their ministry? Can the minister say where that policy of special purchasing preference is put down on paper, and can he give us some specific examples of whether or not that policy has been applied in certain cases in order to encourage the development of high technology goods here in Ontario or in Canada?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I don’t recall the exact details, but I would think the Hawker Siddeley streetcars were an example of a place in which that policy was implemented. A 10 per cent preference has been in place since 1976 I think, or 1974 --

Mr. S. Smith: That wasn’t buy Canadian, that was buy Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: No it wasn’t. With regard to the second part of the question as to where we would give more than 10 per cent, that is on a case-by-case basis. That often comes down to a decision made and a recommendation from the ministry involved to cabinet to ascertain whether in the view of the government as a whole this is one of those cases that merits that special consideration. That policy is well in place.

Mr. di Santo: Since every other industrial country, and the minister may have learned something in Japan, is entrenched by domestic policy either by non-tariff barrier protection or outright incentives to domestic firms, and since these habits will firmly remain even after the GATT negotiations are completed, doesn’t the minister think he should start devising a policy for the province of Ontario, since right now we don’t have one? Doesn’t he think he should study the policies of the other countries and make comparisons and report to this House so we know where he stands, since he is saying one thing and the government through another minister is saying another thing?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There has been no question about the fact of our 10 per cent procurement policy. It has been in place since 1974.

Mr. di Santo: That’s not what the minister of Government Services (Mr. Henderson) said Thursday.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: No, no; there is no evidence I have heard here today of a situation in which that 10 per cent preference was not given. I can only tell the member that although he may feel we should pay more than 10 per cent and I respect that view, nonetheless, as your leader indicated a moment ago, our policy is 10 per cent, plus more under special circumstances. That, to my knowledge, has been, in each and every case, the system honoured and obeyed. If you have evidence to the contrary I would like to receive it.

EMPLOYMENT DEVELOPMENT FUND GRANT

Mr. Bradley: I have a question for the Minister of Industry and Tourism. It relates to his statement of May 24 in which he indicated that $420,000 will be provided through the Employment Development Fund to assist TRW Canada Limited in a $5 million expansion in St. Catharines and an $8 million project in Tillsonburg. Would the minister state to this House, unequivocally, that the expenditure by TRW would not have taken place without the $420,000 from the Employment Development Fund?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Yes.

Mr. Bradley: In view of the fact I attended a sod-breaking ceremony in St. Catharines on April 6, four days before the announcement of the Employment Development Fund in the provincial budget on April 10, and in view of the fact it was known in business circles months before the budget was brought down that TRW was to establish a plant outside of St. Catharines, would the minister not agree the expansion is taking place as a result of favourable markets being taken advantage of by a capable management and a competent work force? Would the minister not agree that since we all assume TRW would not have prior knowledge of the contents of the provincial budget, the $420,000 really represents a windfall to TRW?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: No, I wouldn’t. TRW proceeded on the basis of a telegram sent by me on behalf of the government of Ontario on January 4. The reason for this is that we thought it would be quite inappropriate to lose opportunities that might otherwise stay in this province simply because the budget had not yet come down.

An hon. member: I thought the budget was supposed to be secret.

Mr. S. Smith: Did you prerelease the budget to all firms in Ontario?

Mr. T. P. Reid: Table the telegram.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I would be happy to read the telegram. The company was facing certain dates upon which it had to indicate to its parent board its intentions and its ability to locate in Ontario. Rather than say: “I am sorry. We won’t have our budget in place before your meeting at which you are going to make some decisions,” we decided at a cabinet meeting, after consultation, to give that undertaking. I will be pleased to read that telegram to the House. This is to TRW Canada Limited:

“Reference to your conversation with Duncan Allan, I am pleased that TRW is pursuing a major new investment in Ontario and wish you success in your proposal to the parent board. As discussed with Mr. Allan, the Ontario government is prepared to assist in the financing of your proposed expansion plan to the extent of fully subsidizing the interest costs at the Canadian prime rate on $1 million over a five-year term. This represents a present value in the order of $420,000, assuming a discount rate of 11 per cent, thereby substantially offsetting the incentive effect in alternative locations which you outlined to us. Again, let me repeat that we welcome industrial expansion in our province and will assist TRW Canada Limited in creating new jobs for our work force.”

[3:00]

You will follow the way we set that out, which was at that point in time the traditional way we were assisting firms by way of the Ontario Business Incentives Program. That program, OBIP, for those cases over $250,000 is essentially replaced by an upfront grant which I would remind the member is exactly the same in terms of its net impact on the company as the former OBIP grants were. I would point out to the member, for example, that OBIPs have been traditionally used by the government for very many years and with a lot of success. This case is a perfect example of where the OBIP assistance we offered, under our programs then in place, is exactly the same cash equivalent as the grant from the EDF.

Mr. Cassidy: What is the nature of the job guarantee which has been given to the Ontario government by TRW in return for the Ontario government’s grant? Will the Ontario taxpayers get their money back if that job guarantee is not in fact met?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Absolutely. The terms of the contract signed in each and every EDF case is that in the event the job commitments are not reached in their entirety all of the money comes back to the government.

Mr. Epp: A supplementary question to the minister: Would the minister not agree that this is a prime example of how the government is taking money from the have-nots, through taxation, and giving money to the haves?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I really must say that is just part of a larger debate as to whether we should allow companies to go to other jurisdictions or not. I must point out to the member’s party that I have in front of me a list -- and just to take one example in the riding of Quinte: In the last six years there has been the equivalent of cash grants by way of OBIPs to the tune of about $2.5 million. They were exactly that type.

Many of those firms, the member could equally argue, were well enough off not to merit this type of support, but I tell members I have not heard a word from that side of the House saying that all of these OBIP loans, which are the same as a cash grant, were wrong things to do. I totally and categorically disagree with what the member is saying. We are going to continue to pay money where we know we can create jobs. I think it is much better to pay the private sector to create jobs which otherwise wouldn’t be created than to pay money for unemployment insurance.

BONAR AND BEMIS DISPUTE

Mr. Mackenzie: A question of the Attorney General: Is the minister aware that Bonar and Bemis, of Burlington, who have been involved in a strike situation with Local 8401 of the United Steelworkers of America since May 1, are using Professional Transport Services of Streetsville to act as strikebreakers; and that employees of this firm were responsible, yesterday, for deliberately ramming an automobile driven by striking members of the plant, forcing it into the ditch and threatening to roll it over, causing possibly serious damage and even death to the people inside the car? Has he been made aware of the incident and is he prepared to investigate this hit-run tactic of the company?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: No, I am not aware of the incident. I am quite prepared to look into the matter, in view of the seriousness of the allegation from the honourable member. I assume the honourable member, if necessary, will supply me with any additional information that may be required.

Mr. Mackenzie: Supplementary: Will the minister also initiate action to look into the use of strikebreakers, hopefully leading to the banning of their use in a legal strike situation in the province of Ontario; both to bring about more justice in the negotiating situation and to prevent such incidents, which can lead to serious injuries or death?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: It has appeared to me that there are many different interpretations of the term “strikebreaker.” I would be happy to discuss again the matters raised by the honourable member with the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie).

LIQUOR AND WINE PRICES

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Is the minister satisfied with the action of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario in making continuous price increases for its various products without particular notice to the public?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, that is not true, and the member knows it. That is absolutely not true, and I welcome the opportunity to put this into perspective.

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario a week ago, and with my full knowledge, put through token increases which deal with only freight, demurrage and some fluctuations in Canadian currency. Those amount to nickels, dimes, quarters and so forth, one way or the other. Incidentally, at the same time, they also decreased prices of 16 brands for exactly the same reason.

We made a commitment in April, when the prices went up, that one could buy the old inventory for the prices paid for it plus the markup, which had not changed, for as long as it stayed in the stores. The reports yesterday do not indicate that, of the brands that went up, 14 were scotches. We simply ran out of Ballantine’s, Dewar’s, The Famous Grouse -- whatever that is.

Mr. Foulds: The minister doesn’t know?

Hon. Mr. Drea: When one runs out of one’s old inventory, the new product comes into the store at the new price. Surely the honourable member is not suggesting that I tell the liquor control board to increase all the prices, right up to the new ones, regardless of when they were purchased. Otherwise, there is no other way.

When Valpolicella goes up a nickel because of some minor fluctuations in freight prices between Italian ports and the St. Lawrence Seaway, I do not think the liquor control board should announce it, because it will probably go down a dime next month on the basis of the Seaway being opened.

Finally, to put it into perspective: If at any time the markups are changed, the public will be told. There will be no change in markups this year; the honourable member has heard that from the Treasurer. If at any time the wholesale prices in Europe or the United States go up, the public will he told immediately. But even during the so-called freeze last year, when there were no increases, month after month there were decreases because of adjustments in freight and so on for very small amounts of money. The very same media that now want the board to announce things never used that information when the board supplied it to them all last fall and winter. I trust that puts the matter into perspective.

Mr. Breithaupt: Would the minister not realize that part of this approach by the board leads to frequent changes in wine-list pricing and, as a result, certain costly reprintings of menus and other wine lists by restauranteurs, all of which are an additional, burdensome cost that has to be shared eventually by the patrons of these locations, whether tourists or our own citizens?

Hon. Mr. Drea: That is why I said if the wholesale price went up it would result in a price increase in a restaurant. These increases involving nickels and dimes and quarters -- because purchases are made in bulk for the restaurant trade -- will not result in them having to change the prices on their menus. If there is an increase in the wholesale or laid-down price from Europe or elsewhere, the public or retail price in the store is not the only consideration; there is also that very consideration for the restauranteur.

That is why, particularly in the ease of scotch, we got commitments from the Scotch Whisky Association that there would be no more increases. There are pretty general commitments from the Ontario wine industry and from the British Columbia wine industry that there will be no increases. It is difficult to put a product into restaurants and to promote it when they go to the cost of having it on the menu and then either it is in short supply or they have to change their menus.

Mr. Swart: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker: Might I ask the minister if he agrees with the policy of the liquor control board in withholding information about price increases or not giving out information? In particular, does he agree with the statement of Olga Cyhanenko, the information officer, when she says the media cannot be trusted to explain the reasons for the increases? If he doesn’t agree with it, what action is he going to take in this regard to see there is more openness in the increases?

Hon. Mr. Drea: I am always delighted when the member for Welland-Thorold is looking for secret information. First of all, anybody can have this once a month if he wants it. I am sure the member will find it delightful reading. Beneagles Scotch is now $10.75.

Mr. Swart: Don’t evade the question. Does the minister agree with her?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Could I humbly suggest to the honourable member for Welland-Thorold that he shut up until I have done?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is a certain level of decorum that we have a right to expect around here. Those kinds of expressions surely we can do without. Would you please withdraw that?

Hon. Mr. Drea: I withdraw, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Coming back to the point the member raises, there is no secrecy by the board. There are price adjustments made in every accounting period. In the old days they didn’t have to be done.

Mr. Swart: Do you agree with what she said?

Hon. Mr. Drea: In the old days they didn’t have to be done because the Canadian dollar was stable. Very volatile wine prices, both domestic and foreign, didn’t exist. Also, the consumer was getting ripped off by the board because the price was set once a year and if there was any decrease the board took it as profit and did not pass it on to the customer.

I don’t know what remarks that person made to the media, but as usual the honourable member doesn’t have his facts straight. She is not an employee of the board; she is an employee of the ministry. I will look into that matter and will deal with it.

I have never found that the media couldn’t handle the matter.

Mr. Swart: Will the minister report back to the House?

Hon. Mr. Drea: It is a difficult matter, as I am quite sure the media will attest to, because there are a great number of products; but I don’t plan to take any action. I would say to the member for Welland-Thorold that if he wants to go to the board at any time to check the master price list, if he would like to go into the bottling room --

Mr. Swart: They are arbitrary.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Drea: With all due respect to the honourable member for Welland-Thorold, the remarks about the board being arbitrary are about as indicative of the truth as his general line of questioning has been in this regard.

TORONTO OHC HOUSING

Mr. Dukszta: Mr. Speaker, I will address this question to the Minister of Housing. Will the minister tell the House whether he agreed with the letter sent by the general manager of the Ontario Housing Corporation on March 31, 1979 which stated there was no need for assisted housing in the area of Carlton and Yonge Streets in the city of Toronto?

Even if the minister agrees with the general manager’s assessment of housing needs in downtown Toronto, will he also explain his response on the March 5, 1979 motion of the city of Toronto council that said the city of Toronto does not accept the accuracy of the statement? In addition, will he explain whether he agrees the city of Toronto has said the assisted rental program and the assisted home ownership program do not help low and moderate-income people?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: On the first part of the question relating to subsidized housing units in the downtown area of Toronto: This statement resulted from the opportunity of the Metro housing authority and the Ontario housing authority having available to it a large number of units in a highrise apartment building in the area of Maple Leaf Gardens.

This came about as the result of a condition and change of zoning some months or years ago. Of the 500 units, it was ruled that 25 per cent should be made available to the housing authorities, either municipal or provincial. At no time was there any crossreferencing of that request, either to the municipal housing authority or to the provincial housing authority. It was strictly a position taken by city council.

At the time of completion of the apartment building, it was obvious the developer could not rent the units until he signed an agreement with the province and the OHC to rent 125 units on a rent-supplement program. Once we made that agreement with them -- if we should or if it was necessary -- he could then commence to rent the remaining 375 units.

[3:15]

The province was made aware of this condition. In looking into the matter we discovered, not only from our own records but those of the Metropolitan housing authorities, backed up by letters of the chairman and of the executive people of the housing authorities, that there was not a need for 125 units in that particular area on a rent-supplement program basis. There was no indication in the applications that we needed anywhere close to 125. People were looking for locations in the Toronto and Metropolitan Toronto area other than that specific area.

We indicated clearly to city council, through the developer and through the Metropolitan housing authorities and through the Ontario Housing Corporation, that we could not, on behalf of the people of Ontario, enter into the supplementing of the rent of 125 units because we did not require them. That statement was made by the general manager of the Ontario Housing Corporation, Mr. Beesley, and supported by a minister’s letter backing up the situation.

I must say to the member that we have an amendment, I believe, with the city council on the zoning, which clearly indicates that if in the future there should be some requirement for those units by any one of the public housing authorities governing the policies in this area of the province, then we can make a request upon the landlord of the day to have those units made available to us as they are vacated by other tenants.

Mr. Dukszta: Supplementary: Am I correct in my understanding of the minister that he wants the city of Toronto to present a list of people who need housing in that area and then he will actually be willing to grant permission to build there?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I am not quite sure I understand the member’s supplementary. I have nothing to add other than to say that in the process of reviewing applications that were on file, both with the Ontario Housing Corporation and the metropolitan housing corporation, it was indicated clearly that the need for that number of units was not there.

Mr. Epp: Supplementary: I wonder whether the minister would be prepared to table in the House other examples of areas in Metropolitan Toronto where that same policy has been applied?

Mr. di Santo: A full list.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: As related to change in zoning to allow for a higher density factor or use by a developer, I am not aware of other conditions or other areas where the term or clause has been applied. I understand this came about as a result of this particular structure having gone into receivership. Because of some difficulties in financing and one thing and another, there were some changes and modifications in zoning to allow for the completion of the building; and also to allow for a higher capacity that would give a return on that investment. Otherwise, as I understand it, the building would have sat for some time.

The provision in the zoning is strictly a municipal matter. It is not one that comes to the Minister of Housing or to my ministry for any approval. It went through without having been referred to any of the authorities that were being obligated to rent a number of units under an amendment to a local zoning order.

Mr. Dukszta: Supplementary: Since the cabinet recently approved the core plan for the city of Toronto and since the inclusion of assisted housing in the downtown core is an essential element of the plan, how does the minister expect the city to provide assisted housing when he refuses to fund it? It is their responsibility but the ministry provides the money.

Is the minister not aware that his government’s policies are so ineffective that they only serve the needs of developers seeking density bonuses and never lead to the provision of assisted housing in the city of Toronto? Does he realize also that his failure to provide comprehensive housing policies has led to the destruction of neighbourhoods in south Parkdale and other inner city areas --

Mr. Speaker: The question has been asked.

Mr. Dukszta: -- and other forms of substandard housing?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I am well aware of the fact that we and the Ministry of Government Services have been working on those plans relating to the core area and its development for housing purposes. May I indicate clearly to the House, and particularly to the member, that the amendment was by municipal direction in relationship to that developer and not by the Ministry of Housing nor the province of Ontario; let’s not confuse or complicate the facts.

It was a municipal responsibility to the developer and did not come through our ministry. If the city of Toronto felt there was some importance in dealing with the developer to get on with the project so that it could be rented and could return some revenue to the municipality, so be it. But let the responsibility not be transferred to my ministry or to this minister himself, because very clearly it was not our responsibility.

I would say to the member for Waterloo North if there should be other examples of this type of amendment to a zoning bylaw, as originally indicated by the member for Parkdale, I should be pleased, if I can find them, to table them in this House.

DISPOSAL OF PCBS

Mr. Kennedy: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. Would he comment on a report in yesterday’s Globe and Mail to the effect that a safe PCB disposal method has been invented which renders the substance not only harmless but useful --

Mr. Laughren: Edible.

Mr. Kennedy: -- that there has been research done at the Ontario Research Foundation, with the federal grant, to achieve this end. Is the minister aware of this and could he comment as to the validity of it and just where we are?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, we are aware of it, and I am pleased the member should ask that question. I’m well aware of his interest -- because of the involvement of the community he represents. We are looking at several methods whereby it may be possible to either destroy or convert material containing PCBs. At this moment we’re not 100 per cent sure the method has yet been found. No one would be happier than us if that could be developed.

Mr. Kennedy: Me.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think he is right, Mr. Speaker. I suspect the member might be even happier than we are, and I can appreciate the reason for that.

If a portable unit could be found, regardless of the process, that would render the material harmless we would welcome it. We are looking at it; we’ll keep constant surveillance on it.

Indeed, in this particular instance we have met with the company involved as recently as yesterday to discuss the technical application of it. As soon as it’s proved -- if it’s proved -- it will be put into full use.

Mr. Kennedy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Could the minister indicate just when we might have this further report? This seems to be a very positive statement. Is it possible to determine within a brief period of time if it’s factual or not factual? As the minister knows, hearings with respect to PCB burning by St. Lawrence Cement are presently suspended. Perhaps this would influence those hearings.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I don’t have a positive date in mind on when these appraisals will be completed. Certainly I’ll try to ascertain that and report back to the member.

There are some other methods right now. I think the plasma arc is one that is sometimes touted as being able to destroy PCBs. I guess perhaps it can, but the amount destroyed at any given time is extremely small. It’s an extremely intensive energy- consuming method, and it hasn’t a great deal of practical application at this time. That’s another method.

I will get back to the member and advise him in the next day or two when we can expect some appraisal from the research foundation on the method quoted in yesterday’s Globe and Mail.

Mr. Hall: Could the minister advise whether the United States still permits entry of liquid PCB waste at this time?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I’m sure of solids. As a matter of fact, I think the member knows we were having a bit of a discussion on this. I don’t want to trust my memory on that. I thought it was permitted but I’d better be sure of that.

I’m positive on solids, no question about that, there is a proposed date when they may be banned. I will confirm the status on liquid portions of PCBs for the member.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, could I ask if the minister has received any application from D and D Disposal to assist in the evaluation of this new process and the development of it? Is he making funds available to any of the other projects he mentions that are being considered for PCB disposal?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We had requests and we are giving D and D technical assistance. We are not putting funds at their disposal. We believe the company that does develop an appropriate method to handle not only PCB material but other liquid wastes will find a very lucrative market. We hope the private sector will develop it on their own. We think the potential of success is reasonably large and they should be willing to take this gamble.

I think we are prepared to give them all kinds of technical assistance and support at the research foundation.

CALEDONIA DAM

Mr. G. I. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Natural Resources. Is the minister aware there is an emergency situation at Caledonia, involving the old dam which has been slated for renewal for some time because a huge section of the dam has settled several feet? There is now also a gaping hole in the middle of it and the water level has already receded two feet below normal. This could have a serious effect on recreational use of the upper Grand River, and farm water wells could be drastically affected. Is the minister prepared to deal with this situation?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I’m aware of the problem at one section. I believe it’s a three-section dam and the one section collapsed recently and is now acting as a weir but is not keeping the water up as high as it did. I understand that the Grand River Conservation Authority has done some preliminary engineering and has come up with an estimate of about $2 million, I believe, for repair.

Mr. G. I. Miller: About $1.8 million?

Hon. Mr. Auld: In that neighbourhood.

Mr. G. I. Miller: Yes, in round figures.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I am not yet in a position to say whether or not that money will be available out of our budget for this year. In fact, the amount for dams is pretty tight for those projects that are presently underway. But I am aware of the problem and we’re anxious to see it resolved.

FALCONBRIDGE HIRING

Mr. Laughren: I rise, in the absence of the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie), to ask a question on behalf of my colleague the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel), who was earlier ejected for telling the truth.

In view of the announcement by Falconbridge Nickel Mines that they’re going to call back 300 employees, will the Treasurer of the province of Ontario tell us whether he is willing to request of Falconbridge Nickel Mines that the employees from National Steel Corporation of Canada Limited be given first priority when Falconbridge Nickel Mines starts hiring that extra 300 employees, once the laid-off Falconbridge miners, of course, have been called back under the union contract? Further, will he have the Minister of Labour use his people to bring the groups together so that an orderly hiring process can take place?

Mr. Swart: Reasonable request.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I think it is a reasonable request. I think any time one operation is closing in an area the maximum degree of co-operation should exist in helping people get relocated.

I’m sure my colleague, the Minister of Labour, would be glad to use his offices to facilitate such assistance if possible. One can’t demand that they be hired but one can do a lot to facilitate hiring.

RULES OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I don’t want to inflame either you, Mr. Speaker, or other members of the House, but I would like you to pay attention and bring to your attention, with the greatest of respect, rule 19(d)(9), a rule which says: “A member shall be called to order by the Speaker if he imputes false or unavowed motives to another member.”

I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that some of the incidents that have occurred, both in previous days and today, arose because one member made or alleged unavowed motives to other members of this House. I suggest to you, and I have the Oxford English dictionary in front of me, that unavowed means “not admitted.” I draw that to your attention and would ask you, with great respect, to strictly enforce that rule and we might avoid some of the incidents that resulted in the unfortunate leaving of my friend and colleague, the member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Breithaupt: In speaking to the particular point raised by the member, I’m wondering to whom the member is directing this comment with respect to the possibility of motives? Further, what are the motives that are presumably being referred to? Perhaps if Mr. Speaker could inquire somewhat more of the member for Port Arthur we’d all know what he is talking about.

Mr. Foulds: I am not making any allegations of false or unavowed motives. I was, strictly in the abstract, bringing the rule to your attention for its enforcement, Mr. Speaker.

[3:30]

Mr. Sweeney: Unfortunately we’re not in the abstract.

Mr. Foulds: You certainly are.

Mr. Speaker: I am well aware of the rule the honourable member has just quoted and I try to enforce it religiously. I really don’t know the connection, but I will take a look at the record and see what was said.

Mr. Peterson: On a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: I’m on my feet. Would you please! I will look into the allegation made by the member for Port Arthur and if I see there is any foundation in it I will report back to the House.

Mr. Peterson: On a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: I have dealt with it.

Mr. Hall from the standing public accounts committee presented the following interim report and moved its adoption:

Your committee recommends that the Royal Ontario Museum furnish the committee with the most current monthly financial statements and budget of the Royal Ontario Museum for analysis by the provincial auditor, such statement analysis to be returned to the committee within three weeks, preferably two weeks.

Your committee further recommends that the Minister of Culture and Recreation, the Deputy Minister of Culture and Recreation, together with the chairman of the board of the Royal Ontario Museum and the director of the Royal Ontario Museum, attend at the committee deliberations of the matter.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the report be received and adopted? Carried? Report adopted.

Does the honourable member have a comment?

Mr. Hall: I will follow the Speaker’s wishes. I was given to understand that I would have to move adjournment, but I would hope that the parties referred to in the motion would see fit to provide the information and be available to the committee, which considers this topic to be urgent. In the best interests of all concerned, we feel as a committee that the matter should be dealt with before this House adjourns for the summer.

Mr. Speaker: If that is the will of the committee, perhaps the honourable member would be wise to move the adjournment of the debate rather than have the motion carried.

Some hon. members: It’s been carried.

Mr. Speaker: Just a minute. The member for Lincoln brought in a report from a committee and moved its adoption.

Mr. Grande: And it was carried.

Mr. Speaker: I put the question. I said: “Shall the motion carry?”

Mrs. Campbell: And it was carried.

Mr. Speaker: I heard no objection.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, with respect, you may not have heard me over the conversation of my colleagues, but I did say no.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I would point out, in any event, the rules require that the person presenting the motion “shall” move the adjournment of the debate.

Mr. Speaker: No.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: “Shall.”

Mr. Speaker: No; not so.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I believe it says “shall.”

Mr. Speaker: No.

Mr. Nixon: Good try, Larry.

An hon. member: You’ll be Speaker next time.

Mr. Speaker: Will the Clerk read the motion?

Clerk Assistant: The motion?

Mr. Speaker: Yes. That is the motion before the House, whether or not the report shall be adopted.

Mrs. Campbell: It was carried. The will of the House is mightier than the minister.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It says “shall”; section 30(c) of the standing orders.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the honourable minister take his seat?

“Mr. Hall from the standing public accounts committee presented an interim report, which was read as follows, and moved its adoption.” That is the issue before the House. I put it before the House and it was carried.

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

Mr. Speaker: The motion was carried. Do you want to challenge my ruling?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: Do you want to challenge my ruling? Do you want to challenge the ruling?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I do want to challenge the ruling, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: All right.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, if I might --

Mr. Speaker: All those in favour of the Speaker’s ruling please say “aye.”

All those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion the ayes have it.

Ruling upheld.

Mr. Speaker: Presenting reports.

Motions.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a report.

Mr. Speaker: I asked, “Presenting reports.”

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I rose before and you turned your back to me,

Mr. Speaker: The member for St. George.

STANDING MEMBERS’ SERVICES COMMITTEE

Mrs. Campbell from the standing members’ services committee presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee has the honour to present its first report and recommends as follows:

That standardized procedures be established to ensure that the legislative library receive automatically and as soon as possible all research and backup documentation from commissions of inquiry related to the government of Ontario.

Report adopted.

COMMITTEE REPORT RULE

Hon. Mr. Grossman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I wonder, in the rather quick sequence of events, if you might, on a point of order, give us some guidance?

Mrs. Campbell: The minister is too late.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We on this side of the House, after an unfortunate series of events last year, were in a position where most members stayed on Thursday afternoons in order to make sure that events just occurred on that morning or the previous day did not cause quick and hurried adoption of reports out of committees.

It was my clear understanding, and I don’t want to be over-argumentative on this --

Mrs. Campbell: Just arrogant.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That is not fair.

With respect, this side of the House was under the clear understanding that section 30(c) prevented occurrences such as I believe, have just occurred. It was intended to prevent these occurrences by making absolutely sure that, without discussion and without the possibility even of votes being carried or motions being carried, there was no option left open to the chairman of a committee presenting a report. We understood that after a chairman of a committee presented a report, he or she would move the adoption and could make a brief statement and then, “shall adjourn the debate.”

We read that as saying you ought not, under the rules, to call for adoption of that report; ought not to permit the House to vote on that motion; rather the member reporting is obliged to move adjournment.

In fairness to this side of the House, or any member who wishes to vote one way or another on that matter, it would seem to me they are entitled to rely upon at least our interpretation, and that which has been conveyed to us by all three House leaders I think, with regard to the import of section 30(c).

For that reason, on Thursday afternoons particularly, members who might have certain things to say about it or wish to vote one way or another do not stay in the House. They go off to some of their committee duties.

In fairness to those members who may have wanted to participate in any vote, vocal or otherwise, this might be an appropriate point at which you, Mr. Speaker, might reflect upon section 30(c) for our guidance. If we are wrong in saying there is no option, then you might indicate that to us. Otherwise, in fairness to all those members who might otherwise have wanted to be here and participate, you ought to give us the opportunity to so do.

I would ask the other House leaders to assist in my interpretation of section 30(c). They were present when the interpretation was negotiated and agreed upon; I would ask them if they believe my interpretation is correct. I think it couldn’t be clearer.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I can’t argue with your interpretation of the rules. All I can say is that the sequence of events described by the acting House leader for the government side is correct. There was some difficulty that, on the basis of this rule, was put aside.

But I want to bring to your attention, sir, since I hope you will give it further consideration, that a report such as the one that was put before you by the vice-chairman of the public accounts committee, is of a nature that becomes useless if it is simply put on the shelf and left there. So for the good of the public business, I would hope your review of that rule differentiates between the kind of report which is a major recommendation to this House that does require plenty of notice so the House can take part in a formal debate; and the other type, which although it has substantive matter pertaining to it, is the sort of decision the House should be able to enter into without undue delay.

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t pretend to have your wisdom in interpreting the rules, but I would think your handling of the first matter was probably correct under the first sentence of the rule brought to our attention by the acting government House leader when it says, “may move the adoption of the report if it contains a substantive motion.”

I would suggest the motion contained in the report of the vice-chairman of the public accounts committee was simply to confirm existing powers of that committee to call persons, papers and things. That was my understanding of the report. It was simply seeking that confirmation from the House. Therefore, the argument put by the Liberal House leader, I think, is a just one in the case of that report.

There’s no use waiting for two or three weeks to schedule an evening debate on that kind of a report put to the House. However, other reports that have major applications in terms of policy or major implications in terms of legislation, I think justly follow, and should justly follow, the rule as interpreted by the government House leader. We would certainly support him in that.

Mr. Kennedy: Mr. Speaker, from my own point of view, when a report from a committee comes into the Legislature presumably only those members on that committee are familiar with the content. The chairman moves its adoption and we have no idea what it contains. I wasn’t aware we would have a division, but I was under the impression that unless there was unanimous consent it wouldn’t be adopted, it would be tabled in effect.

Mrs. Campbell: Forever.

Mr. Kennedy: It wouldn’t necessarily be forever at all. It just seems logical to me that a committee shouldn’t come in here with a report and move adoption when the majority of the members from all sides aren’t familiar with the content. I interpret section 30(c) as does the acting House leader.

Mr. Sterling: I would just like to add that as a member of the procedural affairs committee, which was charged with the responsibility of looking at the standing orders, the interpretation as the acting government House leader has placed on this particular rule is certainly what I interpreted as the intent of that particular committee. The problem in determining whether or not a report is of a substantive nature or not, leaves the chairman who moves that particular motion in a pretty precarious position If in fact there is a substantive part in that report. It was my thought when we were discussing this particular rule amendment that it would be natural for the chairman to move adjournment, and the latter part of the rule is intended to make certain the report doesn’t sit there forever.

Mr. Hall: I just want to explain to the House that I understand the reason for having to present an interim report is only to provide the proper authority for the provincial auditor to analyse current monthly financial statements and the current budget of the Royal Ontario Museum. Up until the present time, the report we are dealing with was written in 1977-78. To advance it to give him legal authority to look at current material, we felt what we considered to be minor clearance by the House was necessary.

[3:45]

I reiterate that we are acting out of our concern for the public interest in the Royal Ontario Museum. In view of the press attention that has been placed on this matter, all parties represented in the committee this morning felt very much that the matter just could not be delayed. All we sought was proper clearance for the provincial auditor to act on the current year’s financial statement to provide us with analysis and advice.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, if I might respond: What has developed in the last few minutes is that the member has had an opportunity now to explain to a half-empty House the substance of his motion. It was precisely because of the concern --

Mr. Foulds: There are more members here than we usually have for debates on reports.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: -- that motions passed by committee three or four hours ago were not even known to the vast majority of the assembly that the decision was taken by the House leaders that a motion should not be introduced and voted upon immediately without the opportunity for all the members of the House to have some knowledge of it. That was part of the motivation. It could be that this side of the House would support it.

I am not arguing the merits of the motion. What I am arguing quite sincerely is that the whole purpose of this was that at this stage in the proceedings the chairman of the committee would not have to rise and try to explain to the House that this was or was not a substantive motion. The purpose of this procedure was to allow the motions to go on the order paper, as can be seen particularly by reading subsections (a) and (b). As with everything else, it was to give members time for due consideration of the merits of a motion and then to enable it to be brought forward by the government House leader at a later date.

Having heard this, I understand the urgency. Presumably the system was set up so that the House leaders could respond to that urgency and urge the, government House leader to bring it on at a ‘short date. On the question under subsection (c) as to whether this is a substantive motion, I might point out that that must be read in the context of (a) and (b). I don’t want to get overly legalistic here, but I think this is an important point to clear up. Subsections (a) and (b) are written in to deal with the non-substantive motion procedure, which is that they are not voted on. Then subsection (c) is the subsection that’s put in the rules to deal with those matters where there is a substantive motion involved.

That is the procedure and, I say with respect, the only procedure that can be followed in the matter of a substantive motion. It is presumed in (a) and (b) -- and I think it is quite clear -- that if it’s a report not bearing substantive matters then it is not moved for adoption, it is presented to the House. The only other type we have deal with a substantive motion, and thereafter the procedure is only as outlined in subsection (c).

I say to the opposition House leaders, that I would hope that however we may decide to treat the report emanating out of public accounts this morning, surely they must agree that under no circumstances under this rule, which was negotiated just recently, in section 30 or anywhere under the rules, shall substantive or non-substantive reports from committees be voted upon immediately after presentation to the House.

I say to the opposition House leaders, and I say to you very clearly Mr. Speaker, that it’s my clear understanding that under no portion of the rules was the motion put by the chairman of the committee for adoption to be voted on under the rules. It couldn’t be voted on under the rules. He had only one option at that stage, that is to move the adjournment of the debate. I say to the opposition House leaders that I would hope they would agree with the spirit of what I’m saying. Even if they don’t agree with the spirit, I would ask them if they can find in the rules anything which gives another option to the chairman of a committee rising in those circumstances.

Mr. Speaker: I appreciate the contribution made by all honourable members in assisting me in reaching a decision as to whether or not the right course of action was taken on the motions by the honourable member for Lincoln and the honourable member for St. George. In view of the comments made by the acting House leader of the governing party, the House leader of the Liberal Party and -- I suppose he is -- the deputy House leader of the New Democratic Party, find that their comments are very persuasive and perhaps I was hasty in accepting the motion from the member for Lincoln.

I would agree with the comments made by the member for Port Arthur in that, in the case of the report presented by the member for Lincoln, I would not construe the contents of that report as being substantive, because they would not have needed any action by this House to do what they attempted to accomplish by bringing the report in.

Be that as it may, the comments made by everybody who has spoken, including the member for Carleton-Grenville, who was a member of the procedural affairs committee, were that indeed the intent of this amended standing order was to give the House an opportunity to review.

With the unanimous consent of the House I would revert back to the point where the member for Lincoln introduced his report and I asked that the debate be adjourned, if that is the wish of the House.

Mr. Nixon: I appreciate your suggestion, Mr. Speaker. I would suggest further, with respect, that under the circumstances it might be better if we were to consider these reports on another day. Rather than ask the honourable member to revert to that situation now, when the House has taken an action and when actually there was a voice vote taken, I would suggest to you, sir, that if perhaps a day intervened during which the matter might be considered perhaps even further, that might be a course of action that would be more convenient for the members directly concerned to follow.

Mr. Speaker: Since it seems to be the consensus of all who have spoken that perhaps the chair acted unwisely, now is the time to correct it, rather than to let any period of time intervene by way of correcting it. I would have thought that everybody who is here now would be well aware of the circumstances surrounding the presentation of the report. As I recall, the member for Lincoln was a bit apprehensive as to whether he should move the adjournment of the debate or just allow the chair to put the, motion. Unless somebody has a very good reason why we should postpone correcting it, I think we should take action right now.

STANDING PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

Mr. Hall: Mr. Speaker, it was not a matter of apprehension with regard to the adjournment of the debate; it was a matter of our understanding of the rules. However, there was no objection made and the matter was adopted by the House.

I would ask that the assistant House leader, in referring to the spirit and the intent of what was put in the rule that’ is in debate, also try to understand the spirit and intent of the committee’s desire this morning merely to permit the provincial auditor to step beyond his current terms of reference, being 1977-78, and operating under the old Audit Act, which said not permit him to be the auditor for the Royal Ontario Museum, to enter into this and to give us guidance before this House adjourns. I can assure you it is considered to be a serious matter, and we are simply trying to act in the best spirit and interest of everybody who is involved in this matter.

I will now move the adjournment of the debate but, as I said before, I would appreciate the co-operation of the people involved in permitting this committee to do its work before the House adjourns for the summer.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I understand the difference of opinion on this rule, and I am not completely sure that you are wrong or indeed the government House leader is wrong. But it seems to me we still do have the option of changing a rule by unanimous consent, and in fact that is what we probably have in these circumstances.

When the House voted, with no objection, to adopt that particular report, it seems to me that de facto if not de jure, we waived this particular rule at this particular time.

An hon. member: There is not unanimous consent.

Ms. Peterson: I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, on one other ground: That because time is so very much of the essence in this particular matter, and I think that has been eloquently expressed by my colleague from Lincoln, it may be a case, particularly since all of the government members on that committee voted with this. Where we could solve the substantive problem, if not the procedural problem, by getting unanimous consent reaffirmed, subsequent to our other voice vote in favour of passing, to dispense with the rule if in fact your judgement prevails and it is the rule, so that we can proceed immediately and forthwith on this issue.

I am not suggesting it is necessarily a case for a compromise, but it might be. It might be the case where communally, in the interests of everyone concerned, we can solve our collective problem without violating any of the rules of the House. I would like to appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the acting government House leader on those grounds.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member for London Centre is asking me to prevail upon the House for unanimous consent to allow the honourable member for Lincoln to move the adoption without adjourning the debate. Do we have such unanimous consent?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, may I deal with the substance of what this report of the public accounts committee is all about? I would take it that the whole object of the exercise is to put the public accounts committee in a position to deal with certain matters next Thursday. Is that what it is all about?

May I suggest to the House that surely we can look after that problem before next Thursday by way of motions or some other mechanisms. There is obviously no resistance here to the substance of the motion. I think in fairness to most of the members of the assembly who have not heard what happened this morning, let alone read it, we should follow a normal procedure.

A motion can easily be introduced any time next week. Indeed, the government House leader could call for debate on that matter next Monday, Tuesday or Thursday -- no, I guess not Thursday; but tomorrow morning, Monday or Tuesday. There is plenty of time before next Thursday and I don’t foresee any problem. I think that would be a more regular way to follow this rather than debating it further through private members’ hour this afternoon.

Mr. Peterson: May I respond to that point, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: We could go on indefinitely with all of the nuances and everything else. The honourable member for Lincoln has graciously reconsidered, and he has moved the adjournment of the debate, so that is the question before the House. If you want to speak as to whether or not the debate should be adjourned -- Do you want to speak to that particular point?

Mr. Makarchuk: Yes, I do.

Mr. Speaker: As to whether or not the debate should be adjourned?

Mr. Makarchuk: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member for Brantford.

Mr. Makarchuk: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It has been stressed quite eloquently here by members who were present at the public accounts committee that this is a matter of urgency. The time element is of some concern to the committee because it would involve examining books; it would involve getting the staff and so on to go to the books and bring the matter back to the committee before the House adjourns.

However, I want to point out that the option is open to the government House leader, if he is prepared, in agreement with the members of his party to accept the desire that the provincial auditor proceed with the examination of the books, to introduce a routine motion exactly as was presented by the vice-chairman of the public accounts committee. I am sure the House would accept it and it would resolve the whole problem. If the House leader is prepared to do that I think it can be carried through right now.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the motion to adjourn the debate carry?

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I was on my feet.

Mr. Speaker: The vote was carried.

Mr. Foulds: I was on my feet to be recognized.

[4:00]

Mr. Speaker: How long do you want to go on with this, really?

Mr. Makarchuk: Until we resolve it.

Mr. Foulds: The rules of the House, as you well know --

Mr. Speaker: It’s your time, go ahead.

Mr. Foulds: Thank you. I think that if the House leader of the government party would give a commitment to this House to introduce either later today or tomorrow the motion that he himself suggested he would have no difficulty whatsoever with the members on this side of the House. I would like that clear commitment from him; not Monday or Tuesday, but today or tomorrow, because I think the members of the committee have, as my colleague from Brantford indicated, spoken eloquently about the need for urgency.

Mr. Peterson: There are two points I want to respond to. One, the deputy House leader brings up the point, Mr. Speaker, that there are certain members who may want to speak on this particular matter but weren’t am prised of it. It seems to me that’s one of the risks of being a member of this Legislature. Frequently things happen that everyone isn’t apprised to and one is seized nevertheless of the results of that particular transaction on the floor of this House.

Two, I’m very attracted to the suggestion of my colleagues from the New Democratic Party. I am sure that substantively the deputy House leader would have no objection from his party on this particular motion. If he could, in his wisdom, give us a commitment that it is to be brought up tomorrow so that we could proceed post haste I am sure that we can all retire on this principle and keep our virginity intact with respect to the principles of this House. If we could have that assurance from the deputy House leader I would be delighted and we will proceed perfunctorily.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I want to say that without consulting with my colleagues, as each of you has had an opportunity to do, then I wouldn’t give that commitment. I do want to make it clear, though, that I am aware that the members of my party voted in favour of the motion this morning. I don’t think it is fair to anyone in this assembly to try to blow this procedural matter into something it isn’t.

There are the alternatives which I can assure members will be taken up. I will discuss the matter with my colleagues and with the House leaders tomorrow morning and we will have plenty of opportunity between now and next Thursday.

I might add that obviously the public accounts committee can choose to sit at as much length as possible to deal with this matter next Thursday, Friday or at other times in the event there is any difficulty between now and next Thursday.

I can’t see the point of arguing this matter at this time when there is no problem. There is no problem, I want to say that. I have to, in fairness to my colleague the minister involved, who is not here and not even aware of what occurred this morning, give him the opportunity to at least --

Mr. Foulds: If he isn’t, he should be.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member may say he should be, but he is not here and not even aware of the situation. I think he ought to have the benefit of at least consulting with the government House leader before we comment on it at all. That’s all that we’re asking.

I might say to the member for London Centre, with regard to his remarks, it is not any longer one of the risks of this House that matters may come up and blind-side one and be dealt with in the manner that we’re talking about. The whole point of all the exercise that we’ve been through in the last little while in the procedural affairs committee and as the House leaders is to stop surprises. The Minister of Culture and Recreation doesn’t even know what’s happening this afternoon. The whole point of the exercise was to avoid surprises and I think that’s the way we ought to handle it.

Mr. Speaker: The motion before the House, moved by the member for Lincoln, is for the adjournment of the debate.

Mr. Makarchuk: On a point of order --

Mr. Speaker: This is on the motion, I hope.

Mr. Makarchuk: No, I’m speaking on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think the point of order that I wish to stress here and bring to the attention of the deputy House leader is that it is not a matter for the public accounts committee to deal with the matter next Thursday; it is a matter of giving the auditor of this province, and nobody else, the authority to examine the books of the Royal Ontario Museum and report back in time before the House adjourns. That’s all. It’s so he can start working tomorrow morning. It does not require any opinion from the minister or anyone else. It’s having the effect of blocking the effectiveness of this House.

Interjections.

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

Mr. Speaker: Order, order. The next question to be decided is a report presented on behalf of the members’ services committee by the member for St. George.

STANDING MEMBERS’ SERVICES COMMITTEE

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, in view of the decision in the earlier matter I believe I am perfectly prepared at some stage to move the adjournment of the debate, but it is my understanding that at least I have the opportunity to speak briefly to the report.

Mr. Speaker, it came to our attention in the committee that it has been the custom of the library -- I wonder if I could have some attention. It has been the practice of the library to seek from a commission, a commissioner or a chairman of a commission, not only the report of the commission but the backup material upon which the report is based, including transcripts. Some commissioners comply with the request, some do not. Thus the motion before the Speaker was simply to establish some procedure to regularize this matter, not for my benefit but for the benefit of the library and those whom the library will serve.

I really wouldn’t have regarded that as a particularly substantive motion, but I would just like to make this observation. It seems to me that the work of this House is becoming more and more irrelevant, and it’s partly because we seem to get into wrangles and it seems to be very difficult for committees to get their reports debated in this House.

I would hope that what has gone on here today would serve the government notice that the committees labour over their reports in many cases -- I’m not suggesting this one -- and their reports are treated with contempt by the government in the ordering of business in this House. Perhaps when they’re discussing rules they might discuss the purport of the business of this House.

On motion by Mrs. Campbell, the debate was adjourned.

MOTION

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTIONS

Hon. Mr. Grossman moved that the following substitutions be made: on the standing resources development committee, Mr. G. I. Miller for Mr. Bolan; on the standing members’ services committee, Mr. Worton for Mr. Conway; on the select committee on Hydro affairs, Mr. Conway for Mr. Kerrio.

Motion agreed to.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

REGIONAL MUNICIPALITIES AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Wells moved first reading of Bill 114, An Act to amend Certain Acts Respecting Regional Municipalities.

Motion agreed to.

MUNICIPAL AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Wells moved first reading of Bill 115, An Act to amend the Municipal Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, this bill is another act to amend the Municipal Act. It’s been introduced separately from the bill I introduced the other day, and will proceed through the House separately, because it covers one particular topic which is of paramount importance at the present time to particularly one municipality, the city of Hamilton. For that reason I hope that this amending bill may be passed into law as quickly as possible.

The act is designed to provide sufficient flexibility to all municipalities that may have implemented a section 86 reassessment. It will permit them to phase in over a period of up to five years the effects of the reassessment according to various classes of property.

DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY OF MUSKOKA AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Wells moved first reading of Bill 16, An Act to amend the District Municipality of Muskoka Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Wells: This bill proposes to extend to the district municipality of Muskoka certain powers given to local municipalities and counties in the Municipal Amendment Act, 1978 (No. 3). In addition, the bill will increase the maximum rate of interest the district may charge the area municipalities for failure to pay its levy from one per cent to one and a quarter per cent per month.

The bill also removes the requirement that the district obtain Ontario Municipal Board approval of bylaws prohibiting or regulating access to controlled-access district roads. This will make the Muskoka act consistent with all other regional acts in this regard.

COUNTY OF OXFORD AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Wells moved first reading of Bill 117, An Act to amend the County of Oxford Act, 1974.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Wells: As the other regional acts have done, this bill also extends to the restructured county of Oxford certain powers given to local municipalities and counties in the Municipal Amendment Act, 1978 (No. 3). It also increases the maximum rate of interest the county may charge an area municipality for failure to pay its levy from one per cent to one and one-quarter per cent per month.

In addition, the bill will make it clear that the quorum for the council on official plan matters is the same as for all other county responsibilities.

Finally, at the request of the county, provision has been included in the bill to allow area municipalities in Oxford to acquire industrial lands, subject to the approval of the county council.

ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Grande moved first reading of Bill 118, An Act to amend the Royal Ontario Museum Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Grande: The purpose of the bill is to reform the structure of the board of trustees for the Royal Ontario Museum. The board will continue to consist of 21 trustees, but the bill provides that eight of the trustees will be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, eight will be elected by members of the museum, and two will be elected by members of the museum’s professional staff.

The bill also increases the number of trustees required to constitute a quorum and provides the meeting of the board shall be open to the public. I hope that the --

Mr. Speaker: Order. All that is permitted on first reading is a very brief explanation of the purpose and the intent of the bill.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Before the orders of the day, I wish to table the answers to questions 113, 186, 291; and an interim answer to question 192 standing on the Notice Paper.

[4:15]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

WASTE DISPOSAL

Mr. Kerr moved resolution 18:

That in the opinion of this House the government of Ontario should consider taking immediate steps to reduce the amount of waste being disposed of in sanitary landfill dump sites; and furthermore, the government of Ontario should increase its assistance to municipalities and local government authorities in order to encourage the development and institution of alternative methods of waste disposal, maximizing the opportunities for reclamation, recycling and development of energy from waste.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member has up to 20 minutes.

Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, I was going to suggest that I use 15 minutes now and five minutes later, but in view of the late hour of the day I will continue and if I just take 15 minutes it means somebody else has more time.

This resolution deals with something that is of continuing concern to me, as it was when I was Minister of the Environment. There has been a great deal of research and study on this matter, and as a result private industry and government have been moving into the field of resource recovery with varying degrees of success. Certainly the government of Ontario has been in the forefront, not only with its own experimental plant in North York but also by helping research and pilot projects in the private sector and with programs to assist local governments to establish facilities that will reduce reliance on landfill sites.

However, the program has to be speeded up. It has to have a greater allocation of public funds and there has to be greater incentive in the whole area of resource recovery.

I would also like to mention at this time that in presenting this resolution I am not necessarily taking a stand as far as any existing application before the Ontario Municipal Board or the Environmental Assessment Board is concerned. The resolution refers to the immediate future and long-term policy as to waste disposal, and by inference could include both industrial liquid waste and solid waste.

The first part of the resolution says: “ ... the government of Ontario should consider taking immediate steps to reduce the amount of waste being disposed of in sanitary landfill dump sites ... Most of the reasons for this are obvious. I am told that in searching for suitable sites engineers and consultants usually recommend prime agricultural land because of the topography and because such land minimizes leaching and possible contamination of water supplies. Prime agricultural land is not only valuable but it also attracts some development and rural clusters on its fringes, as well as a certain type of environment which can be disrupted by increased traffic noise. A certain amount of nuisance is bound to result from the establishment of the sanitary landfill site, regardless of how well the site is operated.

Recently we have seen the proliferation of various citizens’ groups composed of people who live at or near a proposed site going to great lengths to oppose it, resulting in lengthy and costly hearings which could involve the OMB, the Environmental Assessment Board, local official plans and even the Ontario Land Compensation Board. In other words, the time and cost involved in establishing landfill sites, certainly in the future, will become comparable to other means of disposal, and therefore the great argument that resource recovery or some other method is just too expensive will lose its effect.

Another reason, in my opinion, is that the whole idea of burying garbage, or wasting waste, in light of its potential beneficial use goes against the grain. As members know, domestic waste can be used to generate steam, gas and solid fuel. Much of the waste can be recycled and reused, either in its original form or as a resource. It can create employment and establish a whole new industry.

What can be done to reduce the generation of waste, particularly domestic waste?

First of all, there have to be changes in our attitudes and habits. We live in a basically wasteful society in North America. Domestic waste, for the most part, is created at home. There should be separation in the kitchen. We should be separating newspapers, glass containers and cans. We should be composting and we should be taking many waste products to recycling plants or feeding pick-ups at the curb. However, we have been talking about this for a long time and we have not been very successful. We have had studies and pilot projects, but there is no real incentive for people to pick out cans, take off labels, remove ends and crush them; or to clean empty bottles; all for reuse. It’s a matter of attitude and conscience, but most people just don’t seem to be interested. Take it from me, Mr. Speaker, as a loser in the great garbage gamble that I had with one Tony Barrett of Pollution Probe, I know. It cost me -- and it cost me plenty -- mainly because my colleagues did not believe in composting to the degree that I hoped they would. But I have forgiven them.

Mr. Gaunt: They are still not big on composting.

Mr. Kerr: I do not like to say it, but the leaders of the oppositions at that time also each cost me about $40.

One incentive might be for those municipalities that have two garbage pickups a week, for example, to have just one pickup a week. Possibly there should be a limit to the amount of garbage per household and more returnable containers with a deposit. We might even consider a tax on cans. In any event, there has to be an incentive or a penalty to make it work.

The market value of waste products fluctuates and demand changes. The market is really unsure and not too dependable. I think it fair to say that most people are unconcerned as to what happens after pickup at the curb, except for those affected by landfill sites close to them. Therefore, garbage is not a great issue or a high priority with municipal politicians or local officials and new methods of disposal are difficult to establish.

Mr. Lawlor: Did that scheme in your riding work?

Mr. Kerr: No, it was a failure -- and I tried.

Mr. Lawlor: Go for biomass.

Mr. Kerr: We require various steps and procedures for approval of landfill sites. Our policies and our legislation and our regulations regarding the creation of new sites have made it difficult for municipalities to make long-term plans for disposal by way of sanitary landfill sites -- and rightly so. Therefore, it is up to us at the provincial level to help create and promote alternative methods of disposal.

I disagree with the Robarts report, which implies that the province should assume full responsibility for solid waste disposal. We should, however, be involved in research, experimental plants, financial assistance and general programming and direction.

Since about 1965 the Ministry of the Environment has had a program whereby the government will assist municipalities in the building of transfer stations and front-end processing plants. Basically, the province pays 100 per cent of the capital cost of the plant and charges the municipality 50 per cent of the cost amortized over a 40-year period.

At the time this was introduced I felt, and I think most people in the ministry felt, that this was a reasonable arrangement and one that would be attractive to local governments. However, up until now it has not been. Maybe we will have to sweeten the pot and stop reallocating funds for other things.

In any event, the main responsibility for waste disposal should remain at the regional level, where a region or restructured municipality exists, as well as metropolitan areas, larger cities and possibly at the county level where no substantial urban centre exists. The province may have to become more involved in unorganized districts, but the problems there are not as great as in builtup areas.

We all know that the collection and disposal of domestic waste has always been a local responsibility and by its very nature should, for the most part, remain at that level, subject to what I have said. It is important, therefore, that any efforts to reduce waste must involve municipal governments and all of the people living within their boundaries.

In spite of the fact that garbage may not be a high-priority issue, municipalities have a responsibility to institute ways and means of reducing waste. They must be prepared to accept the fact that disposal will cost more in the future, regardless of the method used; therefore, why not use a method where there is some recovery and side benefits as well as provincial involvement?

There are a number of ways of disposing of waste other than by landfill. There is direct burning, direct burning with size reduction, pyrolysis and fuel preparation.

Direct burning usually involves small-scale package incinerators, which are commonly referred to as controlled-air incinerators. These usually handle less than 100 tons per day.

Swaru in Hamilton is a good example of direct burning with size reduction.

Pyrolysis systems are largely in the development stage, although the Andco-Torrax system has been accepted commercially in four installations in Europe and Union Car bid are involved in this type of system.

Various designs have been developed to derive gaseous and liquid fuels from municipal refuse. The fuel preparation method includes two types, loosely termed dry and wet. The dry process uses shredding, with size reduction of raw refuse usually followed by magnetic removal of ferrous metals and some form of air classification to separate the particles into light and heavy fractions. The light refraction has come to be known as refuse derived fuel or RDF, and the fuel can be used in existing coal-fired boilers as a supplemental fuel in the cement kiln or as a complete or partial supply for new boilers designed for burning multiple fuels.

The “watts from waste” project, if that ever gets off the ground, is a demonstration project using RDF as a supplemental fuel in an existing boiler.

The recent announcement by the Ministry of Energy of the Toronto central heating plant using waste as fuel is an excellent idea, a good example of energy from waste. The energy recovered in that plant, for example, would be equivalent to 750,000 barrels of oil in one year, rather an important point these days.

There is no question that many of the alternate methods will cost more than landfill, but time is running out on the difference. The present state of technology makes it practical that we should be building more of these plants, and again we need municipal cooperation as well as to take a look at the extent of provincial financial involvement.

It has been suggested that the program should not only be speeded up but should be in three stages. The first stage will be the gradual replacement of disposal sites by transfer stations so that disposal operations in a particular area are concentrated in the few large sophisticated facilities. At those plants the proportion of readily separable and marketable materials, such as corrugated paper, bundled newsprint and ferrous metals will be removed for sale and the remainder shredded.

At the second stage, the provision of transfer stations and transportation networks should be completed throughout the province, which will enable the remainder of the front-end plants needed to be constructed. During this stage, also, sufficient progress should he made in process technology and market development to enable work to begin on the installation of proven back-end recovery processes.

With the third stage, it will be possible to complete the program by installation of complete resource recovery processes serving 90 per cent of the population of the province and greatly reducing the need for a landfill of municipal waste.

I hesitate to set a date, but surely 1990 is not too early. The provision of front-end plants alone does not pretend to be a complete solution to municipal waste management problems; however, it is a necessary first step and a very substantial step towards the complete solution which is the goal of a comprehensive provincial program.

A proportion of the waste will be reclaimed for reuse immediately, and this, along with the processing of the remainder, will reduce landfill requirements, the cost of transportation and landfill, and very substantially reduce disposal problems even during the comparatively short time until further processing equipment for greater resource recovery can be introduced.

The technology is advanced enough to start building more plants. All we need now is desire and commitment.

Mr. Gaunt: I’m very pleased to participate in this particular debate. I certainly support this resolution; it’s something that I and my party, indeed the opposition, have been talking about for a number of years. No one could argue with any item in the resolution and I was very interested to listen to the comments of my friend the member for Burlington-South. I sense that he has a greater commitment to recycling and reclamation now, in his reincarnation as a private member, than he had when he was a minister.

Mr. Kerr: I always did have.

[4:30]

Mr. Gaunt: All right, I accept that and I can therefore only assume that my friend had difficulty in getting his ideas accepted by his cabinet colleagues when he was Minister of the Environment a couple of years ago.

Mr. Lawlor: A good assumption.

Mr. Gaunt: In any event, I welcome the resolution. I think it’s a good focus for a debate of this type. We have had it during consideration of the estimates of the Ministry of the Environment year after year and I think it’s well to bring it into this forum too.

There’s certainly a need to reduce the amount of waste being disposed of in sanitary landfill dump sites. There’s certainly a need to increase the assistance to municipalities, and there’s a need to encourage development and to maximize opportunities for reclamation and recycling.

There’s no doubt in my mind, Mr. Speaker, that the existing provincial financing program for resource recovery projects is inadequate. Although the program provides the capital cost of construction -- 50 per cent is a grant and 50 per cent is a loan recoverable over 40 years -- it has been really unsuccessful in drawing municipalities into this particular field. Municipalities are reluctant to proceed because the initial capital expenditure for these kinds of facilities is tremendously high.

The other ingredient is the fact that potential revenues will not justify the expenditures; and potential revenues are difficult to guarantee, given equipment and market uncertainties and so on for the recovered products. I want to touch on that a little later because I did make some suggestions back on November 28, 1977 during the consideration of the estimates as to how we might try and at least partially overcome that problem.

The Metropolitan Toronto area waste management study of 1976 concluded that the current financial incentive programs are too inflexible as they apply to municipal and private waste management facilities, and recommended that provincial funding programs for solid waste facilities become more flexible to permit a broader participation.

During the 1977 Ministry of the Environment estimates, the then minister, Mr. Kerr, said: “We will have to sweeten the pot” -- and my friend repeated that quote today -- “in some areas where there is a genuine problem in terms of financing the more modern type of disposal that should be used rather than landfill.” I agree; and I agreed at that time. I reaffirm that agreement today. The fact of the matter is the pot has not been sweetened. I suggest that be done immediately, otherwise I don’t think we are going to draw municipalities into these kinds of programs.

Last September a proposal to build a recycling plant to handle all of Peterborough’s garbage was rejected because it was felt until markets for a recoverable product prove more stable, and unless further support is forthcoming from other levels of government, the proposal is uneconomical. Marketing problems for recovered materials must be solved as a top priority.

Back in 1977, during the estimates, I touched upon the benefits which could accrue from a provincial recycling marketing board system to co-ordinate the supply of reclaimed material and to seek customers. I suggested at the time that it could also promote and accelerate the program of building reclamation and recycling plants. I still feel that to be the case, and it’s something worth investigating and implementing.

In the United States more than 20 cities in metropolitan areas have resource recovery plants now in operation, with another 10 plants in various stages of construction and 35 more in the planning stage. I had intended to review some of these, but obviously, I am not going to have time to do so. The new hydro pulper plant in Hempstead, New York, is a good example of how securing markets for the sale of power and salvaged materials has ensured the plant’s future viability. The plant, which is North America’s largest waste conversion plant, turns 2,000 tons of garbage a day into 250 million kilowatts of electricity a year, as well as yielding about 40,000 tons of ferrous scrap, 5,000 tons of aluminum scrap, and 23,000 tons of glass scrap a year, which the community can sell.

Contracts to sell half the plant’s aluminum to Reynolds Metal and Aluminum Company of America, all of the glass to Glass Container Corporation and a 17 1/2-year contract with the Long Island Lighting Company to buy the plant’s steam output, to be fed into their electricity generators, mean that the Hempstead community will get $4 a ton as its share of proceeds from the sale of these products.

Hempstead Sanitation Commissioner William Landman estimates that their net disposal costs, which had been running as high as $18 to $19 a ton, will drop to about $11 a ton, a saving of more than $5 million a year.

An interesting point in the construction of the Hempstead facility is that the need for a waste conversion plant became urgent when the town had run out of landfill areas. The passage of the US Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976, requiring an end to “environmentally unsound” disposal of solid waste, led to the construction of the facility at a cost of $73 million -- these plants do not come cheaply, as the member pointed out -- which will be operated by Black Clawson Company, a subsidiary of Parsons and Whittemore, a New York engineering firm which is planning the construction of another mammoth facility in Dade county, near Miami, to go into service in 1980, converting 18,000 tons of garbage a day into 500 million kilowatts of electricity a year, twice the size of the Hempstead plant.

I hesitate to encourage the ministry here to get into a mammoth program. It would be much better to go with a smaller pilot project type of operation, work out the bugs, and then move on to the next stage, rather than to get into tremendous cost and try to work out the bugs as we go along.

Let’s talk for a moment about “watts from waste,” which my friend from Burlington South mentioned. After years of a lot of publicity, and even more delay, it seems that this particular project is to be dropped -- or at least re-examined, as it is put in a March 1979 Ministry of Energy press release. All of this, I understand, is due to the cost escalations and the technological problems that have been experienced.

The cost of the plant has escalated considerably over the past number of years while the wrinkles and the bugs have been worked out and while the negotiations went on between Metro and the Ministry of the Environment and Ontario Hydro. It started off at something like $11 million, and now I believe the total is up around $46 million, of which Metro would have to pay about $30 million. The chairman of the works committee has made it clear that, under the severe financial restraints on Metro’s capital funds, the municipality cannot absorb the increase of almost $10 million which would be necessary to have the project proceed under the present cost-sharing formula. So that particular project is very much up in the air. It is to be hoped that it does go forward, but it seems at this point in time to be in some doubt.

There are a variety of processes available which are operating in many countries of the world. In October 1977 --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member’s time has now expired.

Mr. Gaunt: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I am sure the member knows of a number of these plants around the world; I was going to mention them and how they operate, but I am sure my friend is aware of them.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, when I read the honourable member’s resolution, I wondered whether perhaps he had been struck on the road to Damascus with a sudden revelation, because we will recall that he had the honour of being our first Minister of the Environment in 1971 and served in that portfolio again for a period from October 1975 to January 1978. He could have put these policies which he advocates into effect during those two terms of office.

In fact, if he had put them into effect, we might not be faced with the hearings now going on regarding the proposed landfill site at Glanbrook, intended to serve the Hamilton region. These hearings are being very hotly contested. The site involves the use of agricultural land which is needed for agricultural purposes. There is considerable controversy surrounding this and considerable concern by the farmers located nearby as to whether or not leachates from the landfill might interfere with their farming operations. If the minister had been able to put in the kind of resource recovery and waste reduction programs he talked about, we might not have that application being heard at the present time.

Presumably the minister did not implement his policies when he had the portfolio because he could not persuade his colleagues in the cabinet to take such action. I would like to ask, what makes him think the cabinet is any more ready to take action now? If the government members do vote for this motherhood resolution, will we get any more action than we have in the past, because there is nothing to prevent them from acting right now. I suggest that if the member really wants action in this field, he should have the courage to cross the floor of the House and join the NDP which has been advocating these policies for many years.

Mr. Gaunt: He would feel more at home with the Liberals.

Ms. Bryden: It would require courage to cross the floor.

Mr. Sterling: Where were you when the pop can tax came up?

Ms. Bryden: The honourable member has demonstrated that he did not lack courage when he swam in polluted Hamilton Bay.

Mr. Kerr: It isn’t polluted.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, if one wants to be technical, one could argue that this resolution is out of order because it advocates the spending of money. That, of course, presumes the words “assistance to local government authorities” mean something more than good advice. Perhaps this ambiguity is what the government will use to explain any inaction if government members do support the resolution.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The honourable member cannot use all her time without being constructive.

Mr. Kerr: The honourable member better be constructive in the last three minutes.

Ms. Bryden: The resolution has two parts: first, that the government take steps to reduce the amount of waste going into landfill; second, that the government increase its assistance to local governments to find alternative methods of waste disposal.

Mr. Kerr: Does the honourable member separate the waste in her kitchen?

Ms. Bryden: Yes, I do. I separate my waste in the kitchen and take it to the recycling plants in Toronto. But I do not think there is any increase in the amount of money being given to that Toronto program to set up depots to receive that waste, which is something the government should be doing.

Hon. Mr. Parrots: What about the polluter pays principle?

Ms. Bryden: I notice that in his motion the member is still passing the buck to the municipalities to take action. Yet this government keeps cutting back the resources of municipalities by refusing to give them a formula for a fair sharing of revenues. It seems to me that to pass the buck to the municipalities means further inaction, even if the pot is sweetened, as the member is proposing.

The government must assume responsibility for this growing problem.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: What about the polluter pays principle?

Ms. Bryden: I am coming to that.

The problem is becoming very acute, both for solid waste and for liquid industrial waste, as was pointed out by the resources development committee last fall. We are at a crisis stage, with landfill sites rapidly being filled up and no place for liquid industrial wastes to go, particularly hazardous wastes.

[4:45]

I find little encouragement in the government’s actions on the question of reducing the amount of waste going into landfill. For example, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who is in charge of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, has backed away from the recommendation of the government’s own Waste Management Advisory Board, that liquor bottles be collected for recycling. Nor is there any place to collect soft-drink cans for recycling, even though the minister’s policy on soft-drink containers is to allow up to 25 per cent to be sold in nonreturnable containers. Either nonreturnables should be banned completely or, if any are permitted in certain applications, they must be got back into the recycling stream and not allowed to litter our highways and our beaches. This applies to all kinds of cans and bottles, not just soft-drink containers.

Reduction of waste also involves more public education. But what do we find in the Ministry of the Environment’s estimates for this year? The amount for public education is down by $79,000. What is the minister doing to encourage more householders to use compost heaps for their kitchen garbage? I myself operate a compost heap and find that it produces very valuable sod for the garden. But what sort of grants is the minister giving to organizations promoting this sort of activity, such as the Is Five Foundation, a pioneering recycling group, or the Recycling Foundation of Ontario, which asked for a grant last year but has not, I believe, received one. How many new recycling depots have been established across the province in the past year? Those are the sorts of things we are looking at to see whether the government really is interested in reducing solid waste.

An even bigger step could be taken in reducing waste if the government would take on the packaging industry. Some states in the United States impose a tax on the creators of waste in proportion to their sales and to the amount of solid waste they generate and the cost of disposing of that waste. That could create a powerful incentive for manufacturers and distributors to cut down wasteful packaging, but the member does not appear to have considered that -- at least it is not in his resolution -- and the government has not responded to suggestions I have made in the past for such a tax.

We all recognize that recycling plants are the principal answer for the residual solid wastes which cannot be eliminated by redesign of processes, by elimination of unnecessary packaging and by reuse of materials. But after eight years with a Ministry of the Environment we are only at the pilot plant stage for a solid-waste recycling plant. We are still considering only the feasibility of a “watts from waste” program for a hydro generating station. And the previous formula -- which was awkward -- to encourage municipalities to get into the field of resource recovery has not worked; the member admits that, and it is high time we had a new formula. If the members on the other side of the House vote for this resolution, I will expect an immediate announcement of a new formula which may stimulate more “watts from waste” and resource recovery plants.

I also hope we will see much more action on the disposal of liquid industrial wastes, which is a problem that has still not been answered. The committee last fall produced 27 recommendations. Not more than a dozen have been partially and tentatively implemented. There are still many more, indicating that until we take some action here we are going to have liquid industrial wastes going into landfill sites.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member’s time has now expired.

Ms. Bryden: Thank you; I will just conclude with one sentence.

The government has set a date of December 31, 1979, for keeping liquid industrial wastes out of landfill sites, but it has no alternatives.

Hon. Mr. Drea: On a point of privilege: I don’t want to cut into the private members’ time, but I think it is incumbent upon me to set the record straight.

The last speaker made allegations that I have backed away from the recovery of bottles in the operations of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. She knows better than that. That’s factually incorrect. It’s a matter of record that the Minister of the Environment, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario and I are extremely close to a solution for the recovery, recycling, or whatever you want to call it, of bottles and other glass containers sold in liquor stores. That’s a matter of record.

Mr. Sterling: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this debate this afternoon. This topic is of extreme importance to our future in this province and I congratulate the former Minister of the Environment for bringing it forward.

I remember one of the first topics brought up in a caucus meeting in which I participated was related to the pop can tax. I thought it was a very fine idea, but unfortunately neither the government side nor the opposition saw fit to support that particular tax. That was one of the first discouragements I received as an MPP in this Legislature. I thought it was time to bite the bullet and recognize that we can’t continue as a consumer society; we must face the escalating amounts of waste each of us is producing.

As a government, we must recognize that all levels of government, as well as the private sector, have an important role to play in this very important matter.

Second, we must understand how resource recovery programs interrelate with other essential aspects of government activity, such as pollution control.

Third, as a provincial government we must continue to ensure careful co-ordination between ministries. Not only must we put our own resources to work most efficiently, we must also ensure that all potential avenues of resource recovery are explored though a clear delineation of the ministers’ separate responsibilities.

While the main thrust of my remarks will relate to the activities of our Minister of Energy, I would like to touch briefly on some of the responsibilities of the Ministry of the Environment because together, these ministries are making considerable progress towards the eventual recovery and use of untapped energy and material resources in Ontario.

These may take the form of municipal solid waste, farm and forest waste or heat byproducts from Ontario Hydro generating stations and industrial plant processes.

Generally, the Ministry of the Environment has special responsibility for the management of municipal waste and improved methods of treatment and disposal which include the recovery of both materials and energy. The Ministry of the Environment is also concerned with reducing the quality of waste produced and in developing techniques for the recovery of materials separated at source.

I could list a catalogue of projects at various stages of completion or study at this point, but I would rather talk about one example of the kind of effective work now going on.

One of the things happening at the experimental resource recovery plant in Downsview is that paper and plastic film are being separated from other waste materials because of their high capability for producing British thermal units, or energy. The Ministry of the Environment is taking that material, bundling it up and transporting it to Woodstock where Canada Cement Lafarge Limited has one of its operations.

At present this company is filling approximately 10 per cent of its fuel or energy needs using these particular types of waste material. It is hoped this will increase to approximately 40 or 50 per cent of the firm’s energy needs and that is hoped to happen sometime in the future.

One of the things we have tried to exemplify in the past -- and I think there is room for us to improve -- is that our government is determined to proceed with resource recovery as a high priority. But we are also determined that we’re not going to create new problems when we solve the old problems.

I would like now to move to the role of the Ministry of Energy on this topic. This ministry is basically concerned with the energy from waste projects which relate to farm and forest lease and byproduct heat from the Ontario Hydro generating stations and industrial heat processes. Projects with a potential for commercial viability will also be the Ministry of Energy’s responsibility. This should enable us to continue to expand the activity and prove the commercial viability of various projects across the province.

As an aside, I mentioned earlier that this whole resource recovery field involves three levels of government. In this regard, during the last election campaign the then Minister of Energy had alluded to a $58 million Canada-Ontario bilateral agreement that was to be signed for conservation and renewable energy technology development and demonstration. It is hoped this will come forward and aid in the thrust of this resolution.

Returning to the Ministry of Energy, I should mention that a set of criteria has been carefully created on which to base decisions as to whether or not the Ministry of Energy should provide assistance to a project. Appropriately enough, the first criterion is security of supply. Is there enough waste to make a certain project viable?

Second, there must exist a potential for using technology that has already proven itself. There must also be a secure market for the energy produced. In other words, if we produce energy, we must have a place to use it. Other criteria examine the viability of the operation, or the energy operation as a whole.

As with the case of the environment projects, I could list another series the Ministry of Energy is involved in but I thought I would review a project which might exemplify the process the Ministry of Energy goes through.

North Bay’s municipal refuse is a problem from several perspectives. First, it occupies space. Secondly, contaminated water was found to be seeping from the site, and third, it was attracting sea-gulls that posed a safety hazard to an adjacent airport.

Fourth, the refuse was going to waste. When the city turned to our government for help we understood, on the basis of an early examination of options, that an energy recovery plant might be viable. We also know now that a local company, called Nordfibre, was interested in participating actively in a resource recovery project. What we have here are two levels of government teaming up with the private sector to turn garbage, sewage sludge and wood waste from local industry into energy. That energy would produce the majority of steam in the company’s plant while lowering the company’s consumption of natural gas into the bargain.

In all honesty, it is doubtful that such a scheme would ever have fallen together without the intervention of an interested government. When I say “interested” I mean a government that is prepared to spend some money to obtain results. In this case, the Ministry of Energy contributed 50 per cent of the cost of the necessary engineering study; the municipality will pay 30 per cent and Nordfibre, the company that would eventually reap some of the benefits from this project, 20 per cent. The Ministry of the Environment in North Bay will also be involved in an active way in dealing with this report.

[5:00]

As the example I have related clearly indicates, neither our government nor any government can go it alone. Resource recovery demands that we act as a team and that we put aside non-productive inquiries into why this delay occurred 10 years ago or why that company wasn’t doing more. Our government is now achieving solid results today because of a positive spirit of co-operation and a sober recognition of certain realities. I don’t think any of us could kid ourselves about the real problem with municipal solid waste. It is not going to disappear even with more recycling plants and more money being put into these programs. We are still going to need landfill sites.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member’s time has now expired.

Mr. Sterling: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I support this resolution.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member for Grey for up to two minutes.

Mr. McKessock: Mr. Speaker, I’m sorry but I wanted 10 minutes on this topic because it is one that is very close to me as Owen Sound tries to establish a landfill site in my riding. The member mentioned that municipal co-operation was needed here. I would like to say that the present procedure for a municipality to follow to dispose of its garbage makes this very difficult. In fact, I think we need more co-operation from the government.

In one hand I have here the environmental approval from the environmental approvals branch of the ministry for the site in Sydenham township. In the other hand I have a letter from the minister saying that we can have up to 50 per cent funding for incineration if the energy is recovered and used to heat a building, a hospital, factory or whatever. On the one hand, I have an approval for a landfill site, which Sydenham will not accept and which will now go to the Ontario Municipal Board. On the other hand I have a letter from the minister approving 50 per cent of the cost of incineration if the heat generated is used. We have a landfill site approval for the city wanting landfill and we have 50 per cent funding to help Sydenham township which opposes the site for good reason.

We need from the Ministry of Energy something that will tip the scales in favour of incineration and reclamation. Maybe the Ontario waste disposal and reclamation committee suggested by the member for Windsor-Walkerville over these last several years in private members’ bills would make a good start.

Mr. B. Newman: Since 1972.

Mr. McKessock: We need a commitment that landfill for solid waste would be phased out over, say, seven years and help to municipalities to find --

Mr. Deputy Chairman: The honourable member’s time has now expired.

Mr. McKessock: I want to congratulate the member for bringing this bill forward. I hope he continues to push the government into action in this regard.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That completes the allotted time for that order of business.

SPEAKER’S RULING

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Just before the next order, I would like to place this ruling on record. Last Thursday the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Warner) asked me to consider the provisions of standing order 64(e)(ii) concerning a recording of the names of members objecting to the placing of questions in the event that fewer than 20 members should rise.

I have reviewed the standing order and the member’s comments. Two distinct actions must take place. First, the clerks will determine if 20 members are standing and, if 20 members are standing, their names will then be recorded. My interpretation of the standing order is that if 20 members are not standing, the names of any members who object shall not be recorded and the Chair will proceed to place the question, as it is authorized to do by standing order 64.

I hope this will be of assistance to the honourable member.

ONTARIO WINE TAX

Mr. Hall moved resolution 17:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should follow a policy of minimum tax and markup on Ontario wines made from Ontario-grown grapes to encourage a stable economy for the grape-growing industry in order to preserve unique agricultural lands.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member for Lincoln for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. Hall: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak on behalf of an important industry in the Niagara Peninsula -- agriculture. A great lyric poet named Alcaeus once said, and I quote: “Wine, dear boy, and truth.” Today I want to outline some truths concerning wine and the grape-growing industry in Niagara.

The Niagara Peninsula, our internationally renowned tender fruit land, has been frozen for agricultural purposes, as it is recognized that these lands are unique in Canada and can provide continuing benefits to Canada in the years ahead. Although these lands were frozen, no corresponding policy has been adopted to ensure the operation of these lands for agricultural purposes will prove a paying proposition for the farmers or fruit growers concerned.

The tender fruit industry, consisting of producers of peaches, cherries, pears and plums, has been fighting to survive for years. Imported fruits from countries where the sun shines longer, where wage rates and employee benefits are low or non-existent, are bought by the Canadian consumer, either fresh or processed, because they are attractively priced and available at different seasons.

Canadian growers have scant protection through tariff or non-tariff barriers. With a perishable crop, the grower must take what he is offered at the fresh market or truck it to a cannery. Only certain varieties of various fruits are suitable for canning and, at any rate, the number of canning plants is dwindling rapidly because such plants are unprofitable or unable to meet modern environmental standards.

Cold weather this past winter killed one third of certain varieties of peach trees. That means five years are needed to replace a tree and start to get a yield from it.

A shortage of Canadians willing to work or trained to work in fruit orchards has made it increasingly necessary to depend on offshore labour from the Caribbean.

Faced with these and many more difficulties, Ontario’s prime tender fruit growing lands are placing increasing reliance on vineyards for their economic survival. The majority of fruit farmers not only grow different types and varieties of fruits but also grow grapes and it has been a steady expansion of the vineyards, brought about through the resourcefulness and far-sightedness of the grape growers and wineries, that has provided the stability to maintain and sustain our tender fruit lands.

Grapes lend themselves to mechanization and a grower can look after many acres. Modem weed sprayers and grape harvesters, approximately 85 per cent of the crop being machine harvested, have solved the cultivation and harvesting problems. Pruning is done during the winter months, tying in April and thinning in June. Much of this work can be done by housewives and students with no offshore labour being needed, so we can compete because of mechanization.

In terms of acreage and crop value, grapes are the largest single crop in the peninsula. Approximately 80 per cent of Canada’s grape supply comes from this area, from 25,000 acres, with only the Okanagan Valley in BC providing any other significant commercial production to this time.

Mr. Watson: Have you heard about southwestern Ontario?

Mr. Hall: They have about 250 tons a year. Wine is the primary end use for the grapes grown in the peninsula, with winery purchases accounting for roughly two thirds of the annual crop. Thus, ensuring a healthy and growing market for Ontario wine is essential to the land-use policy to which the present government says it is firmly committed.

The Wine Council of Ontario states that Ontario wineries and grape growers have invested $185 million in an industry employing 18,395 Ontario residents. Its brief says Ontario wineries and growers purchased over $38 million annually in goods and services, including $14 million in glass and cartons. Annual salaries and wages for full-time and part-time employees are more than $26 million. Property taxes from wineries and vineyards are $4 million annually. Income for grape growers is $13 million, with more than half attributed to wine production from grapes.

These items add up to $81 million annually. Purchases, wages, et cetera for grape juices and jellies would add importantly to this total. In Ontario a grower gets about $265 from a ton of grapes, on average. After adding taxes paid to governments, excluding corporate income taxes and property taxes, that ton of grapes is calculated to deliver $1,439 in taxes, on average.

The competition for the Ontario market is tough. Under current policies of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, foreign produced wines enjoy almost double the listing exposure of Ontario-produced wines. In 1960, the LCBO listed 162 Canadian wines and 161 foreign wines. In 1978, Ontario wine listings totalled 400 and foreign wine listings in excess of 700.

During the past years, the growth of foreign wines has exceeded the growth of Ontario wines by a ratio of nine to one. In 1960, Ontario wines sales were 2.8 million gallons. In 1978, those sales had grown to 6.6 million gallons of Ontario wine. On the other hand, in 1960, foreign wine purchases were merely 474,000 gallons. In 1978, foreign wine purchases had reached 6.3 million gallons -- and foreign wine consumption is growing at a rate of 13 per cent annually.

I do not suggest a higher mark-up on imported wines, as I have no wish to discourage our citizens and visitors from selecting the wines of their choice. But it should be clearly understood that foreign wines have access to a world-wide market and a well-protected home market. The following quotation is from a 1978 issue of Foreign Agriculture. The article, written by Mr. Richard Schroeter and Omero Sabatini, concerns the European Economic Community common agricultural policy, known as CAP. I want to quote directly from this article:

“Although the specifics of CAP vary from one product to another, the program is essentially a complex, comprehensive system of price supports, minimum import prices, stockpiling and export subsidies, all designed to keep internal farm prices high by insulating them from foreign competition. Minimum import prices mean a restriction on low-priced imports and apply to grain, rice, dairy products, beef, wines, certain fresh fruit, vegetables and tomato concentrates.”

That is how they protect agriculture in the European Economic Community. This supports the long-held opinion that many of the foreign wines purchased by the liquor control board are subsidized in one form or another by the foreign countries. As a matter of fact, the substantial tariffs on imports into the European Economic Community have been a major factor in Andres Wines establishing English production facilities.

The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations knows the practice in foreign countries and was recently quoted in Quest magazine as saying: “All countries protect their own wine, and our Ontario wineries are very highly protected. The reason for this is that they consume Ontario grapes, the key to continued agricultural use of the Niagara Peninsula, and this is not going to change. The peninsula will not be asphalted.”

As it stands, our grape-growing industry of 1,000 growers has proven a great supporter of government revenues. The 1978 crop is likely to supply more than $100 million for provincial and federal purposes, according to the Ontario Grape Growers’ Marketing Board. A reduction in mark-up would not necessarily mean a reduction in government incomes, because volumes would increase. If one does not think price is important, consider the fact that, in 1975, 130,000 tons of California grapes were imported into Canada for home wine making -- more than Ontario’s whole crop of 80,000 tons in a good year and on this the LCBO got nothing.

[5:15]

I am quite certain that the uneven quality produced at low cost, including the basement vintage made by some of the illustrious members of this Legislature, does not measure up to the new wines and champagnes being produced by our wineries, which have made outstanding strides in the past 15 years. Some of them are available in the members’ dining room and are well received.

Mr. Speaker, it’s about time to recognize the status and benefits the people of Ontario, in particular, receive from our wine growing industry. A long-term commitment along the lines of this resolution or a further reduction in the mark-ups would result in immediate planning for increased plantings of vineyards, commitments for processing, ageing and bottling equipment and the development of broader marketing policies for a product completely grown in Ontario.

Ontario growers and wineries have been going through a period of transition for several years as an affluent society increased table wine consumption. Vinifera and hybrid plantings, new to Canada, have been developed over many years, but it takes approximately five years to get yield off new planting and the matter is complicated by the problem of guessing what the consumer will want to purchase.

Research and development investment by wineries has been substantial. Some 45 varieties of grapes are being grown, including native Labrusca strains, American and French hybrids, and European vinifera grapes. In 1978, hybrid and vinifera production reached 22,000 tons and more will be coming to maturity from now on. These produced the lighter, drier table wines.

The grower could benefit from more generous tile drain loans than the province is making available. It is also suggested that the Foodland Ontario designation could be applied to Ontario wines from Ontario grapes because of the important contribution they make to agriculture, now and in the future.

If unique land preservation is a goal, we will greatly help the tender fruit industry by supporting the grape and wine industry and if future world food shortages develop, we would still have our fruit and grape lands for basic foodstuffs such as vegetables, corn and winter wheat.

More than 100 years ago, a man named Ernest Dowson said: “They are not long, the days of wine and roses. Out of the misty dream our path emerges for a while, then closes within a dream.” Mr. Speaker, this well-intentioned path, the dream of protecting our unique lands, still has a chance, but the future is misty and unless we resolve now to protect our farmers and the grape and wine industry, the dream will fade, will be lost to us and so will the land.

Mr. Swart: The member for Lincoln stated, the purpose of the motion before us is to protect the Ontario grape-growing industry, which is largely in Niagara. It is a major industry and therefore I am going to speak in support of the principle of the resolution before us. There is some $16 million in revenue at the farm gate from the grape-growing industry. In fact, I guess it’s closer to $20 million when we consider the grapes sold locally and the grapes sold for grape juice.

I support this resolution in principle, too, because it speaks to a very important philosophy of this party and a very real concern we have at the present time that we must move towards import replacements in all fields of our economy. This is one area where we can accomplish exactly that. The amount paid out for foreign wines is something in the neighbourhood of $150 million a year in this nation. If even half of that were switched to Ontario wine, to domestic production in this province and in this country, it would make a substantial impact on our deficit in foreign trade.

I want to make it clear that while I am speaking in support of the grape industry, I am not really promoting greater consumption of wine generally and certainly not of alcoholic beverages. I think our province and our nation would be in much better shape if far less alcoholic beverages were consumed. It is injurious certainly to individuals. The degree of consumption of alcoholic beverages is costly and injurious to our society. I think it is at least as harmful in society as cigarette smoking and that is generally accepted at the present time.

Fortunately, all of our grape production is not going into wine. As a matter of fact, there is a growing percentage of it going into grape juice. Some of the people in this House, apart from myself and the member for Lincoln, may have had the opportunity to visit the Wiley farm near St. Catharines in the Niagara Peninsula where they have started a grape juice business on a 370-acre farm and are making a very real success out of it.

I am really supporting this because while people drink and while they are going to continue to drink the policy should be to maximize Ontario consumption vis-à-vis imports. Although I support the resolution, I want to point out that it is somewhat vague and incomplete. I would like to have seen perhaps a general policy at least -- and this couldn’t be in the resolution, I grant -- in spite of what the minister may say of more openness and less arbitrariness in the operations of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. I suggest to him that he can’t read that article in this morning’s Globe and Mail and many articles previously without drawing the conclusion that it is an arbitrary body.

In this resolution the mover makes the comment made that he wants to do this in order to preserve the unique agricultural land. I have to say I was quite amazed to hear the member for Lincoln say that the agricultural land there is frozen. Of course that is not the case at all; in fact, I would like him to tell us under what legislation it is frozen. Is it under the regional plan of Niagara? Is it under local municipal plans? Is it action taken by the provincial government? Of course, there is no freeze there at all.

Mr. Hall: There are 78 appeals to the municipal board to the urban area boundaries and the regional official plan.

Mr. Swart: The facts are that there is not a single major development, whether it has been industrial, commercial or residential, that has even been deterred since they passed the legislation in the region back in 1973, in which they said they were going to preserve the fruit and grape land for agricultural use. The member for Lincoln knows very well that even now there is a request from Niagara-on-the-Lake to expand an industrial area on the east of St. Catharines which has existed there for a decade or more. Only a small amount of it has been used. There are 500 acres of it there now and they are going to increase that to 1,080 acres. According to the growth of industry in the Niagara Peninsula over the last 20 years, that will be enough to last at least to the end of this century just in that one little place. That will go through regional council. It may not get through the Ontario Municipal Board with a bit of luck, but it will certainly get through the regional council.

This resolution assuring that there is going to be viability to the grape growers will have a beneficial effect on preserving the prime agricultural land, but it won’t preserve it all unless the government takes the parallel measure of having adequate land-use legislation. I am sure the member for Lincoln knows enough about grape growing and about land around St. Catharines that was selling for $25,000 an acre two years ago for development purposes to know that in no way can one buy land at $25,000 an acre and grow grapes, even if we got through these good policies that would preserve that land.

But there must be a viability to the farmers. We must, in one way or another, assure them there is going to be a market for their produce.

I agree entirely with the member for Lincoln when he says Ontario wines are good. Certainly we could quote many tests that have been made in France and elsewhere. Anyone who knows anything about the Inniskillin wines knows they are tops, not only in this nation but throughout the world. Ontario wine now is just as good as any wine produced anywhere in the world.

I want to say the liquor control board has not, through its mark-up policy, really encouraged the use of Ontario wine.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Nonsense.

Mr. Swart: That is true. This year the mark-up on sparkling wine dropped, it is true, from 75 per cent to 70 per cent.

Hon. Mr. Drea: That is wrong.

Mr. Swart: Dessert wine was marked up from 70 per cent to 75 per cent. All others went up from 47 per cent to 58 per cent.

Hon. Mr. Drea: The member’s figures are wrong.

Mr. Swart: That meant, on average, there was a greater mark-up on Ontario wines, but there was no change made on the mark-up on the foreign wines.

Hon. Mr. Drea: The member does not know what he is talking about.

Mr. Swart: The Grape Growers’ Marketing Board, the wine institute, estimated if that increase in mark-up had been from 47 per cent to 50 per cent, instead of 58 per cent, it would have generated enough revenue -- this is in their publication, this is what they tell us --

Hon. Mr. Drea: I meet with them. The member better be prepared because that isn’t right and he knows it.

Mr. Swart: I am prepared. I have consulted with them too. They said if the increase in mark-up had been from 47 to 50 per cent it would have been enough to offset the reduction in the sparkling wine.

Hon. Mr. Drea: They don’t even talk to you. That has nothing to do with it.

Mr. Swart: I would be in agreement with the minister that there was merit in reducing the mark-up on sparkling wine so there would be more consumption of it, with its lower alcohol content, and less consumption of wine with higher alcohol content. But he didn’t follow through to do the same sort of thing on the wines we import. In fact, by the measures taken this last spring the Ontario producers were put at a greater disadvantage compared to the foreign producers of wine.

Hon. Mr. Drea: The member is going to regret ever uttering those words. That could be the end of his seat.

Mr. Swart: The pattern of increase for the last two years -- and that includes the most recent increases -- shows that the foreign wines have gone up something like 30 per cent in retail cost.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr. Swart: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will just conclude with one sentence. In Ontario they have gone up 25 to 30 per cent, in spite of the differential in the value of the dollar. There is something wrong there and I would hope the minister would comment on it when he rises to speak.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The member for Lincoln had six minutes left. Does he wish to use a part thereof?

Mr. Hall: No.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to devote too much time to that slipped-deck rendition of what is going on in the wine industry. I want to be on a much more positive note.

I would draw my friend’s attention to the fact that I am going to send this Hansard out to the grape growers. He may long regret some of those words.

The fact of the matter: In every area where the mark-up changed, the grape growers -- not the wineries, the member does not know which side he is on -- the grape growers, while they might have preferred something else, agree that it was in the best long-term interest of their industry.

There are certain reasons why some of those mark-ups were changed. It will become abundantly clear in the next few months as to why that was done and its significance in terms of cash, increased vineyards, more production that will accrue.

[5:30]

One of the reasons for the change in markup was a social policy; sparkling wine or pop wine, or seven per cent wine should have never been at that point. The reason it was at that level was that at the time the grape growers wanted it there because it only uses half as much grapes as does table wine. I’m sure the farm expert from Welland-Thorold is aware of the history of that particular mark-up.

They now want it changed because of two reasons; first, the social responsibility. You really can’t have seven per cent wine priced at the same price as 18 per cent. Second, the tremendous increase in the popularity of pop wines, both here and abroad and in the province of Quebec, which uses Ontario concentrates, has produced a significant market for grapes.

The real reason for raising the mark-up was to ensure that the wineries would be in a position to sell outside of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario because, you see, when they sell outside of the LCBO they keep the entire mark-up. The wineries profit from that increased mark-up, not lust in their own stores but in the more than 100 kiosks and supermarkets that have been licensed by this minister since last October. They keep all of that.

That is leading to new capitalization in table wine. It is also leading to new vineyard production -- and I’m not talking about varietal, I’m talking about even Labrusca -- that is going on there now. It is also providing for new equipment, new sales and new merchandise.

Mr. Hall: You’re also putting a 10 per cent tax on sales, aren’t you?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Yes: Oh, yes.

I want to speak just for a very few moments about the Ontario wine industry. I must say after some of the dialectic which was devoted to it, I really think that I would like to particularly thank the mover of this motion for the statements he made. I think it is very important that it be brought to the attention of the public that the policies of this government are really set in terms of the grape grower by the Minister of Agriculture and Food.

I receive, as does the honourable the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch), a very great deal of credit for certain implementations -- and I make no apologies for those -- but the winery is really only incidental. The very common view is we’re protecting the winery; we’re not doing anything with the wine. The whole thrust is to the grape grower and I think that that is something that should be remembered and I commend the mover of the motion for that, because this sometimes escapes public attention. When it is drawn to the attention of the public, immediately there is a new look at the Ontario wine industry from the primary source, which is the grape grower, right on through, and I think that quite often that has been missed in the past.

It may be of some significance, after the member for Welland-Thorold’s diatribe about the mark-up, to note that I cut the price of Ontario brandy even more than the grape growers wanted. The reason for that is it provides the grape grower with a market for the culls in good years -- he has to pick them anyway. The new market for Ontario brandy will allow him to pick them and at least get his costs back on it and in a surplus year will provide an additional market. I would have thought that the member would have commended me, the Deputy Premier, and Mr. Bosworth, the chairman of the board. Obviously that has escaped somewhere in here.

Mr. Swart: That is only a small part of the whole picture.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Oh, it’s a very significant part and, once again, they’ll love that remark, they will love it.

Just for a moment I want to talk about mark-ups in terms of GATT. This government cannot trim the size of the mark-up from now on. That is an agreement under GATT. We can lower it but we cannot expand it between domestic product and foreign. We can take into account some normal commercial considerations, which are handling, freight, warehousing.

Mr. Nixon: You can lower it.

Hon. Mr. Drea: We can narrow it, which would mean directly opposite to what has been suggested here. We can lower the gap between both, but we cannot widen it. Were we to drop the mark-up on Ontario vine, we would have to drop the mark-up on imported wines correspondingly. We could raise the mark-up -- which is intolerable and will not be done, but that is a condition of the GATT agreement. It was a trade-off and it was done to protect the export of Canadian whisky, which is also a primary Canadian agricultural product. It was one of the demands of the United States.

For the moment, let’s not talk about mark-up, let us talk about merchandising. With the introduction of the kiosk into the big supermarket and with some of the things the Deputy Premier, the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. W. Newman) and I intend to do in the next few months, Ontario wines have already regained their lost share of the market. They have over 50 per cent of the total. They were down well below that some time ago. They’re back there now. In the future, they are going to dominate this market.

It’s not going to be based entirely upon price or entirely upon a captive market. It’s going to be based upon a fact with which I think everyone in this House agrees -- that the new varietals and many of the table wines are among the finest in the world. They are a good quality product. So far, the difficulty with getting them in commercial amounts in hotels and so forth is the inadequacy of the supply. As each year goes by, the supply becomes more stable as that cycle on the varietal grapes does come in.

Second, there is a thrust by the Ontario wine industry away from the fortified wine and into the table wine. That is where the capitalization is going. That is where the research is going. That, quite frankly, is where the merchandising expertise is going.

I think there is an entirely optimistic viewpoint shared by both the wineries as represented in the wine council and the one that is outside of it, and the grape growers. They have met with me. They have met with the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller). They met with the Minister of Agriculture and Food prior to the budget. They consulted with me afterwards. They have made it abundantly plain that the policies of this government, particularly in regard to mark-up, availability of supply, the expansion of the freehold store into the kiosk, have given them a new light and a new optimism for the future.

I would like to emphasize that I do not believe the future of Ontario wine is in trying to dictate to the consumer that he must do this or he must do that; rather, it should be based upon a normal commercial consideration, which is the mark-up.

The mark-up on Ontario wine is not an awful lot different to the mark-up on foreign wine, when you take into account that the LCBO pays for warehousing, et cetera, for the foreign wine, whereas the Ontario wine pays its own. That mark-up becomes remarkably equal, notwithstanding some of the media that feel unless it’s French it is not significant, and if it’s French, I should subsidize the Rothschilds and sell it at a remarkably low price.

I think the industry should be commended, particularly the Ontario grape growers. Just a little aside: The women’s action group, because they felt the grape growers perhaps were confining themselves too much to agriculture and not enough into advertising and promotion, took a giant step forward and have been very instrumental, not just in the promotion of Ontario wines but, indeed, of grape juice, grape jellies and so forth. That has become an exceedingly significant market.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The honourable member’s time has expired.

Hon. Mr. Drea: The grape growers have been remarkably consistent. They have been fair; they have been honourable; they have stated their case well. It will indeed be an honour to give them a very special permit when they open their new headquarters in the Niagara Peninsula because they will be the only non-manufacturers of alcoholic products allowed to give you a sample on the premises so you may find out just how good is the quality of brandy and Ontario wines.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I’m glad to participate in this debate and support the resolution of my colleague from Lincoln. I believe it would be effective if the minister could be persuaded to follow it, if not totally, at least in part.

I’ll begin with perhaps what I should be ending with, by quoting to the minister from the Ontario Wine Advisory Committee Report, 1974. The minister was not in the cabinet at that time but he may recognize some of the names appended to the report. The chairman was A. Gordon Cardy. One of the signatures, as I make it out, is John P. Robarts; another one is J. Dean Muncaster; another, J. Charles Grieco; all of them, surely, good friends of the minister and people to whom he should pay a great deal of attention.

The recommendation from that report is particularly significant in the light of what the minister has said. He has thrown up his hands like Pontius Pilate and said, “There is nothing I can do about the mark-up. My hands are tied or washed by the provisions of the GATT agreement.” Then he went on to say that if we reduce the mark-up on Ontario wines, we would have to do the same for imported wines.

That is not such an incredibly impossible thing to consider. After all, the mark-up on imported wines is 123 per cent plus 10 per cent tax on top. And there are those people, even though they are wholly committed to drinking only wine produced within sight of the attic window of the member for Lincoln --

Hon. Mr. Drea: Not you.

Mr. Nixon: -- such as me.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Not you. Oh, I’ve watched you.

Mr. Nixon: There is one exception to that, and I want to bring it to the minister’s attention in a minute. There are those who believe that 123 per cent plus an overall 10 per cent is too damned much profit for the LCBO. After all, this minister administers one of the most powerful monopolies, next to Ontario Hydro which isn’t really a monopoly at all, in Canada -- in North America. We have a law that only the minister can sell the wine. He has his own stores in all the communities and in my riding, he has the finest buildings in the whole constituency except for Liberal headquarters. He buys the material cheap, marks it up and in some instances waters it down, sells it dear and slaps 10 per cent on top and he expects to stand in the House and have us support the initiatives he has taken.

I believe his initiatives have been commendable but inadequate and I would suggest two courses of action, both of them directly along the lines of the resolution put forward by my friend. I believe the mark-up is too high and it could be reduced along the lines of the GATT agreement, including a reduction in the mark-up of imported wines.

The minister is pointing to one of the many empty seats in the front row, the one that should be occupied by the Treasurer, because this debate concerns him more than anybody else. Or is he pointing to the Premier’s seat?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Do you really want to cut the price of foreign wines?

Mr. Nixon: I do.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Let that be put on the record.

Mr. Nixon: Yes, sir. I believe, along the lines of the honourable member’s resolution, that the mark-up reduction on both levels of wine would continue the kind of protection that even the Minister of Agriculture and Food is prepared to support --

Hon. Mr. Drea: Look at your member. Your member doesn’t agree.

Mr. Nixon: -- and also expand the market in a way which would lead to the profit of the growers.

Hon. Mr. Drea: You haven’t helped your member.

Mr. Nixon: I want to get back to the report signed by John P. Robarts. It says, and this is the more important aspect because it covers tax, the area directly under the responsibility of this government -- I quote from the report, page 76:

“The Ontario retail sales tax was originally put into effect to raise provincial revenue on products and transactions from which it derived no other benefit. In the case of wine sales, this premise has been ignored. The consumer is made to pay the sales taxes on a product controlled and priced by an agency of the provincial government from which substantial revenue is derived” -- a gross of $430 million last year.

Hon. Mr. Drea: No.

Mr. Nixon: “The committee believes this unique tax on tax situation should be reconsidered by the appropriate ministries.”

The minister who is paying attention to this debate is one of them. The Treasurer, who is absent, is another, The Minister of Agriculture and Food is here and certainly in the words of the member for Lincoln, it applies to the agricultural policy ahead of everyone else.

I was just saying -- and I must be sure that this is a part of my remarks since everyone is going to send this out to all of their wine growers; I don’t have any in my constituency.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Oh, yes.

Mr. Nixon: All right. The only exception to the use of Niagara wines are those basement vintages that I am not so quick to discredit as my colleague from Lincoln has done. I admire his judgement in all respects, but if he has never tasted the Chateau Nixon rhubarb or elderberry 1978, then he knows not of what he speaks. I will attempt to remedy that as soon as it has aged another few days --

Hon. Mr. Drea: With dandelions thrown in.

Mr. Nixon: -- and in that respect, his views might be changed.

[5:45]

I believe the resolution is a significant one. It lies within government policy to support the growers by reducing the end cost. In my view, this would mean that a good and healthy Canadian product, full of vitamins and food values --

Hon. Mr. Drea: Ontario product.

Mr. Nixon: All right, Ontario product -- would be expanded. I wish I had time to talk about the government’s kiosk policy because to put this in the big supermarkets is one thing, but it simply puts the small merchandiser, the small grocer, at a disadvantage. I will await with interest what the minister does in the future in the limited number of months that are at his and their disposal to remedy this matter.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The member for Went- worth for up to five minutes.

Mr. Isaacs: I rise to offer qualified support for this resolution. It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s a step that is not at all big enough. Because of the limited amount of time available to me, I want to address, first of all, a couple of comments that were made previously by the minister.

I think the ministry has attempted to take some steps in the right direction --

Hon. Mr. Drea: I have done a lot.

Mr. Isaacs: -- but I don’t think those steps have been big enough.

Hon. Mr. Drea: That’s not true.

Mr. Nixon: The minister sounds like Jack Horner.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Ask the grape growers. They want to make me chairman.

Mr. Isaacs: I want to offer in support of that statement some figures published by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the agency that ought to know what is happening in our wine industry in this province. That agency reported in its 1978 annual report that the tonnage of grapes used in the manufacture of wine in the province of Ontario has dropped from 45,000 tons in 1974 to 34,000 tons in 1978.

Hon. Mr. Drea: No, no.

Mr. Isaacs: How the minister can call that a good record, I really don’t understand.

Hon. Mr. Drea: That’s not true, and you know it.

Mr. Samis: How can it not be true if the figures are there?

Hon. Mr. Drea: The figures are two years old.

Mr. Isaacs: If the figures are not true, then something is wrong with the liquor control board’s annual report for 1978, which is last year.

I also want to say something about the program that board is so very proud of. I will quote just two sentences from the introduction to the liquor control board’s 1978 report. It says: “The Ontario wine assistance program, which includes the accelerated distribution of wines to our retail outlets at reduced mark-ups, continues to be a success. The sales of Ontario-produced wines have again increased during the 1977-78 year.”

The reduced mark-ups, according to the liquor control board, are already in place. The board claims there are increases in the sale of Ontario wines as a result of the Ontario wine assistance program. It is a true statement that there have been increases, but it is nevertheless also true from the board’s own statistics that the sales of imported wines have continued to increase at a rate faster than the sales of Canadian wines, both in liquor board outlets and in Ontario winery outlets.

Mr. Swart: The minister should be listening to this.

Mr. Isaacs: To give the figures for the two years for which the wine assistance program has been in effect, over the period 1976-77 through to 1977-78 sales of Canadian wines in Ontario increased by 20 per cent and sales of imported wines in Ontario increased by almost 35 per cent. I really don’t understand how the minister can be proud of that record.

My time is running out. I really feel that reduced mark-ups for Ontario-produced wine might be a very tiny step in the right direction. What we need are some positive steps in terms of encouraging farmers to produce not only grapes, but other Ontario produce, and to put in place policies that ensure land is not being removed from agricultural production, farms are not sold in speculators and that the economics of farming begin to make sense again in the Niagara Peninsula, in the Hamilton-Wentworth region and throughout Ontario.

WASTE DISPOSAL

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Kerr has moved resolution 18.

Resolution concurred in.

ONTARIO WINE TAX

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Hall has moved resolution 17.

Resolution concurred in.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Pursuant to standing order 13, I wish to indicate to the House the order of business for the remainder of this week and next week.

Bill 105 will not be considered this evening but will be considered next Tuesday. Tonight, Bill 71, The Ontario Heritage Act; Bill 93, An Act to provide for the holding of Land by Religious Organizations; and Bill 94, An Act respecting the Anglican Church of Canada, will be dealt with tonight in second reading and in committee stage as required as well. We will go to budget debate then if there is time.

On Friday, in committee of supply we will consider estimates of the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs.

On Monday, June 4, in the afternoon, in committee of supply we will continue with the estimates of the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs. On Monday evening, I would remind the House, the government now having had time to assess the matter that arose this afternoon, in accordance with the undertaking I gave at that time that if all was in order and as straightforward as it appeared, there would be no problem. Pursuant to that undertaking we will be calling the report from the public accounts committee re the Royal Ontario Museum and the provincial auditor. Later Monday night, if there is time, we will have the debate on the motion for adoption of the report of the standing social development committee dated May 25, 1979, re Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital.

On Tuesday, June 5 in the afternoon we will consider Bill 96, The Planning Amendment Act, second reading only, and Bill 105, An Act to amend the Condominium Act, second reading and committee if required. The following bills will go for second reading at that time and committee as required: Bills 90, 92, 99, 88, 89. Tuesday evening, Bill 115, An Act to amend the Municipal Act, second reading in committee.

On Wednesday, June 6, resources development, general government and justice committees may meet in the morning.

On Thursday, June 7 in the afternoon, private members’ public business, ballot items 17 and 18. In the evening, Bill 17, the Line Fences Act in committee and then second reading and committee stage if required on the following bills: Bill 46, The Local Improvement Amendment Act; Bill 80, The Veterinarians Amendment Act; Bill 81, The Hunter Damage Compensation Amendment Act; and Bill 82, The Dog Licensing and Live Stock and Poultry Protection Amendment Act, a matter of great concern to my constituents.

On Friday, June 8, the committee of supply will continue with the estimates of the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable Acting House Leader may wish to revise the numbers of those balloted items.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That is in accordance with the changes made the other day. We will deal instead with the items as scheduled for next Thursday, June 7, which I presume are items 19 and 20, but we changed some of them the other day.

Mr. McCaffrey: A question of clarification, Mr. Speaker. My understanding, and I might get some advice from any of the other members of the general government committee who are here, is that we had undertaken to ask of the House leaders the permission of the House to enable us to sit, in addition to Tuesday and Tuesday evening and all day Wednesday next week, on Wednesday night, Thursday, Thursday night and Friday as well.

I know the Acting House Leader mentioned something about the general government committee. Frankly, I didn’t catch it all.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I referred to the general government committee meeting next Wednesday, June 6, but if that information is conveyed to us on behalf of the committee with concurrence we’ll introduce the motion tomorrow morning.

The House recessed at 5:55 p.m.