Journal des débats 1981-juin-11 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Speaker: I just want to remind all honourable members that we will carry on with the question period; and 28 minutes has been used up of the original 60.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, as I was about to say just before I was rudely interrupted, I hope you have drawn attention to the lack of attendance of the ministers in question period. I hope you have suggested to them that five hours is surely not too much to expect them to attend in here.

I have a question for the Minister of Education --

Mr. Roy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Before we were so rudely interrupted by all the proceedings this afternoon, I think I was up on a supplementary, if you will recall.

Mr. Speaker: You indeed have the floor. Yes, there is no doubt of that. I thought maybe you were going to forgo that. This is the final supplementary, by the way.

Mr. Roy: That is right, Mr. Speaker; it was the final supplementary. I was very well prepared and my supplementary was to the minister who caused all the problems.

ASTRA/RE-MOR

Mr. Roy: If the minister has nothing to hide or cover up, as had been suggested earlier, why does he use his party's majority in committee to prevent further evidence to be brought forward on this Re-Mor matter? As my leader has suggested, if he is not prepared to use the committee system to investigate this matter, why has he not encouraged the government to set up a royal commission?

Finally, does the minister not feel he should give priority to protecting the citizens of this province against the wasting of their life savings, rather than protecting the government or civil servants if these people have been negligent?

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, I think the government has demonstrated good faith by the fact that these matters are before civil courts, that discussions are continuing between us and Ottawa and that we ourselves within the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations have taken a number of steps to attempt to rectify the situation that may have existed, imperfect though they may be. I think the fact we have been able to do that shows our good intentions.

I should use this moment to tell the honourable member some of the things we have done within our own ministry in terms of improving areas that we thought were not perfect -- areas we thought should be rectified from the point of view of making for a better registration and licensing system.

We now have much more extensive internal communications than we had before. This has been going on since last summer; so it has been in place a good 10 or 12 months now. We are holding many joint meetings now between the financial institutions branch, the business practices branch and the Ontario Securities Commission, which previously was not the case. We feel that we have tightened up in that regard and that things are better there now because of the internal communications.

We feel we have new systems in place for capturing potential problems and bringing them to the attention of top management and ensuring circulation wherever there is any kind of problem. So there is a lot of internal communication going on. We have much more frequent liaison with the police forces, and we find it is working well to turn up things and to share information. We have doubled our efforts in that regard. That has been going on since the spring of this year.

We have something called a supplementary information list, which is a special computerized list of people who might be considered problem people. This is circulated and updated on a daily basis. We have a much more extensive investigation process today. We feel that we have done an awful lot of things and, frankly, many of the things the member is suggesting are just not needed.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a new question that I want to direct to whichever minister is responsible for the Premier's office in the absence of the Premier (Mr. Davis), the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch) and the government House leader (Mr. Wells). If that minister will identify himself, I will ask my question.

Who is in charge?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Why don't you ask me?

Mr. Cassidy: The Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) says she is prepared to stand in for the Premier.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: No, I am not.

Mr. Cassidy: Oh, you are not?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: You said that.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: I am the deputy government House leader.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I will ask a question of the deputy government House leader in the absence of the Premier.

Can we have a commitment that, to make this Legislature work effectively, to ensure that the rights of all the representatives of the people of the province are respected and to ensure that the concerns of people who feel -- with justice, I believe -- that they have been wronged because of the government's treatment of the Re-Mor affair are answered, the government now will undertake to find a means by which this Legislature can continue its investigation of the Re-Mor affair?

Can we have an assurance that, before this Legislature dissolves into further wrangles such as the one that kept this question period going for six hours and six minutes, the government will ensure that the Legislature will be able to continue the investigation of the Re-Mor affair?

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, in so far as the Re-Mor matters are concerned, I think the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Walker) has answered those questions. I am not prepared to make a commitment on behalf of the Premier, but I do think that any sort of disappointment on behalf of the opposition concerning the actions in the House today has been caused by the opposition.

Mr. Cassidy: Since the government has used Mr. Mercer, who I understand is a researcher for the Conservative Party, to direct the Conservative members on the justice committee in their successful attempts so far to prevent the committee from pursuing investigations into the Re-Mor affair, since the efforts to have my motion for a continuation of that investigation were blocked systematically, and since the government has refused to have a judicial inquiry into the Re-Mor affair, is the government saying that it wants the kinds of things that have happened today to continue?

Alternatively, is the government prepared to co-operate with the opposition to find a way in which the Re-Mor affair can be pursued to a conclusion -- if there are findings, we can make them public; if the government is to be exonerated, it can be exonerated; if it is to be blamed, it can be blamed -- where we can get this matter sorted out without bringing the work of the entire Legislature to a perpetual halt?

Hon. Mr. Gregory: It seems to me that the leader of the third party is defining justice or nonobstruction as a willingness on the part of the government members to lie down and play dead. I believe that the members of the justice committee have been operating entirely in accord with the rules of this House. If the member requires information, then I expect the chairman of that committee will explain to him the rules of the House, if he does not understand them.

8:10 p.m.

I point out to the leader of the third party that no elected members of this House are under the direction of any staff member. Any directions that are given usually come by way of the Premier's office or the caucus office. The six members we have sitting on our committee have minds of their own, which is probably quite foreign to the members of the leader's own party. They are operating and behaving in accordance with their own conscience.

The member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) may well laugh. But how would he know, since he has never been here?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: The member has never been here. I occasionally go down there and pay a visit to the justice committee. I think if the member went down to the justice committee, they would not know who he was.

I would like to introduce the member for Ottawa East to my back-bench members, in case they have never met him. He only comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the minister address the question. please?

Hon Mr. Gregory: As I was saying to the leader of the third party before I was interrupted by the not-often-here member for Ottawa East, I can only assure the leader of the third party that the members of the justice committee have been behaving in accordance with the rules of this House. If he has anything to add to that, he is quite welcome to do so. I would like him to point out to me in what way the members of the Conservative caucus have misbehaved on that committee. To the best of my knowledge, they have totally behaved.

Mr. Bradley: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: The minister made reference to the fact that the member for Ottawa East was not present at the meetings. We were certainly pleased to see the chief government whip at the back of the room quarterbacking events within the committee.

My question to the minister is this: Does the minister not realize that not only is he forcing the Progressive Conservative members of the committee to acquiesce to the wishes of certain cabinet ministers that this matter be kept under wraps, but he is also making them active accomplices --

Mr. Roy: Cover-up is what it is called.

Mr. Bradley: -- in the cover-up that has been taking place for the past several months? Does he not realize as well that as a result of the tactics employed yesterday in the justice committee, the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) was prevented from asking the kind of questions that he wanted to ask on that vote as well?

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, I am flattered that the member for St. Catharines noticed that I took time to attend the odd justice committee meeting, which I found to be the best comedy show in town. I like to go down there once in a while when I am feeling blue to get a laugh or two, and the member certainly provides it.

As far as the member for Cochrane North is concerned -- he is one of my whips, as a matter of fact: the member might want to find fault with him because of that too -- he has never been instructed to not ask any questions. Certainly it has been my policy as the whip to encourage the members to take ministers by surprise by asking them questions. I am sure that if the ministers can handle questions from our back-benchers, they can certainly handle them from the opposition members.

Mr. Swart: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Recognizing that at least the members on this side of the House feel one of the main functions of the committee ought to be to ensure that there is going to be compensation for the victims of Re-Mor, and recognizing that the Premier said on several occasions during the election that the government would compensate the victims if legal negligence were proved, I am sure the member is aware from the time that he has sat in the committee that there is no forum or no court at this time to determine whether there is legal negligence on the part of the government.

What does the minister think his government should do now to determine that legal negligence? Does he not think his time would be better spent trying to find a way to do it rather than sitting in that committee whipping his back-benchers into line?

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, the member for Welland-Thorold may find some reason to ridicule the whip of the government party. I can only assure him that I am doing my job. I wish he would do his job as well.

I think the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations has answered the honourable member's questions. If it is the member's intent to ridicule me because I am doing my job as the whip, perhaps the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. Cooke) or the member for Wellington South (Mr. Worton) can explain to him what the job of whip is, as he obviously does not understand. And if he is expecting an apology from me for doing my job as the whip, then I am afraid he is going to have to wait a while.

CENTENNIAL COLLEGE

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Colleges and Universities with respect to Centennial College, which has fired 47 of its 294 workers in the unit of the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union and whose labour practices are so unfair that it has now led the president of OPSEU, the president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, the secretary of the OFL and the president of the Metro Labour Council, in addition to two of the workers involved, to sit in the president's office.

In view of the fact that Centennial College has decided to put workers, some of whom have 10 and 15 years of experience, out in the street as a consequence of its decision to contract out, will the minister indicate that the government is opposed to that kind of unsavoury labour practice and will the minister intervene to save the jobs of the workers who have now been given layoff notices?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the decision that was taken in the instance of Centennial College was entirely that of the board of governors of the college. As a matter of fact, we intervened in the matter about 10 days ago and have convened meetings, which are being held even now, in an attempt to find a resolution to the problem that will relieve some of the concerns expressed by the leader of the third party and certainly by those who have been employed by the college.

Mr. Cassidy: Will the minister indicate whether she believes the practice at Centennial of putting people out into the street after many years of service is an acceptable one? Does she not agree with the New Democrats that it is an unsavoury practice that should not be encouraged or condoned in Ontario?

In particular, since Centennial College is financed from provincial funding, since the labour agreements in force at Centennial are negotiated by the council of regents, which is a provincial agency, and since the workers there are almost all over the age of 40 and some of them will be condemned for the rest of their working lives to either poor jobs or no jobs as a consequence of this decision, will the minister indicate that the government will use its powers through the council of regents to tell the community colleges that this kind of labour practice is unacceptable and must stop?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I believe the leader of the third party is attempting to suggest that, in the midst of labour-management negotiations that are going on throughout the college system, I should make a statement about contracting out, its rightness or its invalidity, in terms of the function of community colleges.

I do not intend to do that, nor will I do that at this point. All I will reiterate is that the council of regents, through the instigation of the minister's office, has been attempting to assist in the negotiations at Centennial College specifically and to maintain the negotiations that are going on throughout the entire college system.

8:20 p.m.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister used to be the Minister of Labour. She is now the Minister of Colleges and Universities. Can I give her one of the cases of the workers affected? Mr. Kovacs, aged 60, a man who has been with Centennial for 15 years, now is being offered an early retirement at $200 a month because the college has decided to contract out.

Answering yes or no, does the minister consider that to be acceptable behaviour on the part of Centennial College, or does she believe that it is unacceptable behaviour and should not be allowed?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: The leader of the third party knows very well that one could not answer that question with a yes or no, nor will I attempt to.

ASTRA/RE-MOR

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations that relates to several Hansards in the past. It concerns the allegations published in Bimonthly Reports, which in summary had pointed to a record of consistent failures on the part of the Ontario Securities Commission with regard to the Astra/Re-Mor affair.

The minister will recall that we first brought the matter to his attention on April 30, fully six weeks ago today. We also sought an answer from him on May 11 and on May 19. Today is June 11. Does the minister have an answer to these allegations? If not, why not?

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, I responded on May 11, I believe it was, to a question posed by the honourable member's leader. The response I gave was that in due course, once the Ontario Securities Commission had responded, I would share the information with the members. Do not expect me to respond to the actual allegations made; the Ontario Securities Commission would be the appropriate party to respond in this case.

I said that, as soon as I had the response from the Ontario Securities Commission, I would share it with the members. I said the Ontario Securities Commission "in due course, I am sure, will have a response for the honourable member. I will be glad to provide that response once the moment arrives and it arrives." That has been my position throughout. It is not that I have been delaying the answer.

The Ontario Securities Commission have not as yet responded fully to the allegations. There were pages and pages of allegations, which I described in a certain way one day when they posed the question; they are filled with a number of varying kinds of half-truths, part truths, whole truths, in some cases inaccuracies and in others, accuracies.

The newspaper document on which the honourable member based some comments is being evaluated by the Ontario Securities Commission. I suppose they are doing it in reflection of the fact that there are civil and criminal proceedings and, cognizant of those, they will respond in due course such that I hope will not jeopardize the cases that are before the courts.

Mr. Bradley: Does the minister not agree that six weeks is a fair amount of time to allow the Ontario Securities Commission to reply to these allegations through the minister to the House? Does the minister not take responsibility for the Ontario Securities Commission, as it comes under his ministry, even though on many occasions, particularly earlier in the year, it tried to deny that it had anything to do with his ministry, and that was perhaps understandable.

Will the minister not agree that six weeks is a rather long time to answer allegations of this kind, which are very important? Will he not agree that the Ontario Securities Commission should be more than happy to clear itself, if indeed it is clear, of the charges that have been made in this House through that publication?

Hon. Mr. Walker: I will certainly bring to their attention tomorrow that it has been some six weeks and that the member is anxious to have a letter or a response to it. I will see that is brought to their attention, without question.

Mr. Speaker: A new question; Mr. Di Santo.

Mr. Di Santo: No, thank you. Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: A new question; Mr. Breaugh.

Mr. Eaton: He has been trying to get a question for two weeks.

Mr. Breaugh: The rump is rising over there. I think it is passing gas.

OMC EVICTIONS

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Housing concerning a project owned by the Ontario Mortgage Corporation in Oshawa and known as Briar Gate II at 1333 and 1331 Mary Street North.

Can the minister explain to the House why the Ontario Mortgage Corporation now is in the process of evicting tenants to facilitate its own efforts to profit from speculation in the housing market?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, excuse me, I did not hear the last part of the question.

Mr. Breaugh: Can the minister explain why the Ontario Mortgage Corporation now is in the process of evicting tenants from the Briar Gate II project in Oshawa to facilitate its own efforts to profit from speculation in the housing market in Oshawa?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, it is rather interesting that this question comes from the member for Oshawa. Just a week or so ago he was questioning why Ontario Mortgage Corporation and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation were trying to dispose of some of their units and asking for unusual prices and allowing people to make certain profits.

Very clearly, most of the units that OMC happens to be renting at this time are from contractors who took mortgages with the corporation and for one reason or another had to forfeit them because they were unable to sell the units, and as a result they became the property of the OMC.

When we put these units on the market for sale, our tenants were given the opportunity to purchase them. I think the member for Oshawa will attest to the fact that some of the tenants exercised that opportunity to purchase units at rather realistic prices and at a very realistic mortgage rate in relation to mortgage rates on the market today.

I do not know the specifics or the individuals in the case mentioned by the member, but I will be delighted to review the specific addresses and apartment units if he wishes to supply them to me. I will find out whether those individuals were given the opportunity to buy the units. To the best of my knowledge, they were given that opportunity and likely did not exercise it.

Mr. Breaugh: In his response, the minister begs for a little argument, but I will forgo that for now.

Will the minister explain to us why he was begging people more than a year ago to become tenants in these particular units, and now he is serving them with notices under the Landlord and Tenant Act to get out, never mind offering them a chance to purchase? More than a year ago he was dying for people to go into these units and rent them. Now he is booting them out. Why is he doing that?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: The member likes to use a very interesting vocabulary, "booting them out." The OMC is not any different, I believe, from any other financial institution. We try to facilitate the opportunity for people to purchase units at a realistic interest rate -- very much so.

If the member wants to give me the facts and figures about the individuals he is speaking of tonight, and attests to the fact that they have not been offered the opportunity to purchase the units with an interest rate of something like 10 1/2 per cent interest, which I think is rather a favourable position in today's market, then I will be delighted to look into it.

But I want to make it very clear that it is has not been the OMC's intention to boot anyone out. While we looked for tenants because the units were vacant, it was indicated very clearly that when the market conditions were such, they would be offered to them for sale.

The units were offered to them for sale at the time they were put up for rental, and there were no takers, because the market did not indicate that the prices we were asking were fair and legitimate prices in relation to the cost of construction and the cost of the mortgage we had on them. While they did not take them, a number of people have indicated clearly over the last number of months that they are interested in buying those units. We offered them for sale, and the tenants in the building were offered the first opportunity and the first right of refusal.

Mr. Breaugh: If the minister wants specifics, here is one for apartment unit number 33, at 1333 Mary Street North. It is a form 2 under the Landlord and Tenant Act, and under "Particulars" it says the landlord is offering the aforesaid condominium unit for sale and requires vacant possession. That is pretty damned close to booting people out in the street.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: No, it is not close to booting people out in the street, not at all, and the member knows very well it is not.

It is interesting to see the member sitting there and criticizing. He is the same fellow who was criticizing a week ago because CMHC offered some units for sale in his community and in the city of London. He criticized them for the price they were charging and said there was favouritism played in that deal.

I want to say to the member for Oshawa that he knows very well there was no favouritism, because those units were advertised on a rather wide basis for availability, first to the tenants and second to the market. He cannot talk about favouritism when something is advertised in the Globe and Mail and two or three of the other national newspapers.

We are not booting our tenants out, nor do we intend to boot them out. We offered them the first opportunity to purchase. The building is a condominium building. Condominiums were never intended, as the member for Oshawa well knows, to get into the rental operation: but because of an adverse market situation, that is what happened to them. When the market turned around, OMC tried to sell the units, as private individuals and private corporations have done.

In most cases, and I repeat again in this House --

Mr. Foulds: So you are going to sell them in a block.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: The member can shake his head, but he should make sure it does not fall off. I say very clearly that the opportunity was offered to the tenants to buy those units.

8:30 p.m.

INTEREST RATES

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Housing. Given the fact that the central bank rate was 19.1 per cent a week ago and it has now dropped 0.03 per cent to 19.07 per cent; given the fact there are many prospective home owners in this province who could very well use some assistance from the province to purchase homes, because they are inclined to purchase homes; and given the fact that seven provinces in Canada give assistance to home owners for purchasing homes, including Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia; and given the present interest rates, what is the Ontario government prepared to do for prospective home buyers in Ontario to purchase homes?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, we have an interest rate that is, I suppose, perpetrated upon us by the federal government.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I expected that. I trust that the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy), who spends a little bit of time in the city of Ottawa, will appreciate that interest rates are really a national subject and are not set by individual provinces. As long as he gets that understanding, he will be pretty well set to understand what goes on in the mortgage market in this country.

I have said clearly that when one starts tampering, trying to change the interest rate factors relating --

Mr. Roy: Not too fast, Mr. Minister.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: The member should not worry; it would not take very much to keep up to him.

Mr. Speaker: Just address yourself to the question, Mr. Minister.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I would never shake a finger at him; that is his leader's way of doing things. He forgets there is a nail on the end of it.

I say very clearly to the member who asked the question that once one starts --

Mr. Kerrio: The Tories are heartless.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: If the Tories in Ontario are heartless, the supreme leader has to be the Liberals in Ottawa.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Minister, will you please ignore the interjections and answer the question?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to ignore those interjections when they have some degree of -- no, I will not say it.

Mr. Roy: Answer the question.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Yes, I will. I have said very clearly, and I will repeat here again tonight, that once we start into the field of trying to subsidize or support --

Mr. Breithaupt: Seven other provinces, including --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Will the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt) please just sit and listen for a moment and not cause the same confusion tonight as was tried this afternoon?

Once one starts to get involved in trying to support or falsify interest rates, and that is what we achieved through the assisted home ownership program and a few others --

An hon. member: Oh, oh!

Hon. Mr. Bennett: The member says, "Oh, oh." That is exactly what we did; we wrote them down and put people into a false position of security. Frankly, it is fine to talk about what British Columbia and a few of the other provinces are doing. They have very limited programs -- some of them to the point where they are talking about 600 units in a province. Specifically, what they are talking about in New Brunswick is 600 units.

British Columbia talked about a program that went out of existence on June 1 of the current year, and it related only to certain units. They had a composition in the building materials of a certain percentage of BC lumber that was used in those particular units. There are a number of reasons or qualifications for provincial government support in some of those programs.

I have said very clearly to my government, I have suggested to the Chairman of Management Board (Mr. McCague), the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) that if we are about to start interfering with interest rates -- I trust we are talking not only about new units but also about people renewing mortgages, who could come to us with the same song and dance, that they are having difficulty, and understandably so --

Mr. Cassidy: Song and dance?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I said exactly that. They come with an indication that they have a problem --

Mr. Cassidy: I don't believe it.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Will the member for Ottawa Centre sit down for a minute? He has a unit in Ottawa Centre too that could be looked at from a value point of view.

Mr. Speaker: Will the minister get back to answering the question?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, if we are about to get involved in writing down interest rates, I do not think this government could afford the type of thing the member is asking about. I am not about to suggest it, because I believe it is a further falsification and offering a false sense of security to some property owners or purchasers for the future. That, I think, will put us into the same position we are in with some of the assisted home ownership program units today, where they are facing extreme difficulties and giving up their units.

REPORT

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

Mr. Treleaven, from the standing committee on administration of justice, reported the following resolution:

That supply in the following amounts and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of the Solicitor General be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1982:

Ministry administration program, $3,067,000; public safety program, $11,077,000; supervision of police forces program, $7,703,000; Ontario Provincial Police management and support services program, $29,970,000; operations program, $108,091,000.

MOTION

HOUSE SITTINGS

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that the House be authorized to sit the afternoon of Wednesday, June 17, 1981, at 2 p.m.

Motion agreed to.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Walker, on behalf of Hon. Mr. McMurtry, seconded by Hon. Mr. Drea, moved first reading of Bill 104, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, the bill would remedy a problem that has arisen recently with respect to the driver improvement program in Metropolitan Toronto. The program is intended to allow a person convicted of certain driving offences to receive a lower fine if he attends a driver improvement course.

Until recently the practice of the courts was to impose the suspended fine at the time of conviction on the condition the person attend the course. The Court of Appeal, however, has ruled the language of the existing legislation requires that the fine not be imposed until after the course has been attended. This means the defendant must appear in court twice -- once to be convicted and once to be sentenced.

Requiring a second court appearance is an unnecessary and time-consuming step that causes great inconvenience to a citizen. The purpose of this bill is to eliminate the need for a second court appearance. It will allow the courts to return to their previous practice of imposing a suspended fine at the time of conviction.

I trust all members of the House will join in giving quick approval of this bill.

JUDICATURE AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Walker, on behalf of Hon. Mr. McMurtry, seconded by Hon. Mr. Drea, moved first reading of Bill 105, An Act to amend the Judicature Act.

Motion agreed to.

8:40 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, this bill has two purposes. First, it permits one additional judge to be appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. An additional judge is necessary to cope with the court's steadily increasing case load.

Mr. G. W. Taylor: There's a job for you, Albert. But are you available daily?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Walker: This is a Monday and Friday bill, so it would be a conflict. Secondly, and more seriously, the bill allows the government to fix the number of judges in the High Court by regulation. This will enable the government to respond more quickly to changes in the court's requirements. Both of these changes are intended to increase the efficiency of the Supreme Court of Ontario. I trust that all members of the House approve this objective and will give quick approval to the bill.

COUNTY COURTS AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Walker, on behalf of Hon. Mr. McMurtry, seconded by Hon. Mr. Drea, moved first reading of Bill 106, An Act to amend the County Courts Act, 1981.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, the County Courts Amendment Act, 1981, would increase the monetary jurisdiction of the county and district courts. The last increase took place in 1970 when the limit was set at $7,500. A new limit of $15,000 would reflect the 1981 economic significance of the previous limit. Increasing the jurisdiction of the county courts will result in faster service for litigants, particularly outside Toronto, since it will enable county court judges to hear some cases that would otherwise be brought in Supreme Court. I trust that all members of the House will approve this objective.

POLICE AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Walker, on behalf of Hon. Mr. McMurtry, seconded by Hon. Mr. Drea, moved first reading of Bill 107, An Act to amend the Police Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, the act to amend the Police Act is basically similar to the act that was introduced once before in this House and the statement given at that time will be applicable today.

PARKING FACILITIES FOR THE HANDICAPPED ACT

Mr. Kennedy moved, seconded by Mr. Lane, first reading of Bill 108, An Act to provide Parking Facilities for Physically Handicapped Persons.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Kennedy: Mr. Speaker, this bill is a reintroduction of a bill, the purpose of which is to ensure that parking facilities are made available to physically handicapped persons across Ontario.

ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Kolyn moved, seconded by Mr. Harris, first reading of Bill 109, An Act to amend the Assessment Act.

Mr. Epp: Where is Mr. Harris?

Mr. Conway: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I am sure the member for Lakeshore would like to have one of his colleagues here present second his very good motion.

Mr. Epp: Get Lorne Henderson.

Mr. Barlow: I will second it.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Kolyn moves, seconded by Mr. Barlow, that leave be given to introduce a bill entitled An Act to amend the Assessment Act and that the same be read the first time.

Motion agreed to.

CONDOMINIUM PROPERTY MANAGEMENT FIRMS ACT

Mr. Kolyn: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by Mr. George Taylor, that leave be given to introduce a bill entitled an Act to register Condominium Property Management Firms and that the same be now read for the first time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make an explanatory note on the first bill. I would like to change that to Mr. George Taylor seconding my motion.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Kolyn moves, seconded by Mr. Taylor, that leave be given to introduce a bill entitled --

Mr. Foulds: He is not in his seat.

Mr. Speaker: There is nothing in the standing orders that says he has to be in his seat.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, anybody has to be in his seat to participate in the proceedings of this House. The Clerk of the House has been coaching all along on that very subject. If he wants to change the rules to accommodate the people over there, let it be on his head. He has been getting away with murder for a long time here. He is the one who got the Speaker into trouble this afternoon.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Kolyn moves, seconded by Mr. Taylor, that leave be given to introduce a bill entitled An Act to register Condominium Property Management Firms and that the same be now read the first time.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: I just want to make it clear that was Mr. Taylor from Simcoe Centre.

Mr. Foulds: He is in his seat now. Has he ever heard of the rules of the House? Those guys just think it is a big joke.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PERSONAL PROPERTY SECURITY AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Walker moved second reading of Bill 20, An Act to amend the Personal Property Security Act.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, we have no objection to this bill. I accept the comments of the minister when he introduced the bill and the more detailed explanatory remarks which have been submitted with the bill. However, I had a question to raise on this bill and I contacted some of his staff. It pertains to whether there should not be a reciprocal clause in the Corporation Securities Registration Act.

The purpose of this bill, as I understand it, is to implement a policy whereby action taken under the Corporation Securities Registration Act which should have been taken under the Personal Property Security Act is not null and void. There is some real overlapping between the two. I appreciate this, but this bill before us goes only one way. It only eliminates that overlapping in one direction. Therefore, there should also be a clause which would cover the Corporation Securities Registration Act so that any legislation passed under it would not be null and void because it had been passed under the wrong act.

I was told by the staff there would be an amendment brought forward to implement that reciprocal arrangement. I do not know where the minister is, but I am wondering if he is prepared to submit that or if he has any comments on it at this time. I would think we should have that information before we give second reading to this bill.

8:50 p.m.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, this bill has come forward this evening suddenly, but we were aware of the need to have this amendment brought in so that there would not be confusion with respect to registration of one item under the wrong statute, which might cause a lack of security for those involved. We certainly have no objection to this bill passing promptly.

I would also like to hear the response with respect to the question raised by the member for Welland-Thorold as to whether it is necessary to have a companion amendment to protect registration under the other statutes in the same form as in this circumstance.

The Deputy Speaker: Any further discussion?

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to speak on the bill, but who is piloting it through the House for the government?

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Foulds, that is a very interesting question. I am under the impression it is the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Walker).

Mr. Swart: He introduced it.

The Deputy Speaker: Oh, it is the member for Carleton (Mr. Mitchell).

Mr. Foulds: As parliamentary assistant, he is piloting the bill through the House.

Mr. Breithaupt: It is always nice to know.

The Deputy Speaker: Do we have any further discussion? No further discussion. The member for Carleton, as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

Mr. Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, if I may, the honourable Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations in his statements on first introduction pointed out that there are at present two provincial regulatory statutes applying to security interest. One is the Personal Property Security Act and the other the Corporation Securities Registration Act. Each act has its own registration and this has created some ambiguity in the courts and even recent judicial decisions have not been able to clarify the situation. In fact lawyers have had difficulty determining under which act they should register security documents. In some cases, documents have been filed under the incorrect act.

This particular bill is a Band-Aid treatment, as has been stated by the minister on his first presentation, because it is fully intended that a rewrite will be accomplished by July 1982, which I suppose will have the effect of combining both acts. But this bill effectively will recognize that registration under one act will be recognized as being registration under both.

Mr. Swart: You did not answer the question.

Mr. Mitchell: I am sorry. I may have missed the question.

The Deputy Speaker: Since we are trying to get back together here, Mr. Swart had one question and we will allow the parliamentary assistant to respond.

Mr. Swart: Does there not need to be a companion clause under the Corporation Securities Registration Act if we are going to eliminate completely this invalidity of certain registrations?

Mr. Mitchell: I am assured it does not. It would be very nice to tidy it up. There could be one final little amendment line, but it is not going to affect the gist of this bill. What the member has been talking about is correct, but it is not absolutely necessary to make sure --

Mr. Swart: But it still leaves a gap.

Mr. Mitchell: No, it recognizes that a document registered under either is considered to be registered.

Motion agreed to.

Ordered for third reading.

ONTARIO UNCONDITIONAL GRANTS AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Rotenberg, on behalf of Hon. Mr. Wells, moved second reading of Bill 69, The Ontario Unconditional Grants Amendment Act, 1981.

Mr. Rotenberg: The primary purpose of Bill 69 is to implement the revised municipal grant payments and apportionment procedures which were announced by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) in January 1981.

A secondary purpose is to change terminology which created compliance problems for some municipalities.

The proposed amendments will minimize the shift in tax burden between various municipalities which would otherwise occur as a result of the new equalization factors. They will also provide increased funding to those municipalities experiencing the greatest financial pressures while protecting the financial position of those municipalities which would otherwise be adversely affected by the revised programs.

In summary, the bill proposes: To make reference to "the latest returned assessment roll" instead of "the last revised assessment roll;" to increase the police grant by $2 per capita; to provide for the use of the 1979 equalization factors for equalizing merged area assessments for cost-sharing purposes in those municipalities not yet having undergone a section 86 reassessment; to make changes to the resource equalization grant procedures; to exclude the resource equalization grant equivalent assessment for apportionment purposes except in the cases of district homes for the aged and district welfare boards; and to reinstate provisions for regulations regarding alternative apportionment methods and the payment of apportionment guarantee grants.

These proposed changes have been formulated in consultation with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Association of Counties and Regions of Ontario and the Rural Ontario Municipal Association.

I realize this is a somewhat complex bill and I am pleased that our staff were able to give some briefing to the opposition critics. However, because of the complexity of the bill, I feel I should give some details of the various aspects of the act.

At present the act makes reference to "last revised assessment roll." The revised assessment roll is not available until all appeals have been determined, which in the case of a large municipality or in municipalities undergoing a section 86 reassessment may be some years. The last returned assessment roll is thus the most current, up-to-date roll and is in fact the roll that is equalized by the Ministry of Revenue.

Municipalities now apportion costs and determine levies based on the last returned assessment roll. Therefore the change in the act changing the word "revised" to "returned" will rectify and assist in compliance problems with municipalities.

The per capita police rates are in sections 2,3 and 4 of the bill. On January 22, 1981, the government announced the $2 increase in the police per capita grants, bringing the rates to $17 where a regional police force exists and to $12 for municipalities having their own police force or wholly under contract to the Ontario Provincial Police. The proposed amendment will assist municipalities to cope with rapid increases in police costs.

The $2 increase in the police per capita grant rates contained in the bill will mean a 20 per cent increase in the grants to municipalities providing their own police force or under the OPP and a 13 per cent increase to regional municipalities having a regional force.

I now turn to cost sharing in municipalities with merged areas, which is section 6 of the bill. In some regions where merged areas exist within an area municipality, a further cost sharing within that municipality of the regional levy is now being done to take account of different assessment levels in different parts of the merged area. The use of new equalization factors for cost sharing among merged areas would cause further tax shifts.

The proposed amendment in this bill provides for the use of the frozen equalization factors -- that is, those in use prior to 1980 -- for the sharing of costs only among merged areas until section 86 is implemented. This will ensure that merged areas will experience tax shifts only once when they implement section 86 and not twice -- that is, when the new factors are brought in and then again when section 86 is implemented.

9 p.m.

Section 7 of the bill deals with resource equalization grants. A number of changes are proposed to accommodate the use of new equalization factors for grants and cost sharing without causing abrupt changes in municipal taxes. The bill provides that the grants and apportionment formulas be in regulation while these changes are being phased in. The application of the updated equalization factors brings local assessment values in total to a rough equivalent of market value.

In actual practice, municipalities raise on average only half the tax on residential properties as they do on commercial properties of equal market value. The bill proposes to modify the resource equalization grant formula by discounting residential assessment to more accurately reflect actual assessment practices in municipalities around the province. Without this discount, there would be significant shifts in the grant from mainly residential areas towards municipalities with higher proportions of commercial assessment. I think we would all agree that the purpose of grants is not to make these kinds of shifts.

The bill also includes a limit on the amount of resource equalization grant increase. For 1981, each municipality will be limited to an increase by regulation of $7 per capita above the 1980 regulation. This has already been announced by the minister and has already been discussed with the municipalities, as I indicated.

In 1980, the limit increase was $10 per capita. As a result, the cumulative effect of these two years has been to permit an increase in the resource equalization grants of $17 per capita since 1979.

The bill would also allow the payment of protection grants to municipalities which would otherwise experience reductions in their grants due to the new formula and the unfreezing of the equalization factors. In short, we will ensure that no municipality will receive less in resource equalization grants in 1981 than in 1980 as a result of this program.

The treatment of the region or county share of the lower tier municipality's resource equalization grant payments for cost sharing purposes are to be simplified. Previously, the resource equalization grant of a lower tier municipality was converted to assessment and included in calculating that municipality's share of county or regional costs. The lower tier municipality receiving a resource equalization grant, therefore, increased its share of shared upper tier costs, and this was offset by subtracting the resource equalization grant for upper tier purposes from the specific lower tier municipality's levy.

This bill will require the region or county to treat the portion of the resource equalization grant paid to it as general revenue of the upper tier and at the same time the grant received by the lower tier municipality will no longer be converted to assessment to determine that municipality's share of regional or county costs.

This will simplify the apportionment calculation and result in minimal effects on municipalities. The only sharing of costs which will not be simplified will be those involving district welfare boards and district homes for the aged in northern Ontario. In these cases, the absence of an upper tier level of local government precludes the implementation of the changes and, therefore, the mechanism currently in force will be retained.

The bill further provides for regulations similar to those in last year's bill to provide for the cost-sharing system in counties or regions. Previously, these were specified in the municipal act and separately in each regional act, but the provision in those acts, combined with the new equalization factors, would cause too great a shift in tax burdens in most cases. These methods of cost sharing will provide for discounting residential assessment within each county or region. The bill will also allow the payment of protection grants to ensure that no municipality will incur a tax increase as a result of the alternative methods.

In summary, measures contained in the bill coincide with our policy of maintaining adequate indicators of municipalities' resource capacity through the use of new equalization factors and residential assessment discount and will help to alleviate financial pressures being experienced by municipalities. As I indicated previously, the proposed changes have been formulated in consultation with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Rural Ontario Municipal Association and the Association of Counties and Regions of Ontario.

I commend this bill to the House and ask for its adoption.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the parliamentary assistant for making so much sense and for clarifying for the whole House -- because I noticed that everybody in here was so attentive and listened to every word he said -- and putting in simple terms this very complicated subject.

I am sure that if I asked him to repeat that in his own words he could do it. But this afternoon in about five minutes he decided to write down exactly what he read now.

I am trying to be a little facetious. The point I am trying to make is that every year, year after year, in this House we keep getting back bills to simplify resource equalization grants, transfer payments to municipalities, police grants and everything else, and every year the ministry makes it more complicated not only for their own personnel but also for the members of this Legislature. Even more important, they make it more complicated for the people of Ontario; so they do not know what the hell is going on in the province with respect to transfer payments to municipalities.

I doubt very much -- and I say this in all sincerity -- whether there are 10 people in this province who actually understand what is going on in that ministry, including the parliamentary assistant; because as I say, with all due respect, I bet he could not tell us in simple terms what is going on and the kinds of things he has just been saying.

The ministry has an obligation to get off its backside one of these years and start rectifying the complicated system it has developed over the last 150 years. The people of Ontario do not understand it, and they should try to understand it; but they cannot, because the more complicated it gets the more remote the people get from what is happening there.

I am getting more and more upset every year because of what is going on. I have asked them personally and I have asked them at meetings to try to straighten this whole mess out.

They have got us into a mess over the years: freezing factors, unfreezing factors; transfer payments to some municipalities and not to other municipalities; resource equalization grants at some levels to some municipalities and at other levels to other municipalities; police grants at $12 to some municipalities and at $17 to other municipalities. The kinds of things they are doing make no real sense.

Let us look, for example, at the state they got themselves into a few years ago. They proposed that a committee investigate assessment reform in the province. They had the Smith committee, which was established in 1965 and brought in a report in 1967. They had committee after committee study it, and they spent millions and millions of dollars of taxpayers' money to try to rectify the situation.

When they finally got what they thought was a meaningful formula to correct it they then sacked the whole program the day after proposition 13 was defeated in California; they threw away millions of dollars of research and studies and everything else, and decided they were not going to have any reform.

The situation became so acute, particularly in Cambridge, a neighbouring community, that people in one area whose properties had a market value of $60,000 were paying $800 in property taxes, while people in another area of the same municipality whose properties had a market value of approximately $60,000 were paying perhaps $1,600 in taxes. I am sorry the member for Cambridge (Mr. Barlow) is not here -- unless he is in the wrong seat; no, I do not see him there. He knows the kinds of problems they had in Cambridge.

The people got so upset that finally they had to bring in section 86, which then equalized assessments within categories. This was the initial project to try to rectify similar discrepancies across the province.

By now about 100 or 135 municipalities have adopted section 86, but there are still a lot that have not. My own municipality of Waterloo, which I would say is one of the finest municipalities in this province and in this country -- and the ministry knows it -- still has not adopted section 86 for various reasons, despite the fact that all of the six other municipalities in the same region have adopted section 86.

9:10 p.m.

Let us look at one of the other things. Let us look at the police grants they propose. I am not going to speak very long on this, because a number of other people want to speak. For years the police grants were $10 and $15. Municipalities that were nonregionalized -- cities like London, Windsor, Kingston and others as well as the small municipalities of 500, 1,000, 2.000 or 3.000 people -- were all treated to the same $10 per capita grant from the province.

Those municipalities that went along with having a region -- Waterloo and Kitchener et cetera did not have any alternative, because the government imposed it on them -- such as St. Catharines, Hamilton, Oshawa, Ottawa, Sudbury, Halton, Peel, Haldimand, Norfolk and what have you, got a little bonus. They got $15 on a per capita basis. It was quite obvious. They had to get $15, because to impose the whole additional cost on a local municipality would have been completely unacceptable. They would have had revolts. They would have had more than one municipality like St. Catharines asking for a private member's bill.

As a result of that, they gave them $15 on a per capita basis to kind of buy them off, so to speak. Things were smouldering, but they did not explode.

An. hon. member: Except Ottawa.

Mr. Epp: Except Ottawa. In the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, they kept their own police forces in their own municipalities.

Mr. Bradley: They were smart.

Mr. Epp: They were smart, as the member for St. Catharines clearly knows.

Mr. Roy: But they are being punished.

Mr. Epp: They are being punished. They certainly do not get the kind of grants that other regional municipalities do.

As a result, this discrepancy between regional and nonregional municipalities has continued. This year the government is making it $17 for regional municipalities and $12 for nonregional municipalities.

I wish somebody would tell me -- nobody of the 69 members over there has been able to explain it -- why London, Windsor, Kingston or hundreds of the other 830 or so municipalities across the province that are nonregionalized deserve to be treated less equally than the regionalized areas of Waterloo, Oshawa, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland.

Even Brampton gets $17, but the city of London gets $12. What has the present government got against the city that the former Premier represented?

Mr. Piché: That is going to change.

Mr. Epp: Does the member mean he is going to move back?

Mr. Piché: The justice committee is going to make sure it changes.

Mr. Epp: They are going to give it a different name? How are they going to change it?

Mr. Breaugh: René, this is not what you said in committee yesterday.

Mr. Piché: You were not there; you walked out.

Mr. Epp: What have they got against the nonregional municipalities? Why does the city of Welland, for instance, need more money to have its police force than the city of Windsor?

Mr. Swart: Why should Windsor get less?

Mr. Epp: Why should Windsor get less? The member for Welland-Thorold is completely right on this count. Why should Windsor get less? Why should London get less?

I dare the parliamentary assistant to explain to this House in clear, unequivocal terms why that municipality or London or Windsor or Kingston or all the others should get less. I am sure he will be scribbling some notes out, but I dare him to try to explain that. I am prepared to stay here all night to get a satisfactory explanation.

Mr. Haggerty: Don't say that or we will be here all night. I don't want to see him in the morning.

Mr. Epp: I do hope that one of these years the minister and the parliamentary assistant will get their act together with respect to unconditional grants and give us a proposal that is clear, that is concise and that is understandable not only to the minister and the parliamentary assistant -- and with all due respect, I do not think they understand it or could explain it without having all the notes in front of them -- but also to the members of this Legislature when they vote for this bill, to the municipalities and their elected representatives as well the personnel and, above all, to the people of this province.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, this bill deals with one specific grant, namely, the provincial per capita grant for policing costs of local governments, but it also makes a number of changes relating to the calculation and payment of resource equalization grants.

I agree with the previous speaker who said that this is a very complicated area and one that is very difficult for the average taxpayer or municipal representative to understand.

It also contains some housekeeping amendments, in effect recognizing practices that are being followed in cases where the legislative requirements have proved to be somewhat unrealistic.

I have no objection to the housekeeping amendments, such as the one to which the parliamentary assistant referred which provides that in computing commercial assessment the factors included will be derived in future from the last assessment roll instead of from the last revised assessment roll, because we all understand that the revised assessment roll is not reached until all appeals have been disposed of, which could be several years down the pike. This is a useful amendment.

However, the other amendments relating to the calculation and payment of resource equalization grants cause me some trouble. The whole purpose of resource equalization grants is to achieve equity between taxpayers so that municipalities with low assessments are assisted to have somewhat the same standard of services as municipalities with high assessments.

What gives me trouble is the fact that this amendment gives to the minister the power to determine equalized assessment per capita in a manner prescribed by regulation. It also permits the minister to set unspecified limits on the amount of the resource equalization grants to be prescribed by the regulations. In effect, he can calculate them and then put a cap on them.

In this party, we have always been concerned about the extent to which this government relies on the regulatory power instead of giving the Legislature the say in the formulas and any limits, if they are to be imposed.

I realize that we are dealing with very complex adjustments and that the objective to achieve equity requires complex formulas. However, I do not think we can entirely trust this government to achieve full equity and fairness by regulatory power without anybody setting some guidelines and without the right of appeal.

I am told, for example, by a resolution passed by the village of Paisley on April 6, 1981, that 219 towns, villages and townships were limited in 1980 by the cap on the resource equalization grant. The cap at that time was 25 per cent of the municipal levy.

Those 219 municipalities are about one quarter of all the municipalities in this province. They were not happy with having a cap put on their grant. Many of them feel that they were shortchanged. Many of them feel the cap does not recognize inflationary costs and they are falling behind in equalization.

9:20 p.m.

It is true that the government has had the power in the past year to make grants in cases where severe tax increases or serious tax shifts occur as a result of a change in the resource equalization grant formula. This power is extended indefinitely by this amendment, but the government's power is not limited in any way by the amendment.

There are no guidelines, as I said; there are no rules. There is no right of appeal spelled out on this adjustment procedure; so they could be made entirely on the government's whim or even based on political consideration, such as whether a Conservative member is elected.

Section 9 allows the government to prescribe, also by regulation, alternative bases for apportionments, levies and requisitions if the ones currently in effect under existing legislation result in serious tax shifts when a change in equalization factors occurs.

Once again, the government is given unlimited power by the amendment to determine which alternative bases it will select, presumably to achieve greater equity. There does not appear to be any right of appeal.

In addition, the choice of alternatives may be made retrospective. Here too the government is given power to provide adjustment grants to both upper- and lower-tier municipalities to offset or limit shifts in taxation resulting from the choice of alternative bases. But here too, there are no guidelines for the formula and no appeals.

These are my main concerns about the resource equalization grants section of the bill.

Turning to the other facet of this bill, namely, the per capita grants for policing, I am also very much disturbed by the effect of the amendment.

It appears that the amendment is legislating changes in the per capita grants actually made in January of this year, according to the statement of the parliamentary assistant. I am not quite sure under what power they were legislated.

Mr. Rotenberg: They were just announced in January. They are being legislated now.

Ms. Bryden: Are they going into effect retroactively? Perhaps the parliamentary assistant can answer that when he sums up. They were announced in January just before the election. It was part of the deathbed repentance by this government, because there had not been a change in them since 1977 and they had fallen far behind.

Mr. Breaugh: Rigor mortis has set in. There has to have been a deathbed in there somewhere.

Ms. Bryden: That is right. They had fallen far behind the inflation rate since 1977, and the government ignored appeals to increase them until an election appeared in the offing. Of course, it did not make any mention of how it was going to finance any increase, it did not mention the possibility of any tax increases and it did not mention who might pay the tax increases to find the money.

Mr. Kennedy: Who do you think pays tax?

Ms. Bryden: Certainly under our tax system the little guy pays far more than his share.

The percentage increase proposed in this bill for the grants, raising them from $15 to $17 for regions and from $10 to $12 for area municipalities is very small when one thinks that there has been no increase since 1977. Over four years, the percentage increase has been 13 per cent for regions and 20 per cent for the area municipalities, and inflation has certainly gone up far more than that in those four years.

This government, which pretends to be concerned about law and order, actually has been asking the municipalities to cut back on policing services in those four years by its failure to keep the per capita grants up to the inflation level or, conversely, it has been forcing municipalities to increase the tax load on home owners to maintain police forces to protect their homes. It is time these grants were indexed to the cost of policing instead of being indexed to elections.

I have pointed out two very serious deficiencies in this bill: the lack of adequate per capita grants for the policing function and the tremendous powers given to the minister to use the regulatory power to determine the resource equalization grants. Without clear guidelines arrived at after open discussion with local government associations and debate in this Legislature, and without the right of appeal, these powers are potentially dangerous.

While I understand from the parliamentary assistant that there have been consultations with the municipalities and regions on the formulas proposed, still the municipalities and we here in the Legislature have to put our faith in the government under this amendment that it will actually follow the formulas it has been discussing and that it will provide fair relief to municipalities suffering hardship or threatened by serious tax shifts as a result of the changes brought about regulation.

I am afraid I do not have that kind of faith in this government's ability to achieve equity between municipalities and to achieve fairness in these grants.

Certainly the city of Windsor will tell you how many millions they have lost as a result of the freeze on the equalization factors up to last year, and they have never received the amount of money they have lost. They have received some grants, some adjustments, but not by a long shot what they calculate they have lost.

Because of these two major defects in this bill, namely, the inadequate policing grants and the excessive powers given to the minister, we have decided that we cannot support this bill. I think the government should go back to the drawing boards and overcome the defects I have outlined.

Mr. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I rise to make a few comments on Bill 69, An Act to amend the Ontario Unconditional Grants Act, 1975. I do so, having first spoken on this issue back in 1975 and having continued to speak on it every year since that date.

The city of Windsor has not received its fair share of resource equalization grants in all that period of time. When we total the amount by which the government has shortchanged the city, including the board of education, we come to a figure that is practically unbelievable: approximately $70 million. The city has been shortchanged by $70 million as a result of the policies of this government -- $40 million on the resource equalization grant and $30 million on the education grant.

9:30 p.m.

Back in either 1974 or 1975, the cabinet travelled about the length and breadth of Ontario, hearing presentations from various municipalities. The city of Windsor sent both the mayor and the chief financial officer of the community to the city of London and made presentation to the committee. They were warmly received, The government did admit that they were denying the city a fair share, but at no time did they attempt to resolve the problem.

In fact, the Honourable Darcy McKeough, who was the minister responsible, in a letter to me dated August 8, 1977, said the following:

"Thank you for forwarding a copy of the July 4 resolution of the city of Windsor council concerning the resource equalization grant and market value assessment.

"It is a well-known fact that the existing system of equalization factors for adjusting assessment leaves something to be desired. This indeed is why the province is trying to move to full market value assessment. I agree further that there is a particular problem in connection with the city of Windsor."

That was back in 1977, when Darcy McKeough admitted there was something wrong. The city has appealed year after year, and the government has refused to come along and correct the error its resource equalization grant has caused.

They have made interim payments to the municipality simply to keep the municipality quiet so it would not come along and raise too much of a fuss. The municipality appreciated that, but that did not resolve the problem. When one compares the city of Windsor with the city of London, one can see the substantial difference in the grants received by those two municipalities.

The fact that Windsor did not get its fair share led to a petition being circulated throughout the community and in the various malls in the community. What I have here is only part of the petition presented to me. When one multiplies that by the other members in the community, if I am not mistaken, one will find more than 15,000 names of residents in Windsor who complained bitterly about inaction on the part of government to resolve an admitted error on its part. It is making no attempt to give the community its fair share of the resource equalization grant.

I could talk ad nauseam about the problem. As I said earlier, I raised the issue right after the city first notified those of us elected from the community that we were not treated fairly by this government.

The easiest way to put the problem of the community on the record is to read from an article in the Windsor Star, dated Saturday, March 14, 1981. It is by two different writers who were quite familiar with the topic; they did an awful lot of research on it and presented an article that I hope the minister and his officials will look into and resolve Windsor's problem once and for all.

Windsor has been so penalized that its debentures either cannot be sold on the market any longer or it is having difficulty selling them, because it has not been receiving its fair share. They possibly would not have had to put debentures on the market for sale because, had they been presented their fair share of the resource equalization grant, Windsor would not have found itself in that difficult position.

The article states:

"Ever wonder why you are still living beside a sewage-filled ditch?

"Why your street has not been repaved in 20 years, why you don't have any street lights, or why there are only a few parks, swimming pools and recreation areas in your neighbourhood?

"If you think your taxes are too high compared to the services you're getting, you're right.

"And you can blame a lot of it on Bill Davis and his Progressive Conservative government.

"This year, you will pay an average of $240 more in property taxes than a home owner living in London and get less for it.

"The reason is a complicated provincial grant scheme called the resource equalization grant, and Mayor Bert Weeks and Finance Commissioner Ed Agnew have been beating their heads against the wall for years trying to get a fair deal for Windsor.

"Even the Progressive Conservative government has admitted that Windsor is getting shortchanged, but it hasn't done much to make the grants more equitable.

"Arriving in Windsor airport Friday night" -- that was just before the election -- "Davis didn't see the situation that way.

"Scurrying to a waiting car from his chartered Air Ontario plane, he claimed Windsor was getting its share. 'You started getting it last year,' he says. 'It takes time.'

"Some feel the city is blacklisted because of its penchant for bucking the province's prevailing political winds, and local Progressive Conservative candidates have been using this in their campaign strategies."

Colleagues of government members in the last election kept saying, "Vote Progressive Conservative and get your fair share;" so they admitted that the city was not getting its fair share. That was after some seven or eight years of not getting the fair share. If they talk in that fashion, then there must be some truth and some fact in Windsor's presentation.

The article continues:

"Asked if Windsor needs a PC member in Queen's Park to have the government's ear, Davis flatly declared 'No,' adding 'it would be great for the city and for the province.'"

But there is no action.

"Agnew says the city should get $4.5 million more than it will get under the equalization program.

"That would wipe out the 10 per cent tax increase, $80 on an average assessment of $8,000, the administration is recommending to city council in its proposed 1981 budget.

"As well, the board of education figures it will lose $6.6 million.

"Instead of paying an extra $13 this year for public schools, you would have had a $26 tax reduction.

"Overall, you will pay about $120 more than you should just to meet this year's city and school board needs."

All of this because of not receiving the fair share of the resource equalization grant.

"But it doesn't end there.

"Since 1973, the Windsor Board of Education estimates a loss of nearly $30 million because of the inequities in the grant scheme.

"There has been a loss of nearly $30 million since 1973, but there has been no attempt to correct that inequity. The government knows about it and refuses to act. If anyone owed the government $30 million, it would certainly go after them.

"Agnew [who is the chief financial officer for the city] figures city hall has lost close to $40 million more.

"Because Windsor didn't get that money over the last eight years, the city has had to go into debt to complete capital works projects that simply could not be put off" -- capital works projects that were demanded by the Ministry of the Environment and other capital works projects.

"This year, it will cost the city almost $18 million, close to 20 per cent of its $100-million budget, to pay the principal and interest on its debenture debts. That means for every $100 in taxes you pay, $18 goes to pay off a debt." Eighteen per cent to pay off a debt; all because the city of Windsor was not treated fairly in relation to the resource equalization grant.

All we ask for is our fair share, the share we are entitled to. We do not ask for any more. Time and again, the city has pointed out to this government that it has not treated the community fairly and continues to treat it unfairly simply because, as a lot of constituents mention. they are of a different political stripe in the city of Windsor and in that area. I hope that never will be the reason for not getting the grant. The reason is that the people over there do not care for certain parts of the province, as exemplified in the city of Windsor situation right now.

9:40 p.m.

"London, which Agnew says receives its fair share of the grants, will spend about $12 million to pay interest and principal on debenture debts.

"Windsor has to pay 18 per cent all the time.

"The $8-million difference means you will pay a further $120, bringing the total to $240 on an average assessment of $8,000, all because the province, which has admitted Windsor is getting a raw deal, has yet to come up with an equitable scheme.

"And the difference will continue to increase, compounding itself every year the inequity exists, because the city will have to borrow more to do things like rebuilding the Peabody Bridge, now becoming structurally unsafe.

"You will not only pay more" -- referring to the citizens of Windsor -- "but you will get less.

"The city has had to delay badly needed capital works projects, such as local sanitary sewers, street lighting and dozens of other projects, because it simply can't afford to go further into debt.

"Agnew found out the city was getting cheated in 1973 when he compared 1974 resource equalization grants received by London, then a similar size, to what Windsor was getting.

"That year, Windsor got $3,245,000 less than London did."

Both cities were almost the same size, London being slightly smaller in population than Windsor at that time.

"Until 1977, Agnew and Weeks could only argue the city was getting shortchanged by comparing what Windsor got to London.

"But in 1977, the province came out with province-wide market value assessment figures.

"Based on that, former Treasurer Darcy McKeough had to admit the province was indeed giving Windsor a raw deal....

"The Davis government did kick in a few million dollars a year in ad hoc grants to make up for the shortfall, but those never came close to what the province admitted the city should have received if the resource equalization grant scheme was fair.

"By 1980, the amount the city was shortchanged was almost $40 million, and this year $4.5 million more will be added."

That shortchanging is only as far as the municipality is concerned and does not refer to the shortchanging of the board of education.

"The inequities are created by the way the province determines equalized assessment based on market value.

"In the early 1970s, the province moved to market value assessment to clear up the hodgepodge methods of assessing property for taxes across the province.

"Some municipalities assessed property on 1940 market values, some on 1950 values and, in Windsor, on 1958 market values."

Simply because we had updated our assessment figures to a 1958 figure, as opposed to a 1940 figure that other municipalities had, we were penalized for it. By using more up-to-date assessment figures, we in the community apparently made a mistake or gave the government an opportunity to shortchange us.

"The province came up with a number which, when multiplied with a municipality's assessment, supposedly brought every municipality to current market value. The result of the calculation is called equalized assessment.

"The number, or equalization factor, was initially for provincial use and didn't affect grants to the city.

"But, in 1973, the province implemented a new program -- the resource equalization grants -- and based those grants on equalized assessment.

"To determine the grants, the province found an average province-wide equalized assessment.

"Municipalities with equalized assessment above that average get no resource equalization grants.

"The size of the grants increases the further below the average a municipality drops."

And that is as a result of municipalities having assessment figures that are 30 and, in some instances, almost 40 years out of date.

"Windsor argued, not only was its equalization factor wrong, the way the property was assessed was also wrong.

"To come up with a market value, provincial assessors look at the sales of each type of property in Windsor each year -- single-family homes, apartment buildings and industry -- and apply those sales to the overall assessment. What throws that out of whack is industrial assessment.

"Agnew argues that to take the amount a small industry employing 20 or 30 people is sold for, and then apply it to industrial giants, like Chrysler Canada Limited, General Motors of Canada Limited and Hiram Walker and Sons Limited, to come up with their market value, borders on the ridiculous and throws Windsor's true assessment picture out by hundreds of millions of dollars." Apples are being compared with tomatoes.

"The combination of the incorrect equalization factor and the way Windsor's industrial property was brought to market value left the city closer to the cutoff point than it should have been.

"Hence the loss of millions of dollars in grants.

"Agnew had argued for seven years the province should change the factor and the assessment method.

"This year, the province did change the equalization factor, which had been frozen since the early 1970s.

"The new equalization factor is based on 1979 property sales, when Windsor's economy was booming and real estate was at its highest level ever.

"Topping it off, the province discounted residential sales by 45 per cent in determining the new overall assessment.

"More weight was given to the value of industrial property, which Agnew argues is already throwing out Windsor's equalized assessment.

"Multiplied with the higher equalization factor we, in Agnew's words, 'got screwed again.'

"Once again, Weeks and Agnew will go to Toronto to argue the city's case before the provincial government in what is becoming a frustrating pilgrimage.

"Every year, they have gone, at first returning empty-handed and in recent years coming back with some money in ad hoc grants, but still without what they consider to be Windsor's fair share of the provincial pie."

That article explains very well the situation in this community, and I hope that this minister and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) read it in Hansard and come back and give the community its fair share.

9:50 p.m.

There is one other point I want to make; it relates to section 2 of the bill, dealing with grants to police forces in municipalities.

By this bill, Windsor will receive only $12 per capita as opposed to other municipalities, such as regional municipalities, which will receive $17. The policing costs in the community of Windsor are probably higher than they are in some of these regional municipalities.

We have another factor that is not taken into consideration. We are directly across the river from approximately four million people who are within 15 minutes of crossing the border. They know there are certain undesirable elements who do come into the community and do cause us problems.

The policing in the area as a result of being a border town is substantially greater than it would be in other communities that do not have that factor affecting them. I think they have to take that into consideration when they give the grants for policing purposes.

Windsor, Niagara Falls, Fort Erie -- border towns -- do have a different and additional problem because of elements that do come into the community from another country. Most of those who do come into the city of Windsor are good, law-abiding citizens of the United States and other jurisdictions. However, not only that type of element comes into the community, and they do increase the policing costs in the municipality. The city should be considered in the same vein in which they consider regional municipalities. It has that added burden, and it is up to the minister to see that that second issue also is corrected.

All we ask in the city of Windsor is that we receive our fair share. We do not ask for anything other than that.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, I will not promote the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg) to the level of minister in my remarks, but I do want to speak to this bill and to express my sincere disappointment over the fact that this government has chosen not to bring about a parity among the municipalities in terms of policing grants in this province.

This has been raised a number of times in the Legislature. I have had correspondence with the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) and the Solicitor General (Mr. McMurtry). It was indicated to me in the past that there were reasons for this.

At the time the regional municipalities were established they had to take on extra policing duties, there were extra administrative costs and so on. To assist those regional municipalities, the provincial government gave them an increased grant; so they received something like $15 per capita, while the other municipalities, the separated cities and the smaller municipalities, received $10 per capita to assist with their policing duties.

I am disappointed to see that the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) is not present in the House for this debate, since one of the major issues he raised during the election campaign, and has raised since that time, is the need for better policing in northern Ontario.

I am also disappointed he is not here to give me some assistance in my speech by kibitzing, as he often does, but I understand that he said he wants to raise this issue in the standing committee on administration of justice. I think the Kapuskasing Northern Times carried a story by that member in which he said he was going to tell the Solicitor General a thing or two, and they were going to hear about the need for policing in the Kapuskasing area.

I do not want the House to get the wrong impression. The member for Cochrane North is indeed correct; there is a serious need for additional assistance for policing in the north and in small municipalities in the north.

One of the problems we have, and it is a problem for the provincial government as well, is that most municipalities are dependent upon the Ontario Provincial Police for their policing. Most small municipalities cannot afford to provide their own police forces; to assist them and to provide more adequate policing and a more equal type of policing across the province, the provincial government has been giving them assistance through the OPP.

It has become apparent over the last few years, though, that the provincial government and the Solicitor General cannot persuade the rest of the cabinet to provide that ministry with the funds needed to provide adequate OPP services for the north. Instead of being expanded, those services are being curtailed. We have situations now where some municipalities do not have any policing whatever after a certain hour at night; say, 1 a.m. They have to phone a Zenith number 70 or 80 miles away if there is need for assistance --

Mr. Piché: That is if you can get the line. Most of the time in the north you cannot get the line.

Mr. Wildman: I am glad to see the member is back. He is quite right: one cannot get the line. If one does get the line, then the operator phones an off-duty policeman somewhere, gets him up and sends him to the call. One might be lucky if one gets the policeman there within an hour of the call.

It seems to me that it would make a lot of sense for the government to give as much assistance as possible to the small municipalities in the north that wish to provide their own policing so they then can take off some of the pressure that is now on the OPP services.

I have raised this in the past with the minister. I wrote the Solicitor General about this matter in early 1980 in response to a communication I had received from the township of Michipicoten, which is Wawa, in my riding. I know the Speaker is aware of Wawa; he has relatives who live there.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, I am sure you are aware that this community does have its own police force. They pointed out the lack of parity. They pointed out that they do not get adequate funding from the provincial government for that police force. At one time they even considered asking the government to agree to their disbanding their own police force and just getting served by the OPP, because they could not afford it on the grants they were getting and in view of the need to raise funds locally.

In response to that, I wrote to the minister. He wrote back, and I will just quote briefly from his letter. He said:

"Thank you for informing me that the township of Michipicoten supports the resolution of Palmerston" -- another municipality that had passed a resolution on this -- "requesting that the police grant be paid to all recipient municipalities at the rate of $15 per capita" -- at that time they were asking for parity -- "the current rate for regional municipalities maintaining upper-tier forces."

The Solicitor General goes on to say:

"My colleague the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs is presently reviewing provincial grants in general and the differential rate of the police grant in particular. Of course, there are related problems of policy for structure and financing which must be reviewed province-wide before any change in the existing police grants can be made.

"As you may know, the police grant differential between upper-tier regional municipalities and other municipalities maintaining police forces has reflected the burden of making the transition to regional forces and the initial period of development."

When I received that letter, it gave the impression that the question of police grants and parity between the nonregional and regional municipalities was under review and that there might be a change. The minister justified it, as I said, on the basis that these grants had been made to assist in the transition to regional forces.

Considering when most of the regional municipalities were established in this province, surely we are past the period of transition; so, if there was justification at the time of transition, that justification is no longer there.

That gave me and the township of Michipicoten to understand that there might be a change; so they were looking forward to the introduction of this bill.

10 p.m.

Since the Solicitor General indicated the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs was involved in this, I then contacted him. I wrote to the minister in March 1980, and he replied to me in April. I will read a portion of his letter.

He stated: "I have noted your view that as many municipalities as possible in northern Ontario be able to maintain local police forces to enhance overall police effectiveness."

Then he goes into an explanation again that the grant for the regional municipalities was introduced to take account of the startup costs of regional forces and the responsibilities that these forces were absorbing from the OPP.

Then he says: "A number of municipalities have, together with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, now asked that the regional grant rate be extended to all municipalities providing police service. The government is reviewing the issue to see whether a change in the grant would be appropriate in light of present conditions and what other options might be available with respect to policing in smaller towns."

Then he asks me to convey that view to the township council. That indicated again that there was an active review going on and that the government was actively considering change.

It seems to me if we were to give the smaller municipalities parity that would encourage more of them to get into policing for their own areas and would ease pressure on the OPP. We all know the OPP budget now is completely inadequate; even the minister has admitted that. The minister stated a year or two ago that he needed at least 100 more constables to carry out the OPP's responsibility across the province. He was unable, however, to get the money for those additional constables from the cabinet.

The OPP is under great pressure. They are unable to carry out their functions as they would like to do. It seems to me that we should be encouraging the small municipalities to get into policing. But the minister is not going to encourage them to do that when he has an unfair granting system and when they can see that, if they do go into policing, they are going to get a lot less grant money than the regional municipalities get for carrying out a similar function.

It might be argued that a small municipality does not have as much expense in policing as a regional municipality; it is a small area and so on. But I think the member for Cochrane North and other northern members would agree that a small northern municipality does have difficulty.

If one takes the example I was using, the township of Michipicoten, the community of Wawa is on Highway 17, 140 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie, and is, I understand, the only municipality between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay -- a stretch of about 400 miles -- that has 24-hour policing. None of the OPP detachments between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay are open 24 hours. They have to depend on this silly Zenith line system. Not one of those other forces is providing 24-hour service, but this small municipality is doing that.

Also, because of the distances involved, this municipality has additional expenses when its prisoners have to be transported to remands, to jail or to trial in places like Sault Ste. Marie. They have to send officers with the prisoner and so on. There is a lot of administrative costs and travel expenses and these kinds of things; so they have to have more constables on staff than one might expect a small municipality to have.

They have these additional costs, and yet they were only getting $10 while a regional municipality was getting $15 per capita. They hoped there would be change. These two letters, one from the Solicitor General and one from the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, led them to believe there would be change. They were looking forward to getting parity. They were looking forward to being able to ease the pressure on their local property taxpayers and still being able to continue policing their community on their own, providing 24-hour service instead of having to move to an OPP service which would not provide that 24-hour protection. They were looking forward to that.

When this bill was introduced, I expected we were going to see a change. So what do we see? We move from $15 to $17 per capita for the regional municipalities, but we do not move from $10 to $17 per capita for other municipalities. No, we move from $10 to $12, nowhere near parity, not even an attempt to bring about parity. I understand it has been argued that by moving from $10 to $12 and $15 to $17, the percentage difference is no longer as great, so we are moving towards parity. Frankly, that is ridiculous. In total dollars, which is what counts when paying for policing, the small municipalities are not being given the adequate funds they need.

There is no more transition going on at the regional level. They have established forces. The smaller municipalities need the extra funds. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario agrees they need the funds. There have been requests from many municipalities across the province that they should get those funds. To my knowledge, I do not think the regional municipalities object; they are not opposed to the other municipalities getting the same grants they get. I am not suggesting the regional municipality grants should be lowered. I am suggesting they should get parity by raising the grants for the other municipalities, and I am very disappointed that has not been done. To argue that a percentage difference is less is just to play with numbers and not to look at the need for policing in the municipalities of this province.

For these reasons, I cannot support this legislation. I think it is inadequate. It is not a serious attempt at all on the part of the government to respond to the requests that have been made in terms of parity. I would like to have an explanation. Both the explanations I received from the ministers talked about the reasons for the establishment of the differential before the transition. Not one of them gave any logical reason for continuing the differential. Not one of them attempted to. The Solicitor General, in the estimates debate in the justice committee, himself would not give any justification and did not attempt to. As a matter of fact, he suggested there should be review, and he kept pointing to the fact that there was review going on. I would be very interested to hear if the parliamentary assistant can give us some kind of logical justification, but he had better not respond by talking about this percentage reduction. Percentages do not produce police constables; total dollars do.

This government makes a lot of noise, during election campaigns at least, about being in favour of law and order. It is the law and order party. If it is in favour of law and order in this province, it had better look at what is happening in northern Ontario and do something about police protection. In southern Ontario, people do not have to depend on a Zenith line to get protection after 1 am. If their houses are being broken into at 2 am., they do not have to phone --

Interjection.

10:10 p.m.

Mr. Wildman: I had an interjection from the member from my home town of Manotick, which is a lovely place. I have relatives who still live there, and he informs me that --

Hon. Mr. Sterling: They are all Tories.

Mr. Wildman: They are all Tories; I will admit that. Why does he think I left?

The point is, he says that in Manotick they do not get 24-hour police protection from the Ontario Provincial Police detachment there. I say that is regrettable.

Hon. Mr. Sterling: We do get protection but you have to phone a Zenith line.

The Deputy Speaker: Try to ignore the interjections, Mr. Wildman.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, he said they do get protection, but that is the whole point. I know the member for Cochrane North understands this. Sure, they have a Zenith line, but where are they phoning? It may be Bells Corners or Ottawa. If they phone Bells Corners, how far is Bells Corners from Manotick?

Hon. Mr. Sterling: Fifteen miles.

Mr. Wildman: Fifteen miles. In Hornepayne if there is a house break-in at 2 a.m., they phone a Zenith line that goes to Hearst. The distance between Hornepayne and Hearst is 80 miles.

The Deputy Speaker: Speaking to the principle of the bill, Mr. Wildman.

Mr. Wildman: Eighty miles. They will be lucky to get a cop back to their place within an hour. The policemen do not like it. They realize that they are not providing the protection they should. They want this government to put its money where its mouth is and provide decent protection for policing in northern Ontario. The government is only going to do that if they give the municipalities the assistance they need so they can get involved with their own policing and take the pressure off the OPP. They will not do that unless they give parity. Instead of $12 they had better come across with $17 for all the municipalities of this province.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I thought I should make a few comments about these unconditional grants. I am sure that my colleagues, especially the Tory members from the Ottawa-Carleton area, will be supportive of the comments I have to make in relation to the police grant. I look forward to the participation of the member for Ottawa South (Mr. Bennett). I am looking forward to the type of support that he is going to give to assuring that the police forces in the Ottawa-Carleton area get their fair share of funds from the province and are not punished because they happen to have retained their own police forces.

The member for Carleton East (Mr. MacQuarrie), whom I have observed all evening fluttering around the House, will obviously be supportive as well. It is going to be interesting to see whether the new member for Carleton East is able to see to it that the municipality of Gloucester, where he was formerly the reeve, is going to to get its fair share of police grants now that he is the member for that area.

Also from the Ottawa-Carleton area is the member for Carleton-Grenville (Mr. Sterling), another member of cabinet, who I am sure will be supportive and will see to it that the people of Ottawa-Carleton get their fair share of police grants for the forces in the Ottawa-Carleton area.

As far as I know, Ottawa-Carleton is the only regional municipality which does not receive the $17 per capita regional grant in Ontario. The reason for it is that the different municipalities in the Ottawa-Carleton area have retained their own police forces, so that the Ottawa police department has its own force and Gloucester has its own police force. The member for Carleton-East, while he was reeve of that municipality, insisted and fought to see to it that Gloucester retained its own police force. The municipality of Nepean, which is very close to the area represented by the member for Carleton-Grenville, is also insistent on keeping its own police force.

A few years back the provincial government was interested in seeing to it that the forces amalgamated so there was one regional police force. There was talk about this by various people and I suppose the main instigator of this initiative would have been the former Treasurer, Darcy McKeough. A variety of Attorneys General came to Ottawa-Carleton and came to the conclusion the Ottawa-Carleton area was receiving adequate and good police protection. The decision was made to retain the individual police forces but, in the process, that area continues to be punished. It is without logic and is completely unfair to an area like Ottawa-Carleton or individual municipalities.

John Clement, the former member for Niagara Falls who was then Solicitor General and Attorney General, had agreed the area of Ottawa-Carleton was receiving good and adequate protection and there was no reason to regionalize the force. He did not want to go against people like the reeve of Gloucester, who is now the member for Carleton East.

Mr. Conway: The former Liberal candidate.

Mr. Roy: My colleague the member for Renfrew North mentions a former Liberal.

I do not know when the conversion actually took place. When I first got to know the member as far back as 1971, he was on the fence at that time. He was riding the rails.

The Deputy Speaker: Speak to the bill.

Mr. Roy: I am speaking to the bill, right on the bill.

I do not want to be unduly harsh on the member for Carleton East, but some people have suggested he is a member who was of easy virtue and whose principles were flexible.

The Deputy Speaker: Speak to the bill, Mr. Roy.

Mr. Roy: I do not want to be unduly harsh on the member.

Mr. MacQuarrie: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege --

Mr. Roy: I have managed to get him on his feet. He is alive.

Mr. MacQuarrie: Mr. Speaker, I hesitate to have my virtue impugned in this manner. I would ask the member to withdraw.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member should not be affronted, because it was a Liberal member in my area who was seeking the Tory candidacy in York South at the same time as he was seeking the provincial candidacy in the neighbouring riding of Oakwood. Try to beat that one.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Roy, do you think you might rethink your phrase?

Mr. Roy: No, Mr. Speaker, I do not. What do you call --

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Roy, speak to the bill. I think that would be the appropriate thing.

Mr. Roy: I am ready to abide by your ruling, Mr. Speaker. What do you call --

The Deputy Speaker: Do not ask. Speak to the bill.

Mr. Roy: He was actually nominated as a candidate for the Liberals at one time.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. Order. I know, but you are going to speak to the bill now, are you not, Mr. Roy? We have enjoyed your comments. I would ask you seriously to speak to the bill without bringing other members into your thoughts and comments.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I trust you will bring to order some of the members who are not in their seats and are making comments in this House.

Interjection.

Mr. Roy: Do not point your finger at me.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Roy, please avoid the interjections.

Mr. Roy: I would not dare to take on the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow). He is too big a fellow.

Getting back to the principle of the bill, I want to say to the member for Carleton East, the formerly nominated Liberal candidate who is now the Conservative member for Carleton East -- you can call that what you want, Mr. Speaker, now that member --

Mr. MacQuarrie: Another point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I might say that at one time, as the member suggested, I did identify myself with a certain party which shall be unnamed. I found that party left me. I did not leave it.

Mr. Roy: There we have the admission on the record. I want to say to my colleague the member for Carleton East when I was talking about easy virtue I did not want to offend him. I meant easy political virtue. I did not intend to refer to his morality. That was intended in jest.

10:20 p.m.

Now that he is parliamentary assistant. I understand he is one of the fortunate ones. There are very few unfortunate ones on that side who are not drawing additional remuneration. I can count them on the fingers of one hand. Now that he let himself be enticed into becoming a candidate and is the parliamentary assistant to the Solicitor General (Mr. McMurtry), I trust he will prevail upon his minister to see that the police forces in Ottawa-Carleton receive their fair share of these grants. I trust that the member for that great municipality of Gloucester will fight for the municipality to see it is not punished by the Conservative government at Queen's Park.

Some people call my colleague the member for Ottawa South the godfather of the area now. I do not know whether that is true. Has he been fighting for the police force of Ottawa to see that it gets $17? I would ask that member, do they not listen to him in cabinet?

Interjections.

Mr. Roy: I can only look at the evidence. The evidence is that Ottawa is a regional area and is being punished. It is not that we do not send Tories here. In the House tonight there are three of them.

Getting back to the principle of the bill, it is patently unfair that the provincial government, having decided that Ottawa-Carleton is getting adequate policing by supporting these various police forces and allowing the municipalities to retain their own forces, should punish them. Once a government makes a decision that the policing is adequate, there is no logic to punish that area and give it only $12 instead of $17 which other regional areas get.

Is there any explanation that can be given? I ask the member for Carleton East, the member for Ottawa South and I ask the new minister, the member for Carleton-Grenville, what logic is there? He is a former parliamentary assistant to the Solicitor General as well. Do they not listen to them there?

Hon. Mr. Sterling: If the member for Ottawa East would check the records, he would find I was the parliamentary assistant to the Attorney General and not to the Solicitor General.

Mr. Bradley: They are the same thing.

Hon. Mr. Sterling: There is quite a difference in the two functions. Unfortunately, the member for St. Catharines does not understand the difference. That is perhaps his problem.

Mr. Roy: When the member for Carleton-Grenville was the parliamentary assistant to the Attorney General, the Attorney General was the same fellow as the Solicitor General. Did the member for Carleton-Grenville at any time say to him: "What logic is there to punish the good people of Nepean, Ottawa, Gloucester and Vanier? What logic is there to punish these people? Why do they not get the same level of grant as other regional areas get?" Did he ask that of the Attorney General?

Hon. Mr. Sterling: Yes.

Mr. Roy: He did? What did he say? I am advised that the Solicitor General last week was saying in committee that he has been fighting to get the same level of funding. I think the member for Carleton East was present at that committee hearing. The Solicitor General said at that time, "I am trying to get the same level of funding but, unfortunately, the Treasurer is not listening."

I want to make one final comment based on this bill --

Mr. Bradley: Are you saying that Roy has no clout in the cabinet?

Mr. Roy: I do not know if it is that Roy has no clout, or I do not know if it is the member for Carleton-Grenville or the member for Ottawa South, because I am sure he has been fighting for that as well; or is it the new Conservative member for Carleton East? I do not know who has clout.

Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I don't know why we are being punished, we send a lot of Tories from Ottawa-Carleton to this place. There is the Minister of Culture and Recreation (Mr. Baetz). We keep sending Tories over there; why do they punish us, why are we punished? We are sending the Tories over there; I don't know.

I want to ask the member for Ottawa South --

The Deputy Speaker: But he does not have to respond.

Mr. Roy: He is shortly going to have jurisdiction over this statute. Once we pass Bill 69 and make him Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, he is going to have jurisdiction over the Ontario Unconditional Grants Act.

I want to ask the new minister, once he becomes the boss over this legislation --

Mr. Conway: Superminister.

Mr. Roy: Superminister, my friend from Renfrew North tells me. That would be exaggerating somewhat, eh Claude?

I ask the minister, is that a promotion he's getting? Because the last time he went from Industry and Tourism to Housing and he was the only one in the province who thought it was a promotion.

I want to say to the minister, once he takes over jurisdiction, can we rely on him to fight for Ottawa, to see to it that Ottawa gets its fair share of police grants, can we rely on him to do that? Can we rely on the member for Carleton East to fight for Ottawa-Carleton, or can we rely on the member for Carleton-Grenville?

I apologize; I forgot the member for Carleton (Mr. Mitchell), whose riding has the Nepean police force, which is being penalized as well. Is that member going to fight to see to it that the Nepean police force gets the same level of funding?

I think you can understand, Mr. Speaker, that we have reason to be concerned. We in Ottawa-Carleton, who have good policing, who are responding to the requirements of the province, are being punished.

Further, to complicate matters --

Interjections.

Mr. Roy: Did I wake you up?

The Deputy Speaker: Avoid the interjections, please, Mr. Roy; you are being awfully provocative.

Mr. Roy: I wish they would interject individually so that I could respond. When they all talk at the same time it is difficult for me to follow what is happening.

The point I want to emphasize, and many of my colleagues have emphasized it on a number of occasions, is that there is no logic, there is no reason why Ottawa-Carleton, because it has retained its individual police forces, should receive a lower level of funding.

It is being reflected in the property taxes. For instance, on a percentage basis we pay something like 20 to 25 per cent higher property taxes than the city of Toronto, the city of Hamilton, the city of London; would you know that, Mr. Speaker? Would you believe it, considering how many Tories we send to Queen's Park? Really, you would not think we would be punished for that. But that is what is happening; and there is no reason, there is no logic to it.

Because of the time, I am going to have to wind down.

Interjections.

Mr. Roy: Don't worry, I seldom miss it.

Even the Conservative candidate Omer Deslauriers said during the last campaign we would no longer get what the member from Windsor talked about, we would get our fair share; even Omer promised that during the last campaign. So we were getting it from all sides. We all thought we were going to get fair treatment from this provincial government. Unfortunately the way this government keeps the promise is by bringing forward legislation like Bill 69 --

10:30 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker: Time.

Mr. Roy: Time? The record should indicate that while I am showing so much concern about this the member for Ottawa South is smiling and not caring at all.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. Order.

Mr. Roy: I thank you Mr. Speaker for your patience and I am prepared to let the debate continue at a later time.

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

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, before the adjournment of the House I wish to indicate to the members the business for the rest of this week and next week.

Tomorrow we will consider third readings of Bills 48, 76 and 81; second reading of private bills Pr1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 10 and continue with the second reading of Bill 69, which we have been on tonight, followed by second reading of Bill 67.

On Monday we will consider legislation in the afternoon, second reading of Bill 59 and if time permits resume second reading of Bill 72. In the evening we will consider the interim supply motion and then return to second reading of Bill 59 or second reading of Bill 72 if Bill 59 has been completed.

Tuesday, June 16, in the afternoon there will be consideration of second readings of Bills 103, 86, 89, 95 and 90. In the evening we will continue with any of that legislation not completed, and in the same order.

On Wednesday, June 17, three committees may meet in the morning, general government, resources development and administration of justice. In the afternoon the House will meet and the business for that session will be announced. However, there will be a question period as there is every afternoon.

On Thursday, June 18, in the afternoon, private members' ballot items 7 and 8 standing in the names of Mr. Taylor, Simcoe Centre, and Mr. Haggerty. In the evening we will continue with the legislation that has not been completed Tuesday evening, in the same order.

On Friday, June 19, we will continue with any legislation not completed Thursday evening, again in the same order.

The House adjourned at 10:33 p.m.

11 juin 1981