Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

DRYDEN PULP AND PAPER OPERATIONS

Hon. F. S. Miller: I will wait until copies of my statement are delivered so that I will be abiding by the rules. Now that protocol has been met, my statement this afternoon is of major significance to the town of Dryden.

Today Great Lakes Forest Products Limited will announce an agreement with Reed Limited and Reed International Limited whereby Great Lakes will purchase the assets of Reeds complex at Dryden.

The purchase will include the current assets and all fixed assets of Reed’s Dryden pulp and paper mill, together with its chemical plant also located at Dryden, a sawmill located some 40 miles west of the community and associated woodlands operations, including its 6,900 square miles of crown timber licence.

Great Lakes plans to undertake a major modernization and expansion of the Dryden area complex at an estimated cost of $200 million. This will involve rebuilding the production facilities to make them as modem and competitive as possible, thereby ensuring the long-term viability of the operation and a healthy future for Dryden itself.

I would like to say a little about Great Lakes Forest Products Limited. It is a unique company. Its entire operations are centred in northwestern Ontario. All the company’s employees, including senior management, live and work in the region. It is Canadian-owned, with 98 per cent of its shares held by Canadians. Over the years Great Lakes has successfully implemented a number of modernization and expansion programs and, at the same time, has shown innovation and concern in environmental matters. Today Great Lakes is a large, fully integrated and modern company with a proven record and reputation.

With the involvement of a company of this calibre with its substantial financial resources and demonstrated track record for following through on its plans, I am confident the future of Dryden will be ensured.

As I mentioned, Great Lakes has immediate plans for capital expenditures of some $200 million on the Dryden area operation, which includes $40 million for environmental improvement. The company expects that approximately 95 per cent of its total expenditures will be made in Canada. It is anticipated about $40 million to $50 million will be spent on goods and services in northwestern Ontario. Much of this spending will be of benefit to the immediate Dryden area.

The program proposed by Great Lakes for the Dryden operations will meet and, in a number of cases, exceed current environmental standards. The improved operations will result in a betterment of the environmental performance than under the previous control order.

While the company expects to operate as many of the existing facilities as possible in the interim, expansion of kraft operations will necessitate at the appropriate time the diversion of pulp currently required for the fine paper operations into the main production stream in Dryden. Consequently, the company plans to phase out the existing fine paper operations. This will be done in consultation with employee representatives and will be carried out in a reasonable and practicable manner so as to minimize any disruption or hardship to present employees.

It is significant to note that at the peak of the modernization and expansion program as many as 400 or 500 construction and related skilled jobs will be created. Also, the company has advised that the expansion of the present woodlands activity to support the new complex will create 200 new permanent jobs.

Included in the company’s program is a new sawmill facility to replace the sawmill located west of Dryden. The location of this has not yet been determined, but a number of sites, including the Ear Falls-Red Lake area, are under consideration.

Also, in addition to its immediate plans, Great Lakes is actively considering the installation in Dryden of a modem highspeed newsprint machine -- an additional investment of $190 million -- which would be integrated with the expanded mill and create approximately 400 more jobs -- 125 in the mill and 275 to 300 in a further expanded woodlands operation.

Members of this House are aware of the environmental problems of Reed Limited and its predecessors in the Dryden area. These have been a major impediment to the sale of the Dryden operation, because of possible liabilities for past environmental damages.

In order to resolve this matter, and to ensure the economic health of Dryden, the government has given an undertaking in the form of a letter to indemnify Great Lakes Forest Products Limited against possible liabilities over a stated amount. A copy of the letter to the company explaining the terms of this limitation is appended to my statement.

The Ontario-Canada Pulp and Paper Facilities Improvements Incentives Program was established to provide incentives for investment in this industry, and it may well be the company will apply for support under this program.

Mr. Speaker, today a message is being prepared and provided to all Dryden employees by the chairman and president of Great Lakes Forest Products Limited, Mr. Charles Carter. In his message, Mr. Carter states: “We are committed to putting in place a modern pulp-and-paper-producing complex that will be viable many years from now, thus giving job security and stability to all the families associated with us.” I’m attaching a copy of that letter to this statement.

Great Lakes is proposing a tremendous undertaking, one which promises to bring significant benefits to Dryden, northwestern Ontario and the entire province.

ONTARIO STATUS OF WOMEN COUNCIL

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, later today I will be tabling the fifth annual report of the Ontario Status of Women Council.

This council brings forward to government the concerns of women on many issues that affect the status of women in our province.

Its recommendations are researched and prepared by its four working committees on child care, education and recreation, labour, and women with special needs.

Council also distributes its briefs and publications widely throughout the province and other jurisdictions and liaises with existing women’s organizations.

Lynne Gordon, council chairperson, is in the gallery today and I would like to express my personal appreciation to her, and the other 15 members of the council, for the enthusiasm and persistence with which they have pursued, and continue to pursue, improvements in the status of women.

ASSESSMENT AND TAX LEGISLATION

Hon. Mr. Maeck: Mr. Speaker, later this afternoon I will be introducing two pieces of legislation.

The first is a bill to amend the Assessment Act. These amendments will allow the government to continue the freeze on municipal assessments pending the introduction of property tax reform. In the absence of the freeze, assessments would, as members are aware, move to market value and cause unacceptable tax increases on single family residences and farms.

Also included in the bill is a provision to clarify the use of section 86 of the Assessment Act to reassess properties equitably within their property classes. This past year, some 14 municipalities were reassessed under section 86, and 106 municipalities are actively considering reassessments for 1980 taxation.

The amendment is being put forward to indicate to municipalities that notwithstanding the current wording of section 86, it is the government’s firm intention to give them the opportunity to use the section for the purpose of general reassessments. This reassurance is warranted, I believe, as there are three challenges to the use of section 86 for purposes of reassessment now before the courts.

While I am confident the courts would ultimately agree with our use of section 86, it would take several years to decide the matter finally. Therefore, it is sensible to settle the issue now with an explicit provision in the act.

Finally, the amendments freeze the use of the recently Gazetted equalization factors for the purpose of valuing transmission pipelines as well as the generating plants and transformer stations of Ontario Hydro. Ordinarily the pipeline and Hydro assessments are based on the use of the latest equalization factor and would be substantially reduced in 1980. The amendment will ensure they remain compatible with the other frozen assessments and the municipalities will not suffer an unexpected loss of revenue.

[2:15]

The second bill I will be introducing this afternoon is An Act to amend the Corporations Tax Act, which will significantly further my program to simplify Ontario’s tax statutes.

I have long recognized the need for effective administration without complication to or unnecessary interference with the normal business activities of taxpayers. This government and my ministry are dedicated to this particular concept. Consequently, my ministry has undertaken a rigorous program having as its principal objectives tax simplification, deregulation, improved taxpayer service and the reduction of paperwork by taxpayers. Our positive approach in this regard has been demonstrated by our legislative record, administrative improvements, tax information programs and reduced demands on taxpayers.

Continuing this thrust, it will give me great pleasure to introduce later today a bill which proposes the repeal of the statutory lien provisions under the Corporations Tax Act. Although this is effectively the last statutory lien remaining in tax statutes administered by my ministry, it has been by far the greatest source of concern for corporations and their representatives.

The statutory lien is an ever-present but undeclared charge on corporate property. For this reason, investors in financial institutions who lend funds to corporations on security and those acquiring corporate assets have to ensure that no lien is claimed by the ministry for unpaid taxes. Therefore, lien clearances have to be obtained from the corporations tax branch for daily transactions to ensure that property investments are not jeopardized by an undisclosed lien. This results in considerable cost to the private sector.

Wishing to be responsive to the legitimate concerns of Ontario taxpayers, I directed my staff to undertake an extensive review of this lien. Improvements in the land registration system made by the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, making examination of land transactions easier for all concerned, and advancements in tax administration techniques have greatly diminished the need for the statutory lien in the Corporations Tax Act. Revenues can be protected without the need for impeding the entire corporate taxpaying population in their day-to-day business pursuits and transactions.

The development of more effective collection methods, concentrating on delinquent payments and noncompliance with statute requirements, has enabled us to protect revenues where the statutory lien provisions have been repealed to date. This gives us every reason to expect the same result with respect to corporation taxes. In view of this, I believe the statutory lien is no longer required under the Corporations Tax Act.

In my ministry’s quest for tax simplification and regulatory reform, we have recognize that only a small percentage of taxpayers poses any collection problem and that both the direct and indirect costs of our requirements to Ontario’s taxpayers must be a paramount consideration. I estimate that corporate taxpayers incur costs of approximately $1.25 million annually in applying for and obtaining corporations tax lien clearances. Added to this is the cost incurred by individuals who have to obtain lien clearances where they are acquiring property which at some time within the preceding five years was owned by a corporation.

Because of the 20 per cent growth in lien clearance requests, taxpayer costs in this area would escalate substantially if the program were to continue. Over 200,000 applications for lien clearances are received yearly. For 80 per cent of these requests, approval is automatically given. The proposed measure to repeal the statutory lien will relieve the vast majority of taxpayers from complying with the present lien provision and thus represents a major step towards deregulation and tax simplification.

ADOPTION LEGISLATION

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, since the new Child Welfare Act, 1978, came into force on June 15 last, certain sections of the legislation have been interpreted by certain family court judges in a manner which is causing serious difficulties for children’s aid societies and for children being served by those agencies.

The difficulties are based on an adherence to the letter of the law, which is overshadowing the intent this Legislature sought to express and is thereby causing inordinately long delays and procedural hurdles in the court proceeding brought to determine the child’s future care. The problems have affected, in particular, children who are awaiting placement with prospective adoptive parents. I am informed that many children are being adversely affected at the present time.

Some of the problems of interpretation have been resolved by staff training, professional development seminars for judges and related activities. I will introduce later today a bill to amend those particular provisions of the Child Welfare Act, 1978, which are causing a degree of difficulty that can only be remedied by amending the statute.

Allow me to elaborate upon the most significant of these changes: First, the definition of “parent” in the Child Welfare Act, 1978, has been given an interpretation which far exceeds the breadth intended by the act. As I indicated when Bill 114 was introduced into the House, our intent was to recognize a broader class of parent -- in particular, the father of a child born out of wedlock -- than that defined by the old child welfare law, but to stop short of recognizing all putative fathers, simply because the efforts to identify and locate a person who has fathered a child may introduce major delay in the development of an appropriate plan for the child’s care.

The bill I am bringing forward will re-enact the definition of “parent” to include fathers of children born out of wedlock only if they have in fact demonstrated some wish to be involved in the proceedings or some involvement with the child.

The bill will also clarify that guardians of a child have parent status only if they have been appointed by court order, and that persons whom the child regards as psychological parents -- for example, the so-called settled intention parent -- have status only if that settled intention to treat the child as a child of the person’s family has been shown within the 12 months immediately preceding the court application brought on the child’s behalf.

Secondly, the Child Welfare Act, 1978, did not specifically address children who had been relinquished for adoption in accordance with the consent requirement of the old law and who were on adoption placement at the time the new act was proclaimed. Some courts have required the additional consents required by the new act as a condition precedent to the adoption order, with the result that these children are caught in a legal limbo while the placing agency attempts to locate persons who may be encompassed by the broadened definition.

The effort is particularly arduous if the child’s mother has disappeared during the six-month adoption probation period, believing that her surrender of the child, in accordance with the old law, released the child to adoptive parents.

Our amending bill will introduce a provision which allows an adoption order to be made for these children, if the consent requirements of the old act were met and if the child was on adoption placement on June 15, 1979.

Thirdly, although the Child Welfare Act, 1978, was silent as to the entitlement of a birth parent to notice of the adoption hearing, some courts have been requiring the applicant to serve birth parents with formal notice of the hearing and the accompanying adoption application. That, of course, identifies the adoptive parents to the child’s birth parents and has the potential of bringing them face to face at the hearing. Even if the birth parents do not respond to the notice, the procedural requirement may resurrect an anguish these parents have tried to put behind them in the months which have followed the decision to place the child for adoption.

The bill will introduce a section which specifically provides that no notice of the adoption proceeding be given to a parent who gives consent to the child's adoption or whose consent has been dispensed with, or to the parent of a crown ward.

The bill I am introducing will deal with a number of other matters of detail as well. The Ministry of the Attorney General is revising certain rules governing procedure and practice in the provincial courts, family division, to complement these changes to the Child Welfare Act, 1978.

Mr. Speaker, based upon informal consultations with opposition party representatives, I look forward to an early passage of this bill to remedy the difficulties I have described, in the spirit of co-operation which characterized the consideration of the revised Child Welfare Act last year.

MINISTRY-OHC AGREEMENT

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, on October 16, 1979, Management Board of Cabinet approved a memorandum of agreement between my ministry and Ontario Housing Corporation. I am pleased to table this memorandum which sets out the corporation’s mandate.

Copies will be placed in the members mailboxes today.

BURNING OF PCBS

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, last Friday I released a brief statement announcing a temporary halt to a test burn of PCBs in the St. Lawrence Cement kiln in Mississauga, scheduled for today. I would like to inform the members of the House as to the reasons why, and where this leaves the serious problem of disposal.

Part of the kiln equipment which was necessary for planning a test burn was unexpectedly shut down for maintenance, causing an initial delay of 12 days. That delay, plus additional complications from variable weather conditions, has meant that part of the monitoring system which is needed for accurate test results is not functioning at top efficiency.

The monitoring system is to feed samples of gases in the kiln stack to the TAGA 3000, our mobile air monitoring unit. While the TAGA is ready to proceed, the sampling system is not yet stabilized. There are still some unresolved problems in temperature variation, condensation and a buildup of particulate matter in the sampling line. Because relatively stable weather conditions are essential for accurate test results, this delay will mean the test burn cannot be conducted until next spring.

I am of course very concerned and very disappointed at this turn of events. The safe disposal of PCBs is becoming a more urgent priority, with the overall risk to society growing as time passes. High-temperature incineration is the possible solution. However, I have given my commitment to Mississauga residents that no tests will proceed until I am satisfied, not only that our technical equipment is working to perfection, but also that such a test can occur with absolute safety.

In the meantime, my ministry staff will continue to co-operate with the community’s liaison committee, to keep them informed of the actions we are taking. We are also pursuing our action in the Ontario Supreme Court to challenge the Mississauga bylaw which was passed to prohibit the PCB test burn. A court date has not yet been set.

Since PCBs will still have to be stored in Ontario until a safe disposal method is found, I have instructed staff to continue to keep track of every storage site in the province, and to ensure that such storage is in an acceptable manner.

ORAL QUESTIONS

GAS AND OIL PRICES

Mr. Nixon: I have a question of the Premier based on the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday that an oil pricing agreement is expected to be announced within the next few days. Can he assure the House that he has been consulted, as he has been insisting, and was promised, by the Prime Minister? Can he further assure us that the information that was part of the debate in the House of Commons yesterday, indicating a $4 a year increase until 1983, is not a part of the agreement?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk and House leader for the Liberal Party of Ontario, two or three things.

Firstly, this province has insisted from the outset that the discussions leading up to whatever may emerge on the question of pricing and the related issues may not be determined prior to a first ministers’ meeting. I’ve had a communication from the government of Canada within the last half hour that there will be a first ministers’ meeting on Monday next -- while some of the members are spending the day with their constituents; at least I assume they will be.

I restate the situation, and that is that Ontario has never been a party to the existing agreement. As I read the story yesterday, the Prime Minister was indicating that he felt there would be a solution, or a federal policy -- and that’s really what it is -- within the next relatively short period of time.

I am going to the discussions on Monday on the assumption that no predeterminations have been made. All first ministers will have an opportunity to express their points of view to the government of Canada and to the other provincial Premiers, and those discussions will be part of whatever ultimate decision is made.

As I say, I just learned a few moments ago that the meeting was scheduled to start at nine o’clock Monday morning next, in the nation’s capital.

[2:30]

Mr. Nixon: Has the Premier any evidence that his assumptions may not be correct? Has he evidence the agreement that has been a part of the House of Commons debate indicating a $4 a year increase until 1983, with increases in the excise tax to accompany those increases, may be a fait accompli? Will the Premier simply be left shaking his fists at his Tory friends in Ottawa and Alberta?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I have no reason to believe any predetermined decisions have been made, I think I am right in this. There is a CP story within the last 15 or 20 minutes quoting Mr. Leitch, the Alberta Minister of Energy, I believe it is -- or is it the Alberta Treasurer? -- who says he doesn’t think they are within days of reaching an agreement. As he would be one of the main participants in any such agreement, it would seem to substantiate my view that no decisions have been made.

Mr. Cassidy: Is the Premier saying there may be an agreement to which he wasn’t party, that there was an agreement to which he has not agreed, or is he saying that there is an agreement of some sort? Can he tell the House whether he has been informed of the nature of the agreement, even if Ontario has not given it its imprimatur?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will try to make it as clear as I can. To the best of my knowledge, and I think I would know, there is no agreement. Ontario will not be a party to an agreement in any event, because we are not involved in the agreement. We have been involved traditionally in the discussions that have led up to what was basically a national and Alberta/Saskatchewan agreement. Those are the people who actually execute the documents.

So I just reiterate: to my knowledge there is no agreement; if there is no agreement obviously we have no knowledge of a possible agreement; we are not accepting an agreement because we don’t know of any agreement. I don’t believe any agreement has been reached in spite of the speculative stories that I too have read in the press.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Surely the Premier wouldn’t refer to the statement made by the Prime Minister that an agreement would be announced within the next few days as a speculative story. If the Prime Minister says one thing and the Treasurer of Alberta says the other, why would he not assume that the Prime Minister is correct?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am not assuming that either gentleman is correct. I think what the Prime Minister has said, and I wasn’t there when he said it --

Mr. T. P. Reid: We don’t blame you for being confused.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no. The Prime Minister said he hopes to have an agreement “within several days”, I think those were the exact words used. I have used those terms “several days” and “fullness of time.” It can mean a week, it can mean two weeks, it can mean a month. Some days it is meant longer than that.

I do have the quote here from Mr. Leitch commenting on the same reports. I will be surprised if we are only a few days away from an agreement. We have the Prime Minister on one hand saying he expects within several days there will be an agreement and we have the Minister of Energy in Alberta saying there isn’t an agreement and that he would be surprised if they were only a few days away from an agreement. How one reconciles that within any specific time frame I don’t know, but I think it does demonstrate there is no agreement.

Ms. Gigantes: I understand the Premier is trying to be reassuring to us, but could he define more exactly what it is he is reassuring us about? Is he assuring us that if there is an agreement, he doesn’t know about it?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I thought I made it somewhat clearer than that. My recollection of what I said was, to my knowledge there is no agreement. I went further to say I think that if there were an agreement I would have knowledge of it. So in that I don’t have knowledge of any agreement, I really think I can assure the honourable member that there is in fact no agreement.

Mr. Nixon: Can the Premier assure us, however, that he has made it clear to the Prime Minister and the Premier of Alberta that $4 a year -- which sounds as if it is going to be the agreement, whether the Premier knows about it or not -- is unacceptable as far as we are concerned?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think we have made several things clear to the government of Canada, those things which from our point of view are unacceptable and those things that are acceptable. I really don’t want to take the time of the House to go through all of them again, but if the members opposite would like me to do so, I will in very short order point out the main direction of what we have been saying.

Firstly, we understand the $1 on January 1. Secondly, we understand the desire on the part of the producing provinces to have an increase as well as the desire on the part of the government of Canada for a variety of reasons. We are saying, before any agreement is reached between the government of Canada and the producing provinces to which we are not a party, certain other things have to be in place.

We have to have a policy with respect to energy self-sufficiency. We have to have a policy with respect to protection of those consumers who would be affected and some consideration given to the very basic concern that I have expressed -- which perhaps isn’t shared by a lot of other people, but I would hope is -- that is, the distribution of the moneys, whatever the price increase may be.

I would point out to the acting leader of the Liberal Party, it is not just the question of the amount of the increase, which is a concern to all of us; it is the distribution of that money, where it is to go, what it is to do in terms of protection for the consumers in the long term, what it does in terms of offsetting the impact for people on fixed incomes, et cetera, and the general economic impact on this province and the other manufacturing provinces of Canada. Those are the things we have said should be in place.

We will present those arguments again on Monday next as vigorously and forcibly as we can, but I remind the leader -- or the acting leader -- I keep having trouble with that because I am so accustomed to seeing him as leader -- that I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding. Ontario has never been a party to the agreement and we will not be on this occasion.

I go back to the debates of 1973 or 1974 -- and I think it is important that we have this in our memory when these discussions start on Monday -- when we had the producing provinces speaking world price then. The rhetoric may have been somewhat different. It may be a little more colourful at this moment, but that was their stated policy.

With great respect to the former Prime Minister, he indicated, and particularly the former Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, and the Minister of Finance indicated, that they felt we should go towards world price. I tried to be modest the other day and I will try again today.

Mr. Speaker: Try to be brief, too.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, I will do my best, Mr. Speaker, but it is a very important issue. I will tell the members opposite that it was the intervention of this province, because we were not then joined by the other provinces in any sort of aggressive way, that led to the policy we have at present of a moderated increase in terms of the pricing of oil and natural gas.

I can only restate those things on Monday. Of course, I will have some other arguments to add to the discussions that will take place, but I think we have to put it in that perspective and recognize that while we are not a party to the agreement, my hope and expectation would be that the Prime Minister of this country and his colleagues would take into account the concerns of eight-million-plus people of the population of this country as we debate this very fundamental issue.

Mr. Nixon: I want to make it clear to you, Mr. Speaker, I too was present at the energy conference of 1974 and I remember the Premier approving the price increase at that time.

Hon. Mr. Davis: On a point of personal privilege, we didn’t approve. The honourable member said I approved it, Ontario does not approve. We did not approve the price increase.

Mr. Nixon: You agreed.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, we didn’t agree. We weren’t asked to agree.

INCO EMISSIONS

Mr. Nixon: I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. Does he agree with the statement made on the weekend by Stuart Warner, vice-president of Inco Limited, that the technology is not available for the removal of sulphur emissions from the Inco superstack?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: If that were the total statement and there were no qualifiers, then I would not agree, but I think there were many qualifiers he would have implied. I wasn’t present when he made the statement. I saw him twice, I guess, on Saturday, once at the conference and once on a program Saturday evening. I am not sure which appearance the member is referring to.

Mr. Nixon: Since the minister says there is sort of a qualified agreement with the vice-president of Inco and the minister believes, along with the federal minister, that the technology is available, can he tell the House what progress he is making towards establishing a control order with a date by which the sulphur dioxide emissions must be reduced to the point that the acid rain situation is going to be at least partially alleviated from Canadian pollution sources?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I can advise the honourable member that we have already met with the officials from Taco. I believe another meeting is going to be held with my confrere in Ottawa. Following that, I believe Mr. Fraser and I will have an opportunity to discuss not only Inco but all of the other measures that must be taken on reducing emissions, I am advised specifically that Inco will again visit with us before the end of the year. So I think we are looking very positively to what can be done.

The reason I wanted to qualify to some degree that remark, which I think Mr. Warner qualified in his remarks, was that once one removes the material, it still has to be dealt with because it doesn’t disappear. That presents quite a significant problem not only for a company but indeed for us here in Ontario. There are massive amounts of acid which are not easily stored and it can have a pretty profound effect on the environment.

Mr. Cassidy: Has the Ministry of the Environment carried out any independent studies on the economic or technical feasibility of Inco’s removing or cutting sharply its sulphur dioxide emissions since 1975? Will he table those studies or any other information he has available? If he hasn’t carried out any independent information, how is it the ministry continues to take International Nickel’s word that they can’t put their reduction of sulphur dioxide in place when this is the most important single source of sulphur dioxide emission in the entire North American continent?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: In answer to the previous question, there is more to it than just whether or not it can be done and whether it is economically possible. As I say, it is awfully important to know what to do with that material once one has it.

An hon. member: Make fertilizer with it.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The word “fertilizer” frequently comes up, but it is not quite that simple. I had quite an extensive discussion on that. Yes, part of it can be used. But certainly all of it can’t be used, by any stretch of the imagination. A good deal of it cannot be used in that way.

It becomes quite a complicated decision that must be made on what to do with that material whether it is removed or not removed from the atmosphere. It still has to be dealt with.

Mr. Gaunt: Would the minister not agree that a study similar to the one that was done with respect to the pulp and paper industry would make a lot of sense? Wouldn’t the minister agree that Dr. J. A. Donnan and some other people within his ministry could do that study and give him more basis upon which to make logical decisions rather than just relying on Inco? Would he not agree that study could be done within a period of three months?

Mr. Warner: He will have to ask for permission from Inco first. Ask them if it’s all right.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am not sure it can be done within three months. I am not persuaded to that time frame but we are considering the possibilities of assessing on an outside basis the economics of removal.

Mr. Cassidy: I would like to return to the Minister of the Environment in order to ask whether I have heard him I precisely when he says there has been no independent study by the Ministry of the Environment as to whether or not Inco can economically remove or reduce these sulphur dioxide emissions at its works in Sudbury.

Will the minister then confirm that despite the fact this was originally a matter of discussion with International Nickel back in 1975, and it was then that Inco said it couldn’t do it, there has been to this day no independent evaluation by the ministry of Inco’s claims?

Will the minister explain why it is the Ministry of the Environment continues to take Inco’s word rather than having an independent evaluation about getting rid of that sulphur dioxide pollution?

[2:45]

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, thanks to my predecessor, I am advised there was an independent assessment prior to the original order. I think that’s correct. I assume by the question that the member is asking about a recent date, subsequent to the 1975 supposed recommendation the member to his right has talked about several times in committee. As I said, we are certainly prepared to consider the possibility of an outside assessment on it.

Mr. Cassidy: So we know what material the ministry had, on which since 1975 it has consistently based its judgement that nothing could be done, will the minister agree to provide to the members of this House all information either developed within the ministry, or provided to the ministry from International Nickel, on which basis the ministry decided not until now to have independent evaluation, and on which the ministry decided to let Inco go scot free and let it continue to pollute the atmosphere with 3,600 tons of sulphur dioxide every day?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am certainly not prepared to accept that portion of the question that said “scot free.” That’s just not so, Mr. Speaker. Secondly, I think in the last six months we have had an extensive amount of debate in committee and Inco officials have been there. The members of the New Democratic Party were privileged to question Inco at great length. The committee itself has issued a report on what it wants to see done.

It’s hardly even appropriate to respond to a question that indicates there hasn’t been that kind of dialogue, that kind of information, put forward. If it hasn’t been done, then I guess I have to say to the leader of the third party his members have been very ineffective.

Mr. Nixon: Since the control orders entered into between the government and Inco in the past have been substantially unsatisfactory in this connection, will the minister tell the House that the negotiations and the decisions leading up to the next control order will be held in public, so all the people who are deeply concerned with this matter, obviously, will know what’s going on and can participate, at least to some extent?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I can assure the honourable member that discussions on amending the control orders will be made in public. I am not saying -- and I don’t want to mislead the member -- that all of those discussions will be, but it has been a very clear policy of my ministry in the last year that amendments to control orders will be done in a public forum, I am glad to be able to say this.

Mr. Nixon: But will this one be?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: This is no exception. Others, already in this past year, have been made into public forums. The one on Reed Limited was made in the standing committee. We have had public meetings, almost a town hall kind of meetings. We have had a variety of methods of dealing with the subject in an open and public forum and there will be that kind of openness in the process.

I wouldn’t say all of the discussions will take place in the public forum. Indeed, the one I had last week wasn’t in the public forum, but there will be that opportunity in the public sector to debate it.

Mr. Laughren: Since the original control order was imposed almost 10 years ago, and since in 1975 the company said it was not prepared to reduce its emissions from 3,800 tons to a more acceptable level, and since the company since 1975 has reduced its emission levels only from 3,800 to about 3,600 tons per day, will the minister -- without giving us the specific times and tonnages -- at least make a commitment today that within six months a new control order will be imposed with specific deadlines and tonnages contained therein?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I must have heard the question rather badly because I thought the first part of it was “without making specific dates and times,” and then I was asked to do something specifically in six months.

Mr. Laughren: No, within six months.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That is, I think, a commitment that does bear with it some very specific references. I feel there’s no doubt we must have lower emissions, not only in the Inco plant but in other areas, not only in this jurisdiction but in other jurisdictions.

The growing evidence that was put on the record last weekend at an excellent conference on acid rain leaves no doubt, either in my mind or, hopefully, in the public’s mind, that this is an issue of prime importance and that all of us must do our best to reduce emissions in sulphur and nitrous oxides, not only here but in other jurisdictions.

Mr. Laughren: You haven’t answered the question.

PHYSICIANS OPTING OUT OF OHIP

Mr. Cassidy: I have a question of the Minister of Health arising out of some excellent research done by the New Democrats in a health-care campaign up in Ottawa.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I hope it is more accurate than usual.

Mr. Cassidy: We talked to all but 20 of the doctors in the yellow pages in Ottawa.

Mr. Bradley: What about the health-care workers you talked to in St. Catharines?

Mr. Cassidy: Is the minister aware that in Ottawa 13 of the 29 ophthalmologists, 22 of the 46 gynaecologists, four of the 10 heart surgeons and three of the seven allergists have opted out? In view of this evidence that the opting out by medical specialists in key areas exceeds 40 per cent in Ottawa, does the minister not agree that this violates the principle of universal accessibility to medicare and that it violates the specific provisions of the federal medicare act, that services be provided upon uniform terms and conditions to all insurable residents of this province?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No, I don’t, any more than I would believe the system in place in Saskatchewan of patient streaming and extra billing of patients under mode three is an infringement of those principles. I don t believe it is an infringement at all.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Since the minister knows that high levels of opting out in certain specialties are found across the province, and not just in Ottawa -- the only anaesthetist in Elliot Lake, all of the anaesthetists for regular admission to the Sick Children’s Hospital, the only orthopaedic surgeon down in Windsor and so it goes across the province -- why have we in this party had to ask five times, and now a sixth time, in the Legislature about the proportion of specialists opting out in the different major disciplines, when the minister said a year and a half ago that he and his ministry were regularly monitoring opting out by specialties and among GPs?

Mr. Speaker: Is there a question there someplace?

Mr. Cassidy: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Why can’t the minister inform the House about the proportion of opting out in major specialties in the large communities or in the OHIP areas across the province so that the public can judge for themselves whether or not universal access to medicare is being endangered by opting out among specialists in this province?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: First of all, it bears repeating again, as the member well knows and I guess conveniently forgets, that it is quite common for specialists, and for GPs for that matter, working in emergency departments of public hospitals to form billing groups by specialty so that while today fewer than 18 per cent of the physicians in the province are non-participating, only about 11 or 12 per cent of the claims are opted out. A significant amount of claims are opted in through the billing groups in the clinical departments and emergency departments of all public hospitals.

As well, it bears repeating that a number of physicians who have opted out -- many of them since the beginning of the plan -- and who certainly have not in any way contributed to any threat to universality or accessibility, don’t charge above OHIP rates. That is common in certain areas.

Finally, I would point out to the member yet again that if he is really interested in accessibility and informing the public, then he would surely agree with me that the list, which I will publish in the next number of weeks of all participating physicians by specialty and by municipality, will be of great assistance to the public and to referring physicians.

Mr. Conway: Supplementary: To the extent that opting out is an expression of unhappiness about levels of income and rates of remuneration, can the minister indicate at this time what the nature of progress is between the government and the medical profession with respect to fee negotiations? Can the minister indicate in that response whether or not as part of that discussion the government is putting forward the notion often spoken of that increases in benefits and fees should be related somehow to patterns of utilization?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I think it would be a serious breach of good faith in the bargaining -- and I don’t think the member would expect me to -- if I was to set before him today the various items which are on the table on both sides. I hope the member will accept that we are in negotiations and that the meetings continue. I would hope by the end of the session to be able to announce an agreement on a new schedule for 1980.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Will the minister not agree it will be next to impossible to judge the proportion of specialists opted out by specialty when he has refused to table that information in the answer he gave on written questions a few days ago? Will he not also agree that information is vital in judging claims the GPs even now are making that they cannot refer to opted-in specialists because they don’t know who they are? Won’t the minister agree he's acting like an ostrich in not making this information available to the public and in not taking legislative action to bring one-price medicine back to Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I’m waiting for the day the member will get definitive about what the hyperbole at the end of his question means. He’s been very careful in his perambulations around the province over the last nine months never to get specific.

If he’s in Hamilton, as he was five months ago, he said, “We certainly wouldn’t do anything Draconian because we’d be afraid of the effect upon the health-care service.” When he comes here he tries to have us think he would do one thing or another. In fact, in asking his question he confirms my earlier answer: The list of participating physicians -- which will be published by the end of this session --

Mr. McClellan: A few weeks after the session; maybe next year or the year after.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- will be of assistance not only to the general public but to the referring physicians, so they will know by specialty and municipality those opted-in physicians to whom they can refer their patients.

Mr. Speaker: A final supplementary; the member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Roy: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Without accepting the NDP editorializing we hear from our left, and accepting that the minister is still looking at the question of universality in accessibility of health care, does the high percentage of opting out in certain limited specialties not concern the minister?

Second, without revealing exactly what’s going on in his discussions with the doctors on new fee schedules, can he assure the House this is one of the discussions taking place that he is expressing to these specialties his concern about the high level of opting out in certain limited specialties?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, the question of individual specialties and specialists’ option choices is an important one and it’s why I proposed the change in the regulations nine or 10 months ago. That change ensures that in every clinical department and in every emergency department of every hospital in the province we can now have formed billing groups to ensure that a physician can opt-in all or some of his accounts, regardless of his official option status.

I repeat, that is why while 18 per cent of the physicians in the province are non-participating only about 11 or 12 per cent of the accounts are opted out. That’s a significant difference. It shows the billings groups are having an impact. Ensuring there is that accessibility is an ongoing concern and not one that is just confined to current negotiations.

Mr. Cassidy: On a point of privilege --

Mr. Speaker: On a point of privilege?

Mr. Cassidy: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I’m afraid the minister appeared to misrepresent the position which my party and myself have taken very consistently about one-price medicine during the course of the last few months.

Mr. Speaker: That’s not a point of privilege; it’s a difference of opinion.

[3:00]

HYDRO BOILERS

Mr. Bradley: I have a question for the Minister of Energy. In view of the serious deficiencies encountered with boilers provided to Ontario Hydro, Hydro Quebec, New Brunswick and Argentina by Babcock and Wilcox Canada Limited, and in the light of the potential financial difficulties B and W might face as a result of repair agreements signed with Hydro and utilities outside Ontario, has the minister discussed with Hydro officials the possibility of reopening tenders for the Darlington nuclear generating station, or does he intend to do so in the future?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr, Speaker, the answer to both those questions at this time would be no.

Mr. Bradley: Supplementary: Is it true that the silent part of the deal made between Ontario Hydro and B and W included an assurance that B and W would be allowed to retain the Darlington contract? If this were so, would the minister consider this to be a responsible action on the part of Hydro?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I wonder if the honourable member would repeat the first part of that question?

Mr. Bradley: Is it true that the deal between Ontario Hydro and B and W, which has been signed contingent upon other deals being agreed to with other utilities, is part of that deal -- albeit a silent part -- an assurance that the Darlington contract will not be retendered and that B and W will be allowed to proceed with it?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I have no information that would, in fact, add any credibility to the suggestion in that question.

Mr. Speaker: A new question, the member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: The minister said he had no knowledge of that.

Mr. Nixon: I wonder if the minister has any assurance that the boilers are even going to work? Are they the same design we have had to repair for $36 million? What about those assurances?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I think that matter was all handled before --

An hon. member: Order, order. The member for Port Arthur has the floor.

Mr. Speaker: Does the minister have an answer?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Are you the Speaker, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: I think so.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Do I have the floor?

An hon. member: He recognized the member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Speaker: I haven’t recognized the member for Port Arthur.

An hon. member: You certainly did.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I have no reason to believe that the repairs will not be carried out as required.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My friends recognize I have trouble with my eyes, but I never encountered trouble with my ears before.

DRYDEN PULP AND PAPER OPERATIONS

Mr. Foulds: I have a question for the Treasurer with regard to the statement he made this afternoon about Great Lakes Forest Products Limited acquiring the assets of Reed Limited, a statement which I welcome. I would like one thing clarified.

Could the minister tell us what the status is of the so-called memorandum of understanding signed by this government and Reed Limited in October 1976, whether Great Lakes inherits the rights to those agreements, and whether, in fact, Reed Limited has lived up to the commitments that were outlined for it in the agreement?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I would like the Minister of Natural Resources to have that question directed to him.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, Great Lakes did approach this ministry to, in effect, ask exactly the same question. I think the easiest thing for me to do, and the briefest, would be to quote from a letter I wrote to the president and chairman, Mr. Carter, yesterday in reply to his letter of Friday. I won’t go through the whole thing, just the part dealing with the point the honourable member raised.

“Several considerations related to the role and mandate of the Ministry of Natural Resources will have to be weighed. One of these relates to both the rights and obligations vested in the memorandum of understanding existing between Reed Limited and my ministry.

“Although the forest resources inventory and the operational survey had been completed, the land-use plan for the West Patricia area has not been completed and is not scheduled for completion until April 1, 1981. It is on the basis of this plant that land-use conflicts will have to be resolved” -- this, of course relates to the wood fibre among other things.

Another concern is the mandate vested by cabinet in the Fahlgren commission on development north of 50 degrees north latitude. Finally, and by no means of least importance, we would want to consult with the people of the affected areas, including the native people.

“The environmental concerns I mention only in passing, since these lie primarily within the mandate of my colleague, the Minister of the Environment.”

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary, could the minister indicate, by a yes or a no, whether or not Great Lakes inherits the rights outlined in that agreement or is it pending some consideration or agreement that will be worked out between you and Great Lakes in 1981?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, as I say, I’m advised that the memorandum of understanding is an obligation -- in other words, there are points on both sides; there are requirements and there are concessions. They will be clearly within the development plan for the Patricia area, which will have to do with wood allocations, habitat, the whole planning program for the area. As far as we are concerned, if the memorandum of understanding is one of the assets which is purchased by Great Lakes Paper Company Limited, that company would be bound by it, just as we would be.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister concerning the $15 million liability accepted by Reed and Great Lakes. Perhaps I should redirect this to the Treasurer.

Can the Treasurer bring us up to date on the present status of the claims that have already been filed against Reed by the Indian bands involved?

Second, since because of this hopefully there will be a new start for the town of Dryden and for Great Lakes and for the people there, could he indicate whether or not he and the government are going to try and bring those claims to some kind of a final resolution so that the whole matter of the environment and the environmental claims can be dealt with and done with and the whole area can start afresh?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I can’t bring the member up to date on the claims, except to say that some are in the process of being proceeded with.

The letter which I signed first of all assures me of my position as Treasurer for 30 years, if you read it carefully. That was really quite sneaky. The Premier didn’t catch that part of it, I don’t think.

Second, I believe the member will find that our limitations do not include legal fees. They include awards.

Third, we really felt that because of the unknowns, the imponderables, the class actions -- all the kinds of things that are popping up on the horizon these days -- there could be so many ifs, ands and buts to any lawyers looking at those deals that we had a responsibility that would assure the survival of the town of Dryden by taking what is in fact an unusual action, by signing this letter of intent to indemnify. We did so in the hope that it would not stimulate extra cases. We would assume they would go on in their normal course of events, being placed by any grieved bodies.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary: Is it the Treasurer’s understanding or not that Great Lakes has purchased, as one of the assets, the rights and the obligations of the memorandum of understanding?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, that was never discussed with me. My role in this was simply to look at the kind of assistance that would be required to make the deal possible.

I should point out that it was absolutely essential that that letter go forward. We know that for a fact because the deal fell through several months ago when that letter was not available. It’s not a question of whether that letter possibly made the difference; it made the difference. That part is sure.

We did not give nor were we asked for any guarantee that that agreement was honoured. I’m sure that’s part of the negotiations they’ve had with the company.

Mr. Speaker: A final supplementary.

Mr. T. P. Reid: A supplementary, once again, to the Treasurer: Is there any statute of limitations on the claims relating to Reed Limited’s operation in the past? Secondly, will the Treasurer and the government bring their good offices to bear on this whole matter of these outstanding claims so everyone can be satisfied as fully as possible, à la Dow if you like, so we can again start a new and afresh?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) has been giving me some advice. I would have to ask the member to get a definition of limitations on different kinds of claims from him. I am not a lawyer.

I don’t think the province was anxious to stimulate claims, nor to slow them down, but the very fact we have said we’re there in case we’re needed may have some effect.

INSIDER TRADING

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations following the statement of the Treasurer with respect to the town of Dryden.

There appears to have been insider trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange yesterday on Reed stock, which opened at an increase, at 10¾, went to 11⅜ and finally closed at 11¼. Would the minister comment on the facts, since this 11¼ was apparently a high for the year and on a volume of some 18,000 shares, which is also unusual for this stock? Is the Ontario Securities Commission reviewing this circumstance? Will he report to the House on the circumstance?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I’ll report to the House on Thursday, on the entire matter. As a matter of interest, there was a cease-trading order issued about 30 seconds after the Treasurer’s announcement today.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Supplementary: In the wider context of front-line trading on options, which I believe was in the financial pages of the Globe and Mail this morning, on deals such as this -- the inside trader information is, in effect, what we’re dealing with -- is the minister considering any legislation to deal with these matters, because there seems to be a lot of inside traders on the options on these stocks where a lot of money can be made for a very small risk?

Hon. Mr. Drea: It’s my view the new Securities Act, particularly with the very sharp delineations on insider trading, covers that, but I will report back on Thursday with that as well.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The Toronto Stock Exchange is looking at it too.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Yes.

FOOD PRICES

Mr. Swart: I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. He’ll recognize I have here, two jars of Kraft Miracle Whip salad dressing.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Swart: Recognizing that last year Kraft Foods International had a return on equity in their Canadian operation of 31.1 per cent, can the minister explain why Canadians in Ontario are forced to pay $1.05 at Dominion Stores for this 17.6-ounce jar of Kraft Miracle Whip salad dressing, while in the United States at a supermarket this 32-ounce jar is sold at $1.07, or only two cents more than this small jar?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I will look into the matter and I will report back.

I would appreciate it if the member would tell me at which supermarket he bought it in the United States and, also, if the member would keep his accumulations to himself as I have no room for them.

Mr. Swart: Knowing the attitude of the people of the other side of the House, will the minister not recognize I didn’t offer them to him?

When the minister investigates this contrast, will he be sure to note all of the ingredients in this jar sold in Canada are ingredients produced in Canada, and all of the ingredients sold in this jar in the United States are produced in the United States? Therefore, he will not give us his standard line that one has to add 15 or 20 per cent to the price because of the Canadian dollar discount?

[3:15]

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to give the member any standard line. One of my difficulties is that I have never tasted that product in my life, so I don’t even know what it is made of. I would suggest the honourable member might help me out by telling me in what country, or what county, or in what supermarket he bought that in the United States.

PAYMENTS TO MUNICIPALITIES

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Premier. I am wondering whether the Premier can tell this House when the municipalities can expect to have some announcement with respect to transfer payments; an announcement for which they have been waiting for some months now. The Premier seems very reluctant to tell the municipalities how much money they are going to receive in this form.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am never reluctant to do anything. It is just a question of when we are ready. I would point out to the honourable member that traditionally this good news has been brought from the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. If he would like to redirect the question to that distinguished minister, I am sure he would share with the member what knowledge he has related to the question. If the member would like to do that, I am sure the minister would be delighted to answer it for him.

Mr. Epp: Supplementary: I would be glad to direct it to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, except it was the Premier who rejected, last August, the wishes or the requests by municipalities to have a legislative commitment of the transfer payments, so that it was the --

Mr. Speaker: Do you want to put a question to the minister?

Mr. Epp: I want to redirect the question to the Premier and try to get an answer from the Premier, Mr. Speaker, rather than have him slough it off to one of the ministers. I know that the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) is very capable of answering, but I want the Premier to answer because he originally said no to the municipalities, and I want the Premier to be on the line to answer the question.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Surely the honourable member -- who is so knowledgeable on all these matters -- because the government in its wisdom determined not to enter into a formalized formula doesn’t feel that this province isn’t going to be generous with its municipal colleagues?

My recollection is that they really had two or three suggestions. The member used the phrase “legislative guarantee,” or whatever it was. I really think they were looking for something that didn’t necessarily involve legislation. I believe the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs indicated to the municipalities that in roughly mid-November, or some time before the end of the month, this news will be transmitted to them.

If the honourable member hasn’t heard that from his municipal advisers in that party, it can only mean that they aren’t as aware as they should be of what has been said.

COKE-OVEN EMISSIONS

Mr. Mackenzie: A question of the Minister of Labour: Can the minister inform the House as to the reasons for the delay in establishing coke-oven emission standards for coke-oven workers in Ontario, given the real concern of these coke-oven workers and their representatives, and given the Premier’s letter of April 24, 1979, in which he assured the vice-president of Local 1005 and the safety and health chairman of Local 1005, that he understands that he, the minister, would be in a position, or hope to be in a position, to outline a strategy for the control of coke-oven emissions before the end of the summer? Can the minister give us a date, and could he possibly get the Premier to indicate the year in future, rather than just the season?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I don’t know if the Premier wishes to allude to any season this year. All seasons seem like good seasons. But the member for Hamilton East raises a problem that actually was brought to my attention earlier this week by the assistant deputy minister in charge of occupational health and safety, and I tell him with regret that that same deputy went into hospital that afternoon,

However, the information he is talking about is scheduled to be presented to me on his return, or hopefully before, if other staff are as well versed as he was in this, and I hope to have that information before the House in the near future.

Mr. Mackenzie: Supplementary: Is the minister aware, that with 47 coke ovens planned for the Nanticoke operation but not in operation, that there is a very real push for production on the existing coke ovens, which often results in a green push and much more emissions and that the workers involved are concerned, not only the workers but those who are affected beyond the immediate work place. Is there any pressure on the minister to delay the setting of standards, given this situation?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I can assure the member I have been under no pressure to delay it.

EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, in my absence the member for Hamilton East asked a question of the Premier (Mr. Davis) about the hiring practices of Stelco in Hamilton and the suggestion that discrimination against women prevented their being hired by Stelco.

I am sure the member knows that four women have filed complaints with the Ontario Human Rights Commission about discrimination, alleging contravention of section 4(1). As well, the president of Local 1005 of the United Steelworkers of America has filed four complaints against Stelco under section 13(1) of the code.

This matter was first brought to the attention of the commission on October 26 and an officer has been assigned to investigate the complaint. It is hoped the investigation will be completed in about three weeks and at that point a decision will be made on the course of action to be followed regarding the complaint.

Mr. Mackenzie: Could the minister tell us where the ministry has been, in view of the 30,000 applications by females for employment at Stelco? Some 33,000 workers have been hired there since 1961, but not one of those 30,000 female applicants was hired until within the last few days.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I would assume that would be the sort of information the investigating officer will be gathering.

MCDONALD LAWRENCE SEALES

Mr. Van Horne: A question of the Provincial Secretary for Social Development: Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that McDonald Lawrence Seales is not guilty of murder by reason of insanity, will the minister or one of the ministers in her secretariat release the report of the investigation by a team of psychiatric experts from the University of Western Ontario into the release of Mr. Seales from the London Psychiatric Hospital?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I have no knowledge of that particular subject. I would have to take that as notice and give the honourable member a reply later this week.

Mr. Van Horne: Further to that, I would like to ask the minister if in replying she cannot give the details of the report, would she indicate to us whether or not any of the recommendations in that report would be followed; and will there be any need to amend Bill 19, An Act to amend the Mental Health Act, which this Legislature passed just this past year?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Again I will take that question as notice and reply later this week.

VISITOR

Mr. Wildman: A point of privilege: I wonder if the members of the House would join with me in welcoming the former member for Algoma, who is sifting in the gallery.

FRENCH HEALTH SERVICES

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I have a question for the Premier, in the absence of the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell). In view of the fact the report on mental health services in Ontario says, “Languages and culture play a dominant role in communications with the sick,” is the Premier aware that in the city of Timmins, which has a 46 per cent French population, according to l’Association canadienne-francaise de l’Ontario, there are no general practitioners whose mother language is French; there is only one francophone dentist; there is only one psychiatrist serving 100,000 people and he is an anglophone? Can the Premier tell me what he is willing to do, and what the Minister of Health should do, to encourage French practitioners to serve the French population in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am not aware of this particular report. I would be delighted to discuss it with the Minister of Health. All I know is I am so very grateful we have a conscientious, sensitive member from that area who does so much to resolve these problems in a positive, constructive sort of way.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: As the sensitive member for Scarborough West, I am pleased I can raise it with the Premier before he does.

I would like to ask the Premier, in discussing this with the Minister of Health, that given his past policies which have proven ineffective, and given the fact the local ACFO group says one reason the hospital boards in Timmins have failed to attract francophone practitioners is that these boards are dominated by anglophones, would the Premier, along with the minister, be willing to consider funding French advisory committees in northern health districts, much like advisory committees to boards of education? These could then act as recruitment agencies to deal in French with French potential practitioners from French jurisdictions.

Hon. Mr. Pope: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, the honourable member indicated I had not raised some of these issues before the House. I would like to advise the House these were the issues that were being dealt with last year when I raised the issue of admission to medical schools throughout the province. Where were members opposite then?

ACID RAIN

Mr. Conway: My question is to the Minister of Natural Resources, a question concerning acid rain at Algonquin Provincial Park. In view of the fact this park is a major national and provincial resource, and that acid rain now presents itself as a very major and insidious environmental threat, can the minister indicate whether or not any special study or analysis has been undertaken by his ministry which would outline the nature of the threat to the park, lying as it does in the immediate fly-path of the Inco emissions?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I am not sure all of the lakes in the park have been surveyed. We are doing surveys in co-operation with the Ministry of the Environment in a number of lakes in southern Ontario, as well as the north. Cottage groups have been taking samples and so on. There is a very large program going on in water quality surveying. Some of the studies have not attacked the PH problem until the last couple of years, so I can’t give the honourable member up-to-date data.

I do know that part of the problem as far as fish are concerned is that in the spring runoff, if there has been a good deal of acidic precipitation in the snow during the winter, there may be a very high level of acidity for a very short period, yet when tests are done later in the summer it doesn’t look as though there is a problem. That is the area we are now looking at because that is the time when the fish spawn are affected. If a study is done, for example in August, that wouldn’t be known.

Mr. Speaker: The time for oral questions has expired.

KING TUT TICKETS

Mr. Speaker: I have been handed a note by the Honourable Minister of Culture and Recreation (Mr. Baetz) that reads as follows:

“Would you please remind the members to bring their tickets tonight to Tut entrance. Without tickets will be impossible and is beyond the discretion of your host, the Minister of Culture and Recreation. No ticket, no Tut.”

HANSARD REPORTERS

Mr. Eaton: On a point of privilege Mr. Speaker: I wish to draw to your attention Hansard of October 22, in which I am credited here with an interjection during question period. I would just draw to the Speaker’s attention that I was not present that afternoon. It might be a good idea to return our interjectionists so they can know who is here, rather than have the tapes going.

Interjections.

Mr. Eaton: Also these tapes are apparently picking up some of our private conversations around here. I draw that to your attention.

Mr. Speaker: For the edification of the honourable member, he may wish to attend the member’s services committee where the director of legislative debates will be explaining that in detail once again.

REPORTS

ONTARIO STATUS OF WOMEN COUNCIL

Hon. Mrs. Birch presented the fifth annual report of the Ontario Status of Women Council covering the period April 1, 1978 to March 31, 1979.

[3:30]

MOTIONS

REFERRAL OF BILL

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that Bill Pr22, An Act respecting the County of Simcoe, be withdrawn from the standing general government committee and be referred to the standing administration of justice committee; and further that the provisions of standing order 72A respecting notice be waived.

Motion agreed to.

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTES

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that the following substitutions be made on the standing public accounts committee: Mr. Isaacs for Mr. Mackenzie; and Mr. MacBeth for the Honourable Mr. Pope.

Motion agreed to.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

PUBLIC COMMERCIAL VEHICLES AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Snow moved first reading of Bill 161, An Act to amend the Public Commercial Vehicles Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, I have just introduced a bill to amend the PCV Act. With your permission, I would like briefly to outline its contents for the members of the House.

Bill 89 provides for the creation of a new class of commercial vehicle operating licence, the class N licence designed to accommodate the special needs of the forest products industry. The regulatory authority to specify the region or regions of origin of transportation under the new class W licence, as called for in Bill 89, is contained in this amendment.

Members will recall that Ontario, along with the rest of the provinces, will adopt a uniform Canadian bill of lading on January 1 of 1980, a system developed by the Canadian Conference of Motor Vehicle Administrators. This bill, therefore, contains an amendment to clarify the regulation-making powers necessary to implement these uniform Canadian bills of lading.

There’s also an amendment providing for the differentiation between classes of licences and between types of commodities for regulatory purposes.

Finally the bill contains a housekeeping amendment to clarify the intent of section 6(19) of this Public Commercial Vehicles Act. Under Bill 89, carriers operating under the new probationary operating licence will have their licences reviewed by the OHCB after one year of operation. The amendment makes it clear that reviews of probationary licences are mandated by the act.

CHILD WELFARE AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Norton moved first rending of Bill 162, An Act to amend the Child Welfare Act, 1978.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, I think my opening statement dealt adequately with the content of the bill.

ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Maeck moved first reading of Bill 164, An Act to amend the Assessment Act.

Motion agreed to.

CORPORATIONS TAX AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Maeck moved first reading of Bill 165, An Act to amend the Corporations Tax Act, 1972.

Motion agreed to.

NON-RESIDENT AGRICULTURAL LAND OWNERSHIP REGISTRATION ACT

Mr. Eaton moved first reading of Bill 166, An Act to provide for the Registration of Non-resident Ownership of Agricultural Land in Ontario.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Eaton: The purpose of this bill is to provide for the registration of non-resident ownership interests in the agricultural land in Ontario. The bill requires any person who is not a resident of Ontario and who owns 25 or more acres of agricultural land in Ontario to submit a report in the prescribed form to the Minister of Agriculture and Food.

A non-resident must also submit a report if a resident person acquires or holds an interest in 25 acres or more of agricultural land on behalf of the non-resident. If a report is not submitted within the time period specified in the bill, the non-resident commits an offence and is liable to pay a fine equal to 25 per cent of the value of the property.

I feel that this legislation would provide the facts on non-resident ownership. Instead of having various unsubstantiated rumours and no means of obtaining the proper information, it will give us the information on which to base future decisions on foreign ownership.

SOUTH RUSSELL HOLDINGS LIMITED ACT

Mr. Rotenberg moved first reading of Bill Pr30, An Act to revive South Russell Holdings Limited.

Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

CROWN TIMBER AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Auld moved second reading of Bill 77, An Act to amend the Crown Timber Act.

Mr. Speaker: Does the minister have an opening statement?

Hon. Mr. Auld: No, let us press on.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I am somewhat surprised that the minister doesn’t have an opening statement, in view of the importance of Bill 77. Of course, we have since gone through so many gyrations when we were dealing with the principle of this bill that probably the minister is too embarrassed to talk about it at all.

As you well know, Mr. Speaker, coming from northern Ontario, we have been through this exercise under various guises for a number of years. The responsibility for reforestation and regeneration of the forest land in the province of Ontario has been bouncing back between the government and private industry for almost 100 years.

It is interesting, as I said in a somewhat related debate the other day, that we were talking today in the question period about the resource of oil for heating, and for running our cars, our transportation and our industry, while we are dealing here with one of the two really renewable resources that we have in the province of Ontario.. My friend the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) will tell members one is agriculture; the other one in this particular context obviously is the renewable resource of forest land.

I said to the Premier (Mr. Davis) yesterday in another debate, that of all the things that the province in 36 years of Conservative government had been responsible for and not responded to, probably dealing with northern Ontario and our renewable resource are the worst ones.

Mr. Speaker, I have all kinds of statistics about how much the forest industry contributes to the economy of the province of Ontario, how many jobs it creates, how it affects the balance of payments, how much income tax is paid and so on. But I don’t think we have to go through all those statistics again. Suffice to say that the Conservative government in the province has not lived up to its mandate to ensure that the province of Ontario and the people will have a continuing forest resource in the province of Ontario. A renewable resource that is important not only because of the forestry jobs it has and does provide along with all the other things but now, because of the energy crunch, we’re approaching the day when the fuel resources, both in terms of timber cut to fuel people’s stoves, fireplaces and so on, is taking on a more dramatic need as opposed to the sort of aesthetic value that it has had in the past, in that it also has the possibility of providing methanol fuel from our forests.

I said I wasn’t going to deal with statistics in the economic sense, but I want to deal with some that I think are shocking -- that I’ve repeated in this Legislature over the years -- and the ones that bother me particularly. Those are the statistics that deal with the regeneration and reforestation in the province of Ontario.

It’s a well known fact, I believe, that obviously in the reforestation that has been done by the province under the aegis of the Ministry of Natural Resources in the past few years in the two species we’re primarily concerned about I would think in northern Ontario -- although obviously there are others -- spruce and jack pine, only 50 per cent of the regeneration or reforestation has been successful in those two species; which to use the agricultural term have been the “meat and potatoes” or the "bread and butter” of the forest industries, in particular for the pulp mills and lumber and all the rest of it.

Mr. Speaker, I have here the revered document of the 1977 election, the Brampton charter, in which the Premier, with a great deal of fanfare amongst other things, announced to Ontario at large that the calls and cries of the opposition were finally being heard, that they realized what was happening in the forests of northern Ontario, that merchantable, accessible lumber resources, timber resources, resources for pulp and paper, were dwindling much quicker than anybody had thought and that in fact we were running out of these; in 10, maybe 20 years, we were going to reach a crunch on these.

On other occasions I have spoken at length about the number of acres that have been harvested, the number of acres that have silvicultural treatment, the number of acres that in fact have been generated. I’d like to give some statistics, Mr. Speaker, on that. These are statistics of the Ministry of Natural Resources, so I presume the minister will accept them as being somewhat correct.

In the regeneration of spruce and jack pine about 75 per cent of the total is reforested. The survival rate, the success rate for spruce: a satisfactory survival rate is 30 per cent, the minimum is 66 per cent, and the failure rate is four per cent in 1970-71. In jack pine the satisfactory survival rate is 48 per cent, the minimum is 46 per cent and the failure rate is six per cent. Quite frankly, I find those figures somewhat high. From my own personal observation I don’t believe the survival rate and the healthy trees reach those kinds of proportions.

[3:45]

I could run down the figures from 1967 to 1968 on the areas of cutover and the areas left unregenerated. I want to tell members, and my figures were correct, some 12 years ago when I first spoke on this matter it was over 100,000 acres annually that were being left unregenerated or untouched. This deplorable and sad litany of neglect of the forest land of the province of Ontario has been under the responsibility of the Ministry of Natural Resources and its predecessor the Department of Lands and Forests.

The minister knows this was changed in 1962 because the ministry felt that private industry was not, in fact, doing the job of regenerating the forest properly. I think this is the fourth turnaround, the fourth change in about 25 or 30 years, in which we are laying the onus back on private industry in Ontario.

I am not sure that’s a bad thing as long as we have well understood the guidelines they are going to be under and the system is completely monitored. I think it is obvious, and we have experts who are even more expert than I -- some under the gallery today; some of whom we have met at other forestry conferences -- who say probably one of the biggest problems in dealing with the forest, which I understand they don’t have in Germany and in some of the Scandinavian countries, is the fact that you don’t have the whole life cycle broken up in terms of harvesting and regeneration. This is what has happened in the province, certainly in the last 17 years since the rules were changed again.

I believe in the concept that those who are doing the harvesting should be responsible for the silviculture, the regeneration of the ground and, ultimately, the reforestation. That really only makes sense. It is the same kind of concept where we took children and separated them into different educational groups. That didn’t work, so we went from K through the whole systems, so that there would be a cycle where there would be a co-ordination and follow-through and monitoring all the way that made sense to everybody.

It is interesting that in the act, particularly in section 5, the ministry deals with this concept, and it is obviously the main principle of the bill. Section 5(2) of the bill clarifies that the expression “sustained yield” used in subsection 1 “means the growth of timber that a forest can produce and that can be cut to achieve a continuous approximate balance between growth of timber and timber cut.”

It is interesting that the minister and his advisers would actually define that as part of the bill rather than as an addendum or explanatory note, as is usually done. Obviously this is at the root -- no pun intended -- of the problem.

We are going to support the principle of the bill. We have a number of questions about the mechanics. I am concerned that while we are amending the Crown Timber Act there aren’t other amendments. For some time I have been unhappy about section 27 of the act in regard to wasteful practices. I think there should be more in the act in regard to that.

I think it should be part of the guidelines of the new agreements, a very specific part, because while I am not a forester I am in the bush often enough to see there are a lot of timber resources left because they are either not economical or it has supposedly been economical just to plough them down and leave the bush in an unfit way. I am concerned about that particular section of the act. I’m also concerned about the five-year plans, if we can use that, and the 20 years down the line. By the way, I have a number of questions I will put at the end of my remarks. I’ll leave this one so the minister can think about it.

As I understand the bill, we’re on a five-year plan. We’re talking about a 20-year cycle. At the end of each five years there will be a review of the whole plan, and then hopefully the plan will be extended for a further 20 years, as I understand it. While in 20 years you have four reviews you’re actually looking at a cycle of 80 years. Is that a correct understanding?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Actually, I would presume --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps the minister could answer at the end of the debate.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a very important part of the understanding and that’s my understanding of it; I hope if I’m wrong the minister will point that out.

Obviously, part of the problem in the past has been both from political and economical points of view. A political point because we generally deal with matters here on the short term of four years or five years, with minority government sometimes even less; and an economic point of view or an industry basis when agreements with the licensees do not extend for the time that it takes to grow that tree so that the whole reforestation process takes place. If there’s no guarantee that a company is going to reap the benefits 40, 60, or usually 80 years down the line, then there really isn’t much incentive for them to go through this process. If they can’t say to themselves, “We’re going to get our money out of it, we’re going to reap the benefits of going through this process of spending the time and the money on the regeneration cycle,” then they’re not really going to go through with it.

The ministers, the political masters, have been very lax in the last number of years in bringing any kind of pressure to bear, either moral suasion or certainly the iron glove of coming down hard in terms of financial penalty, or in fact threatening licences, which the minister has the authority to do under the act, to ensure that this reforestation business in fact takes place.

There are other people who want to speak on this, but I want to ask some specific questions about the act. I’m concerned about a number of matters.

I’m concerned about third-party agreements in these matters; third-party agreements in two senses. First of all, can any other level of government be involved in this reforestation agreement, or is it strictly between the Ministry of Natural Resources and the licensee? We have a DREE agreement between the province, the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the federal government in regard to forest roads; we have another one in regard to an incentive on a three to one plan, that sort of thing; but is there going to be any federal money coming to Ontario for reforestation purposes?

I realize we’re talking about roads, and that’s got to be part of it, and all the rest of it, but it seems to me that the federal government has been reaping the taxation from the provinces of Canada to the tune of almost a billion dollars or more, in direct corporation and profit taxes. As I understand it over the last number of years and until recently, until this agreement which was signed on May 15, 1979, and I believe one the previous year, the federal government hardly came through with any money at all as far as the province of Ontario is concerned. And as I understand it as far as any of the other provinces have been concerned.

They’ve had a research centre which they almost closed down, in their ignorance, just a little while ago, but very few of the tax dollars that have been going into the federal coffers have come back, particularly in our case, into the pulp and paper and lumber industries in the province of Ontario. I wonder if these agreements are going to allow, ox whether it has to be done by this mechanism, for any of this money to get to these companies. Is any money to be made available?

However my other concern, which is as great as this is, is there is no provision for third party agreements for independent contractors, smaller contractors, loggers or whomever you like.

Again, maybe these are being done under the actual licence agreement and shouldn’t be in this kind of contract, which I have seen. What I don’t note is that one paragraph which is always in there that covers the waterfront and says the minister may do almost anything he bloody well likes -- and usually does so the company says. I wonder about that as well.

In section 3(4) of the bill, I wonder if that is a change, particularly in regard to the last two lines ... “the Lieutenant Governor in Council may enter into agreement with any person for the supply of crown timber to such person from such unit for such a term of years and in such matter as they agree upon.”

These licences have been on a specific basis for the last number of years. It’s usually five years, but sometimes, I believe, in certain circumstances it has been up to 20 years. I think that’s about the maximum that has happened.

Is the minister thinking, in this particular section, of perhaps increasing the term of a licence to over 20 years to provide an incentive so the reforestation cycle will be done?

The other thing which bothers me, and I guess there is no way around it, is when you get to section 8(1) it says: “Notwithstanding any general or special act, or in any regulation or any licence or in any management plan or operating plan, the Lieutenant Governor in Council,

(a) having regard to reasonable business requirements of the licensee, may cancel or vary any licence in respect of one or more parts of a licensed area or in respect of any type, size or species of timber designated by him; and

(b) with the consent of the licensee, may cancel or vary any term or condition of a licence.”

Again, we’re in the situation in this Legislature of passing legislation saying we’re going to allow this thing to happen, and then, at the same time giving the minister almost complete authority to alter, change, revoke or do whatever he wants without reference to this Legislature or to the House.

This brings me to this point: the minister has kindly provided me with a draft of the agreement, I now wonder if it would be possible, and I think the former minister made a commitment for him to table the agreements once they were signed? I wonder, further, if there are any changes in those agreements if those changes will also be tabled in the Legislature within a certain period of time?

The other thing that concerns me is this: we’ve had a history of the companies, for whatever reasons, not carrying out reforestation in the province of Ontario. I’ve dwelt on it; I want to know and I’m really concerned about it: other than the clause I just read under section 8 -- and I note there are a couple of things that referred to it in the draft agreement -- what is the commitment of the Minister of Natural Resources and his ministry to ensuring there is adequate regeneration in the province of Ontario?

[4:00]

What is he going to do and how is the monitoring system going to operate so that we can be assured that there is a sustained yield basis at the very bottom or at the very top of the forest policy in the province of Ontario, because we haven’t seen it in the past? The minister will agree that we might he just a little sceptical over here if we just don’t look upon this as sort of a waltzing Matilda: it is their turn, now it is our turn, and in 10 years we will take it back. What is the minister going to do to ensure by way of incentives, and also by way of disincentives, a sustained yield basis in the province of Ontario in our forest land?

That is really my gut concern, because the people of the province were conned by the Brampton charter of two trees for one. We have been through the history of reforestation in the province. What is going to be done? What is the minister going to do if one of these companies doesn’t fulfil the mandate that it says it will?

By the way, that is my other point. There has been something in the press about three companies, Spruce Falls Power and Paper Company Limited, Abitibi Paper Company Limited and Great Lakes Forest Products Limited, interestingly enough, in view of the announcement made today. I wonder if in answering my questions the minister would indicate whether these three are still prepared to sign such a forestry agreement, when they are going to sign; if the other nine, 10 or 11 large companies particularly are prepared to sign such a forestry agreement; and if they aren’t what he is going to do about that? What is he going to do also about those unregenerated lands that have either been left untouched -- an average of 100,000 acres over the last 10 or 12 years and certainly almost that much higher to that time? What is he going to do to reforest those areas to bring back that renewable resource in northern Ontario?

I will leave it at that, other than to say that in principle we are willing to give it another chance because obviously the present policy is a failure. I would hope the minister will be able to assure us here today there is a renewed commitment to reforestation in the province of Ontario. I will have some specific things to say about specific sections of the bill in the committee stage.

Mr. Foulds: Perhaps you will bear with me; from time to time my voice gives out, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in support of Bill 77, at last. The bill has been a long time in coming, and one is almost tempted to ask what took so long. I have a couple of reservations, not about the bill itself but about the impact that is envisaged from the bill. I have an uneasy feeling that we may be creating a false sense of security by pretending that this one amendment to the Crown Timber Act is going to solve all of our regeneration and reforestation problems.

That is just not so, as anyone who looks at the questions even superficially knows. All that this bill does is give the minister the right or the authority to enter into an agreement with “any person.” In reality that means any of the large pulp and paper companies; in fact that is how it is going to work out in practice.

As I said, all the bill does is give the minister the authority to enter into such an agreement for the management of crown timber on a sustained yield basis. It does not speak to a whole host of questions in the reforestation and the silvicultural regeneration debate. I would like to take a moment or two, because this particular bill speaks to the heart of the debate on reforestation and regeneration, to look at the areas the bill doesn’t cover.

As I said last night in the estimates debate on this ministry, I think it is important we don’t put all our regeneration eggs into one reforestation basket. I think it is important we keep some options open. First of all, it is important, even if this is to work, that the ministry have an adequate number of unit foresters on the ground to ensure I that the agreements are lived up to and that the agreements mentioned in section 5 of the bill are in fact enforced.

The previous speaker in this debate indicated some of the problems. We had forestry under the jurisdiction of the private companies for many years. That didn’t work simply because it wasn’t supervised, simply because the province did not insist upon regeneration.

Then we turned it over to the responsibility of the ministry, and although there were some improvements, as the minister said when the bill was first tabled, we still haven’t come close to reaching the target that is needed if we are to have a sustained yield across the province, if we are to reach our target of the kind of wood production that we could use for the manufacturing sector in this province.

The other thing is that I think, as I said last night in the estimates debate, the province should look at the option of establishing what I call a provincial forest authority to take up the responsibility when agreements like this fail so that we could harvest. We would have the same principle involved: that is one agency to engage in the cutting, the clearing of the slash, the reseeding and reforestation; tending almost like an agricultural model, to the plants after they regrow.

I am not so ideologically hidebound that I am convinced a public crown agency is the only route to go. That is why we in this party are supporting this bill at this time. But we don’t think it is the only answer. We don’t think it is the ultimate answer. After all you will see later in my remarks, when I point out some of the statements made previously by the minister, that they do not envisage the agreements outlined in this bill covering the whole province, and in fact what we have to develop are management plants for the whole province and an enforcement of that in order to achieve the proper reforestation.

A provincial forest authority such as I have tentatively suggested could also profitably harvest and regenerate timber, either where limits have not been assigned or where companies fail to come to an agreement with the ministry; or where they are failing in their responsibilities under this bill and the five-year option has to be withdrawn from them; or where there are over-mature stands that do exist and are not being harvested at the present time.

In other words, I believe the ministry should seriously consider a provincial forest authority to be used as an alternative, as a backup when and if these kinds of agreements and the present licensing system fail to live up to the expectations that are necessary.

This speaks to one of the problems that was also touched upon by the previous speaker. That is, I think it would be easier, through the provincial forest authority, to help ensure that third party agreements could be properly assigned to small companies, to small businesses engaged in the woods industry, which don’t get the needed timber or the needed species, which are available now but are held back by the pulp and paper giants because they want to hold those in reserve.

I guess there are two basic ways to approach this bill. One is we could list every sin that has been committed in mismanagement of the forest by this government for the past 36 years, and the Liberal administration before that. But frankly, I have been though that a number of times and I am getting just a little tired of that speech, as I am sure the minister is. However, I do think it was positively harmful during the last provincial election for the Premier (Mr. Davis) to engage in the kind of rhetoric he engaged in when in the Brampton charter he announced two trees for every one. Everybody who has any knowledge of forestry, even those of us elected to this House, knows that was an unrealistic promise, a promise that could never be met. What is even more important from a forestry point of view, it was a promise that it would not be the best to keep because what is important is replacing the amount of fibre grown so that we can meet our commitments to the manufacturing sector. That may entail planting fewer trees but ensuring they grow more fully and grow to a larger size. It may mean an improvement in species so that we start looking at our forests more in the way we look at our agricultural industry.

I think it is necessary also to point out that one of the former spokesmen for this party, who now occupies the Speaker’s chair most of the time, the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes), was one of the first people in the political sphere, along with the former leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Lewis), who started raising substantial questions about reforestation and regeneration.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Go back to my speeches of 12 years ago. They were Johnny-come-latelies.

Mr. Foulds: They raised it to such a level that the public of Ontario took up the information provided by the professional foresters of this province, who themselves had become so concerned about the inaction of the ministry that they went public, and elevated that to what I considered to be one of the best public debates that has taken place over a three or four-year history in a concentrated way in this province. Hopefully, steps like this will ultimately result in some action and some good and positive reforestation, to put it simply, because that is what we need and have needed in this province for 50 or 60 years.

There are one or two specific things I would like to find in my notes here that I would like to speak about. First of all, it does make sense to have the forest management from harvesting through to the clearing of slash, replanting and tending of the crop done by one agency. That is envisaged in this bill. It is one of the reasons we in this party are supporting the act.

However, I think it is also important to note that section 5 of the act is the essential section of the bill. That is what accomplishes what the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) thought was accomplished partially by Bill 35 last year. That bill didn’t quite accomplish all the ministry thought those amendments did accomplish. There was, in my understanding, even though they talked about management agreements with the pulp and paper companies, some doubt on the part of the ministry about whether the ministry actually had that authority. That’s why we have this clear definition in this act so that the agreements are clearly seen as one of the definitions of what is the licence to which we refer in the main act.

[4:15]

One of the things I found encouraging in this bill which I would hope would be embodied more predominantly in any redrafting of the Crown Timber Act that takes place in the future, is the commitment to legislative language -- I think for the first time, though I could be wrong in this -- the actual words “the management of crown timber on a sustained yield basis.

I don’t think that’s been written in those terms in legislation previously. If for no other reason that’s a bit of a breakthrough. Traditionally this government, in its legislation governing the resource sector, has not envisaged management, in legislative terms, as one of the keys to our resources. I am pleased to see it in the legislation here.

There are one or two other problems I think we should note. The bill itself doesn’t speak specifically to the problems of the adequacy of our seedlings and our stock and the adequacy of the actual regeneration. Neither does it speak to the fuller use of presently under used and unused species.

However what it does it does quite well. We in this party are pleased to see this step taken. If I may say so, we are willing to forego our sometimes biological stance in order to give the method a try. In other words, we have tried a variety of ways and we, in this party are saying, “Let’s give this method a chance.”

I am very pleased there are the safeguards that were envisaged in the Armson report about the five-year review; I think that’s crucial. I think it is critical we adhere to that principle because if we don’t have that five-year review with the possible taking back or cancellation of the agreement, we could find ourselves 20 years down the road in even more trouble than we have found ourselves in the last 10 to 12 years.

Reforestation is important; it’s a shame there are so few members in the House. This debate is important not merely for the economy of northern Ontario, it is important for the economy of the whole province. I just want to put one statistic on the record, because it’s one that appeals to me as a person who comes from northwestern Ontario. Almost 75 to 76 per cent of the jobs in northwestern Ontario are related, directly or indirectly, to the woods industry. In other words, it is far more important than mining to northwestern Ontario. And what is so refreshing is that if we manage it properly, it is a renewable resource. But it is absolutely necessary to live up to the principle embodied in the Armson report of that five-year review.

If anyone wishes to have a copy of the amendment I am going to propose and hasn’t received it, I would be glad to distribute it.

I think it is absolutely essential for the credibility of the ministry and for this technique that the agreements entered into are made public. Hence I have made a modest proposal. I have had some consultation with ministry staff and with the minister on it, and after three draftings I think we have arrived at one that is mutually acceptable. It is an amendment that will provide that within five days of the minster signing an agreement, the agreement would be tabled in the Legislature, if the Legislature is in session: if the Legislature is not in session, it would be tabled at the resumption of the House. I think it is important that the government be seen as being open and above board in terms of these agreements.

I think one of the problems with reforestation has been that it has been a hidden problem. If you drive along the highway, even in northern Ontario, Mr. Speaker, you don’t see the forests that are cut because you have cosmetic forestry. You have 50 feet of trees along the highway so no one sees the amount of cutting that takes place.

Mr. Haggerty: You have to get up in an airplane.

Mr. Foulds: That’s right. When you get up in an airplane -- and more and more members are doing that now with norOntair service and so on -- you do see the cutting that takes place.

It is also a hidden problem in a bureaucratic sense, in that the agreements are arrived at behind the scenes by the ministry. They may very well be arrived at in good faith; the licence fees may be set in good faith; the terms of memorandums of understanding and that kind of thing may very well be set in good faith; but I think there is n great feeling of scepticism out there in the public because we know that the reforestation is not taking place. That is why I am suggesting that these agreements that are entered into under this particular bill will be made public five days after they are signed, if the House is sitting.

After considerable consultation. I deliberately used the word “signed,” interpreting that to mean the actual putting on of the minister’s signature after the agreement has been approved, when he had been given approval to do that by the Lieutenant Governor in Council after they had been advised to tell him to do that by his own ministry. In other words, I see that as five days after the final thing is completed, so we don’t have any problem of delivery of the message in terms of getting the thing from the secretary of cabinet down though the channels of the various ministries involved.

I, personally, would like to have seen something stronger than that. I would like to have seen something along the lines of what I proposed during Bill 35, in which the Legislature was informed ahead of time. However, at that time that particular move was blocked by the government and the Liberal Party, so I saw no sense in pursuing that method of approach.

On reflection, I see some difficulties in administration. I would at least like to take this modest step to see what that gives us. I believe the rules of the standing orders of the House are such, that if there is a gross dereliction of duty in terms of one of the agreements being signed, we have enough techniques in this Legislature, once it comes to our attention, of raising difficulties with the minister that if it were an extremely unfortunate arrangement we could use several techniques to try to get that reversed.

As I say, it is not as strong as I would like, but it is a modest proposal. I would hope that the whole House would take it as such and would agree to it.

I think that I just want to conclude with two or three final remarks. It does seem to me that section 4 of the bill -- and I would hope we could discuss this in more detail -- embodies the second important principle in the bill. That is the salvaging of timber. It is in this area in our forests where we have been very, very neglectful in the past. It could very well be that this is an area that, with the energy crisis facing us, could develop the whole business of salvaging timber for firewood.

It could become far more possible, I would hope, not on the hit and miss basis that occurs now, although I wouldn’t like to see that discontinued. I wouldn’t like to see the dropping of the method where a person is able to go and fell timber for firewood for a $5 fee. But it may very well be that a small entrepreneur who wishes to develop the firewood as a business could be using section 4 of this act when it comes to an agreement with the minister to do that and to use the salvageable wood for that purpose, as well as for the normal purposes of pulp and paper production.

I think this is a particularly good time for the government to be negotiating with the companies and I think the ministry is in good shape to drive a hard bargain. After all, the profits in the pulp and paper industry have been up quite considerably over the last two years.

I think it’s in keeping with the spirit of the amendment that I’m proposing about the agreements -- and there is no way of doing this in the actual legislative forum -- that when the forest management manual is finally completed -- and I gather it’s pretty close, it’s gone through a number of revisions and it’s being drafted -- because there are references in the draft agreements that we have had as background material to the forest management manual -- I hope I have that right -- I think it is extremely important that the forest management manual also be made a public document.

One of the ways of doing that would be by tabling this in the House, as well as giving it the normal circulation that obviously would take place within the ministry. There are a number of interest groups that although not directly involved in the pulp and paper industry or in cutting, the forest management manual should be made available to. I think of the lumber and sawmill workers unions, for example, and environmental groups that have expressed a concern in cutting practices in the province.

As I started out to say, it is important to understand the limits, because it is my understanding that the areas considered for the agreements at the present time -- the ones that are almost ready to sign and we all hope will get signed before Christmas -- are already under existing licences to the companies and therefore they do not comprise a new licence area.

In other words, we’re not going to be expanding or assigning new limits through this mechanism immediately, although that’s obviously possible in the future, particularly in terms of the announcement earlier today with Great Lakes taking over the Dryden mill of Reed Limited. It may very well be that some of what we call the old Reed limits, the Reed tract, could be assigned through this kind of agreement to Great Lakes in the future, should all the concerns in the area be allayed and should they need those extra limits for increased production when the company switches to newsprint.

It’s important, at the present time at any rate, that the ministry only envisages these agreements taking place under areas that are already licensed to the company. It is also important that we see that the provision of section 26(2c) of the Crown Timber Act will be covered by the approval procedures of the companies’ annual five-year operating 20-year management plan. In other words, I think it’s important that all that information becomes public.

I think that concludes my remarks, Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased to speak in the debate. If I could end with a cliché, it’s been a long time for the bill in coming. Let’s get on with the job and get at least some of these agreements signed before Christmas and let’s see how they work over the next five years. Thank you.

Mr. Bolan: Mr. Speaker, I was not going to speak on this bill. However, in view of the rather lengthy and unctuous remarks made by the Minister of Natural Resources in his opening statement on the bill this afternoon I really felt compelled to voice my few remarks on it.

Needless to say, the member for Rainy River has eloquently spoken on the matter, as well as the last speaker. I’d like to point out that the significance of this bill really pales in the light of the disastrous conditions of our forests today. Why it is that a government can let this happen to one of its primary resources is really beyond me.

[4:30]

It is not as if the government were all by itself, or that we are all by ourselves in this particular industry. We have so many other jurisdictions to look at. We have had to look at the Scandinavian countries and at the northern United States which themselves have had over a number of years successful regeneration programs in the forest industry. Yet, here is good old Ontari-ari-ario struggling along, trying to make ends meet while we get through our first cut, while down the road what we see is a depletion of forests within the next 15 to 20 years.

In 1962, following the unfavourable response by the forest industry to regenerate cutover areas -- a power given to them in 1954 -- the full responsibility for the regeneration and stand management was transferred from a licensee to the Ministry of Natural Resources, leaving private industry responsible only for carrying out harvesting. It has been argued that this separation has greatly complicated overall forest management in Ontario.

Since 1962, the province has continually been falling behind in its regeneration program. The government’s record revealed a long-standing policy and practice of unmodified forest exploitation and the liquidation of our best natural growing stock. Proof of this fact is provided by the Ministry of Natural Resources’ own figures, which show we are falling behind in our regeneration needs. This is in some of the tables the minister provided in the working paper when this was introduced.

I think an analysis of these facts makes it quite clear that if one tried very hard to design a forestry management system to be costly, to be inefficient, to be wasteful and to be least likely to ensure that the objectives of sustained yield forest management were achieved, that one would produce a forest management policy very close to the one we now have in Ontario.

The difficulties that are being encountered in the advancement of the effective regeneration program are not principally financial but technical. As everyone knows, trees have been planted and harvested successfully for centuries in Europe and elsewhere. All of the evidence points to a philosophy by the forest industry, encouraged by government policy, which is short term in perspective and encourages only the careless plundering of the best timber values to be found within closest reach.

Mr. Germa: Who wrote that speech for you?

Mr. Bolan: You’ll have your time. Take it easy. Settle down.

Mr. Warner: He was complimenting your researcher.

Mr. Bolan: Thank you.

I would like to point out to the minister some articles which have appeared in recent newspapers, one of which appeared in the Thunder Bay newspaper, dated May 7, 1979, under the heading, “Wood Shortage in the Near Future.” It is very interesting. It reads:

“More trees in Ontario are being cut than are being replanted. Some spokesmen involved in forestry say there could be serious shortages of wood for pulp and paper mills and sawmills. Kenneth Hearnden, director of the forestry school at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, says pulp and paper companies in northern Ontario probably will have trouble getting enough wood within 20 years.

“The president of the northern Ontario district council of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers’ Union says sawmills in the area of the northern Ontario town of Hearst probably will be short of wood in five years.

“‘Canada is under the happy delusion that we have vast resources of standing timber,’ Hearnden says. ‘That is not true any more.’” The article goes on to say that in 1977 the Premier said the provincial government would plant at least two trees for every one cut and would regenerate every acre harvested.

Mr. Foulds: Just double the amount of reforestation.

Mr. Bolan: “‘It was a stupid statement,’ an official with the Ministry of Natural Resources said. ‘It certainly didn’t come out of this office.’” Almost all the forest land in Ontario is owned by the provincial government. It goes on to give data with which I’m sure the minister is quite familiar.

I merely point this out to the minister, as he himself is probably aware of it. In fact, he is very ashamed of the condition of forestry in Ontario today.

I would like to give some more information. These are ministry figures. These are not my figures and they’re not cooked; these are ministry figures.

The forest products industry accounts for $2 per cent of all employment and 83.5 per cent of the value of all goods produced in northern Ontario. In 1972, which is the best year on record for the production of tree seedlings, some 76.5 million seedlings were produced for all the province. By 1978, that number had dropped to 48.3 million. Even at the higher 1972 figure, seedlings represent only a small proportion of the total lumber cut for commercial purposes.

In Nipissing alone in 1974 there were 159,350 seedlings supplied for planting on private land, while in 1978 the figure had dropped to 25,225.

I think it’s abundantly clear, as has been pointed out by the two previous speakers, that our forest industry is in very deep, serious trouble. It certainly is with a ray of hope that the Crown Timber Act is being amended to provide some working arrangement between the ministry and the industry itself for the regeneration of our forests.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, I rise to participate in this debate in support of the bill, although I must say I am somewhat sceptical. As all of us in the House who were fortunate enough to participate in the seminar presented to us, as members of this House, in 1975 by the professional foresters at the Lakehead were made aware, as the other speakers have said for years we have shifted responsibility from the private sector to the public sector and back again, without any real success.

Professor Hearnden, to whom the member for Nipissing referred, gave a very good talk at that seminar, as did Professor Armson. Professor Hearnden covered the last 75 years, right from the turn of the century on and especially from the 1920s on. He described the complete lack of concern for regeneration by both the public and private sectors. To me, that’s the only way you can characterize it.

To have a bill presented in the House that says, “All right, the government has been unsuccessful in meeting the need; we are going to now shift it back to the private sector,” leaves me somewhat sceptical. I certainly agree with the whole concept of sustained yield. But unfortunately, in dealing with this in a political and economic context, it seems we have forgotten the technical and scientific questions. Certainly the Premier in his statement of two-for-one, was not talking about anything technical -- or economic for that matter. Rather he was being very political and ignorant of the whole possibility of regeneration in this province and the desirability of that kind of a commitment.

If it’s going to profit from the exploitation of our forests, the private sector must be made responsible for the regeneration of those forests. That goes without saying. However, if one looks at the tremendous costs involved and the lack of success by the government, I wonder how we can ensure this is going to be successful. We must have a tremendous input of funds and personnel by the private sector and a desire on their part to ensure that they are going to have timber in the future. I think that involves a long-term commitment which means they’re going to have assurances of long-term limits and stumpage rights.

We were told at that seminar -- and I’ve seen since in the reading I’ve been doing and the discussions I’ve had with foresters both in the public and private sectors of this province -- that we are only regenerating a small portion of the area cut. One third of our cutover areas are left barren with absolutely nothing done. The ministry considers another third will regenerate itself naturally, and one third is regenerated by what might be called artificial methods. Of that third, only about 50 per cent has been successful. This leaves us with a very small portion of the areas we’re cutting that are actually growing trees.

The problem with the statement which the Premier made, the two-for-one, or even the other comments made by the present minister’s predecessor about the one-for-one, is that the total number of seedlings that are planted makes little difference. What really matters is how many trees are growing five years after they’ve been planted and the success of the ongoing silviculture.

As far as I’m concerned, the government has not made a commitment in terms of funds or staff to ensure we have adequate tree growth throughout the period in which it’s been the responsibility of the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Unit foresters cover a tremendous area, an unbelievable area. It’s something like the conservation officers, as far as the ministry is concerned, in northern Ontario. It’s impossible for them to do an adequate job. We need more staff. Certainly if this bill is to be successful, we’re going to have to have that kind of commitment from this government. If they’re going to be able to carry out the kind of supervision and inspectors that will he required to ensure the private sector is carrying out its responsibilities under these agreements, we’re going to have to have more staff in the field and not in the ministry offices.

In terms of things like the nurseries, in the past the ministry has used a sort of hit-and-miss approach. Recently I had some correspondence with someone in the ministry about the nursery at Kirkwood in my riding dumping something like 100,000 seedlings. I just couldn’t believe what they were doing. I was told afterwards that if seedlings grow for more than three to four years they are then too big to replant and are no longer useful. That was the reason for this being done.

[4:45]

They didn’t go on to say what I suspect is the fact, that the reason they weren’t replanted -- and I admit it could have had to do with climate and a number of other things; the weather might have been poor and so on -- prior to them becoming too mature for successful planting was that there wasn’t enough staff and enough funds made available for the planting that would have been necessary. That certain year the district must not have had enough money, so they didn’t hire enough tree-planting crews, the seedlings were left in the ground and they went on another year and so on until they were too mature.

To top it off they dumped them. I asked them, “Well okay, if you are not going to plant them, why on earth are you dumping them? Why don’t you make some available to farmers or other people who might like to plant them?” I was informed “Well, only in certain nurseries do we do that. We don’t do that in northern Ontario.” I believe they do it in the nursery they have near Kemptville in eastern Ontario and a couple in southern Ontario, but they don’t do that in the north for some reason. Why, I don’t know. There hasn’t been any kind of an explanation given.

Really, this is just a small example, Mr. Speaker, of the lack of concern on the part of the ministry. I don’t want to be misconstrued as saying that the members of the ministry at the local level or even at the regional level or higher aren’t concerned about reforestation. I think they are, but I don’t think they have been successful in persuading the government they must have more funds, they must have more staff to make a concerted effort to replant. Not only do they need staff to replant but also to administer the areas, to supervise the areas that are being cut, when they are being cut and to ensure that when the cutting is finished the acreage is going to be in such condition -- that there isn’t going to be slash all over the place -- that will make it possible for regeneration.

Some of the messes left in my area after a company has gone through and done the cutting are really despicable. So much so that the districts in our area will give out to small jobbers the job of going in and trying to clean up the mess left by the larger companies. They can’t get limits themselves, only the larger companies have them all tied up. The jobbers are stuck with going in and trying to clean up the slash and they take what is left over. It has been sort of a hit and miss thing.

The one thing that really bothers me is that in part of my area we have the Algoma Central Railway that holds a number of townships in my area, and, in relation to this bill, we are giving it to the private sector. Algoma Central Railroad administers those townships, they lease out the limits to private companies to take the timber off those limits, and they are in charge of regeneration. The ministry isn’t involved, I will admit; the ministry isn’t directly involved in it.

I recently went through an area that Newaygo Lumber had cut on the ACR limits. There were piles of wood that had been cut in 1974, something like four years earlier and they had been sitting there rotting.

The way I got involved was because Newaygo Lumber had threatened to charge some of the local people who had gone in and decided to cut this stuff up for firewood because Newaygo wasn’t using it. They had gone in and threatened to charge these people with theft, but the fact is that this timber was just lying there, waste. It hadn’t been used and wasn’t being used. In the areas that bed been cut over were tremendous amounts of slash and someone had gone in -- I guess the ACR or maybe Newaygo, but I think it was the ACR -- and planted seedlings, sort of indiscriminately all through this mess.

If that is an example of what the private sector can do, I am a little concerned about this. That is why I say we are going to have to have a great deal of supervision from the ministry.

I realize in the bill it says there is going to be a review after five years and at that time the agreement can be renewed or revoked and so on. We are going to have to get some kind of assurance from the company that makes the agreement, that it is going to fulfil its responsibilities, because if it doesn’t, when the ministry comes in after five years and finds they haven’t done it and the minister revokes the agreement, what happens?

As I said at the beginning, Mr. Speaker, I appear somewhat sceptical about this. As a member of the House representing a northern riding, a large portion of which is dependent on the forest industry, this is a matter of very great concern to me and has been for years. I don’t think very many people, even those members of the House who went to that seminar, have any real idea of the tremendous number of acres with which nothing has been done, absolutely nothing. The southern part of my riding is growing up in waste poplar bush. In many cases the north end is just a large mess.

I have tried to get information from the ministry staff on regeneration on the various limits. It is very hard, frankly, to read what they are saying because until a few years ago they didn’t keep those figures very well. The figures they have given me on certain limits indicate a very small area with anything done on it.

In 1975 we were told it would cost, at that time, about $35 an acre to regenerate. I imagine it is quite a bit more than that now. If the private sector is going to be responsible, it is going to mean a great deal of funds involved and I am wondering whether they will adequately fulfil their responsibilities.

In the past, we haven’t farmed our forests, we’ve mined them. Our technological development has been far more involved with extraction than regeneration. If that kind of history by the private sector is an indication of what we are heading to, then I am sceptical. I am hopeful, but I am concerned this may not work out. If it doesn’t work out, where are we going to be? Are we going to be coming back in a few years with another bill saying okay, we are going to do something else?

I think there has to be a commitment now, from both the private and public sectors, that we are going to preserve the forests and we are going to develop a real commitment to sustained yield. It is not going to be just a few words in a piece of legislation, but we are going to make the commitment necessary to not only regenerate what is cut in the future but to catch up on the tremendous backlog because of the waste in the past. That is going to involve a great deal of effort and resources; financial, technical and human resources, if that commitment is there, then this bill might be successful and I hope it will be.

I hope the minister will take the views of the members of the House to heart and ensure his ministry provides the required supervision to ensure this method will start to rectify the tremendous neglect we have experienced in the past.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, it is with some temerity I enter into the debate on this particular bill, because of the minister who is charged with the carriage of it in this House, a minister whom I affectionately know as the Anastas Mikoyan of the Ontario Legislature because of the survival qualities which he has had through troubled times in the Tory party.

The other reason why I have some degree of temerity is I know nothing about the forestry industry. I know as much about the management of it as the minister knows.

Mr. T. P. Reid: It is not stopping him.

Mr. Renwick: Therefore, it is for that season I am somewhat emboldened to speak with him about the bill.

Incidentally, and simply because this debate mirrors a real concern which the member for Nipissing referred to for those on this side of the House -- we are in a very real sense under the rules talking into a vacuum, because the minister has made no statement and his colleague, the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Brunelle), who introduced the bill six months ago made a seven-or eight-line statement with respect to it. Therefore, one is in a situation where one is frustrated about the methods of debate in the assembly.

One has occasion to look at the rules of the House. I am not going to pursue that, other than to draw to the Speaker’s attention in the most respectful submission that when the minister rises to speak it will not be pursuant to rule 55 of the House because that connotes that he has already spoken and that he is entitled to a reply, which otherwise would mean he would be speaking twice and that is what he is not permitted to do.

Rule 55 says that when the minister chooses to reply we will allow him to do so. You, Mr. Speaker, can say that when he has replied that will terminate the debate. But I submit to you that rule 55 doesn’t apply to this debate. So the debate will not terminate when the minister speaks, because in the light of his remarks -- when he does speak, when he chooses to speak -- other members of this House may very well choose to participate further in order to be able to deal with what the minister is talking about in this bill.

Mr. Wildman: That’s right.

Mr. Renwick: I simply draw that seriously to your attention, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps you could consider it during the time that I am speaking about the bill.

No member may speak twice under our rules. The only exception is rule 55, which states that in a reply a minister may speak and then the Speaker may call that the end of the debate. The minister has forfeited the protection of rule 55 by failing to make a speech to this assembly about this particular bill.

I seldom get involved in the technicalities of the rules, but when the minister presents a bill to this House when it stands on the order paper for six months and the minister doesn’t choose to tell us about the substance of his bill, and we are required to stand up and sort of speak to something over which the minister has made no statement, then I think there is something seriously wrong with the procedures of debate in the assembly

My riding of Riverdale was long since cut over and we only have ornamental trees there. That probably spoke to some default in some prior government, likely a Tory government and undoubtedly perhaps a Liberal government in the latter part of the last century in this province.

Mr. Kerrio: It was probably an NDP tree.

Mr. Renwick: That does not eliminate the concern which people in a riding such as my riding have about the failure of the government over successive periods of time, with respect to the management of the forest industry. My colleagues have said it’s kind of a council of despair that we will support the bill, as much as to say it can get no worse, it may possibly get better. That’s about the level at which this debate is being conducted now in the assembly.

I think this House is entitled to know why the present provisions of the Crown Timber Act which have as the heading introducing those sections Forest Management -- which are now no longer, with some minor exceptions, because of drafting techniques -- will apply to the agreements which the minister is asking this House for permission for him to enter into.

[5:00]

Why is it that that forest management scheme envisaged by the Crown Timber Act and in the statute for some considerable period of time has failed? Why is it that this method should invoke from us our approval as an improvement or a substantial change in what the government is going to do about crown timber in this province?

I think we are entitled to know what this bill is going to accomplish in the minds of the government. We are entitled to be told that it’s not just another try-on, another possible way in which we can deal with these matters of forest management. I want to be told as a member that this method will be effective to accomplish the purpose which has eluded this government over the years, despite the broad provisions which already exist in the Crown Timber Act.

I want to know why the change and what can be accomplished under this new provision which cannot now be accomplished under the provisions of the Crown Timber Act as they presently exist.

Mr. Wildman: With the right commitment.

Mr. Renwick: There is nothing to indicate, in anything that I can express in the English language as set out in the bill and as set out in the act, which says to me, a person not knowledgeable about these matters, what can be accomplished under these agreements which cannot be accomplished under the present methods. I can’t possibly see that we can under these new agreements do away with things called a plan of management or an operating plan or an annual cutting plan.

I don’t understand why the changes in verbiage in the semantics of the bill or the change from something called a licence, which has a sort of a definitive grant of authority which can be revoked, to an agreement which has specific terms and conditions, is going to work any magic.

I think the ministry puts us in a very difficult position. Time will show that the parties on this side of the House agreed with the government to grant this kind of authority. Are we now at some point down the road going to be responsible and share the responsibility for the failure of the government as envisaged by the present act? Are we going to be the ones who must share with the government that responsibility and if we are, what safeguards and what protection is this assembly going to have from the ministry that the ministry has the will, the determination, the plans and the policies which will ensure that these magic terms, “sustained yield basis,” will have some real merit and authority when the government enters into these agreements?

My colleague, the member for Port Arthur, referred to it as a modest matter. My colleague, the member for Algoma, referred to it as a matter about which he was very sceptical. I want to reinforce in my own small way a concern from an urban riding that I not only feel that I am sceptical about it, but I have absolutely no confidence.

My lack of confidence may come from abysmal ignorance. Maybe the minister can share with me from the fathomable depths of his wisdom some of the things which will give me some confidence in this bill. I feel that we are being asked to support a change in the bill simply because things are so bad that we have to do something to make them better.

Is it because the government has to go as supplicant to the major forestry companies and say, “Please negotiate an agreement with us because we don’t want to take you on with the authority which is presently vested in the Crown Timber Act. We don’t want to use any of that particular authority against you, because you are so big that without you we won’t know what to do with those crown timber land,” or, in the alternative, are you saving that this government hasn’t got the will to manage?

It is a rather strange thing that very shortly, perhaps not today, another bill standing in the minister’s name is going to come before us, where instead of a licence to quarry he is going to assert the government’s position to manage that industry. At the same time, back to back, we are being asked to approve the delegation or the abdication of the responsibility of management of another industry. I find, from a single ministry, that confusion to be something other than my mental capacities can reconcile.

I want to say that very clearly. The key is the management. The minister is giving up the right to manage here and he is taking the right to manage under Bill 127, which we are going to be debating very soon. Why does he give up on the one hand and manage with the other? Is he so short of skills and abilities that having mismanaged this one he wants to take on the other industry and mismanage it for a few years?

Mr. Van Horne: You are so subtle.

Mr. Renwick: I don’t often speak quite so directly to this minister, for whom I have the greatest respect, but I just want him to understand that we here don’t understand what this is all about. Many of my colleagues are extremely knowledgeable and have followed for years the fate of the forestry industry in this province and the failure of the government and of the industry to protect those forests on a sustained yield basis.

I need to know some of the answers to those questions, because when we come to the committee stage on the bill there are very serious problems about the bill. I find it extremely difficult to find that I am being asked not only to agree with this change in the procedure which is going to be followed by the government by way of agreement, to then find that I am going to grant authority that any such agreement may provide such and so, and so on, and then go on and say, “Any such agreement shall be subject to the terms and conditions prescribed in the regulations.”

We haven’t seen the regulations. We don’t understand what is proposed in the regulations. Until my colleague referred to it there was nothing to indicate that these agreements were ever going to see the light of day. I do hope at least that the government will indicate to us that as and when each of these agreements is entered into it will be tabled in this House, so that we will see them and understand them and can look at them critically, to see whether or not they are going to accomplish the goals and the aims and the policies which the minister, I hope, is going to tell us are the goals and objectives and aims and the will and determination by which those goals, objectives and aims are going to be achieved.

I have expressed my concern about the bill. I have expressed my concern about the failure of the minister to have stood in his place today and said, “Look this is what this bill is intended to do. This is why we need it. This is what it is going to accomplish over what is presently in the statute which we now have. This is what our aim is. This is what we intend to accomplish.”

I think I have read the bill carefully, in order to try to understand it, I don’t find anything about some five-year review; nothing that I see in here. Am I incorrect? Is there anything in the bill about five-year review?

Are we being asked to buy another one of these blind suggestions that somewhere maybe perhaps somebody will remember that on such and such a day on November 5, 1979. the government said there will be a five-year review? If we happen to remember it, some minister will stand in his place and say: “Oh that five-year review, yes, we’re not quite ready with it. The report is being prepared. We haven’t quite accomplished our goals but we’re getting on well with the forestry companies and another five years is necessary for us to complete our review and to achieve our goals.”

Mr. Van Horne: Where were they last week when we were talking about a five-year fiscal plan?

Mr. Renwick: I will be listening with great care to what the minister has to say. I don’t know whether any of my colleagues, after he has spoken, are going to ask the speaker for an opportunity to speak because there’s no need to invoke rule 55 at this point in the debate,

At some further time down the line the minister may stand in his place again. At that point, after our members have had an opportunity to speak in the debate to answer the points made by the minister or to talk about what he has to say, then perhaps the minister can rise. At that time we can invoke rule 55.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to speak in this debate before the minister’s response?

The member for Riverdale has reminded us of the provision of rule 55 which states: “A reply is allowed to the minister or parliamentary assistant who has moved second or third reading of a bill after all members wishing to speak to the motion and any amendments thereto have spoken and the Speaker shall inform the House that the reply closes the debate.”

The fact that the minister who moved second reading did not choose to make an opening remark doesn’t change or alter either the application or the enforcement of any standing order, particularly standing order 55. So if there are no other members who wish to speak, the honourable minister will reply and close the debate.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I had some slight criticism on Monday after I made a fairly lengthy statement in connection with our estimates. The background is that I was absent and brief remarks were made on my behalf by the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development when first reading of the bill took place in the House.

Under the rules of the House a compendium of material was provided to both parties and to the critics in connection with the background of the bill. The material included the Armson report on which the basic forest management agreement policy is based. It was a very thorough report looking into and commenting upon a number of the matters that had been commented upon by honourable members in the House today -- the history of regeneration or lack of it in the province over the years. It doesn’t seem necessary to me to repeat these things in the interest of saving time of this House.

There was no suggestion on my part, I hope, that I was not going to keep the members of this house informed. Of course, as one of the honourable members mentioned, we also produced a copy of the agreement, along with the compendium which sets out very clearly the rules that will now apply to regeneration that were lacking in the past.

[5:15]

If I can go back to the comments of the member for Rainy River dealing with the 20-year period and the five-year reviews, the agreement was originally made for a 20-year period. If the review is satisfactory it is renewed for 20 years, more or less indefinitely, except that there are reviews every five years. If it is not being done satisfactorily, then we say, “Either do it satisfactorily, or we will remove the licence.” It’s that simple.

The proposal for the 20-year period with the five-year review was actually part of the submission made, I believe, by the industry to my predecessor after discussions in which it became clear that the industry was also concerned about regeneration and was prepared to enter into agreements with the ministry if the ministry so required. There has been a good deal of negotiation with the industry as a whole to produce the terms of an agreement, which we now have and which we believe is satisfactory to the industry as well as to ourselves.

As far as federal financial participation in reforestation is concerned, there is nothing to prevent this. As a matter of fact, in the Department of Regional Economic Expansion agreement we entered into with the government of Canada last fall, honourable members will recall that there was some $70 million, of which about $11.5 million was allocated for research and development; the remaining amount is for forest access roads and bridges, at this moment primarily to reach over-mature and mature timber which otherwise might not be made use of effectively. Those roads, of course, will be important and very useful in the reforestation which will take place as the agreements are signed.

We have three or four companies, out of approximately 11, which are ready to sign as soon as this bill receives royal assent. I would think it will not be long before we will have the rest completed. As a matter of fact, if we were to have them all in place tomorrow I don’t think we could handle them all at once. We do have an additional $4.3 million this year for reforestation in these agreements and some 25, I believe, additional staff. Obviously, we are looking at something in the order of $15 million or $20 million a year when everybody is on board, and that may take two years to reach.

The agreements don’t preclude any arrangement whereby the federal government can produce money which can be directed to a company for forest management.

Regarding third-party agreements, the agreement holder will be accountable for performance under the forest-management agreement. I would suggest that if the member for Riverdale were to read that agreement, which has been submitted with the rest of the material, a number of the matters of management to which he referred are spelled out. There are rules or manuals, or specific parts of the agreement which will specify silvicultural practices, treatments that must be made and that sort of thing --

Mr. Renwick: Are they in the regulations?

Hon. Mr. Auld: -- to produce the kind of regeneration the technical people tell us is required.

Prior management units will remain and, as presently envisaged, the ministry will be doing the regeneration of crown management units which, for the information of honourable members who aren’t familiar with them, are those areas where a number of people have licences. perhaps for different species in the same land. It obviously will be very difficult to arrange for individual licence holders to regenerate individual species in the same acreage.

Getting into what I suppose really might be better dealt with in committee, the member for Rainy River mentioned the proposed section 3. This section applies to volume agreements, not to licences. I should say that of the eight sections in the bill, sections 1, 5, 6 and 7, I believe, relate to the forest- management agreement. The other sections are really housekeeping sections which would have been put forward whether we were proposing the agreements or not.

Section 3 will permit the ministry to enter into a supply arrangement for a mill, frequently for a 10-year period, with options for renewal. It doesn’t convey a right to cut crown timber. Other sections of the act do that; for example, sections 2, 3 and 5. Section 8 is not relevant to the forest-management agreement. It’s a housekeeping change only to permit the minister to establish management units without going through cancelling the present licence and so on and having a hiatus.

The member for Port Arthur expressed concern about section 4. It’s really a housekeeping change to accommodate an agreement as well as a licence. It doesn’t change the intent of section 4 at all. It’s still our policy to encourage salvage wherever it is feasible.

In amendments to the Crown Timber Act, my predecessor last year said in the debate, when the member for Rainy River and, I think the member for Port Arthur mentioned these agreements being made public, quoting from Hansard, “We don’t see any real problem with the regeneration agreements being made public. I don’t foresee us not being able to make them public.”

As I mentioned the other day to the member for Port Arthur and to the member for Rainy River, I have no objection to the amendment. I welcome it, and I’m informed that in its present form it still does what we both want it to, so there will be no argument about that.

The forest management manual, which is an important part of the agreement will also be a public document. Great Lakes Forest Products Limited has indicated to us that it is prepared to enter into a forest-management agreement in the Reed area, assuming that that is completed, as they are with the Ignace area where it is ready to sign tomorrow.

I hope I’ve covered the matters which have been brought up in the debate on second reading thus far, I would hope we might be able to move into committee and go through the amendments themselves to deal with them so that we would be prepared for third reading because I’m delighted to know that both parties are supporting the amendments and are anxious to see us sign some agreements before Christmas.

Motion agreed to.

Ordered for committee of the whole House.

House in committee of the whole.

CROWN TIMBER AMENDMENT ACT

Consideration of Bill 77, An Act to amend the Crown Timber Act.

Mr. Chairman: Are there any comments, questions or amendments to any section of this bill? On what section?

Mr. T. P. Reid: On section 4.

Mr. Chairman: Is there anything prior to section 4?

Sections 1 to 3, inclusive, agreed to.

On section 4:

Mr. T. P. Reid: I have one short question on section 4. Is it the minister’s intention to pursue a tender system on salvaged timber on non-licensed land? On what basis does he intend to dispose of that timber?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Chairman, I believe in the past it was dependent, first of all, on the area, but to a greater extent on the amount of salvageable timber and the condition of it.

As a general rule, we have called tenders where it was worthwhile. If it is just a few units, I would assume we would, perhaps, negotiate or indicate it was available, set a price, and ask people to come and take it so as not to go through the time and the cost of advertising for tenders.

As for our general policy, where it is economic to do so, we would call tenders or, perhaps, have an auction.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I have one further comment, if I may. Would the minister not agree it is better to have somebody take the salvaged timber in some cases, even though the tender offer may be low, rather than to leave the timber in the bush in a knocked down or salvaged state so, first of all, the bush is a mess and, second, no regeneration can then take place? It would almost be better to give it away.

Hon. Mr. Auld: It may well be, if we’re dealing with an area within a forest-management agreement, there would be provision before proper replanting or treatment could be given; it would be like slash, you’d want to get rid of it. It may well be it is more economic to have somebody come and take it away than to leave it there.

Mr. Chairman: Are there any further questions on section 4? The member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Foulds: I want to make one or two comments specifically about section 4.

The minister indicated there is no change in principle in this section and substantially it is just a housekeeping amendment.

One of the major problems I have is there has been, in the past, a good deal of waste in our forests. Although I fully understand the necessity for modified clear-cutting, for example, in certain areas, I do hope this section can be used, whether it’s housekeeping or not, to encourage the profitable development of what you might call some fringe industries associated with the wood industry -- for example, the development of some small entrepreneurs to harvest the damaged kiln timber for firewood. I know traditional thinking within the ministry has been that such an industry is not profitable; the lines of supply are too long and the amount of work, energy and gasoline you have to put into salvaging the timber is not profitable, Nevertheless, I would hope we wouldn’t just use a section like this as we have used it in the past.

[5:30]

Second, I think there is a different concern on the same section, Mr. Chairman. There is an unease felt in the Legislature -- and it was expressed by my colleague, the member for Riverdale when we pass legislation in this House that includes phrases such as “subject to such terms and conditions as the minister considers proper.” The opposition, to put it bluntly, always feels a little qualm when it endorses a piece of legislation to give such tremendous regulatory authority to the ministry as the phrase from section 4 indicates.

There may be justification for that in administrative terms but the administrative advantage of that must be extremely powerful to overcome the traditional right of a Legislature to set taxes. The government brings in tax bills but the one authority that a Legislature has is the authority to reject those bills. As I was saying last night in the estimates debate, this ministry is a powerful ministry and can be used as a powerful tool for industrial and economic development in this province because it is one of the few ministries that has taxation powers.

I wanted to get these comments on the record because I share with my colleague from Riverdale some unease about the blank cheque we give to the minister. Time and again we give him this power with the assessing of licences, the fees that are established, either in a section like this or previous sections of this bill or previous sections of this act.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Actually all this section does is include in the future that a licence includes an agreement. At the present time, as I mentioned, there are methods of disposing of timber and in fact the policy is on a licence. We request the licensee either to remove it and if the licensee does not do so, then the district manager takes some other steps such as selling or perhaps, if necessary, hauling it away. But all this section does is recognize that in future the term “licence” would also include “agreement” as far as the existing powers are concerned.

We also, I am told, issue licences just for salvage. It’s very common after a fire, I suppose, with stumpage charges considerably below the normal for crown timber.

Mr. Foulds: Do you have any idea what they are or what the ratio is? Or do you just set it arbitrarily in each case?

Hon. Mr. Auld: If the honourable member would like, we could proceed to the next section while I get that information from my experts under the gallery. I would assume it must vary, depending on the condition of the wood and the difficulty in getting it and the quantity and so on, but --

Mr. Chairman: Are there any more questions on section 4?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I am getting some nods. I think that is the answer.

Mr. Chairman: Is the member for Port Arthur satisfied with the answer or --

Mr. Foulds: I would like confirmation of that.

Section 4 stood down.

On section 5:

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Chairman, this is where we get into the actual agreements we are dealing with. The fear has already been expressed about the sort of carte blanche that we are handing over to the Lieutenant Governor in Council or the minister to make these agreements.

What I am particularly concerned about, as I said already, is the fact that as I read the agreement -- and I hope I can refer to the agreement or the draft agreement; God knows we hope it will follow along the lines of the draft -- it seems to be the province of Ontario, the grateful taxpayers again, who are on the hook for a great deal, as they have been, in regenerating the forests.

As I understand it, they are going to be responsible for assisting in roads, surveys, the monitoring and auditing function of the work that has been done and the money that has been spent, the cost of regeneration of the non-regenerated lands that will be looked after by the province and a whole host of other things. When I come to find out what sanctions there are in the agreements or what incentives or disincentives there are, I find we talk about specific liquidated damages and that a penalty will not be assessed by the ministry if the agreement on regeneration is not carried out. That means that the ministry can say; “All right, it cost us or should have cost us X number of dollars to do this, but you haven’t done it,” or, “We have done this much and you haven’t done your job. It is going to cost you X number of dollars.”

I would like to know what penalties or sanctions there are. If the minister says he can always cancel a licence, which was his answer earlier, I find that completely unacceptable. You have had that power. You have it in the Crown Timber Act as written. You have never used that power. I don’t know of one licence at all that has been cancelled. You are not changing that under the act.

What sanctions are there? What are you going to do to change the history in the province, at least in the last 17 years or the last 25 years from 1954, if you like, when the regeneration has not been done by the company?

What are you going to do or what can you tell us here under section 5 of this bill that you are going to do if the companies don’t do what they are required to do or if the companies don’t do what they say they will do? If the companies don’t carry out the operations under this draft agreement or the agreement when it is finally signed, what are you going to do, other than assess liquidated damages, which may not come to very much? What other sanctions are there, other than that loss which nobody can put a figure on and which may come to very little?

I say to the minister my real problem with all of this, because your history has been absolutely terrible in forcing these timber companies to do anything, is what under this agreement that we are supposedly agreeing to here tonight is there to ensure that what is supposed to be done under the agreement is going to be done?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Chairman, neither the member for Rainy River nor I are of the legal profession. I am informed -- and this applies to a number of similar kinds of agreements, such as highway contracts -- that any time you assess a penalty for non-performance you may have to produce a bonus for performance above the standard which has been asked for.

With liquidated damages, if you show a loss it can be collected. There is no automatic premium in that case for somebody performing better than the requirement.

Mr. Martel: Is there no requirement for them because they have done nothing?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I am glad the honourable member is here. I mentioned that when we were talking a few minutes ago about the provisions of the agreement and the manual that is involved.

So, I think we will be in a position -- a position in which we were not in before -- to in effect collect money for things that should have been done and weren’t and where, as a consequence, there is a loss to the owner, which is the taxpayer, of timber that would have been grown or would have been grown faster.

I am told by my experts that the courts will not allow penalties for breach of contract, consequently only liquidated damages may be requested. Paragraph 4 of the agreement will enable the minister to make good any default of the company at the cost of the company.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I have that and I have it underlined. I am not a lawyer either, but at the same time, as I understand it if the company performs over and above, they increase their productivity, then there is something in it for them. They only pay 10 per cent of the ordinary stumpage charge on that section. So they are already looked after if, in fact, they do something better than they are supposed to.

Hon. Mr. Auld: That’s right, and it’s set out in the agreement so that’s the amount it will be, nothing more.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I am sorry to be obtuse about this, but in section 4, where the company fails to regenerate forests under subparagraph 3, the company agrees to then pay to the minister an amount of money equal to the costs of regenerating such area, at the rates referred to in schedule 13 for the treatment that, in the opinion of the minister, has to be applied to such areas.

As I understand that, all you are saying is, “If we have to regenerate this area between the benches and you don’t do it and I figure it’s going to cost $20 I am going to assess you $20.” It is still going to cost the grateful taxpayer the $20 to do it because they are going to have to do the work and in the time, presumably in the five-year period, that regeneration is not going to be done and the company will go and pay the money that it would have paid anyway to you, but you would have paid them the $20 to do it anyway.

Hon. Mr. Auld: We wouldn’t have paid them $20 if they didn’t do it. But then we assess them.

Mr. T. P. Reid: You assess them for the work that they should have done in the first place, which is what I thought we were trying to get away from in this particular bill. So the minister is saying, “All right, if you don’t do the regeneration, I as minister, will have my people do it, I will have it done. It will cost $1,000 and we will assess you, the company, the $1,000 that it costs to do it.” Are we any further ahead, Mr. Chairman, with that kind of system?

Mr. Nixon: No further at all.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I didn’t know you were a ventriloquist.

Quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, I am at a bit of a loss. I didn’t agree with my friend, the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick). I thought he was making one of his off-the-wall speeches as he has been doing more frequently. But he is absolutely right when he asks what we are doing in this bill if we are not changing anything that’s already there. We aren’t. There again the only penalty is liquidated damages they are going to pay the minister because he is going to do the work he is doing now.

Hon. Mr. Auld: But we expected we’d have no provision to collect liquidated damages.

Mr. T. P. Reid: That is the only improvement, but to my mind I still cannot see that being a strong enough incentive sanction, or disincentive, for the companies to go ahead and do this kind of regeneration.

[5:45]

It is not going to improve the whole situation and probably the ministry won’t catch up to them until the end of the five-year review period, which means again that we are going to be a further five years behind and they are bankrupt or whatever. I must say that a lot of these things are covered in here, but I really don’t see we are really accomplishing all that much instead of, as my friend here said earlier, again maybe raising people’s expectations in Ontario that reforestation and regeneration are going to improve.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment to this section but I’ll wait to place that because I want to speak on the subclause first. I don’t want to speak on my amendment at the moment, because I think the previous speaker in the debate has isolated an extremely important point in this debate and it gets back to something, if I may be immodest, I said in my leadoff on the bill.

This is a very modest step, and I really worry that the expectations of people in Ontario and the expectations of the people in the ministry are being unduly inflated by this modest step, because presumably the theory in the Crown Timber Act past was that the economic rent that we got from the resource in tenure charges, stumpage fees, what have you, was more than sufficient (a) to give the people of Ontario some return on their resource, and (b) to provide the ministry or the government, the general consolidated revenue fund, enough money that the ministry should carry out the reforestation.

That didn’t happen. That didn't happen because of a lack of will on the part of the government to assess the necessary fee, tenure charges, what have you, and it didn’t happen because the Ministers of Natural Resources in previous times did not have the clout with the Treasurer to insist that in their budgets they got enough to carry out those reforestation responsibilities.

Now, here, what the government has decided to do is to give to the timber companies the responsibility for the management plan and for reforestation, but my friend from Rainy River rightly points out that there is neither a strong enough incentive nor a strong enough disincentive to ensure they will do it.

What we have in the equation is the same balance. We have a different methodology but we have the same equation. If they fail to do it, the government can say, “Right. Okay. We will do it and we will charge you for doing it,” but that’s just a little bit more direct way of doing what the government was supposed to be doing in the past in any event and failed to do. We don’t even have the assurance that the revenue gained from the company will meet the cost, because it will go into the consolidated revenue fund and probably get frittered away on something else.

So we don’t even know if the ministry will have the funds available to take the initiative and step in and do the job that is not being done by a defaulting company. I think that is, in fact, a very serious default in the legislation. If my colleague from Riverdale rises and my friend from Rainy River in the Liberal Party rises and speaks on this section again, opposing it, I may have to reconsider the position that I recommended to this caucus on second reading.

The more I think about it the more angry I get, but I would like the minister to respond to those remarks at the present time before we move further down that section.

Mr. Martel: How are things going to be different?

Mr. Renwick: I am equally at a loss as to what the minister is about, so I have to ask him one or two questions. I notice he is going to retain, as applicable to the agreement, two of the provisions of the bill related to forest management, namely, sections 27 and 28. One is with respect to wasteful practices and the other is with respect to his right to get information.

I notice very clearly the only remedies the minister has with respect to that kind of contravention will be the suspension or the cancellation of it because, so far as I can read it, included in section 46 dealing with the penalty provisions, are no monetary penalties imposed with respect to a contravention of section 27 or 28 dealing with wasteful practices.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Is the honourable member referring to the agreement or the existing Crown Timber Act?

Mr. Renwick: I am referring to the existing act and the gap which the member for Rainy River pointed out. He was referring to the agreement; I am referring to the act.

Perhaps I can narrow my focus down very clearly. Section 27 of the act says, “No person shall commit a wasteful practice in forest operations.” The act does not provide any penalty in the penalty section 46 with respect to that. It does, however, provide in sections 29 and 30, if I read them correctly, a provision for suspension or cancellation in the event of a wasteful practice. Those are, as the minister obviously over the years has found out and his predecessors have found out, a somewhat Draconian way of dealing with problems.

My question to the minister is, with the definition of sustained yield which is in the bill before us, in subsection 2 of this section, is he intending to describe by way of regulation the wasteful practice as being a failure to maintain a sustained yield in accordance with the provisions of the agreement and the definition?

If he is intending to so extend the definition of wasteful practice, is he intending or would he consider placing in the statute, in addition to whatever other remedy he may have under the agreement, a specific penalty provision, so a company under an agreement failing to maintain the sustained yield will be guilty of a wasteful practice, which is a straightforward statement in the act as defined by the regulation, and will be subject to a penalty?

Those are questions because of the gap which the member for Rainy River has pointed out. I think we have to have some assurance the ministry has the tools to carry out the purposes of the agreement.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Actually, the penalties for wasteful practices are at present set out in the regulations. I understand there have been sums levied in the past for contravention of those regulations.

Mr. T. P. Reid: There are, but they don’t amount to much.

Mr. Martel: I am concerned as to how the ministry is going to change things. I visited a number of these sites a number of years ago, and more recently have seen a number more. We haven’t done well, to say the least, in ensuring there is a continual yield. We have been directly responsible for it and for our success rate.

I have read Armson very carefully. In fact, I think I read him a couple of times because it was pretty devastating stuff.

My concern is that we couldn’t do it when we were responsible. We didn’t have the staff, unit foresters and so on to get out and take a look at it. Aside from what the three people who have just spoken ahead of me are concerned about, my concern is what are we going to do, if we’re just going to act in a supervisory capacity, that was any different from what we did when we were responsible?

Are you getting the money that’s necessary to bring about some of the recommendations of Armson for the appropriate number of unit foresters and so on who are going to get out into the field? Without even going to the penalty clause that we’re talking about to start with, what kind of extra funding are you going to get to make this a reality? We saw some very nice sites, those of us who have taken the trouble to go out to Lakehead University and talk to the staff. They’re overwhelmed at what we’re not doing in order to guarantee supplies in the future.

Mr. Wildman: So is Ken Armson.

Mr. Martel: Yes, so is Armson. His report was a pretty devastating report of what we’re not doing. Now we throw it back to Dracula to do the job. We took it away from Dracula in the first place; now we’re giving it back to him. We didn’t do much of a job when we took it over. How are things going to differ? I think that’s what worries us on this side of the House. Might I ask at the same time where the clause is in this bill of two trees for one?

Hon. Mr. Auld: To answer the second question first, it isn’t in there. So there’s nothing wrong with the member’s eyes. I’m not saying anything else about the rest of the member but I say there’s nothing wrong with your eyes.

Interjections.

Mr. Chairman: Order, order.

Mr. Martel: I just go by what the Premier (Mr. Davis) says. But I hadn’t even yielded yet, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: But you sat down.

Mr. Martel: No, no. The minister stood. He was so provoked by --

Hon. Mr. Auld: I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, that the honourable member wasn’t here earlier when I mentioned the additional resources the ministry has this year -- $4.3 million and I think 25 additional staff for the work of policing the agreement and for the money to pay for the work done under the agreement. But I’m sure -- I’ve just repeated it so he is aware.

If I may go back to section 4 again, the salvage rates vary from 10 cents per cord to something below the regular crown stumpage. It depends upon the quantity, the condition of it, the distance it is, and the costs of salvaging it.

Mr. Chairman: Order, order. Rather than list jumping around from section to section here, do we wish to continue on section 5?

Mr. Martel: I want to go back to the minister’s answer, if I might for a moment. Needless to say, the Armson report was pretty devastating. Are you saying that all we lacked --

Mr. T. P. Reid: All of the reports were devastating.

Mr. Martel: -- was only 25 bodies and we would have had a vastly different forest out there today from which to start to take off the yield again? Does the minister think it’s going to require only 25 people to do the job adequately? If that’s all we’ve needed all of these years, my goodness gracious, we would have found the money for 25 more bodies if he had told us.

I go back to the other point which prompted the minister to leap to his feet in my quest to find out the guarantee: I just thought, and I accept the Premier at his word, that somewhere you would put in this bill that there would be two trees for one. I don’t think that’s too much, since it was part of the Brampton charter of a guaranteed forest supply. I would hope the minister would be prepared to put that in the bill because that’s what the Premier told Ontario it could expect.

If we are going to have the sustained yield necessary -- and that’s the wording in section 5 -- surely the government should be prepared to put that in the bill, because none other than the Premier made the statement.

Mr. Chairman: It’s just about six o’clock. Will there be further discussion on section 5? Yes? There was a reply to a question on section 4. Is the member for Port Arthur satisfied? We stood down section 4 and I wondered if we could carry it.

Mr. Foulds: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the reply.

Hon. Mr. Auld: It was only below the crown dues depending on the condition of the salvage, the amount of it and the distance from the salvage.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Ten cents.

Mr. Bolan: Ten cents a tree.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I am told we have not gone below 10 cents.

Section 4 agreed to.

On motion by Hon. Mr. Auld, the committee of the whole House reported progress.

The House adjourned at 6:02 p.m.