Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

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The House resumed at 8 p.m.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Resuming the debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I do not see a quorum in the House.

Mr. Speaker called for the quorum bells.

8:04 p.m.

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I figure the tunnel vision is so narrow and the minds are so closed on the other side of the House that anything said by any member in this House who is not one of their party is not likely to carry much weight in any event. That is a sad commentary on the respect for the House by the members of the government party. Given that is the case, I suppose I should be pleased we managed to drive most of them out of the House during my speech. Maybe it is some small accomplishment.

When I left off I was dealing with the plant shutdown committee, with the evidence before us, with the companies before us, with some of the conclusions that were obvious and with some of the conclusions that were accepted in that committee by members of all three parties in this House. It was a commentary on the kind of priorities and the content in the throne speech when, as far as I can tell, it was a great big zero in terms of reference to this select committee and the work it was doing.

Certainly, with the record layoffs and plant closures we were having in Ontario, with the hurt and disruption this was causing workers and people, and with the real concern it was starting to generate amongst working people as to what was happening in Ontario, to have the throne speech then come out after the drivel of "keep the promise" and all the little jingles, and not even mention it, is a pretty sad commentary on the commitment of that government and its members.

I thought a number of things were important. I read the points that dealt with foreign ownership. Our problem before that committee obviously was related to the branch plant type of economy we have. There also are some other observations.

I know in the debate I made reference to three particular paragraphs on page 33 of that report, but I think it is worth doing it again because, although I cannot judge what was going on in the minds of some of the Conservative members, they finally all supported it to get this interim report through. I think it is important to state those three paragraphs again in terms of this debate on the kind of actions and recommendations made by this government in the throne speech.

These preliminary observations state: "It is clear from the cases studied by the committee that the decision to close has been a company monopoly. The decision is not only a head office decision but in branch plants one which is made with little input from Canadian management.

"It is equally clear in these cases that the unions representing the workers had no influence in terms of the closure decision. The union's role was reduced to that of trying to negotiate the best possible settlement after the fact."

I think this is the important paragraph in this section of the report on plant closures in Ontario: "These conclusions clearly indicate questions which must now be addressed by the committee. Should government take a role in the decision-making process prior to plant closures and should protection be offered workers and the communities affected by a closure if a closure must proceed?"

Until we started negotiating with the House leaders, and I gather it may not be cleared as yet, there was going to be no reconstituting of that committee. Those serious questions that have a major effect on the economic and industrial future of Ontario, having been debated for weeks in that select committee of this House, were not even going to come back into the House.

I do not know what other members opposite think but I think there was some substance to the concern expressed in that report; and I could read the names of their members who also signed that report. It is regrettable -- and that is the kindest thing I can say -- to see the arrogance that says, "We do not even have to put that in the throne speech we present to this House when this Legislature reopens." I have difficulty containing myself when I think of the hours we put in, of the debates and the testimony we heard, to find it rejected so totally by the Conservative government of Ontario

8:10 p.m.

We dealt also with many individual cases, I might say just in passing. One would think, if nothing else got through, that would. That is why I recounted some of the personal incidents that I have run into where people in my riding are hurting; the many individual cases, the many years of service, with no notice, not even so much as a handshake in the case of some of the Essex Wire employees.

Our efforts were never successful, even to get back before the committee any kind of management that had any authority in the decisions. There was an utter rejection of any Canadian management, because it just did not exist. There were several hundred employees out in that particular plant, but even the individual cases did not seem to move this government in terms of its saying, "Yes, those kinds of concerns are important enough to put into this throne speech."

There are other attacks going on in Ontario in terms of workers, job security and wages. By golly, we had better start paying attention to them, because they are going to hurt.

Let me cite one of the most recent examples that I am dealing with right now. It is that of a gentleman who put in many years as a security guard with Dofasco in Hamilton and got up to a decent rate of pay, then left because, I guess, he was buying the philosophy that you can move ahead, start your own business and make a name for yourself in Ontario.

I suppose being a security guard is not considered by many to be one of the foremost jobs in our community, but he left it to try to start a business. He struggled for a couple of years, but he did not succeed in his business. He had a good record as a security guard, so he got into the Firestone plant as a security guard after his own business collapsed. He spent about two years as a security guard in the Firestone operation.

I am not coming down hard, although I am not happy, in this case. I suppose part of the whole economic picture -- a picture that really has been distorted by government grants to the Michelin plants down in the Maritimes -- is that the tire industry has been in trouble right across Ontario. The Firestone plant has had to make some tough decisions too. My unhappiness is with the kind of pressure that was exerted with the contract talks and the employees in that particular operation.

Let me tell what has happened to this gentleman, also in my riding. A year ago, the company notified the security guards that they were going to lay them off. They did not have a large number; there were several of them. They had up to 12 years' seniority. This chap only had two years. After buying the great dream and trying to get his own business going and not succeeding, he also had initiative. He was not one of our recipients and never asked for welfare; he went right back and managed to get another job. He was earning about $7.80 an hour, which is not a high wage in Hamilton by any means, but he was getting by on it.

They were all informed by Firestone that they were going to dispense with the security guards. They were not organized either, and that is one of the tragedies; they did not have protection in the form of their own union. The company was going to hire, I think it was Barnes Security Services Limited, and it did. These employees were let go, and those who had the 10 and 12 years' employment lost what rights they had built up in that operation.

Barnes came in at a considerably lower rate, I might say, than was paid the people who were employed. But I must say now it never was the company's intention to keep the private concern because all of a sudden, one year later, and after all of the original staff paid at $7.50 to $8-something an hour were gone, what do we find? This past week in Hamilton, the company is advertising: "We are going to hire our own security guards again. We will start them at $4.75 an hour, and they can build up to $5.75 an hour."

This gentleman was one of the first in to see me, and he said, "Where is the justice?" I do not know; that kind of undermining of workers and what is going on are things that we bloody well should be concerned with in this House. Every member of this House, regardless of affiliation, should be concerned about what this is doing to ordinary people in Ontario.

Less than a year ago I asked the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) what security we could give to workers at Johns-Manville after the decision to close down that operation for a variety of reasons. I asked him at the time about the other half of the operation, the other half of the 170 or 180 employees who were still there -- and there is a fairly valuable piece of property in that Johns-Manville operation in Scarborough. I asked what kind of protection we would give them. Of course, it was alien to the Tory way, whether they would be willing to consider some kind of an attachment on the assets of that company in the event they moved.

The vast majority of the employees of Johns-Manville are already disabled, and something like 70 of those remaining in that plant are already collecting a pension of anywhere from 10 per cent to 40 per cent for lung disabilities. The company keeps them on at the regular rate, which is cheaper than going the other route.

It was obvious they were not even going to be able to keep up production in that plant with the kind of work force they had. They made a big thing out of it, but it was a phoney thing. They made a big thing out of keeping them according to seniority, but it meant they kept all of those with disability and it meant they were not going to be able to get the production out of that operation. There is still no word.

I hope the minister will respond, after my question of some eight or 10 months ago, to the rumours that are pretty prevalent in the east end of Toronto among all the employees at Johns-Manville. It is all around the plant that they are getting ready to close the last part of the operation down. I still hope that is not right, but I felt one could see it in the cards a year ago.

I am asking what we are doing in terms of the costs this province has to pick up. We have a tremendous number of workers in that plant who are going to die of lung cancer because of asbestos exposure. A majority of the workers in the plant are already suffering because of some kind of lung disability. We do not know how we are going to pick up all of those costs if that company pulls up stakes and moves out -- if they close the rest of the operation down.

I hope they do not. I asked the question because I was concerned it could happen a few months ago. We got an absolute rejection from the minister to taking any action like that, because they were not going to interfere with the private system. We had better start interfering with the private system if we are going to look at people and their concerns.

I look at the throne speech for a real approach to safety and health in the workplace. It took years of fighting to get to the point where we finally had Bill 70. We have expressed our happiness with that bill as far as it goes. We have expressed concerns with it not going far enough. There are a number of areas in which I expected to see some clear direction from this government, and I have not and do not see them.

I wondered, for example, whether we would see any extension of coverage. If the government thinks people are all covered under this bill now, it ought to know better. There were the obvious fights we had over covering hospital workers and farm workers in terms of safety and health legislation -- when we got support from neither of the other parties. I had a delegation of bus drivers in my own city just last week who asked how it was that they were covered under the bill when they were working in the garage but not when they were on the road. Those kinds of loopholes are all too prevalent in Bill 70 in the safety and health legislation, and they should be covered.

Coke oven emission standards: I am assured by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie) -- if he does not get the legs cut out from under him again by his party -- that we probably are finally going to get some standards. No, we are not going to get some standards; what we are going to get finally is a gazetting of the proposed coke oven emission standards.

Within the last week I sat down with John Lennie and some of the Local 1005 safety and health people again. I learned there are increased numbers of workers, not only in the old coke oven operations -- the top side of the coke ovens is still a dangerous operation in terms of exposure -- but also in the basic steel-making functions in those mills. They are starting to fight to try to establish the claim to a pension for cancer and death resulting from exposure in the basic steel mill operations.

I have never quite been able to get over the problem we had when we asked questions of the Premier (Mr. Davis) about the letter he sent to Bill West and John Lennie, chairman and co-chairman of the safety and health committee of Local 1005. Some members will remember the question I asked in this House about when we were going to get the standards. The unions have been fighting for these coke oven emission standards for a long time and they have been enforced in the United States. They were challenged at least three times by the courts in the United States and upheld. They have been enforced for five years in the steel mills in the United States, and I want to say very frankly that the emission standards are not being met in every case, even with the legislation there. Now I am going to fight to try to improve them.

8:20 p.m.

What it does achieve for the workers is that there is set period testing. There is constant exposure monitoring so that they can pull the workers off the operation where there is the danger of damage to the lungs in the coke oven operations. There is a constant series of examinations. There is a control at least, and they can now establish down the road that the exposure a worker had to those coke oven fumes may have resulted in or been responsible for the cancer that worker may suffer.

The Premier of this province said -- I forget the exact words -- he understood that they could expect the coke oven standards or emission standards to be in place by later that summer. That was in a letter in 1979.

We have raised hell a number of times with the Minister of Labour in this House in question period over the coke oven emission standards. We finally forced them, or somebody forced them -- I know we made enough noise, but who knows how the procedure finally works -- to ask the three major steel operators and the unions to submit their own suggested standards, and they gave them a set number of days to do so.

Strangely enough, I have all the correspondence. This file is nothing but the correspondence back and forth on the coke oven operations and the exchanges in this House. Strangely enough, within the time frame, there was a detailed set of proposed standards from the unions involved. To a large extent they copied the American standards, which have been in force for five years. There were some small changes; they wanted them tougher in some areas but did not expect to get them tougher. I suspect what we are finally going to get will be considerably weaker than the standards in the United States. That is already happening with lead and asbestos and some of the other substances we are finally getting gazetted.

We finally had this meeting of all parties, the companies and the unions together. We finally got the union to submit, within the time frame, the submissions. We waited months and dragged it out of the three companies. That finally happened half a year or a year ago again. We have had some very nasty words. It surfaced, I am sure, in the riding of the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Ramsay) during the election. It has been on the minds of my people almost weekly, and they are calling me about the Stelco operation. What happens?

Once again, I do not see it anywhere in the speech. But I suppose that is not necessary. When we push the Minister of Labour, we understand that standards will finally be proposed. I was told I probably would not like them, and that is what leads me to say they are probably much weaker even than they are in the United States. But they are going to be gazetted within two or three weeks, I hope, though that is probably asking too much.

We know what that means. We are going to go through the whole series of hearings again, and the submissions from all interested parties, which we have already done. We did it on the basis of meeting together to make submissions and then circulating the submissions from both the companies and the union.

How long are we going to play around with workers' lives with this kind of procedure in terms of safety and health legislation in Ontario? We should not have to gazette those bloody regulations, but we had better set some time frame on when the responses come in and when we are ready to enact legislation to protect those workers.

I cannot leave this without finding for a moment here, if I can, the list of hazardous substances. My colleague the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) well remembers our surprise two years ago, I believe it was, in the estimates, when we started dealing with what is happening with asbestos. The whole world knows the danger of that, and there are standards in the United States and many other areas. Once again, this great progressive province of Ontario is without them. Where are they?

We were told in those estimates in the fall two years ago that some seven substances -- I forget the particular substances now -- would be gazetted within a matter of weeks or months. They said the committee at McMaster was already looking into it and would look at the responses; then they gave us a list -- that is what I was looking for and I seem to have mislaid it -- of the suggested other substances and the times at which we might be dealing with them.

It was very interesting. They took the substances and broke them down into some of the dangerous substances with which they knew they were having problems. The new standards had been set -- they were not flying blind in the United States or in other jurisdictions -- and they gave us the lists. The first few I mentioned were for 1978-79. There were seven or eight items for 1979-80, another seven or eight for 1980-81, some for 1981-82 and another list for 1982-83.

I wrote this letter on December 14, 1979, to some of my colleagues in the trade union movement:

"During the course of the Labour estimates, in the vote on safety and health on Tuesday evening, December 13, 1979, we received for the first time some very interesting information concerning hazardous substances."

I am not sure that somebody did not make a mistake by releasing it at that particular set of estimates.

"As you are aware, we have had no standards set to date. There has been a process set up for arriving at standards through the advisory council on occupational health and safety as outlined in their first annual report.

"The seven original substances" -- these are going back to 1978-79 -- "namely, asbestos, cyanides, inorganic lead, mercury, silica, vinyl chloride and noise are taking a much longer time than was originally expected but hopefully will be set some time early in the spring.

"We have received a list of the 52 items currently being assessed" -- that is over and above those seven -- "and the priority lists for the next four years. The minister did indicate there would be some flexibility if a particular case could be made on switching one substance with another.

"One of the things that bothered me is the fact that the coke oven standard, although already established for three years" -- this was two years ago; I said they had been enforced in the United States for three years -- "and of great concern to coke oven workers in Ontario, did not appear on the list of priorities over the next three years."

Whether it was just an oversight or because the hell we raised finally moved it up the ladder, I do not know; but we probably are getting action on it as quickly as on anything else, if indeed we see it in terms of gazetting the standards.

I suggested that the unions take a look at the outline and time frame of the toxic substances and make their responses both to the govern men and to us if they wanted us to raise it further in the estimates or in the House.

My concern is that today, April 30, 1981, we still do not have a standard for even one of those substances in Ontario. The government should be ashamed for their lack of protection of workers. I hope some of the new back-benchers will say: "That at least makes some sense whether or not I agree with his philosophy. What has been going on in this House?"

With regard to the coverage of domestic workers under the employment standards legislation, I wish some of the new members had heard the speeches made by a couple of the members when we pushed for it. I was sorry to hear them, because I have great respect for one of those members. I doubt that they prepared the speeches they delivered. A line from one of them, which will never leave my memory, is that if we covered domestics under employment standards, "we might break up long-term meaningful relationships." I admit that I am not very polished, but I have not been able to understand that one to this day.

Any member who knows anything about the trade union movement will know that employment standards legislation offers no more than the basic minimum standards of protection, and domestic workers do not even have that. They can be exploited, made to work any number of hours, paid any wage and subjected to the poorest of working conditions.

With regard to coverage for agricultural workers -- I know my Liberal colleagues do not favour this very much -- we will be asking very shortly for some figures, which we understand are rather startling. The number of injuries and deaths among agricultural workers is a serious problem, particularly in some jurisdictions that probably are somewhat removed from actual farming. But we have had no action in terms of any coverage for these workers either.

8:30 p.m.

The responsible component of our society represented by the organized trade union movement, and that is not a big percentage of our people, fared about as well as before in terms of any initiatives in this speech. One has to search the throne speech to find any initiatives that even remotely respond to the case for fairness, change and equity that has been well documented, if occasionally in a partisan manner, by the trade union movement. We do not see the reaction to its concerns, and they are certainly an important part of our society.

Once again, Conservative response seems to have been to its obvious friends, the business community, the money lenders, with the back of its hand to those who from time to time have had the courage openly to question its policies and to strongly lobby for changes they honestly and sincerely believe are necessary in our society.

Let me raise two other issues that I think are of major concern and for which initiatives are either nonexistent or totally inadequate. I will not spend much time on them simply because I know my colleagues have been raising them and will be raising them further, but I want to deal briefly with the matter of pensions.

I do not know of another issue -- I suppose I could have tied this to the plant shutdown hearings and debate we had -- that has caused as much concern to workers with long and faithful service to their companies as the fact that we do not have portability in pensions; that the majority of people in the private plans in the work force, who are now moving as many as four or five times in their lifetimes, do not meet the criterion of 10 years of service and 45 years of age, for a combination of 55.

While they may get their money back or the interest on it, they never end up with a pension. What they are really reduced to is the maximum they get from the old age supplement and the Canada pension plan.

I did not clip it out or bring it with me, but that is an inequity and a problem that I have seen three or four major figures within the private insurance industry admit recently, in speeches to their conferences and conventions, as being a problem on which they had better get their act together or they will be in serious trouble. They have been totally incapable of responding to what is an obvious area of concern where workers are cheated out of a chance of a decent retirement income because of the inadequacies of the private pension plans.

We got the royal commission. I am not impressed with most of its recommendations. What do we see happening? I am trying to put it in a context once again of whether we are looking out for the interests of working people in this province? What do we see happening? We see the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) trotting off down to the chamber of commerce luncheon in Burlington. Which is to be expected, I guess.

He launches into a bitter attack. I do not really care if he does attack the Minister of National Health and Welfare, Monique Begin, but he says it would be wrong to upgrade and improve the CPP and OAS. It would not be the route of his government or his philosophy that it should be done with the Canada pension plan in this province. The improvements needed, and even the minister admitted there were improvements needed, should be done through the private insurance industry.

Boy, if there was ever a cop-out, that is it. One cannot begin to do it without some kind of a central pension agency. I happen to think that, even if my thoughts do not carry any weight at all, the only really positive answer is improvements, upgrading and increasing, probably to 50 per cent from the 25 per cent level, the coverage one can get under the Canada pension plan.

That is the answer. It is a mechanism already set. It is a plan something like the Ontario health insurance plan. I defy any Tory member to go out in the ridings where it has wide public acceptance and works and say we should go out and get rid of it and prejudge it here. Before we even get a committee set up in the House, we have the Treasurer of Ontario saying: "No, no. We do it with the private insurance interests. We sure as heck do not agree. We might even go so far as to veto any move to upgrade the CPP."

That is a sick approach from the Treasurer of Ontario. It is sick, if nothing else, that he has prejudged it before we ever get a committee set up. It is that kind of arrogance that has not helped this province and will not help in the long run. It will not help the Progressive Conservative Party in the long run.

I want to say also that I shook my head when the announcement was made that the way we were going to deal with the recommendations was by setting up another select committee to look at it. I really have nothing against setting it up. I suppose all of us have financially by sitting on some of these committees. There is even a role in terms of the input into various controversial areas. But to send out that entire report to a select committee, which is going to mean with the best of intentions by the Tories, close to another year of fooling around with an important and vital issue and going through the hearings again without at least some interim action, is hypocritical and simply defies logic.

We have already had a resolution passed in this House, and I fully recognize that a resolution does not mean that much, but I might say it was not blocked by the Tories and was supported by all three parties. It was my own resolution which, just about a year ago, called for three things: portability through five-year vesting -- if that had gone out for a committee to look at one could have made changes in it, I suppose, but at least it would have been a start to establish the portability -- a central funding agency so that a worker whose plant closed down and who moved to another job could find his funds reinvested and could start carrying that plan with him, and some kind of insurance in terms of bankruptcies and plant closures.

They were very positive recommendations that are not my answer -- I think the answer is in the extension of the public plan -- but at least they would have solved some of the glaring weaknesses and inadequacies of the private insurance industry in terms of the protection now, today, for workers in this province. If we had at least seen the initiative for legislation in that area as interim legislation from this government and then referred all of the other hundred and some recommendations to a select committee, fine; but we did not even have that kind of a courtesy, even after we passed that resolution in this House. I think it is unconscionable.

There is one other item I am really concerned about. Other than some small comments about setting up some kind of research into technological advancement in Ontario, what are we doing in a real, positive way about the juggernaut that is coming down the road on us in terms of the developments in microchip technology? Where are the initiatives from this government? Why are we already away behind most European countries and even the United Kingdom, with their problems, in facing up to what may be the first real industrial revolution since the invention of the steam engine, which was probably the only real industrial revolution in the world up to that point?

When one stops to think for a minute that one can take all the wiring components of an automobile, which are a big part of a car, and reduce them to two small microchips, which are miniature computers, in effect, you begin to wonder exactly what we are facing and where we are going. We have not started doing that yet, but they can now do it and that is one of the reasons for some of the problems at Essex Wire.

In Europe and in Britain, they are already asking for specific action; they call it a social contract. Where a company moves, in a big way, into the microchip industry, they have to sign a contract that guarantees fairness for the workers that may be replaced. They have to do that because there is a new component to this that we have not realized, and that is that the greatest replacement in the next few years of this development is not going to be in the industrial workers but in the professional and office workers.

The best experts are talking about reductions -- in terms of banking, insurance, repetitive office operations, management functions -- of 25, 35 and 40 per cent staff in a very short period of time. It is already happening in European operations, and they have social contracts that require a responsibility to workers who are going to be out of jobs. They have social contracts that require the corporation to replace taxes lost by the state or community. These contracts are now being negotiated because of the resulting unemployment. They are concerned with all such questions as how does it work, what do they do with it, where do we go?

This province has already suffered, I suppose, from the computers, which are really Neanderthals in comparison with what we are facing with the microchip technology. We see nothing in the throne speech, no recognition that it may mean hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of jobs in a field where, I am sorry to say, they have not tended to organize and where they have the least clout. I am talking about office and professional workers.

8:40 p.m.

What are we doing? What is this government doing? Where are the initiatives? God forgive me for saying it, but where is even the committee -- much as I have been disgusted with committees in this House -- that is taking a look at this? I see no initiative from this government in looking at what may be one of the biggest threats in terms of employment and the future development of industry.

Most members probably know a lot more about microchip technology than I do, but one of the interesting things is that we are not even going to make the chips here. Their production is almost totally done now and is scheduled to be done in southeast Asia and Malaysia. Some of the labour publications in the International Labour Organization are now documenting that some of the women who are put to work in producing these by the thousand have gone blind in as little as four and five years because of the work involved.

We also replace the chips rather than trying to fix them once we start to use them. We are beginning to use them in our television sets, where warning lights come on very shortly and one just pulls the chip out and replaces it. One does not even need the repairman out.

There are a thousand and one things that could be used as examples, and we do not even get to produce them. These things are being made in low-wage areas in whatever corner of the world they can find where they can con the people into doing it and get away with it for pennies an hour.

IBM is one of the biggest corporations getting into taking control of this industry in North America. They are going to be darned sure they have got control, because it is going to take the kind of bucks that only either a major corporation or the government is able to provide. They are making sure they are in on the ground floor, and we are going to be cut out even more in terms of looking after workers if we do not decide to deal with this particular problem.

The Deputy Speaker: I do not mean to interrupt the member for Hamilton East, but I would like to remind all members of the Legislature that, generally speaking, not much is said in terms of private conversations, but quite often if too many people indulge in private conversations it is distracting to the speaker. So if I can ask those members to tone their voices down, I know the speaker would appreciate it.

Mr. Mackenzie: I guess as a final line on this item, I just want to say I do not know of another developing industrial situation that has more danger signals up for working people, industry, and the province as a whole than has the microchip technology that is developing.

What throws me is not that this is happening and not that we are going to have accept it, but that I see the government of a province as rich and as well developed as Ontario does not even raise it in a meaningful way, in particular in terms of how we are going to take care of people, how we are going to take care of the tax base, how we are going to take care of the responsibilities in the throne speech.

Who has been sleeping at the switch? Or is it once again deliberate? Is someone saying: "Don't let's involve ourselves in anything that might be tough or controversial. Let's hope it goes away and, if we have to, we will buy them off with some kind of small action a year before the next election." We need to start dealing with this now and not just before the next election.

I was appalled also -- and whether they agree or not, members will understand the extent of my feelings -- when I looked at page 11 of the throne speech and read: "The government will continue an aggressive campaign to counter the threat posed by acid rain and to have controls applied against sources contributing to the problem, both in Ontario and from beyond the province's borders."

Our actions to date have not been much, but what really disturbs me is the questions that have been asked by some of my colleagues in this House about whether this government is ready to deal with acid rain where they have to deal with it; that is, at the source. One of the methods by which they can do it is by putting scrubbers in the coal-burning Hydro operations. That is expensive, and we have continually and constantly got from the ministers responsible the answer, "No, we are not prepared to go that extra mile." Sure, there are millions involved, but that is where leadership comes in, and that kind of expenditure is necessary if we are going to deal with the problem at the source.

Once again, all we hear is that they are going to take new steps. They have already told us in this House in the last few months that we will not require or force them to put scrubbers in some of the major plants that are polluting the atmosphere. Forgive me, but I do not have much confidence in what this government is doing.

There are a number of other items I wanted to deal with, but I recognize that I have probably abused my privilege in the House and gone on much longer than was expected. I simply have to say to the members of this House that I think we are heading for trouble. I have no confidence in the initiatives I see in the throne speech, and I do not think it covers what needs to be covered in terms of people. I am not talking just about my own obvious bias in terms of working people or organized labour, but about all the people I represent and all the people of this province. I find the government is fat, complacent, arrogant and hypocritical. I really wonder if they can turn it around.

I want to say that while it is not likely to happen, and I am not likely to have to eat crow, I would do it in a minute if I saw some positive initiatives from that side of the House in dealing responsibly with some of the problems I have outlined. They had better do it, because it is going to come down on their heads. I will tell them frankly, I am perfectly willing to be on the side of the people when that blow up comes and they say, "Hey, we have been taken, we have been conned, we have been had long enough by the Tory government of Ontario."

Mr. Kolyn: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased at the opportunity to reply to the throne speech. As a freshman member of this House, I have not as yet had a chance to address this awesome chamber, and I hope my colleagues on both sides of the House will take this into consideration.

I would be remiss if I did not thank the people of Lakeshore for their trust and confidence. It is a great privilege for me to take my seat with such distinguished parliamentarians. I hope I will be able to make a positive contribution to the labours at this Legislature and on occasion add some enthusiasm and initiative from the dizzying heights of these back benches. I can assure both my constituents and my colleagues that I will work at it diligently.

As this was the first throne speech I have heard as a member, I was somewhat surprised at the reaction it drew. Members of both the opposition parties and the press gallery described it as being inadequate and tired. Criticism was also levelled at this government because it provided nothing new for the people of this province. I would like to take a few moments today to reply to these remarks.

I read the speech from the throne and there is a paragraph that I would like to present to the House. It is on page six and it reads as follows:

"Ontario has a unique opportunity to use its world leadership in electrical generation technology to produce hydrogen. We stand to gain enormous long-term benefits from early entry into the hydrogen age. Approaches have been made to the federal government suggesting a joint funding program. In the meantime, the province will undertake major initiatives to support existing centres of recognized leadership in this field and will proceed with its previously announced commitment to establish an institute for hydrogen systems."

The establishment of the institute for hydrogen systems received very little attention. It is unfortunate, because this one paragraph alone may influence the future of this province more than any of us now realizes. I believe it is exciting and it is an indication of extreme foresight on the part of our government. I do not believe that all members fully appreciate its importance.

This simplest of all elements is lighter than air, contains three times the energy of gasoline and produces water as a byproduct of combustion. It is probably the most misunderstood of all energy forms and because of the Hindenburg disaster it is unknown to most people.

Hydrogen as an energy form is not a brand-new idea. Scientists have been aware of its existence and potential for centuries. Jules Verne wrote: "I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light of an intensity which coal is not capable. I believe then, when the deposits of coal are exhausted, we shall heat and warm ourselves with water."

As time passes, his words become more and more prophetic. I believe hydrogen's most positive impact is its combustible byproduct, water vapour. In a world that is becoming increasingly conscious about environmental matters, hydrogen should become part of the future energy vanguard. Yet, by and large, it still remains an unrecognized energy substitute.

The fact is that most of our present energy requirements are being met by fossil fuels and every one of them is based on the carbon atom -- coal, alcohol, wood, oil, natural gas and peat. All emit significant byproducts during combustion. Carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide are all producing short-term and long-term environmental problems.

8:50 p.m.

Increasing quantities of carbon dioxide could have a disastrous effect on our climate. We are all aware of the problems caused by acid rain. Hydrogen remains one of the most environmentally benign forms of energy. One can drink the exhaust from a hydrogen-powered car. It is pure water. Finally, hydrogen leaks hold no known environmental problems. This is in stark contrast to oil, which can have far-reaching environmental effects. Because hydrogen is lighter than air, it defuses rapidly in the air and rises to the very top of the earth's atmosphere.

Hydrogen production is also attractive because it is inexhaustible or totally renewable. As the world's energy demands grow, more and more fuel will be burned. If this fuel is hydrogen, the result will be more and more water. This product, water, will in turn have the ability to produce more hydrogen. The basic energy that must be added to this cycle can be obtained from all conventional and novel sources that at present exist or are being developed. A country that runs on hydrogen is a country that can run forever.

Hydrogen can be produced in a number of ways, but one particular production method holds great promise for this province. It can be manufactured by electrolysis, by passing an energy current through water. Ontario's supply of water is abundant. Our ability to produce electricity has become a much-abused political football, but that extensive electrical generation capability could provide part of the answer to our energy needs.

As I mentioned before, we must get away from fossil fuels for environmental reasons. Nuclear generation is such an escape. There are no carbon or sulphur emissions produced by nuclear electricity and that electricity can in turn produce hydrogen. Our present generator system is designed to meet tremendous power demands.

Unfortunately, these demands are not constant. In low demand periods, say at 4 a.m., we have relatively idle generating stations. If we produced hydrogen in these downtime periods, we would reduce the cost of maintaining these stations. At the same time, the electricity could be sold at a lower cost than normal.

The result would be that hydrogen would be cost-competitive with anywhere else in the world. Other jurisdictions without similar technology or capacity would be at a serious competitive disadvantage.

Other forms of electrical generation can also be used when they are developed. We now get something like 70 or 80 per cent of our total energy from fossil hydrocarbons, principally oil and natural gas. In transportation, the fraction is even higher. If hydrogen is to meet some of these needs, we will need to generate something in the order of five times the present supply. To meet these requirements, we will need fusion, solar power and possibly tidal and wind power systems. All are readily adaptable to hydrogen production.

When considering the use of hydrogen, it is important to differentiate between an energy source and an energy currency. Energies that are found in nature are sources; those we produce and that are transferable are currencies. Some such as oil and gas are both. In other words, we can carry them around in our cars or pump them into our homes, but the key is the application.

One cannot use a waterfall to heat one's home or save uranium to run one's car. We must convert these sources into a currency such as hydrogen. As of today, we have relatively few energy currencies and many energy sources. New energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass, fusion and wind power are not their own currencies. Our biggest use of energy sources today is the fossil hydrocarbons that act as their own currencies.

Hydrogen has many applications in industry, specifically in the petrochemical business. The difference between heavy and light crude oil is that the lighter crudes contain more hydrogen relative to the proportion of carbon. By increasing the proportion of hydrogen, the hydrocarbon becomes more liquid. The simplest way to overcome hydrogen deficiency is to remove some of the carbon. It is the method that is used in the Alberta tar sands, but unfortunately it wastes a great deal of energy and provides a carbon disposal problem. A better method would be to add hydrogen to correct the carbon/hydrogen ratio.

The present method of heavy crude recovery has been described as a bad chef who throws out the meat because there are not enough potatoes in his stew. Instead, they should just add a little more potatoes, or hydrogen. It is a situation that should be reversed.

Hydrogen can also be used to upgrade the same type of deficiency in alcohol fuels. About 2,300 tons of biomass are needed to make 1,000 tons of alcohol fuel. However, only 900 tons of the same biomass plus 100 tons of hydrogen would be needed to make the same amount of fuel. It is a much more economical method of production.

Hydrogen has great potential in the transportation industry. There are test buses operating in the United States which run on hydrogen and it is expected that within three years, hydrogen conversion tanks for standard automobiles will be available in Canada for about $700. However, major problems in distribution are still a long way from being solved. Until that happens, extensive use of hydrogen for automobiles is still very much in the future. Liquid hydrogen is also a strong possibility for use in airplanes and trucks.

Heavy industry is also very dependent upon hydrogen and mass production of hydrogen with lower costs of fertilizer and chemicals. It is also a superior chemical for metal ore reduction and would allow Sudbury and Hamilton to turn out nickel and steel as efficiently as they do now but with far less pollution.

Industrial, commercial and residential space heating needs can also be met by burning hydrogen. At this time, there are homes that are being heated and lit by hydrogen in a prototype development in the United States. Even television sets can be run off it. The bottom line is that it is a fuel with almost unlimited potential.

A hydrogen economy has some very real benefits. Its versatility and renewability can guarantee that hydrogen will be produced in virtually all inhabited areas of the earth. It would also be very difficult for a political or economic entity to corner the world's hydrogen supply and use it as a weapon to influence and control others. In other words, the hydrogen cycle allows mankind heat, work and transportation without the threat of an OPEC. Even Peter Lougheed could appreciate that.

Hydrogen fits in very well with our present off-oil conversion program. If we can replace the oil that is needed to run fleets of trucks and buses we will realize a substantial saving. I would like to see the new crown corporation at the Post Office give serious consideration to such a scheme. In economic terms, it is not very feasible right now, but as a long-range goal it could certainly help us throw off this yoke of crude that we now wear.

Ontario's small entry into the hydrogen age is a good beginning, but it is no more than that. I was pleased to note that the throne speech reaffirmed this government's commitment to establish an Innovation Development for Employment Advancement Corporation. Along with this hydrogen centre, IDEA will provide a great boost for developing these new technologies.

This government has shown great initiative in the past. Ontario's contribution to the development of the Candu system has been monumental. We now possess the best nuclear generating technology in the entire world. Unfortunately this country's marketing techniques have been nowhere near as successful. That is something we must improve upon. Candu is so compatible with hydrogen production that any nation that has bought a Candu should automatically become a hydrogen system customer. I would like to see our growing hydrogen technology marketed in this light.

9 p.m.

I will conclude my remarks with a gentle reminder to some of the members opposite. We are all familiar with the scepticism some of them exhibited at our Premier's announcement of the Urban Transportation Development Corporation. The criticism was ill-advised, and we are grateful that it was ignored. The philosophy behind it is as short-sighted as that of a professional sports franchise trading off all its future draft choices because they probably will not develop. That is the quickest way I know of for us to lose that franchise.

I hope we will continue our work in hydrogen. Whether we like it or not, the French, Japanese, West Germans and Americans are moving that way. Canada could take an undisputed lead if we grabbed the opportunity now. We already have an accidental lead due to our advanced nuclear technology, our vast natural resources and our industrial research.

The Electrolyser Corporation Limited of Toronto is a world leader in the production of the equipment needed to manufacture hydrogen electrically from water. Noranda Mines of Canada is developing hydrogen storage systems of metal hydrides. We must take advantage of this technology now or we will slip back to being hewers of wood and drawers of water. All it takes is a little vision and a little courage to follow our convictions. I believe this government has plenty of both.

Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, the distance from Hamilton to Toronto is only 40 miles, but today I feel light years away, because here in this beautiful building, surrounded by history and tradition, pomp and circumstance, we can so easily forget what brought us to this place. I spent four long years working with Hamilton people so that they might believe in me enough to send me to Queen's Park. I would like to thank them for that vote of trust and I hope that I will not let them down.

When I arrived last week and listened to the speech from the throne, I viewed it from a Hamiltonian perspective. Mine was not the perspective of one who has spent much time in these hallowed halls, but the viewpoint of a people person, someone from the city of Hamilton.

What is Hamilton? Smog city, you might say. Those of you who see Hamilton only as you drive by on that atrocious Skyway bridge cannot understand the way I see my city. I was born and raised in Hamilton. I have lived in Ottawa, Montreal, London, Europe, and I wouldn't trade my city for all of them put together. Hamiltonians have a particular spirit, the flavour of people who live together, work together in the coke ovens, join in our ethnic festivals, share a cappuccino on Sherman Avenue or enjoy a perogy at the Polish Legion. It is a community that cannot be equalled by any in Canada.

Not only do we boast the most diverse ethnic flavour in the province, we also have one of the most sacred resources in our country, Lake Ontario. In my riding, there is a community that is at present locked in a struggle similar to that of the Toronto Islanders. The Beach Boulevard community is fighting for its life and indeed the life of its children. We have neighbourhoods like the McAnulty Boulevard and Robert Land in the heart of our industrial belt, both of which are struggling to improve their quality of life and stave off industrial takeover. We have among the largest tenant populations of any city, with high-density dwellings minutes from the city core.

Hamilton Centre, my riding, boasts the city's tallest building, the largest park, the greatest number of churches, and the home of the area United Senior Citizens of Ontario. In short, we are a microcosm of this province.

J'aimerais aussi examiner la réponse du gouvernement à propos des Franco-ontariens. Dans ma circonscription, il y a la plupart des Franco-ontariens de Hamilton. Dans le moment ils luttent pour trouver quelque argent pour bâtir un centre communautaire. Moi je devrais dire que dans une province comme l'Ontario c'est vraiment décourageant pour les gens de langue française qui n'ont même pas assez d'argent pour bâtir des communautés culturelles.

It was with that perspective that I listened to the throne speech and it is in that light that I must respond. I must ask whether the government has addressed the problems of working people in Ontario. I ask whether the government is committed to making improvements and, indeed, a complete overhaul of an outdated workmen's compensation system which discriminates against minorities.

I have looked and found nothing but hollow promises to proceed some time in the distant future. Meanwhile, I have only to walk down Barton Street to meet people, personal friends, whose lives have been turned inside out because they have lost their livelihood and, indeed, their sense of self worth through work accidents.

I ask whether the government is prepared to act on the issue of severance pay. While a minister promised to do so publicly, last year, what do we see in the throne speech? Nothing.

I ask whether the government is prepared to move on the issue of occupational health and safety and to consider coke oven emissions along with other health hazards. Not only is the government not committed to including emissions but it has done nothing to speed up the implementation of Bill 70.

As a Hamiltonian, I ask whether the government is going to continue its policy of ignoring our city except at election time or when it comes to experimental transit. Again, the only thing that I see for Hamilton is the chance to be used as a guinea pig for a light rail transit project which will bisect a portion of my riding.

I ask whether the government is prepared to act on the recommendations of its own study by building a tunnel beside the existing Skyway bridge and again, the answer is no. No response for Hamilton.

The government that brought us regional government, that legacy of woe to city taxpayers, brought us precious little else, including members on the government side.

I ask whether the government has addressed the problems of our poor. Did it talk in the throne speech about the recent report by the Social Planning and Research Council of Toronto which showed that government spending cuts have, in fact, exacerbated the difference in income groups in this province. In other words, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

What about our tenants? What does the throne speech offer the tenants of Hamilton Centre? Does the government reaffirm its promise to retain existing rent controls as is? No. In fact, by not mentioning the promise, the government has made us realize that keeping the promise in this province does not apply to tenants.

While the government chips away at existing rent review protection, it does nothing to stop incredible speculation in the housing market.

9:10 p.m.

What about the working poor and our poorest single-income groups, single-parent families? Is there anything in this throne speech to indicate the government will make their lives a little easier? No. In fact, women, as an interest group, do not even warrant a mention in this speech, while the issues of day care, non-traditional jobs, home purchase stimuli, et cetera, are left virtually untouched.

What will the government do for our senior citizens? Obviously it plans to continue its pre-election bribe of tax credits which actually robbed our poorest senior citizens of much of their previous tax cuts.

In my riding alone, our seniors in community housing lost more than $200,000 in grants because of a so-called progressive tax that took from the poor to give to the rich.

What about those Hamiltonians -- widows, seniors -- who lost thousands through the Re-Mor scandal? Nothing, not even a mention of financial redress.

What about our multicultural groups, the people who built this province by the sweat of their brows? What does the throne speech offer to them? The government doesn't even have the courtesy to recognize them as interest groups.

What about our multiracial society? Has the government shown any interest in moving towards greater public awareness of the problems facing our visible minorities; problems that have reached such proportions in our own untouchable Ontario that a representative of the Ku Klux Klan was recently a guest speaker in one of our provincial high schools? Are these the issues this government will face -- issues of courage, foresight, leadership?

I could go on about the litany of pat phrases and beatific platitudes offered in this throne speech. Suffice to say that this government has received a mandate by the people, albeit a slender one, and we, in opposition, charge the government with the responsibility of discharging that mandate. That discharge must go beyond the petty confines of that speech from the throne. It must go beyond the paltry offer to electrify, and the rehashed promises of the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program.

This government is faced with the challenge and we will be dogging its steps to make sure that the reigns of government are not held lightly. It is a responsibility that goes beyond party lines. We are charged with the future of this province, at least for the next four years. I, for one, will do all within my power to make sure that that awesome responsibility is met, not for personal political gain, but for the common good of the people of Hamilton Centre and the greater community of Ontario.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak in this throne speech debate. I would, of course, be remiss if I did not congratulate the new Speaker on his election to office. I know he will do an excellent job in that office and carry it out with the dignity and fairness that have been exhibited by the last two Speakers during whose terms I have had the privilege of being a member, namely, the former member for Northumberland, Mr. Rowe, and the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes).

I would also, of course, be remiss if I did not say a word or two about the election campaign we have just been through. It has been a particular pleasure to me that I was able to win in all sections of the riding and not just in the rental areas, as was contended by one party in this House.

Mr. Mancini: Who would say that?

Mr. Philip: It happened to be the Conservative candidate.

I would also like to say that in this election campaign the Liberals ran one of the nicest gentlemen I have had the pleasure to meet in a long time. He conducted the campaign in a manner I think should make his party proud. I am sure they were disappointed that they came third again in the riding but, none the less, it has nothing to do with the candidate. They ran an excellent candidate, I must say.

Mi. Nixon: We are going to get Len Braithwaite next time.

Mr. Philip: The former Liberal leader informs me they will get Len Braithwaite back again. I can remember standing in the House for the first time and the Speaker saying, "Would the member for Etobicoke rise?" The Speaker had a way of never pronouncing my riding quite correctly during those years. At that time, the former Liberal leader asked, "Where is Etobicoke?" At least I have been present in the House on a regular basis. I am sure the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon), who is always present in the House, knows that.

In 1975 we in the New Democratic Party made rent review a major election issue. The Liberals eventually, although ideologically opposed to it, finally jumped on the bandwagon and the momentum was so great that even the Conservative government agreed to rent review. During the last election campaign the Conservative Party answered a question sent to it by the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations. One of the phrases in that response is very interesting. It reads as follows: "The government's commitment to rent review as it currently exists is firm."

The key words are "as it currently exists." Even a person with a very cursory understanding of the English language understands that clearly means no change. Of course, the Premier (Mr. Davis) went around the province saying that rent review would not be removed as long as he was Premier. He failed ever to state what form it would take under his government if he got a majority. Will it be gutted in the way his colleague Sterling Lyon gutted it in Manitoba? Manitoba is still under rent review. It is there for everyone to see, but the tenants know it is not there for their protection. It is a gutless, watered-down piece of legislation. They cannot have a ham dinner from a sow's ear, no matter what they call it. That basically is what rent review amounts to in the Manitoba government.

Rent review was not in danger, the Premier told us. He urged voters to help him to keep the promise. What promise, one must ask -- the promise to the developers or to the large landlords? Certainly the balloons floated by the new Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Walker) in the last few weeks have not given us any indication that the promise that is going to be kept is the promise to tenants.

Before rent review was established, there were very compelling reasons why rent review was needed. It was established by the 1974 Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation survey that showed that households of low-income seniors, single parents and young single persons would be the most likely to benefit from rent controls.

9:20 p.m.

It is widely known that the proportion of seniors to the rest of the population is expanding rapidly and the percentage of single-person households has quadrupled in the last 25 years. More than 70 per cent of families in public housing in Ontario are of the single-parent type. Rent review has been of help to those people, the people most in need.

Rent control legislation now covers only about 960,000 of the 1.5 million rental units in Ontario. By exempting buildings first occupied after January 1, 1976, the province has set up two classes of rental housing. Large corporate landlords who are likely to be in the development business are often exempt by virtue of the fact their buildings are new buildings, built after 1976.

A very interesting economic analysis was presented to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations only yesterday. The analysis presented by a consultant, an economist by the name of Dale Martin, to the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations, clearly indicated that landlords under rent review, if they know what they are doing, are certainly not suffering any kind of economic loss. On the contrary, according to his figures a landlord can have a tax-free minimum real profit rate of 22.7 per cent, based on his investment, while at the same time claiming a zero operating profit for rent review.

Another interesting fact presented was that, according to the most recent figures, low-income families and tenants are the group that are paying a larger portion of their income for rents now than they did before the introduction of rent controls in 1975. Tenants now pay 22 per cent of their incomes to rent compared to 19 per cent in 1975. Therefore, there are no compelling reasons for the removal of rent review. The landlords are clearly making money and the tenants are paying, even under rent review, a larger percentage of their incomes.

The very problems that existed in 1975 which urged and compelled this government to bring in rent review clearly are present here today and, therefore, the removal of rent review simply makes no sense whatsoever.

The anomalies of real estate industries make traditional techniques of determining profits inappropriate when looking at the large landlord developer. First, as was pointed out to the minister by the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations, the assets in the real estate industry, that is, buildings and lands, are appreciating in value at a rate much higher than inflation. In other industries, such as manufacturing, assets like machines and factories decline in value as they wear out and become obsolete.

Second, the amount of money initially required to make the investment is much less in real estate than in other industries. To own rental property, as many of us who have appeared before rent review boards know, only a small portion of its value, usually 10 to 15 per cent, needs to be invested. Indeed, that is recognized by the rent review board as it allows mortgages only up and above a 15 per cent investment by the owner or owner company. The rest, therefore, is mortgage.

Other industries average about 40 per cent investment in assets which are owned. One may ask, why is there a 22.7 per cent minimum real profit, even if the landlord is just breaking even in rent review? As I pointed out to landlords, in rent review: "lf you are showing a profit, you better get a different accountant. You simply don't know what you are doing because any fool who is a landlord and shows a profit is simply bumbling."

Assume that a landlord bought a building for a price in round figures of $100,000. He put down 15 per cent of the price, which is $15,000 of his own money, and mortgaged the remaining $85,000 with a traditional 25-year mortgage. On that mortgage the landlord will get back $85,000 as equity in the building over 25 years. This represents $3,400 return to him each year or 22.7 per cent on his original investment of $15,000. The fact is that landlords do not make money through the day-to-day or year-to-year income from tenants. The profits are to be realized in capital gains. That is where the 22.7 per cent comes from. The above example can be shown over and over again as we go through the books of any of the major landlords in the rent review process.

The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations seems to keep on raising the trial balloons that would lead one to the uneasiness that rent review will be gutted in one form or another. In a radio news program I listened to he talked about $400 being a luxury building and that perhaps rent review should be removed from luxury buildings. Then he claimed he was only talking about $400 to $500 as being luxury in areas outside the Toronto or Metro Toronto area.

According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, 60 per cent of the population in Windsor would pay over $400 for a three-bedroom apartment. A three-bedroom apartment would be required by a husband and wife and two children that happened to be of opposite sex. It is the normal kind of apartment that would be required by a small family.

The figures are similar in Thunder Bay where 63 per cent of apartments there are over $400 for three-bedroom apartments. It is 38 per cent in Ottawa and 26 per cent in London. Are these the people the minister suggests in his trial balloons that he wants to exempt? If he does not, why did he raise the issue in the first place? More particularly, why, as a new minister, is he floating these kinds of ideas to the press without first at least having the decency to meet with some of the tenants' associations and discuss his concerns or his viewpoint or his philosophy with them? It makes no sense whatsoever.

The Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations met with the minister only yesterday. Despite ramblings by the minister about a reduced guideline, they are convinced that any changes he puts forward will not be beneficial to tenants. Before becoming minister, he advocated a tenant-initiated rent review program and bemoaned the lack of adequate rate of return for landlords under rent review. If 22.7 per cent is not an adequate rate of return, I really do not know what is. Does he want it higher than that? It is certainly higher than the average person is getting as an increase in his wages.

The federation claims it was given no assurance that his opinion has changed and was advised that the Premier will be making the decision. I find that interesting. First, the minister is appointed as the minister. It is announced in the House that the Minister of Housing (Mr. Bennett) is doing a bunch of surveys. Then he indicates to the federation that on the completion of these surveys he may be in a position to make some kind of decision. He refused to answer the question I asked in the House today about that.

One must ask who is running the Ministry of Housing. If the Premier makes the decisions and the Minister of Housing does the research, who is running the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations? What is the minister being paid for? Is he the minister? If he is the minister, why does he not take the responsibility rather than the Premier or the Minister of Housing? If he is not the minister, but merely the puppet of the Minister of Housing or of the Premier, he should not be getting a minister's salary. Why not make him a parliamentary assistant and put the portfolio under another ministry?

The party on the other side of the House is constantly raising the possibility of weakening rent review. We in the New Democratic Party have pleaded that rent review and landlord and tenant legislation be improved and strengthened. There are a number of problems in that act. I will be dealing with a few of them in private members' bills, some of which I introduced today while others will be introduced during the next 10 days.

One bill, which has long been awaited by Metro tenants, provides for an increased rate of interest on a tenant's rent deposit, which at present is just six per cent. In terms of actual dollars and cents the rent deposit is not a great deal of money but, psychologically, it means a lot to tenants. The tenant borrows money at 18 or 19 per cent -- the rate went up again today -- or perhaps he has bought Canada Savings Bonds, on which he gets about 11 per cent. But the landlord pays him only six per cent, another example of the arrogant way in which this government takes care of landlords and forgets about the tenants.

As my bill suggests, it would make sense to have this rate of interest at least at the level of the interest paid on Canada Savings Bond. That is lower than what the landlord pays the bank on a personal loan, but it is quite a bit higher than the rate the tenant gets at present.

My other bills will deal with the operation of rent review by the Residential Tenancy Commission. One of the bills I introduced today would ensure that new buildings built after January 1976 are covered under the rent review program.

The landlord sets his base rental in the new building. He can set any rent that he feels will make him a reasonable profit and attract tenants. Since the landlord can set that base and project his income and his costs over a period of time, does it not seem reasonable that people who move into buildings put up after 1976 should have the same kind of rent review protection as those who move into older buildings?

I think the various members from Scarborough will agree that the situation in their area is similar to that in mine. New buildings are being constructed. A large percentage of the buildings in the Scarborough ridings, in the Rexdale area that I represent and perhaps even in some of the Mississauga ridings was built after 1976. People have to live in these areas because they work in the area or because they cannot afford the escalating rents in downtown Toronto. Many of them move out of buildings that are covered by rent review into the new buildings and they experience the loss leader situation.

The landlord knows that it is to his advantage to fill a building as quickly as possible. Therefore, John Brown gives up a building that may be an older building and does not have a swimming pool or a squash court or something like that and says, "Well, if I move into this new building I would pay maybe an extra $30 a month, but I would get all these extra advantages." Then, once he is there, once he has removed his children from school, once he is set up in the new community, once he is in that building, suddenly, the next year the gong strikes.

That is when the landlord says, "Well, you are not covered under rent review. I can raise the rent to anything I want." So up it goes by 17 or 20 or 25 per cent. And the tenant is faced with the problem, does he disrupt his family again? Does he take the children out of the schools they are going to? Does he undergo all the redecorating costs in a new apartment? Does he undergo all the costs of moving? Or does he pay that inflated cost which the landlord has passed on to him? Surely, if this government is not going to put new buildings under rent review, it can do something about the loss leader type of gouging that is going on now by certain landlords.

I look across and see one of the newer members who has just been elected, a fine fellow from the trucking industry. He understands regulation. He knows that regulation in an essential industry is important. Now the fellow a little bit to his left from northern Ontario does not quite understand that because he is a deregulationist, so I would not expect him to understand rent review.

I can appeal to the first member, to whom I referred as a Conservative, as somebody who was at one time president of the Ontario Trucking Association and who understands the value of regulation in an essential industry. But he must understand, surely, that in an essential industry like homes this kind of thing then is important.

Another one of my bills deals with the appeal process of the Residential Tenancy Commission. At the present time there is no requirement to have a tenant representative on the appeal panel at the commission. This bill simply says there should be one tenant representative, one landlord representative and one neutral chairman. In any kind of adversary situation one has that kind of even balance. But this government has not seen fit to do even that for the sake of giving not only the justice, but also what is equally important, the appearance of justice.

Another bill gives authority to the commission to order a reduction of rent when the landlord's financing costs go down. I happen to be an optimist in terms of economics. I look at the history of the market and of the North American market and I see that what goes up usually comes down. Just as interest rates are going up today, sometime we would hope, at the end of the summer or maybe next year, interest rates will go down. But we have no system built in to force the landlord to come before a rent review board if, by any chance, the interest rates -- his costs if you like -- go down, though he has justified a large rent increase on the grounds of escalating interest costs. Surely it makes sense to have an automatic review in those cases where refinancing results in lower costs to a landlord, because one may be sure that when their refinancing means higher costs the landlords go before the rent review board and get large increases.

And it is an increase that nobody can argue against. Landlords are not charitable organizations. If the mortgage comes to an end and they have refinancing, then, no matter what argument one can make, the rent review officer will simply say, "Well, you don't want him to go into bankruptcy. Here are his higher costs. He had a mortgage at 10 per cent; now he has to float it at 17 per cent. That extra seven per cent has to be passed on to the tenant." But when interest rates go down at some time in the future -- we pray for it -- somehow those savings should then be passed on and the rent would be lowered.

Another bill contains an amendment that requires the commission, when determining the merits of a case, to take into account the state of repair of the building and advise tenants before a building inspection takes place. It would allow tenants to accompany the rent review officer and show him what has taken place, because what often happens is that the moment a landlord knows that an inspector is coming then everything improves very dramatically.

9:40 p.m.

Another bill authorizes that the Residential Tenancy Commission pay a tenant's costs when a tenant has lost wages and incurred other costs by challenging a landlord because of an illegal rent increase. In any other kind of adversary system, we award costs to the person who is being grieved, but when a tenant takes time off to bring a landlord to justice, if you like, all that happens is the rent review officer says: "You have been a bad boy. You are not allowed to do that. Roll it back to what it was." The tenant does not even get the interest if he happens to have been paying it illegally over a period of a few months. He does not get any of his out-of-pocket expenses. He may have even gone to a lawyer, or somebody like that, who has charged him a modest fee to tell him his rights.

Mr. Nixon: I have never known a lawyer to charge a modest fee.

Mr. Philip: In my riding they come to me and I do not charge them anything. I am sure the same thing happens in yours.

Another bill requires that a landlord produce the receipts for expenditures when a tenant or a tenant representative requests him to do so. This would apply to any expenditures over $100. Nobody is asking that he bring in a receipt for the staples he bought and with which he attaches the cheques to the invoices. Surely if those petty receipts exceed five per cent of the total cost which a landlord submits is justification for rent increases, then he should be required to at least produce those receipts.

For many years tenants have complained that certain landlords have been padding or exaggerating their expenses at rent review. Any of us who have worked on behalf of tenants for a number of years know that one can trust most landlords' receipts and can trust what they say are their expenses. But over and over again, when they talk to MPPs, when they talk to other people who are involved, when they talk to rent review officers, they know there are certain people they do not trust. Those are the problem cases. With 90 per cent of the landlords, if they say their expenses are X number of dollars, one can trust them and accept that. It is unfortunate that there is the odd 10 per cent one simply must have the right to question. That is what my bill would do.

Another bill that I will be introducing provides that the residential tenancy commissioner investigate whether or not repairs that have been projected by a landlord in justification of a rent increase have actually been carried out. In rent review after rent review, I have constantly had to argue that unless the contract has been given the cost should not be allowed. Occasionally, the rent review officer agrees. In other cases, though, I find when I come back the next year I say to the rent review officer: "That was charged last year. It was projected. Why was it not done?" Only then do we find that he got a quotation, but it snowed too early or there was a frost problem or he ran short of cash and, therefore, the work was not done, but the rents were increased on that projection none the less.

Therefore, it seems reasonable that there should be a system of inspecting whether or not the work has been done and the work of the quality that has been quoted. I can get quotations on any project I want for any amount I want. It is simply a matter of whether the projections are carried out. This would be far more flexible than requiring the landlord to produce contracts and accept the contracts, as has been suggested by some people who want an even more radical form of reform in this manner.

Another bill requires that a landlord who obtains vacant possession of a rental unit for the purpose of making repairs or renovations to apply for the approval of the new rent. Under that bill, the landlord would have to go and justify his costs. Then the new rent would be set based on his legitimate costs, the costs of renovating and the cost of downtime that he had while the apartment was vacant.

What is happening in the downtown areas of many cities is that landlords are using the excuse of renovation as a way of getting out from under rent review. A tenant then is displaced because the landlord is going to create certain changes. Under the Landlord and Tenant Act he is clearly allowed to do that. So the tenant moves, and then cosmetic changes are performed and major increases in the rent are passed on to the new tenant.

Another bill I propose that would improve the Residential Tenancy Act would allow the residential tenancy commissioner to make an independent inquiry into rents being charged by a landlord. I had a very interesting case not so long ago in which I was informed by a constituent that an apartment next door to her mother's was being vacated. She was sure that the landlord was asking a rent which was not justified and which had not gone before the rent review board. I asked the lady to pretend to be a potential tenant and go down there, which she did. She asked how much it would cost to rent the apartment. Of course, the landlord was passing on an illegal rent increase.

When I called the Etobicoke rent review office, the director of the office was very helpful and I think he is a very conscientious public employee. The director said, "Yes, we know that landlord. We get all kinds of complaints. We catch him at the most about 10 per cent of the time." But the fact is that the evidence that I could present, a sworn affidavit that he had asked for this amount of money, was not sufficient. The only thing that could be done would be to wait until the apartment was rented, go to the new tenant and ask the new tenant to lay a complaint.

A lot of tenants are intimidated by this. Some of them are new Canadians and are not used to the system. They are afraid to take on any kind of challenge of authority. Others simply do not know what the previous rent was. Until now there is no requirement, until certain sections of the new act are proclaimed, to even have that disclosed in the kind of public way that has been advocated in the act.

Surely there must be a way by which the residential tenancy commissioner will have the right to investigate those landlords who are well known to them, those landlords who have a reputation for making illegal rent increases. These people simply must be punished in a way that is appropriate. Instead, what we have now is a system wherein about 10 per cent are caught and are told, "You are a naughty boy. You are not allowed to do that." And they have to roll back the rent to what it should have been. If the average bank robber could win 90 per cent of his heists, he would be a lot more successful than most bank robbers are; yet we allow landlords to do that kind of thing.

There are other things I believe need to be done on behalf of tenants that I have not spoken of yet in this House on other occasions. I am pleased to see that Mr. Lewis, the chief election officer of the province, is here in the House because I am sure that a couple of these proposals will be of interest to him. At least I hope they will be of interest to him.

One of the bills that I propose is to require that a polling place for provincial election be provided in every residential premise in which there are more than 250 voters residing. I was struck by the fact that in the election that just passed there were a number of buildings in my riding that were fairly far from the polls. Some buildings that were fairly far from the polling stations did not have polling booths, while other buildings that were closer to the polls did have polling stations in them. The voter turnout was not very high in some of those buildings. Part of the reason for that is that a lot of people were new to the riding; perhaps part of it was that a lot of people were not familiar with the system or were transients. Maybe they did not have the same kind of roots in the community.

In one building in particular, 75 Tandridge, an Ontario Housing Corporation project, I was struck by the fact that in the municipal election the poll was in the building. A number of people who are crippled or in some way disabled are in that building. There are also a great number of seniors in that OHC project. Luckily, through volunteers who had some minibuses, we were able to get those people out to the polls without a tremendous amount of discomfort. But if that had been one of the terrible wintry days we experienced during the election, those people at 75 Tandridge would have had a disastrous time trying to get out.

9:50 p.m.

As it turned out, some of them could not even make it to the position of being able to get into a van, which requires a certain amount of stepping and so forth and, therefore, did not vote. It should be required that a landlord provide space, where that space is available, to the government for purposes of an election and that unless there are insurmountable problems regarding that location the polling station be held in that. That is why I will be introducing a bill that will amend the Residential Tenancies Act and the Election Act to deal with that problem.

We have talked about the ways in which we in the New Democratic Party would strengthen rent review, would strengthen tenants' rights and would strengthen the Residential Tenancies Act, rather than nibble away at it as has been suggested by the government and by certain members on the other side of the House.

The removal of rent review would actually reduce the number of rental units, not increase it. This becomes very evident if one looks at what has happened in Alberta. In Alberta the cry was "Remove rent review and you will increase the number of units." In fact, the number of rental unit starts is now at a 14-year low. A major problem is not just the Tory government out there, but it is also the Liberal government in Ottawa which has extremely high interest rates. There was no increase in rental units in Alberta when the Conservative government removed rent review and construction of rental units is now at a 14-year low. Even more interesting is the fact that in Alberta conversions from rental to condominium increased after rent review.

I found that hard to understand until I attended the First International Condominium Convention which was held here in Toronto. I was the only member of the Legislature present. There were a couple of elected municipal representatives there but no representative of either the provincial or federal Parliament, other than myself.

I found the developers' sessions particularly interesting because I learned more about what was really going on out there by listening to the developers than from any kind of session I might have had among some of my colleagues and friends in the condominium movement whose views I have become fairly familiar with over the last few years. One of the sessions was by a developer from Alberta who said, "Well, it is very simple. You get rent review removed in Ontario and conversions become possible."

The economics go like this. If one has a $1-million building, one wants to sell it off in units for $2 million. One of the things one needs to do is to sell a large number of units to the people who are renting in the building.

I attended a number of sessions by these people who are experts in getting people to convert and in getting it through municipal governments. They say that the economics of it are that one wants to get in and out in six months and that, if possible, one wants to sell about 40 to 50 per cent of the units to people living in the building.

However, as the fellow from Alberta pointed out, as long as one has rent review, one cannot double the price of a building and get 40 to 50 per cent of the people to buy. They will not buy. What one needs to come in, with today's interest rates and market, is at a price where the mortgage is not much more than $40 or $50 a month more than the rent that is paid. His scenario was, "You should see what we are doing in Alberta. Once rent review went off, rents increased and then we could come in and convert because those people out there were motivated to buy their unit."

One of the speakers at the convention was Ralph Nader who pointed out what was happening in the United States where in a large number of states there are no anti-conversion laws. Quebec has anti-conversion legislation; we do not. It is controlled to a large extent by municipalities and, luckily, in a good many municipalities we have been able to prevent some of the larger abuses. But the fact is, as he says, there are elderly people who are literally being put out on the street by this massive move to conversion. It appeals to a basic insecurity in the population. They see their rents going up and up and up and they say, "My goodness, I have at least got to get a piece of the action to protect myself from inflation."

While the new Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Walker) may be a failure in his present post, certainly the Minister of Housing (Mr. Bennett), who has had more experience, is a complete disaster. This is the do-nothing minister, if there ever was one. He is the one who is reported to have said in Ottawa-- I do not have the quote in front of me -- a couple of years ago that he saw no need for a Ministry of Housing. So he is the minister in charge of a ministry that should not exist, in his opinion, if that is a correct quote that was attributed to him by a tenants' group I met with in Ottawa.

In Metro Toronto we are facing a crisis. In Metro for 1980 the medium family income was $27,057. The average was $27,800. The fact is that at current interest rates of about 17 or 18 per cent -- as of today they are even higher than that -- that means the medium family income can afford no more than $50,000 for a house. That also means about half the families in Toronto cannot afford to buy a house.

In March 1981, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board, only 17.9 per cent of houses sold were priced at $50,000 or under, in comparison to last March when 24 per cent of the houses were so priced. One can see how fast the market is moving. In other words, half the families in Metro are excluded from over 80 per cent of the houses that were sold in March 1981. Only 17.9 per cent of those looking to buy a house in March 1981 found one for under $50,000. The same families were excluded from

32 per cent of apartment condominiums and 63 per cent of townhouses.

Affordability is not a crisis, as the minister contends, only in the core area of Metro. In my area the statistics are not as dramatic, but people are moving from the downtown area into Rexdale and Scarborough because they can no longer afford to live downtown.

This is the minister who said he did not understand the relevance of my statement when I said to him the other day, "In your presentation to the justice committee concerning Ontario Housing, you have stated how opposed you were to ghettoizing groups of people, to having ghettos for the poor." That was part of the rationalization he used for saying, "Well, we have to have the rent supplement programs," or, as I call them, the landlord supplement programs.

If ghettos are improper for the poor, why should we have ghettos for the rich, which are what are being created in downtown Toronto? Why is it that only the upper-middle class and the class above it, only the moneyed people, should be able to live in downtown Toronto? The aldermen will say that now under non-profit housing, under the city's scheme with the government, rents are going up astronomically at downtown Toronto market prices.

The suburbs are the places, such as my riding, that he seems to want to send the poor from downtown Toronto out to. Statistics reporting the average price of residential units, including condominiums, for each of the 50 districts for the first three months in 1981 are interesting because not one of these 50 districts recorded an average price of $50,000 or under, which is the price level at which half of our population can afford to buy a home.

We cannot say then that the people who cannot afford to live downtown can go out and live in Rexdale or Scarborough or Peel, because half of them simply cannot afford to buy a home there either. Along the same lines, for the week of April 18,1981, the prices at which houses were listed in Scarborough -- which is an area in many ways similar to the area that I represent -- were such that of the 910 units listed, only 109, or 12 per cent, were at the $50,000-level or less. Of these 109 units, only two, or 1.8 per cent, were actually houses. What the minister is saying is that if one happens to be an average family that has not got into the housing market yet, if one happens to be unfortunate enough to be young or for whatever reason has not bought yet, then one has only one option, and that is to buy either a townhouse or an apartment, but one will never stand a chance in Toronto of buying a detached home.

I say that is a form of ghettoizing people. That is a form of creating ghettos as rigid as if the minister was to take all of the poor people and say, "We are going to build massive government housing in one area and we are going to put you all over there and do not bother us." Ghettoizing of the rich in the downtown area and the middle and poor people in the suburbs is what is being done by this minister by his inaction.

In my riding there are foreign-owned companies and western Canadian companies that are buying up condominiums, both townhouses and apartment units. I had an interesting experience the other night when I called a real estate agent who is a friend of mine. Some people came into my constituency office and said that they had an unhappy break up of their marriage and needed an apartment. They asked if I knew of an apartment or had some suggestions since they would have quite a waiting time for Ontario Housing because their income happened to be in the $15,000 or $16,000 a year range and there were so many poorer people who were on the waiting list.

I called this friend and said to him, "I have a family here that needs a two-bedroom apartment." "No problem." he said. "If they have $425 a month, guarantee them I will get them a condominium two-bedroom apartment to rent." He said, "That is how I sell them now. I have a long waiting list of speculators in Vancouver and some of them even farther west than that or farther east as the case may be. It is foreign money. The way in which I sell these units now is that, first of all, I come up with somebody who is willing to sign at least a one-year lease and is willing to pay at least $425 for a two-bedroom. Then I call them up and say, 'I have got you a tenant.' They say, 'Fine, we will buy.'"

One must ask what that is going to do? What are those speculators going to do in another year or so? This real estate agent said, "It is very simple. They are in Toronto today. Tomorrow" -- tomorrow being perhaps next year or maybe only six months from now -- "they will be in Montreal. After that it will be either St. John's or Halifax. That is what they will do."

Very simply then what does that do to local people -- people living in Ontario? It decreases their possibility of ever owning a home. These people will leave and they will leave the people to whom they sell with high mortgages that they will be paying for the next 25 years at inflated prices for both rental and owned accommodation.

It also means that a tenant of one of those speculator-owned apartments is placed in double jeopardy. First, the condominium owners resent tenants in their building. The idea of a condominium is collective decision making, and tenants do not have that relationship, the same feeling of responsibility that an owner has. They are used to relating to a landlord whose responsibility is to do things for them, not to have a say in how the building is run.

Second, when the speculator sells the apartment, perhaps after two years at the most, the new owner, quite naturally, wants to take possession of the unit and the tenant must vacate according to the Landlord and Tenant Act. That is the kind of insensitive activity we shall see happening in those condominiums when the market peaks in about a year or perhaps even six months.

The Minister of Housing says that he is conducting a survey. One must ask what is he surveying, whom is he consulting and who prepared the questions? Tuesday night I attended the Etobicoke Condominium Association meeting and looked at the form that was being used by Condominium Ontario for its survey. My conclusion is that the ministry knows very well how to rig a survey. One must ask, again, who has the minister consulted in preparing this survey?

Mr. Cassidy: The developers.

Mr. Philip: Certainly it isn't the tenants because I checked with them. I asked if they had been consulted by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations or by the Minister of Housing in connection with the questionnaire that is being sent out. The answer is of course not. But one may be sure that the Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada, his friends the developers, are being consulted and that the questions will be put in such a way as to rationalize the kind of research or propaganda that the minister wants to collect.

It is one thing to understand the Minister of Housing in an intellectual way. It is another thing to understand in an emotional way what the Minister of Housing is all about. Those of us who sat on the standing committee on administration of justice saw the Minister of Housing at his worst. The greatest thing that could have happened for both the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party would have been to have taken the committee on the road so that as many tenants as possible could have met the Minister of Housing. That would have created more votes for us than anything both parties could have done for themselves.

Mr. Cassidy: He thinks he is going to be the Premier one day, but he is never going to make it.

Mr. Philip: I understand his mother wanted him to be the Premier.

One needed only to watch the minister operate in that committee. We sat for a number of weeks, getting ideas from the development industry, from tenant groups and from social planning organizations, all of which had excellent briefs. People had sweated a great deal, thought a great deal and presented some excellent and constructive proposals. One had only to talk to the staff of Ontario Housing Corporation to understand that. They admitted: "Yes, there are things that we didn't know about. We are sensitive to them now as a result of this inquiry."

The minister refused to be present himself or to allow his parliamentary assistant to attend the hearings. He said he wanted to appear only at the end of the hearings. One would have thought that at the very least he could have come in and said, as OHC officials said to me privately, "We would like to thank you for the work you have done. It has been of help to the ministry, and these are some of the ideas I agree with."

10:10 p.m.

He might at least have agreed with some of the ideas of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto, but he did not. He came in for an hour and a half and delivered apologetics of the worst kind. This is a minister who has no flexibility. Surely he could have accepted one or two out of the hundreds of excellent ideas this report contains on how to improve public housing and how to deliver it to the poor. The minister could find nothing to compliment. He spent all of his time defending the status quo.

When one meets with that kind of rigidity in a minister, one has a real problem. In private industry somebody like that would be considered untrainable and would be eased out of a management position. If one looks at the Blake and Mouton grid, which is often used in management training, he would be a 19 or a 91. I forget which as I have been out of the training business for a while. At the very least he could have found something he could have used. He could have been diplomatic and said, "I will consider ideas A, B, C or D," but he did not do that.

I would like to deal with some of the excellent proposals of the standing committee on administration of justice hearings on Ontario Housing. Members on that committee, such as the member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane) of the Conservative Party and the member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp) of the Liberal Party, for example, worked as a team. I think we came out with an excellent report. It is fairly evident by his response that the minister does not like it. None the less, some of the members on that side of the House are concerned about efficiency in management. They want Ontario Housing Corporation to run both efficiently and humanely.

One of the members from Etobicoke liked to talk a lot about efficiency when he was a controller. I did not always agree because most of the time I did not agree with his methods. None the less, I do agree with one basic point, and that is that inefficient government is not human. It is insensitive government. If we do not have efficiency, the people we are serving are the first to suffer. I think the new member for Humber (Mr. Kells),who replaced my friend John MacBeth, who was certainly a great man in this House, would at least agree with some of this.

From September to December 1980 the standing committee on administration of justice accepted representations from individual OHC tenants and from tenant associations on virtually every matter related to OHC. The hearings resulted in 119 recommendations, which are contained in this report. I hope we will have an evening to debate them. I do not have time tonight to go into them in detail, but I would like to cover a few of the key ideas.

I feel this report goes a long way towards addressing the major concerns raised by the tenants. Moreover, since the report deals with the issues of the expansion of public housing in opening up eligibility to all needy people, its impact extends to individuals and to families that at the present are not able to obtain housing assistance.

During the committee hearings one of the witnesses was an economist who, when he was a student, had been a resident of Ontario Housing. He said to me, "If you really want to understand what is happening in downtown Toronto among single people, all you have to do on a cold night" --

Mr. Nixon: Now you have my attention.

Mr. Philip: I think you have a different idea of what we are talking about.

He said: "If you really want to understand what is happening in the housing of single people" -- the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk has just gone back to sleep -- "you have only to go into the underground garages at city hall. There you will find, sleeping on the staircases, people who are regularly displaced by this city."

One interesting thing was that one night during the hearings we passed a bus shelter in which three women, about 50 or 55 years old, were huddled together, trying to sleep in the bus shelter. Surely that is not the kind of thing that should take place in a civilized city and province like Ontario.

Evidence before the committee indicated that current OHC waiting lists, for a number of reasons, do not accurately reflect the real demand for low and moderate income housing. In the first place, only families with dependent children, people over 60 and physically disabled people are eligible for Ontario Housing. Everyone else is automatically excluded even from putting his or her name on a waiting list.

We have single-nesters, people who are not 60 but whose children have left home, or individuals who may have come to this country or province or, indeed, may have grown up here but who, for some reason or other, find themselves without employment. They do not qualify for Ontario or any kind of government housing. Other people who have not applied for assisted housing include those people who are making do at present by renting at below average market rents or by spending less on other items, such as food, so as to pay for housing. Still others may not apply because the length of the waiting lists and the length of time it takes to be offered housing is so long.

The committee's answer to this problem was to recommend that the Minister of Housing (Mr. Bennett) and the Ontario Housing Corporation measure the total demand for assisted housing and then introduce a variety of programs to provide for the necessary housing. OHC just does not know how many people are in need of that kind of assistance. How can one possibly service a public when one does not know who that public is or how large its numbers are?

The matter of who is eligible for Ontario Housing was also addressed, with the committee concluding that eligibility should be based solely on need. Anyone, regardless of age, marital status, number of dependent children and so forth, would be eligible for rental assistance and people would get this assistance in order of need. The three groups of families, those with children, people over 60 and the physically handicapped, would, of course, continue to be eligible.

The committee also recommended that current tenants who no longer have dependent children, but who are not yet 60 years of age, be allowed to stay in public housing. The present policy is to try to get them to leave or to evict them.

The need for emergency housing also was an area we studied. The housing required on short notice because of marital break up, domestic violence, sudden financial crisis, eviction or demolition was another important issue. There is rarely a week in which I do not have one, two, three or four people who have no place to go come to my office.

The committee recommended OHC involve itself in the provision of emergency housing -- something it does not consider to be its mandate -- primarily through the use of housing allowances, but also by allocating empty units in hostels and so forth, particularly in the case of battered wives and their children.

Of particular interest to the current tenants of Ontario Housing are the committee's recommendations for transfer and eviction. One of the interesting things we found as we went around the province was that there seemed to be a great difference in how transfer policies were being implemented. For example, we feel tenants should have at least one transfer as a right. The Metropolitan Toronto Housing Company grants this. If seniors have the right to at least one transfer for their own personal reasons, why should people who are living in Ontario Housing have any less right.

It could be done -- and we suggested this -- so that as many transfers as may be needed after that should he allowed, provided the tenant is willing to assume any extra expense the corporation would be put to. As far as eviction is concerned, tenants should be given security of tenure by means of a one-year lease, and repair and repayment agreements should be used whenever possible to avoid eviction.

10:20 p.m.

What we have is kind of a difference in how things are handled in that case. I have a very good working relationship with Mrs. Niddrie who is, in my opinion, a good administrator of Ontario Housing in Metropolitan Toronto. I find that those people who happen to come to me, or those who perhaps come to another member, will get service because that comes to her attention. But I wonder how many thousands are out there, in my riding or in any other riding, who do not go to the MPP and do not get that kind of sympathetic treatment.

We feel that written reasons should be provided for both transfer and eviction decisions. Tenants should have a right to appear with counsel at housing authority board hearings on these matters and should also have the right to appeal to the board of the local housing authority and, from there, to the tenant appeal board, which each housing authority should establish within its jurisdiction.

Tenants would also be helped by recommendations dealing with vandalism and maintenance. Security patrols should be increased. It is interesting how we go about security. I pleaded with the Minister of Housing about three years ago to meet with a deputation of tenants from 75 Tandridge in my riding. It is a high-rise building where the security patrols have been taken off and where vandalism was increasing. I said that if the minister was not available he could appoint either a deputy minister or even somebody further down the line, but that these tenants wanted to share with them what was going on in the building. The minister refused to have any such meeting.

Then a year and a half later, with no security guards, headlines appeared: Racist Attack at 75 Tandridge, or some such thing. Those of us who know the building know it was not a racist attack, or at least the evidence we have suggests that it was not. It suggests that the person who was attacked happened to be East Indian, but it could have been anyone else in the building. It could have been me going in there to service a tenant or to see the manager. It could have been one of the many seniors who were in the building. It could have been anybody who was attacked.

I had told the minister, and the tenants had written to the minister saying there were people coming in from outside the area, from Mississauga and other areas. We said they were smoking up, they were boozing up, they were urinating and defecating in the hallways and they were creating a tremendous problem for the people in the building. For heaven's sake, we asked, "Listen to our problems and put in a security system."

The minister refused. But the moment it hit the headlines, boy, did we get security. Then it became a racial incident. Why does it have to be a racial incident to get a few guards in an Ontario Housing project? Surely the threat that some poor little old lady is going to be mugged is every bit as serious as the possibility that somebody from another country may be mugged or that I might be mugged.

The fact is that the minister has been very negligent in listening to those concerns of tenants. Vandalism has increased and security patrols have decreased. We cannot get a figure as to what exactly is being spent on security because it is part of a larger budget. We cannot even get figures on the exact cost of vandalism because they do not distinguish those repairs that are created through vandalism as compared with those repairs that are required through general maintenance and breakdown. Therefore, we do not know what the actual maintenance costs are in terms of vandalism.

How can one evaluate whether security systems and other systems are needed if one does not know what it is costing him at the other end? Maybe my background in business has taught me that in a corporation one looks at these things. Ontario Housing is a corporation and it should be as efficient as any other corporation. Surely that makes basic common sense.

Mr. Speaker: Are you at a convenient spot to stop?

Mr. Philip: Fine, I will do that, Mr. Speaker. If I can have two more minutes, and I believe that I have five minutes before adjournment, I would be happy to sum up.

Finally, the committee's recommendations reflect its concern with the question of whether or not tenants are able to make their views known to the management of OHC. We concluded that they could not and recommended, among other things, that each OHC project hold an annual meeting of tenants and project management for the purpose of discussing budget priorities; that each local housing authority board have an elected tenant representative; that each authority have annual meetings of tenants; and that the OHC board of directors and the Minister of Housing meet with the tenant representatives on a yearly basis.

The minister has refused tenant representation. The minority group on that committee, the minority from the Conservatives, refused to accept tenant representation. Perhaps that is just a sign of the arrogance of the minister. I would like to think so because I do not think the people from the Conservative Party who were on that committee were that arrogant. I suspect that they got their marching orders from the minister. Surely, in a democratic system, even from an efficient management point of view, it makes sense to have the tenants elect a representative. They are the ones who know what is going on. A yearly review of each project and a costing of each project would allow for more efficiency.

What is needed in the Ministry of Housing is a more flexible minister. What is needed is a new minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, before the House adjourns tonight, pursuant to standing order 13,1 would like to inform the members of the business of the House for the rest of this week and next week. Tomorrow morning, Monday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon and evening, next Thursday afternoon and evening and next Friday morning, we will continue this throne speech debate.

I might also say that since the motion setting up the personnel and the schedules of our standing committees was put and carried this afternoon the general schedule of meetings each week was approved. I would now just like to remind the House that the clerks will be calling the organizational meetings of the standing committees next week. Perhaps I could just indicate when those meetings will be.

On Monday, May 4, the social development committee will meet in the afternoon. On Wednesday, May 6, meetings of the general government and resources development committees will both be called in the morning. During the morning of Thursday, May 7, the public accounts, regulations and other statutory instruments and procedural affairs committees will hold their inaugural meetings, and then the administration of justice committee and the members' services committee will meet in the afternoon.

The House adjourned at 10:29 p.m.