Journal des débats 1982-juin-04 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

In November last, my ministry undertook a $3-million television extension program which will extend TVOntario's broadcasting signal to more than 170 northern Ontario communities.

Today, I am pleased to tell the House that the following 44 communities have received final approval for the installation of television rebroadcasting equipment: Alberton, Attawapiskat, Beardmore, Caramat, Chapple, Constance Lake, Dilke, Eagle River, Emo, Foleyet- --

Mr. Laughren: Thank God. You just saved my political career.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I knew the member for Nickel Belt would applaud that one. I am always looking after you.

The rest of the communities are: Fauquier, Harty, Hudson, Ignace, Jaffray-Melick, Jellicoe, LaVallée, St. Croix Lake, Longlac, Lowther, Madsen, Minaki, Macdiarmid, Mine Centre, Morson, Moonbeam, Mattice, Moosonee, Morley-Pattullo, McCrosson and Tovell, Nakina, Opasatika, Pickle Lake, Rainy River, Ramsey, Redditt, Red Lake, Savant Lake, Sioux Lookout, Sioux Narrows, Val Rita, Vermilion Bay, Whitefish Bay and Wunnummin Lake.

In order to be approved for a low-power rebroadcast transmitter (LPRT) installation, a community must have a responsible and representative group make an application. This group is then required to maintain liaison with TVOntario. The group also undertakes to provide a secure and heated site for the equipment, and to furnish power to run it.

We estimate that by 1983, up to 170 communities in northern Ontario may expect to have LPRTs installed enabling their residents to receive the TVOntario signal off-air and free of charge.

At the moment, communities must be within the Anik B footprint, the area of land covered by the satellite signal, and have a population of at least 300. With the launching of Anik C later this year, communities lying outside the present footprint will be able to take advantage of the program as well.

We have already begun construction on some of the approved sites and we expect that LPRTs will be installed by the end of this year.

The fact that we have received over 70 applications to date is a clear indication there is a need for a program of this nature in northern Ontario. I am pleased my ministry has been able to respond to the need in a very practical way. The LPRTs are an efficient means of bringing television broadcasting to these communities.

MUNICIPALITY OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO BILL

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, I rise to correct the record. The Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) in her opening statement on the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Amendment Act, 1982, stated, "The negotiations will continue to be carried on --

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Is this the place to raise your point? I wonder whether there are other ways for you to do that.

Mr. Grande: This is the only way I know of.

The Acting Speaker: Let me just get to it quickly. Is this a point of order?

Mr. Grande: It is a point to correct the record, Mr. Speaker. Let me quote, "The negotiations will continue to be carried on locally on matters of local concern." The bill the minister introduced absolutely contradicts the statement the minister made.

The Acting Speaker: I feel you are not properly using a point of order and there are other ways for that to be accomplished rather than with this point of order at this time.

Mr. Grande: With due respect, Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what way there is in this Legislature for a minister of the crown to be held accountable --

The Acting Speaker: You will have question period which will start when you sit down and the Leader of the Opposition or his representative begins. You can do it through question period.

Mr. Foulds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: It has been a tradition in this House that when a member felt a minister or some member had put into the record something that was inaccurate, wrong or false, he had the right to rise in his place on a point of order to correct the record when he has the information. That is what my colleague the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande) was attempting to do before you cut him off.

The Acting Speaker: That is for correcting the record in the House and you are talking about something outside the House. The question period will give you an opportunity --

Mr. Foulds: This happened in the Legislature.

The Acting Speaker: You will have an opportunity in question period. I am not following up on your point of order.

Mr. Grande: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: There has to be a way to ensure, in this Legislature, that the Minister of Education cannot go on lying to this House.

Mr. Lane: Shame.

Hon. Mr. Eaton: Withdraw.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is not true.

The Acting Speaker: I would like to make it clear that the member for Oakwood can correct his own record, but he is not in a position to correct another person's record. There will be question period and he will have an opportunity at that time.

Hon. Mr. Eaton: Withdraw.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: I am sorry. I did not hear what the member said.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: He said I was lying.

The Acting Speaker: I would ask the member for Oakwood, if he has used words that he would like to withdraw --

Mr. Grande: They don't understand.

The Acting Speaker: Do you withdraw your statement?

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, there is absolutely no way I am going to withdraw the statement until the minister stands up and makes clear what is in this bill and makes it clear --

The Acting Speaker: I will give the honourable member one quick chance to withdraw the statement attributed to him where he has said the minister was lying. Do you withdraw that statement? I will find it necessary to name you.

Mr. Grande: I cannot because she --

The Acting Speaker: The member is named. The Sergeant at Arms will remove the member for Oakwood.

Mr. Bradley: That's one way to get on TV anyway.

Mr. Breithaupt: What did you do in the House today?

Hon. Mr. Leluk: Disgusting.

Mr. Robinson: Have a nice weekend.

Mr. Grande was escorted from the chamber by the Sergeant at Arms.

Mr. Kerrio: Twenty to go.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, on a point of personal privilege: If the honourable member had taken care to read the bill carefully, he would note that the only two items to be negotiated centrally in the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act are the two items I mentioned. Because the other items are not mentioned at all, it is still the responsibility of teachers and boards to negotiate the remainder.

10:10 a.m.

Mr. Foulds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker:

If I may say so, I find it extremely unevenhanded of you, Mr. Speaker, to call my colleague the member for Oakwood to order for trying to put this matter on the record and then allow the Minister of Education to go on at length on the same matter. If you are going to rule one way, rule that way consistently.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Oakwood got it on the record and proceeded --

Mr. Foulds: Over your objections, Mr. Speaker. Not because of you. You tried to cut him off.

Hon. F. S. Miller: No, he didn't.

The Acting Speaker: Order. We will now proceed with question period.

ORAL QUESTIONS

SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, it is nice to know that after a short absence, one returns to a situation that is cheerfully reminiscent of when one left.

My first question is to the Minister of Community and Social Services concerning the current debate on surrogate motherhood, particularly as it relates to Ontario.

The minister knows that, presumably some time next week, a non-Ontario resident will be travelling to this city, or so the reports indicate, to bear a child for an Ontario couple, the Ontario couple having paid a reported fee of $20,000 to a Michigan lawyer.

Apart from the profound ethical and moral questions regarding surrogate motherhood, I want to know what the minister has to say about the policy framework in which this issue has developed. What will the government do as far as surrogate motherhood is concerned with respect to the enforcement of section 67 of the Child Welfare Act which clearly prohibits the exchange of money in consideration of or in relation to the adoption of a child?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I want to make one thing very clear because I know the deputy leader of the Liberal Party would not want to prejudge a case. I think he mentioned that the contract was signed by a couple. It was not signed by a couple.

Surrogate motherhood is a social phenomenon with relatively widespread legal, medical and moral ramifications. The only point at which the government, or at least this ministry, becomes involved in the matter is at the time when any application is made for adoption.

As honourable members know, there are two ways to adopt in Ontario; first, through public agencies like the children's aid societies, or, second, through private adoptions. In this province, private adoptions are regulated. There is a complicating factor because apparently in this situation the claim is going to be made that the Canadian husband is the stepfather and the application for adoption will be made virtually on the same basis as a second marriage adoption of stepchildren.

Any type of private adoption, even one where a stepfather or stepmother relationship is claimed, must be approved by a judge of the provincial court. If the judge of the provincial court feels that there is some question he would like examined, or has some concern about the ability of the couple before him or about the welfare of the child, then my ministry is directed under the Child Welfare Act to do a thorough examination and investigation and report back to the judge.

The judge at that time makes the determination. One of the things we have suggested is that couples who intend to try to have children by this method should explore very, very carefully the legal ramifications before commencing. They may find that notwithstanding a contract which alleges that the payment is for services rendered rather than payment for a child, which the member has already pointed out is prohibited in this province, none the less, the contract is not the be-all and end-all. The birth is not the be-all and end-all.

To really establish firm adoptive rights, you are going to have to go to court. And even beyond that, there is the possibility that the surrogate mother, notwithstanding that she will probably -- at least as we understand -- be then domiciled in the United States, can come back and re-enter the picture at any time.

Mr. Conway: I want the minister to direct his attention to one of the key issues, if not the key issue, in this case and other cases in this area. This has to do with the payment of a substantial amount of money for arrangement of the adoption and the procuring of a child.

It is my indication that, under the legislation we have, this is clearly illegal. Will the minister stand in his place in this House and tell us how the government intends to proceed with respect to the transfer of these moneys from Ontario residents to lawyers in Michigan for the adoption of a child? Is that illegal? If so, how are the minister and his officials going to proceed in cases that apparently are as close at hand as next week?

Hon. Mr. Drea: I think the member may be a bit optimistic about cases being as close at hand as next week.

First of all, there has to be an application for an adoption before the government can be involved. There has to be an application for an adoption. When the member talks about the section of the Child Welfare Act, when he talks about procurement, sale and transfer, there really has to be something before the court.

Obviously at some point -- and, quite frankly, that is at the option of the parents -- there will be an application made. At that time, as I said before, the family court judge directs the ministry to make a thorough examination. The examination includes a line by line study of the contract and we report back to the family court judge who makes the determination. The ministry does not make the determination as to whether the Child Welfare Act has been violated. We merely put the evidence and the facts before the family court judge who makes the determination and at that point it will be made.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker. I would like the minister to please distinguish for us the difference between the illegality of paying for a child in Ontario, at the moment, and the rendering of a service, when the rendering of that service is that the surrogate mother is going to bear a child eventually. Is that not a spurious kind of distinction to make? Is it not something we would oppose in Ontario?

If it is something we would oppose, is the minister not going to take some action -- more than waiting for the family court system which usually is a determination on an economic and psychological basis -- as to whether or not parents can accommodate the responsibility of adoption? Surely, he is making a false distinction here.

10:20 a.m.

Hon. Mr. Drea: First, Mr. Speaker, I am not making a false distinction. I have pointed out what the lawyer in the United States claims. I would appreciate if the member for Scarborough West would listen to what I say.

I would agree with the honourable member that there is not much of a difference between a fee for service, or, if one wants to get into the vernacular, rent-a-body, and the actual purchase of a child. What I am pointing out to the member is the basis upon which the alleged contract was entered into.

Obviously, before the ministry can do anything there has to be a birth. There are some complications about the birth because they are bringing an American national into Canada. It may very well be that because of citizenship matters and some others, the federal Minister of Employment and Immigration may want to become involved, but that is their jurisdiction. If the birth occurs in Ontario, then obviously the government will monitor the situation.

It is only when the surrogate mother formally gives up that child that we can become involved. The particular involvement is one of the sections mentioned by the deputy leader of the Liberal Party. If one looks at the act there are some others that we may use.

The particular lawyer from Michigan, who is involved in this, is already advertising publicly for Ontario women to enter into this particular type of practice, and I have already given him a message. We are not going to become involved in this particular aberration. There are obvious places in our society for surrogate mothers, but by the same token we are not going to get into a cottage industry in Ontario where people are being recruited to do this primarily for the profit of a solicitor in the state of Michigan.

As a government, and as a Legislature, we also have another responsibility because there are a great many disclaimers in this contract. It is all on the presumption that the child will be born entirely normal, entirely healthy, in an entirely conventional manner.

Furthermore, there is even a very lengthy description that while there have been supposedly extensive genetic tests made, there is somewhere between a 3.5 and 5 per cent error factor and on that basis, the adopting parents or the Canadian parents will have no comeback on the amounts of money they have put into escrow.

I see the member for Scarborough West shaking his head, I would presume in a bit of disgust or a bit of horror. I share it; when one gets into appendices on a contract that say no matter what the scientific testing is if anything goes wrong one's money is up front and it is not coming back. Those are the situations we are into. To sum it up, it is rather obvious that we cannot do anything until the birth takes place, and we will know when the birth takes place.

Mr. Conway: Surely, the minister will want to agree that the horror, the disgust, the incredulity of this situation is that we have in the House today a statement, by a minister of a government involved in these social policy areas, saying that we really do not have any position on this new kind of development.

We have a minister saying, "Well, this Ontario man whose sperm has impregnated the surrogate mother will be interpreted perhaps as a stepfather." Surely, that kind of situation and all of this issue speaks to the absolute, immediate need for the minister, on behalf of the government, to make a clear statement of policy on whether or not these kinds of situations are going to be tolerated; and if so, how.

Would the minister specifically address himself to the kinds of advertisements that are now appearing in the Toronto newspapers? I mention, as an example, the classified ad in the Toronto Star of June 2, 1982, which said, "Couples unable to have children, willing to pay a $10,000 fee and expenses to woman to carry their child." Is that misleading advertising? Whose child is it? Is it their child, the child of the couple willing to pay?

What kind of position are the minister and the government prepared to take in view of this kind of advertising, and in view of the fact that the lawyer in question is stating publicly that he has several clients waiting and willing to pay the kinds of moneys that, by virtue of a reading of the Child Welfare Act, are clearly inappropriate and illegal?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, if the member had listened to me; I thought I had already answered his questions.

He started off by saying, "Will you please give me a general policy framework?" I did that. I pointed out that, in terms of a private adoption, there was a slightly different procedure when there was a claim of being a step-parent. I was trying to help him.

I am not buying any of this stuff in the contract. I am not buying any of the descriptions. Basically, all I am aware of is what a lawyer in the state of Michigan says is going to take place. I do not know how much clearer I can be. At the moment of birth or the moment when there is a transaction or a transfer, then we move. How much clearer than that does the member want it?

In terms of the question of women in this province being recruited to be surrogate mothers for disposition of a child that perhaps will be born somewhere else, or adopted somewhere else, if the recruitment is taking place in Ontario, then I can assure the member that the ministry will do something about it. If the woman chooses to cross the border and go to the state of Michigan, or Ohio, or Indiana, and enter into arrangements there, then obviously I have no jurisdiction.

I think in this matter I have covered just about everything. It is all very well for the member to stand up and get on his high horse at the end about the moral overtones and everything else; but by the same token I think he has to remember that, taking out the rather weird, peculiar and perverted financial arrangements in this matter, there are approaches that can be made for surrogate motherhood in this country.

Mr. Conway: The minister might very well have indicated right at the outset that this kind of transaction was improper and was not going to be allowed under any conditions in this province. He might have done that.

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Provincial Secretary for Social Development, whose agitation in this matter will undoubtedly excite her to great fits of enthusiasm in answering it. It concerns the state of youth employment in Ontario.

The Provincial Secretary, whose concern in these matters we all know to be bottomless, will know that youth unemployment in this province is up 45,000 in May 1982 over 1981, and the rate of youth unemployment in Ontario is now just over 16.4 per cent.

10:30 a.m.

In view of the fact that the Ontario youth employment program, the Ontario career action program and the Experience '82 program have increased this government's youth assistance job creation program by less than 9,000, and the net additional youth unemployment this May is up 45,000 over last May, what advice does the Provincial Secretary for Social Development, who is in charge of the Ontario youth secretariat, have for those tens of thousands of young Ontarians between the ages of 15 and 24 who are facing the prospect of unemployment over the course of the summer of 1982, other than that tendered by her colleague the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) through his famous memo of some weeks ago which said if one wants summer employment, particularly in the Ontario public service, one should talk to the local Tory MPP?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, this government has a very good record of providing employment opportunities for the young people of this province. Our ongoing Experience program has provided opportunities for many young people to have first-time job experiences, to help lead them into full-time, paying jobs when they are ready to leave school.

We have identified that the high unemployment rate during the winter months is becoming the focus; so we are designing and developing a program which we think will provide opportunities for a number of young people during the winter months from November perhaps through to March.

However, I think the honourable member should be practical and realistic enough to appreciate that no government can provide jobs for everybody in this province. That is utterly impossible. Through our programs for youth unemployment -- the Ontario career action program, Experience '82, the Ontario youth employment program and this new program, which will be designed for winter unemployment opportunities -- we are doing everything that a government possibly can.

We not only do that but we also have set up employment counselling centres. We have 20 now in operation across this province to counsel young people and to identify opportunities for them in the work place. We are encouraging the private sector to become more involved by giving young people an opportunity. I do not know what more is expected of a government. We are doing a very good job, and young people out there appreciate it.

Mr. Conway: We certainly expect that the young people of this province may do as well as some of the friends of the government who have had their employment considerations well provided for --

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I would just like to bring to the attention of the member that I receive letters from and have been approached personally by numerous people from over there, asking me specifically to look into finding employment opportunities for their constituents. We do not differentiate. When anyone asks to have someone appointed, or to be given an opportunity to work in our programs, his application is considered along with everyone else's. I think that remark by the member is terribly unfair.

Mr. Conway: I want to tell the provincial secretary that I have the pleasure of living in the shadow of Algonquin Park, and between May to September there are more young Tories than deer in that great provincial facility. The provincial secretary does not need to lecture me about the way in which her political referral system works. With all due respect to her, I do not need any lectures in that regard.

I want to know specifically what the provincial secretary has to say to the young people at McMaster University who are currently sitting in Hamilton, wondering what kind of offering they are going to have from the government that told them about the great promise of 1981. I want to know specifically what she intends to say and do about a report, sponsored in part by her own youth secretariat and done by Ms. Harriet Wolman, which criticized in a very direct way the wanton malco-ordination of the Ontario youth employment programs being meted out now by something like 17 ministries or provincial agencies.

What does she have to say, as the minister in charge, about the criticisms levied by the Wolman report? What is she going to do to see to it not only that there is greater co-ordination but also that there is going to be a greater number of net jobs for the young people who are being so penalized in other respects by her colleague the Minister of Universities and Colleges (Miss Stephenson) in their efforts to get summer employment to pay the much higher post-secondary charges that are now being levied?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, the member makes reference to a report that was done for Metropolitan Toronto. It is my understanding that even Metro Toronto has not accepted the criticisms and recommendations in that report.

I repeat that I think we are doing everything humanly possible. I also say to the member that perhaps he has not lived long enough to have experienced some of the traumas people in older age brackets are going through at this moment. I am also concerned about the heads of families who have mortgages to pay and families to raise and who are having great difficulty in finding employment. We have to be very cautious that we do not forget there are other people in society who are having employment problems at the moment. We are doing everything we possibly can.

I also remind the member that within the next month or so we will see a large influx of offshore workers to this great province, because we find that the youth, and other age groups in our society, are not prepared to do the very necessary work on a great number of the farms within this great province. We continue to have to bring in a great many offshore labourers to provide farmers with the help they require. The member might remind some of those who are looking for employment that it is not beneath any of us to get out and work on a farm. It might be a great experience for the member opposite.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, I draw to the minister's attention that many thousands of young people are seeking summer employment this year. She should be well aware of the fact that in many of the major centres of Ontario I have visited in the past couple of months, such as Hamilton, Windsor, Sudbury and Thunder Bay, those large employers who traditionally had a lot of jobs available for youth do not have any at all this summer; so many more youths were looking forward to some assistance from their government. I ask the minister to comment on this trend at the very time when the youth of Ontario need more job opportunities.

In 1979, this government provided $19.5 million and created 13,600 jobs through its Experience programs; in 1980, that was reduced to $13.3 million and 10,400 jobs; in 1981, it was reduced further to $13.2 million and 10,300 jobs; in 1982, it is reduced again to $12 million and 8,800 jobs.

I have to ask this minister whether this government is truly trying to help the young people of this province. In this case, the budget talked about temporary work, not about permanent work at all. I am talking about temporary work too. How can the minister possibly justify a continuing decrease from 1979 to 1980 to 1981 to 1982'? It does not make sense.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Bradley: Is that your strategy over there?

The Acting Speaker: Order. I am having difficulty hearing the member.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The honourable member does not mention the approximately 10,000 young people who are employed in ongoing regular replacement programs within government agencies across this province. He is talking about those jobs specifically designed through Experience, the Ontario youth employment program, the Ontario career action program and the other programs.

Mr. Sweeney: They are your programs.

Hon. Mr. Birch: Yes, they are, and I am very proud of them. I am extremely proud of them. I think they have served a really useful purpose for the young people of this province. But if the member is suggesting that this government should throw millions of dollars into make-work projects when there are people who are finding it extremely difficult to support families at this time and there is no help for them, then I suggest to him that perhaps there are other ways many of those young people can find employment without the government intervening and setting up make-work projects.

One thing I am proud of is the fact that our programs have never been, nor will they ever be, make-work projects. They all perform a very useful service, a much-needed service. I am not going to stand up here and make any kind of commitment, or even suggest to the member, that we are going to come up with a lot of make-work projects. We are not going to do that.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, since the Provincial Secretary for Social Development has enunciated the government policy in favour of unemployment, I wish to address a question to the Treasurer.

Does the Treasurer not think that at this time, when unemployment is at its most severe in Ontario in many decades, it should be the objective of his government at least to aim for full employment? How does he feel, as the Treasurer, to have his budget overtaken by events? His budget aims -- not achieves, but aims -- for 31,000 temporary jobs, but from the unemployment statistics we received this morning we learn that 19,000, or two thirds of the number he had hoped to achieve, were wiped out in the month of May.

10:40 a.m.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, it just shows how the honourable member is able to misinterpret statistics totally. As a matter of fact, according to the statistics that arrived this morning, 109,000 people returned to work during the month of May. On a seasonally adjusted basis, that was reduced to 11,000. The fact is that the figure of 19,000 the member is quoting is the difference between the increase in the labour force and the increase in the number of jobs. Ontario was about the only province in Canada last month to show a net increase in people at work.

Mr. Foulds: The Treasurer's interpretation of the statistics may be very self-satisfying, but he should tell that to the 19,000 people who lost their jobs in this province in May.

Will the Treasurer not bring in emergency job creation programs before this session ends so he can tackle the serious unemployment problem in this province that faces more than 500,000 people? Is he not going to bring in emergency job creation programs in energy conservation which could create 15,000 to 20,000 job or in co-op housing which could create something like 33,000 jobs?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I do not use the words "misled the House," and therefore I am not going to say that, but I want to review the statement the member just made and simply point out that the labour force grows quickly in the spring as people graduate from colleges and universities. On an adjusted basis --

Mr. Foulds: They are still unemployed.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Just a second. On an adjusted basis, we had an increase of 30,000 people available for work last month. That is a big increase. On a real basis, 113,000 more people were in the work force last month. That is a very large month-over-month increase. But on a real basis, 109,000 people found jobs last month. That is a fact. That is the statistic I got this morning from Statscan.

Mr. Foulds: So?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Just a second.

Mr. Foulds: So what about all those people who lost their jobs who you are ignoring?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Let us take the worst possible scene. The seasonally adjusted figure -- I have never quite understood the arithmetic of that -- shows we had 11,000 more people find work last month in this province.

The member likes to quote one statistic out of my budget, saying there will be 31,000 temporary jobs by public works, but he forgets the other jobs that were in the budget. He forgets the roughly 32,000 person-years of work in the renter-buy program. He forgets the 9,000 to 12,000 more jobs in the youth program. The 31,000 admittedly were short-term jobs to get people across what is a bad problem.

We did useful work, as my colleague the Provincial Secretary for Social Development said. We did not choose useless work. We did not put people out at meaningless work. Instead, we are going to be asking municipalities, boards of education, hospitals, colleges -- the whole gamut of things -- to be involved in doing useful programs, some of which were delayed in previous years. We put some $60 million, I recall, into highways works of various kinds. All those are keeping people at work while the economy starts what we believe is a recovery.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, in drafting his budget, the Treasurer surely would have taken into consideration changing conditions over the previous year. Surely the Treasurer would have known that in April 1981 there were 106,000 young people in Ontario between the ages of 15 and 24 out of work. In April 1982, immediately prior to him introducing the budget in this Legislature, the figure for that same age group had increased by 60 per cent to 171,000. As of this morning, that figure has gone up another 15,000 to 186,000. Yet for total youth employment in this province the Treasurer included in his budget an increase of only nine per cent.

How does he justify bringing in a budget in this Legislature that speaks to the terrible, crying, scandalous need of youth unemployment in this province, where there is a year-over- year increase of 60 per cent, or 65,000, by bringing in a nine per cent increase in the budget?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I delayed my budget for some time because I was keenly aware of the state of the economy. I have to say to the honourable member that our friends in Ottawa are going to be bringing out an economic statement this week which I think will be a reshaping of their budget. I hope sincerely it will correct some of the errors of the November budget.

Mr. Kerrio: M and M -- MacEachen and Miller.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Things are bad enough in this country that I will be delighted to work with the federal government to solve some of the problems rather than continue to pound them.

The fact is that the member assumes, and his is alleged to be the right-wing party these days, that governments should create everything. I have to say that a lot of those jobs are being created in the private sector.

Mr. Breithaupt: Why don't you take credit for it?

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Just sit still for a second. Sit still and be quiet.

Mr. Sweeney: They aren't doing it.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I did not interrupt the member. He should just relax. I just point out to him that the removal of the corporate tax for small businessmen will put $250 million into the economy this year. I estimated that would create only 10,000 jobs. Mr. Bulloch's group, I am told, estimated it would create closer to 50,000 jobs. Does the member assume they are all going to older people? Does he not assume the private sector has some resiliency or ability to create jobs apart from the government sector?

Sure, we established more help for the Ontario career action program and for student programs. Sure, it may not be the percentage that the member is showing. But the long-term jobs that produce wealth in this economy are not in government; they are in the private sector, and that is where we have to help.

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I might draw to the Treasurer's attention that Mr. Bulloch also pointed out that something like 25 to 30 per cent of small businesses in this province would close down if there were no interest rate relief, which the Treasurer did not provide for small business.

Going on Mr. Bulloch's figures, let us hear the Treasurer quote them all. I point out to the Treasurer that he can fudge the figures all he wants, but the fact of the matter is that 8.3 per cent of the people in Ontario were unemployed in April.

I ask the minister whether he is aware that the municipal governments we have visited with our task force have pointed out clearly that they will not be able to participate in his job creation program because they have not budgeted for the building supplies he is asking them to purchase and then is taxing them on. Is he willing to change his job creation program to include not only labour but also the supplies so that jobs will be created by the municipalities and the school boards?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I think it was $34.5 million my colleague had for the municipalities in the budget, plus another $500,000 for unorganized townships or areas, to bring it up to $35 million. There was a requirement that there be a certain amount of money provided by municipalities.

I will tell the member something I learned at the municipal level. I do not know whether he was a municipal councillor in the days before he came here, but when any municipality in this province sees about 80 to 90 per cent of the money coming from the province for a project that it believes is necessary, whether it budgeted that in its original figures or not, it is quick to react and take advantage of the generosity of the province.

The Acting Speaker: Following this question, the Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) and the Solicitor General (Mr. G. W. Taylor) have answers to questions asked previously.

FUNDING FOR EDUCATION

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Education. Can she explain why this document, entitled The Ministry of Education Proposal to Introduce a New Formula for the Funding of Elementary and Secondary Education in Ontario, basically and radically attacks the basis of education funding in Ontario by proposing that commercial and industrial property tax assessment be pooled or removed from the jurisdiction of local school boards?

Does the minister realize that Metro Toronto estimates the impact of this proposal would raise the residential taxpayers' cost for the Metro Toronto board area by approximately 16 mills, or more than 30 per cent, and would remove $303 million from the Metro Toronto ability to tax?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member has probably seen an outline of a presentation that is being made by officials within my ministry. It is simply a proposal to look at a new model for funding education at the elementary-secondary level.

Within that model, there is no proposal to remove the ability of a local board to tax the industrial, commercial and institutional sector. It simply provides for a means of more equitable distribution of provincial grants based upon the philosophy that the tax support for the school system should be established on the foundation of relatively equal taxation of equal properties within the province, no matter where those properties are and no matter which part of the school system is being supported.

Mr. Foulds: Does the minister not agree she might have a better chance of making that statement believable if she had offered increased grants to the school boards?

If this is only a proposal, can the minister explain why, between the finalizing of the proposal on approximately May 21 and its presentation three days ago to a meeting of board of education chairmen and directors, slide 4 was dropped from the presentation?

Slide 4 in the original proposal specifically says the objectives of the proposed plan for funding elementary and secondary education in Ontario are to achieve greater equity in the tax burden for educational purposes on residential properties amongst municipalities in Ontario and to introduce a form of expenditure constraint on school board spending in excess of approved costs.

If that is the case, why is the minister trying to introduce a system that reduces the flexibility of local school boards and removes from them the scope of their taxation powers on commercial and industrial property? Since the minister takes that pool and redistributes it, why does she fail to improve their grants?

10:50 a.m.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am not sure how long that question took, but I would hope the members of the opposition parties would note that in many instances their questions, which are extremely and excruciatingly long, require long answers.

The Acting Speaker: Minister, please answer the question.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I will make my answer very short. The member obviously does not understand the purpose of the proposal. In fact, it is a model; there may be better models. What we are attempting to do is to provide for discussion about the appropriate method of funding educational programs within this province.

We in the ministry are not taking back all the institutional, commercial and industrial taxation to redistribute. If this model is followed, the Ministry of Education will not lay a hand on that.

Mr. Foulds: Since all secondary school boards and 74 of 121 elementary school boards in the province are above the ministry's expenditure ceilings, would it not have made more sense simply to raise the grant ceilings to a realistic level?

Why is the ministry trying to get its hands on the limited sources that local boards have when at present, for example, the ministry's portion of expenditure for school boards has been reduced from an average of 60 per cent to 50 per cent and in Metro Toronto it has been reduced from something like 35 per cent a few years ago to 15 per cent?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am not sure the member wants an answer. He simply wants to voice his opinions. His figures are not entirely accurate, and the thesis upon which he has based them is not entirely accurate. I do believe that the opportunity to discuss the methods of funding elementary and secondary education is one that should be seized by the Ministry of Education and by all concerned about that funding so that we can look at new methods and try to find better and more equitable methods.

I believe it is an appropriate principle to examine that the cost of education should be equitably borne by all residential taxpayers in Ontario, no matter what is happening in terms of the other tax base. A taxpayer who happens to live in Toronto should not have a huge advantage over a taxpayer who happens to live in Wawa or Geraldton. The equalized mill rate has attempted to solve that problem. We know it does not solve it completely, and this is simply a further attempt to improve equitability.

NURSING HOME CARE

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, as a result of a question raised on Tuesday last by the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. Cooke) and concerns brought to my attention and the ministry's attention over the past several months by the member for Elgin (Mr. McNeil), the ministry has been looking into events at the Willson Nursing Home in St. Thomas for some time.

Some six months ago, the nursing home inspection service of my ministry became concerned with the quality of care at the nursing home and met with the licensee at that time. As a result of those discussions, the quality of care has improved to the point that the ministry now is satisfied with the level of care in the facility.

The facility was visited as recently as May 13 and 14, and on those days inspectors were satisfied with both the level of care and the staffing patterns. Staffing patterns currently are above the necessary limits, at approximately 1.7.

As a result of these questions and others, my ministry staff will visit the nursing home again shortly to ensure that the quality of care we require is maintained in that nursing home.

The member for Windsor-Riverside also raised the question of the administrator hiring a night watchman in the facility. The administrator has hired a night watchman because of recent incidents in the home, including vandalism, resulting in damage to equipment essential to resident care.

The honourable member also raised the issue of the use of condoms on men with bladder problems. I point out that this is done only on medical orders, with the permission, advice and direction of doctors of the residents involved. In this case, nine residents were being treated in that way, only eight of them, however, at the request of the patient's doctor.

We have directed the nursing home staff to ascertain from the doctor of that single patient whether this method of dealing with the problem is acceptable. I wish to point out that in eight of the nine cases it was an acceptable method, approved by, and under the direction of, the patient's doctor.

Mr. Cooke: First, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister whether he will table the inspection reports in the Legislature so that we can take a look at them.

I would like to further ask the minister whether is he aware that while the inspections to which he refers were done on May 13, the layoffs took place on May 25. Further, the security guard is a day security guard, and it seems to me the money being spent on the security guard would be much better put into staff who serve the residents of the home.

Finally, I would like to ask the minister whether he is aware that the use of condoms on the men was ordered by Dr. Sole, the Hamilton owner of the nursing home, and that they were ordered after the layoffs took place, obviously as a method of coping with inadequate staff.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: With respect, if the member wishes to make an accusation against Dr. Sole and suggests he has engaged in medical malpractice, he should take that to the College --

Mr. Cooke: He is the owner of the nursing home and I stated that. Don't be silly.

11 a.m.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The innuendo is quite clear. The member raised it in the sense of his being both the owner of the nursing home and the attending physician for eight of the nine patients. If the member thinks that presents an ethical problem, he should report it to the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He should have the courage to say and do what he believes in. Either he believes that it is proper or that it is not. If he is courageous. as he likes to present himself in southwestern Ontario, he should go right ahead and do it.

Mr. Cooke: Why don't you have your inspection branch do a halfway decent job?

Mr. Martel: Why are you trying to put the onus on him? You are the Minister of Health.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I am not making any accusation against that particular doctor.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: He asked you the question.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: If he is not sure, then he should not stand up in this assembly and make that innuendo.

The Deputy Speaker: Would the minister be so kind as to answer the question.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member may feel free to go to the college if he has any complaint about the doctor.

The member also suggests that the money would be better spent on staff rather than on security. The running of each particular nursing home in this province is in the hands of the nursing home operator. I know the member is sensitive about this because there is a labour dispute underlying the situation, so we know where he is coming from on the issue.

Even though there has been a change in the people working in that facility, at its peak the staffing pattern was at 1.89 hours. It dropped to what we considered to be an insufficient level of 1.65 hours at its lowest and it is back up to 1.7 hours.

Mr. Cooke: That was before the layoffs.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That is the situation today, as we understand it, and it is an acceptable level.

Mr. McClellan: You know that is wrong.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: If the operator is running that facility in such a way that the nursing care is not adequate, then obviously steps will be taken when my staff visit the facility once again.

Mr. Cooke: When?

Mr. McClellan: When?

Mr. Cassidy: How soon?

Mr. Martel: After you warn them.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The answer to that question happens to be today. I know the member will be disappointed to hear that, but it is today.

The Deputy Speaker: Are you going to table the document?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I just wanted to lure him into asking "When?" As always, he could not resist the bait.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Minister, let us finish this off. Are you going to table the documents?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I will have to see if I can. If I can, I will.

OPP SERVICES

Hon. G. W. Taylor: In answer to a previously asked --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: What are we doing?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I was just waiting for the conversation to stop.

The Deputy Speaker: I am listening.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Fine, Mr. Speaker, as long as you are listening. You are the most important person.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: On a point of personal privilege --

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Does the Minister of Health have a point of personal privilege?

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: On May 31, the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) asked me about a service provided by the Ontario Provincial Police in the community of Dubreuilville. At that time, I promised to obtain some additional information regarding the bilingual capabilities of civilian communications personnel at that detachment.

First, let me state that four additional OPP officers are being stationed at Wawa where the present detachment is located. The one officer who has been located at the storefront office at Dubreuilville will be stationed in the Wawa area.

No one serving at Dubreuilville as a communications officer is bilingual. Indeed, there is no communications officer, as such, at Dubreuilville; the communications for the Dubreuilville area are served out of Wawa. Unfortunately, there is no bilingual communications officer at Wawa.

Usually the communications people are civilians and it is difficult to transfer them. We have had some difficulty in obtaining bilingual communications officers from the civilian communications personnel in the area. However, when the new communications facility is established and operational at Sault Ste. Marie, the force plans to have a bilingual uniformed member on duty 24 hours a day. When a call from a francophone resident of Dubreuilville is received at the centre, one of the French-speaking officers will therefore be able to assist that caller.

The Deputy Speaker: I just want to point out --

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I don't know whether that is a supplementary, but anyway I trust this information will --

The Deputy Speaker: Order. From time to time when I have had the opportunity of doing question period, ministers tend to make their answers awfully long when responding to questions previously asked and I hope the Solicitor General will summarize that long answer within the next minute.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: Are you going to give a similar admonition to some of the questioners over there for the length of the questions?

The Deputy Speaker: Yes, when I have the opportunity, absolutely.

Mr. MacDonald: For the first time we have some balance.

Ms. Copps: I can see their horns are locked.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, on the comment you have made, I do not believe it is a very long question.

The Deputy Speaker: No, it is a long answer.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: The question was very long and very detailed. The answer is barely one page. I find, Mr. Speaker, that your comments are unnecessary at this point in time. I am willing to complete the last sentence, Mr. Speaker.

Ms. Copps: The Speaker's ruling is not debatable.

Mr. Ruston: If you can't read it, give it to someone else.

The Deputy Speaker: Order, order, order. The point of the matter is I think it could have been made as a ministerial statement. I will allow you the opportunity to try to conclude it.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, on that question, I have been in the House for the same length of time as you have and the point of order is that --

Ms. Copps: Point of order.

The Deputy Speaker: A point of order from the member for Hamilton Centre (Ms. Copps).

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Who has the floor, Mr. Speaker?

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Hamilton Centre with a point of order.

Ms. Copps: My point of order, Mr. Speaker, is that this is not a question. It is a ruling from the Speaker which is not debatable by the minister or any other member of this House.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: On many occasions when the Speaker has made a ruling in terms of getting a balance here and it was a balance that was in favour of the government, we have had to sit down. Now we have an argument going on that was started by the whip and is being continued by members of the cabinet. They have used the Speaker as if he were a puppet --

The Deputy Speaker: Order, order, order.

Let's finish this off. Would the Solicitor General just finish off his answer.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: You don't want me to continue this debate?

The Deputy Speaker: No, I don't. Just finish off.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I found it very interesting. I trust this information will assure the member that the level of services of residents of Dubreuilville will be maintained. Thank you very much for letting me finish that one-page statement, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Boudria: Why didn't you call it a statement?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: It was the answer to a question.

Ms. Copps: He just said it was a statement.

Mr. Martel: How can the minister assure us that at all times on duty and in a place where they can be contacted will be a francophone --

Hon. G. W. Taylor: An answer contains statements. They contain paragraphs.

Ms. Copps: You just said it was a statement.

Mr. Martel: I am waiting for George to finish his answer. He has decided to finish the rest of it from his chair.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I believe the Speaker yesterday admonished us for using personal names. We have titles in here and we have labels for our ridings. The man who says the greatest things about rules in here, who is always touting the rules in here, called me by my first Christian name.

The Deputy Speaker: Would you call George by his name please?

Mr. Martel: I am sorry, George.

The Deputy Speaker: We have only got a couple of minutes left. Have you got a supplementary?

Mr. Martel: A supplementary to the Solicitor General: How can the minister assure us that in fact someone who is bilingual will be available at all times when a call might be coming in? Is there not the possibility that in fact the officer who is bilingual will be working in some other area at the time that the call comes, and therefore there will be no one capable of dealing with the issue at the time someone might phone in from Dubreuilville? What assurance do we have?

Mr. Foulds: Dubreuilville is going to have to phone Sault Ste. Marie, isn't it?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, on this particular matter, I can give no assurance to the honourable member that there will be a bilingual individual serving the communications network at all hours of the day.

The force has a procedure to try to increase the number of individuals who have the facility in the languages of both French and English in the province and there is a component in the Ontario Provincial Police that is trying to increase this facility. However, I cannot give the member an assurance that on all occasions there will be bilingual service.

I can only say that on the new communications network that is also being put in, there will be more centralized use of communications networks so we will be able to have more of these individuals who are conversant in both French and English.

11:10 a.m.

The Deputy Speaker: The time for question period has expired.

USE OF TIME IN QUESTION PERIOD

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

Is it not possible, considering the long statements from both the Minister of Health and the Solicitor General, to add a little time to question period, in view of the fact they might have been called ministerial statements?

The Deputy Speaker: No. This time around I think my admonition will be enough. Next time around we will add some time for long ministerial statements.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I would like to bring to your attention that today there has not been a single question by a back-bencher. If question period is to serve any purpose at all, it should not only be a place where the leaders can highlight their questions, but also the back-benchers who represent important constituencies can have the same rights as others.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Talk to your leaders.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Talk to your leaders.

Mr. Martel: Don't be so silly.

The Deputy Speaker: The member for Downsview still has the floor.

Mr. Di Santo: The government benches are particularly intolerant. They do not understand. They have the majority in the House but they should at least allow the opposition to put questions. I would like to bring to your attention that at some point there should be a ruling because the answers given by the ministers are so incredibly long that, in my opinion, they use enough time to prevent us from asking a question.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. I will do that. I will point out to the ministers that their answers are too long, just as I will point out to the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) and the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) that their questions are too long, so at that appropriate point all private members would have the opportunity of asking questions.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, could I ask that you arrange, starting next Monday, that the length of time for questions and responses be calculated and kept track of by the table officers. We will bloody well find out who is taking all the time of the House. In the figures we have compiled for April and May, I want to say it is not this side of the House; it is over there.

The Deputy Speaker: It is my understanding that has been done in the past, but I would suggest the House leaders negotiate the aspects of keeping time. Keeping time is only to see how much time would be available for private members.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I have asked if you are prepared to instruct the table officers next week to start to time the answers and the questions. If we are ever going to get around this impasse, it is by knowing specifically what is going on. If the government does not object and it thinks it is we who are taking the time, then it should agree with me.

The Deputy Speaker: What I will do is to bring this to the attention of the Speaker and ask him to report on Monday on time-tracking.

PETITION

ANNUAL REPORT, EDUCATION RELATIONS COMMISSION

Mr. McClellan: Pursuant to standing order 33(b), we the undersigned hereby petition to refer the annual report of the Educational Relations Commission for the year 1980-81 to the standing committee on social development. It is signed by 21 members of the New Democratic Party caucus.

MOTION

STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Hon. Mr. Gregory moved that standing order 72(a), respecting notice of committee hearings, be suspended for the consideration of Bill Pr14, An Act respecting the University of Western Ontario, by the standing committee on social development on Monday, June 7, 1982.

Motion agreed to.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Laughren moved, seconded by Mr. McClellan, first reading of Bill 136, An Act to amend the Workmen's Compensation Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Laughren: This bill replaces references to "workmen" in the Workmen's Compensation Act, renamed the Workers' Compensation Act, with references to "workers." Given that about 40 per cent of the work force in Ontario are now women, the name of the present act and board is an anachronism.

DEGREE GRANTING ACT

Hon. Miss Stephenson moved, seconded by Hon. Mr. Bernier, first reading of Bill 137, An Act to regulate the Granting of Degrees.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: It has been the tradition in this province, and in most parliamentary systems, that a charter to grant degrees could only be attained from the Legislature or the Parliament. In Ontario, this tradition has served the purpose of ensuring that universities and other degree-granting institutions were constituted in such a fashion as to ensure sound academic and financial governance, and to provide legal validation to the degrees awarded by the institutions. The boundaries of the authority to grant degrees were defined by inclusion of this power in a statutory charter.

It has now become apparent that there is no legal authority to exclude other individuals and institutions from granting degrees in Ontario. In fact, a problem of increasing concern is the chartering of degree-granting institutions by the federal government. I am aware of at least four so-called degree-granting institutions operating in Ontario under the authority of federal government letters patent.

11:20 a.m.

Proposed federal legislation, Bill C-10, currently before the House of Commons, will make it even easier for these institutions to be incorporated by the federal government. It is feared, particularly by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, that this will lead to a proliferation of institutions with doubtful academic credentials.

This proposed federal legislation therefore necessitates an urgent provincial response. I note that the government of Prince Edward Island has recently rushed through its Legislature a piece of legislation to prevent a federally incorporated institution from operating in that province.

Prospective students should have the assurance that any degree program offered in Ontario has legal and academic credibility. Employers should be protected from job applicants with questionable credentials. Ontario's educational reputation in other jurisdictions should also be protected.

This bill will not encroach upon the fundamental freedom of people to operate educational institutions. It would, however, ensure that the Legislature would have to be convinced of the educational soundness of the institution before it could grant degrees. All 16 provincial degree-granting institutions and their federated or affiliated colleges and degree-granting institutions which have statutory authority in another province to grant degrees would be exempted from the provisions of this act.

As Minister of Education and Colleges and Universities, I am dedicated to the provision of a full range of educational opportunities and to ensuring that they are of the highest standard. Through the Education Act and the Private Vocational Schools Act, the Legislature has provided for educational quality in other areas. This bill would give statutory authority to a traditional authority exercised by the Legislature concerning the granting of degrees.

CO-OPERATORS INSURANCE ASSOCIATION ACT

Mr. Lane moved, seconded by Mr. Williams, first reading of Bill Pr26, An Act respecting Co-operators Insurance Association.

Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THIRD READINGS

The following bills were given third reading on motion:

Bill 9, An Act to amend the District Municipality of Muskoka Act;

Bill Pr3, An Act respecting the City of Toronto;

Bill Pr7, An Act respecting the City of Mississauga.

WORKERS' COMPENSATION

Hon. Mr. Gregory, seconded by Hon. Mrs. Birch, moved resolution 7:

That the following documents be referred to the standing committee on resources development for its consideration and report thereon to the House: (1) Reshaping Workers' Compensation for Ontario, by Paul C. Weiler, dated November 1980, the Weiler report; and (2) the government of Ontario white paper on the Workers' Compensation Act, tabled June 25, 1981, the white paper; that the committee have power to retain expert staff for this reference as it sees fit, subject to the approval of the Board of Internal Economy; and that the committee have authority to sit on this reference, if required, during the summer adjournment, subject to agreement on timetabling by the three parties' whips.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, I just want to take this opportunity on behalf of my party, and also as a member of the standing committee on resources development, to lend hearty support to the motion which has just been presented to the House by the government whip. The Weiler report and the government's response to it have both been discussed at committee hearings and it is very clear that some extremely significant changes are potentially available for injured workers in Ontario.

I do not believe my constituency office is very different from those of most other members in this Legislature, and we get a very large number of workmen's compensation cases. The difficulty of dealing with these cases is getting greater all the time. It is difficult to assist those of our constituents who have to go back to some form of light work or even part-time work because of permanent disabilities of one type or another.

It is particularly difficult when we are dealing with constituents who have back injuries and who are told by members of the medical staff of the Workmen's Compensation Board that it is due to some pre-existing condition. As well, it is becoming increasingly difficult for our constituents to live on the pensions they received from the board.

It is noteworthy that one of the recommendations in the Weiler report is that we get away from the so-called meat chart concept of dealing with human beings. Because of the obvious difficulties which every member of this Legislature faces when dealing with his or her constituents in compensation and pension matters and with respect to trying to find some alternative work for them when they can no longer do their former job, we certainly agree that this whole area needs to be studied much more significantly.

Therefore, we strongly support the motion that it be sent to the resources committee, that it be explored to its fullest possible extent and that the injured workers have an opportunity to come before the committee to tell us, firsthand, of their experiences and the degree to which these references and recommendations meet their needs.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I am a member of the resources development committee but even if I were not I would be moved to speak to this motion and to try to ensure that I were a member of whatever committee will debate this motion.

We all know the problems of workmen's compensation, which hereafter in Ontario will be known as workers' compensation. I assume, since I introduced my private member's bill this morning to change the names to read the Workers' Compensation Board and Workers' Compensation Act, that all government members will support that and make sure that bill gets speedy passage.

As a matter of fact, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) is nodding his head. I assume that means he will be on his feet in this chamber, possibly next week, with his own bill. I am not worried a whit about plagiarism. If the minister wants to stand on his feet and introduce his own bill next week, we would support it. I have already promised the chairman of the compensation board that I personally will not debate such a bill for more than five minutes. As a matter of fact, the bill I introduced this morning came out of a challenge that occurred at the hearings of the compensation board earlier this spring.

11:30 a.m.

I must say, however, speaking now to the motion, I was somewhat surprised when the government indicated its intention to send this matter to a committee during the summer, because it is in between reports from Professor Weiler. In view of the fact that the next report is going to deal with the really fundamental problem that underlies workers' compensation problems, not just in Ontario but elsewhere in Canada and other jurisdictions, I found it passing strange that the Weiler report that has been published, and the white paper, would be sent to a committee before the final Weiler report is laid before us. I really do find that strange.

I want to tell the honourable members, we can make all sorts of amendments to the existing act and they will not resolve the problem of its being an adversarial system. That is what the compensation board is now. Workers must fight to get compensation when they have been injured on the job. I believe in the work ethic much more than most of the Conservatives over there, otherwise they would not hand out all those plums to their friends when they retire. They obviously do not believe in the work ethic as we do.

I believe when people are as plugged into the work ethic as I am and my friends are, when they get injured on the job they should not be penalized one penny as a result of being injured because of doing their job. I think that is fundamental to a fair, just, equitable compensation system in the province. That is the goal towards which we must all strive if we are going to have a good compensation system.

I know the Minister of Labour would be the first to admit that there should be rate increases brought before this chamber which could be debated now and be passed before we adjourn this summer so that injured workers would not have to go yet another year without increases in compensation rates.

It is beyond me to understand why the Minister of Labour, who is supposed to be looking after the needs of labour, simply does not do that. It has nothing whatsoever to do with us debating a motion later on this year. There is no reason that the minister cannot bring in those rate increases this month and get them through. It is simply not proper to have injured workers carrying a burden of inflation that is not of their making. People do not deliberately injure themselves; therefore, they should not be asked to subsidize the employers in the province by eating inflation. That is what the government is asking the injured workers in this province to do.

If the minister believes, as I do, that injured workers should never be penalized because they believe in the work ethic, then surely to goodness he has an obligation to tie the benefits they receive to the cost of living or the rate of inflation. This government has never done that. When this motion comes before committee and we start debating the Weiler report and the government white paper, that issue is obviously going to be a part of those hearings.

In regard to the length of time that has been allocated to that committee, given the substantiveness of both the Weiler report and the white paper, I can assure the minister that four weeks is simply not going to be enough, if we are going to get out and talk to the injured workers and their representatives in the trade union movement. In order to prevent the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker) having an apoplectic fit, even the employers of Ontario might want to say something to the committee about the level of benefits and the kind of compensation system we create in this province. Since they are the ones who pay compensation, they surely have a right to appear before the committee.

I ask the minister whether he really thinks we can debate all of that and give other people the opportunity to come before the committee in a period of four weeks, usually three days a week in hearings between sessions. I would be very surprised if that could be accomplished.

I would issue a warning to the member of the Liberal Party who spoke about not liking the meat chart, which says that workers will be compensated according to their physical disabilities and not according to their income disabilities. That is really the distinction we are talking about. I have great concern, because it is not unusual, particularly in the mining industry or the forestry industry, for a worker to have a 20-per-cent disability and yet lose 100 per cent of his earnings. That obviously needs to be rectified.

But at the same time, a constituent for whom I have an enormous amount of respect was very seriously injured in a mine accident. That person has a 100 per cent pension as a result of that disability; he is paralyzed from the waist down. That person now has a job earning as much as he did before.

If you go the way suggested by the member for the Liberal Party, that is, the wage-loss system, then we are going to run into difficulty in areas like that. It seems to me that someone who gets as seriously injured as that needs to be compensated for life, not just because of the loss of income. I think we have to be very careful.

I will not debate the motion further except to say once again to the Minister of Labour that he is not being fair to the injured workers of this province if he does not bring in compensation rate increases right now, this month, before we adjourn.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I wonder if the House would bear with me while I introduce in the Speaker's gallery the Right Honourable Lord Cockfield, Secretary of State for Trade for Great Britain. Lord Cockfield is a Conservative member of the House of Lords, Secretary of State for Trade and a member of the cabinet with whom I have been having discussions all morning. I would like to introduce him along with the Consul General of the United Kingdom in Toronto, Mr. Reginald Holloway, who is accompanying him today.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment briefly on some of the points that were brought forward by the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren).

First of all, I will support the private member's bill with respect to the name change from workmen's compensation to workers' compensation. I indicated this earlier, and I have no quarrel with it whatsoever.

Second, the committee was originally to sit for three weeks. I certainly did not feel that this was sufficient time. This morning, the whip told me it would be for four weeks. When he brought to my attention that it would be four weeks I told him that I thought even this might not be sufficient time, so he indicated that with the consent of the committee we could possibly go a fifth week if necessary. So I understand exactly what the honourable member is saying in that respect, and I concur with it.

Third, the member asked the reasons the committee was sitting at this time. I was a little surprised to hear him ask that. I felt I was responding to very articulate comments by him, by the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt) and also by the member for Nickel Belt at the time the Workmen's Compensation Board annual report was being debated in the resources committee. I thought the members then had made a strong point and had asked me for the opportunity to have this debated in a public forum. This was basically the primary reason for doing so in this manner. In fact, the original recommendation was for a select committee.

I have a personal reason as well. With the change of ministers, and coming in at the time I did, I came in completely unfamiliar with the work that had been done to date. I had not had the benefit of the representations by labour, management and injured workers groups as had the former minister. I could have started this process all over again but it would have delayed things. I also thought that the process should be done in a public forum. So I did it for those reasons: to respond to the members' requests and recommendations, to give me an opportunity to become as knowledgeable as possible about the recommendations and to hold it in a public forum.

11:40 a.m.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I am not against the idea there should be a public forum to discuss the Weiler report and the white paper on the Workmen's Compensation Act, but I would like to make a few comments. If the minister checks the record, he will find that the problem of reshaping the Workmen's Compensation Board did not start yesterday. In 1972 or 1973, there was a commission for the purpose of studying the reform of the Workmen's Compensation Board. Subsequently, we have had discussions every year because it is no longer felt the present system is adequate.

It is an old system that reflects a world which belongs to the past. The workmen's compensation system we have today was set up in 1914 when the workers were considered a commodity, as they are considered by the government today. It was a means to avoid workers bringing employers to court. To avoid waste of time and money and, above all, huge compensations, the system that was represented by the party across the House, even at that time, set up the Workmen's Compensation Board.

This is the reason we have so many problems today. That is the reason one hears outcries now and then from several sectors of our society asking for reform of that system. Reform of the system should be centred on the recognition of workers as human beings who are entitled to be compensated when an accident occurs to them. They should not be put into the position of having to fight against a system.

As the minister knows, today the system is so complex and cumbersome that many workers at some point are not only victimized because they have had an accident and lost an income, but they are victimized as human beings because they cannot function any longer in this society. On top of that, they have to fight to get benefits which are totally inadequate.

Unless we recognize the basic principle that workers must not be considered a commodity that can be dismissed once it is no longer useful for the purpose of performing work in our society, any reform will be quite useless.

I am puzzled by the fact that this summer we are going to have meetings of the standing committee on resources development for three weeks to study, as the motion says, both the Weiler report and the white paper. As my colleague the member for Nickel Belt has said, Professor Weiler was appointed by the Minister of Labour in 1979. I want to remind the minister that the appointment took place three years ago.

In 1979 he was asked to make a review of the Workmen's Compensation Board. That is the part of the report that will be examined by the resources development committee this summer. He was also asked to provide his opinion on the universal insurance scheme that has been advocated for many years by the New Democratic Party. This summer the report on universal insurance will not be available.

I hope I am wrong but I think this summer, when the resources development committee meets, it will only be dealing with the Weiler report, which is only part of the task that Professor Weiler was supposed to bring to conclusion and did not. When will the legislation come in? Will it be after Weiler has submitted his second report, or when? We do not have any assurance at all.

The minister said this is also a result of the change of ministers. I have been asking questions repeatedly during this session because I think the government plans to stall the reform of the Workmen's Compensation Board as long as possible.

On March 19 I asked the minister what he thought of the Weiler report and its implementation in view of the fact that the previous minister had said he would have all presentations by January 6 and therefore would be in a position to introduce legislation in the House. When I asked the minister, he said, "I cannot give you an answer now because I am new to this job. Give me time."

On April 26, in reply to a question I asked of the minister, he said there were several groups who had asked to make presentations. I asked him how many groups there were. There was a deadline, and on May 6 he answered me by saying that of the 75 briefs presented, six were oral presentations. On April 26 there were 11 requests to make presentations; by May 6, six had been heard and five were outstanding. I gather from the information the minister gave me on the Order Paper that there are no more requests or presentations to be made. What will the summer committee deal with?

If the government was serious, it had all possible opinions from labour organizations, injured workers' organizations and employers' organizations -- a very large area of opinion. If the government was serious, then the minister should have come to a conclusion and come up with some sort of legislation.

Not only did the minister not do that, but the other night when we debated my question, he did something even worse. Because of the excuse that this summer the Weiler report and the white paper would be examined by the resources development committee, he refused to introduce the amendment to the act in order to give the injured workers a cost of living increase in benefits. I find that unjustifiable. When we debated that the other night, he was unable to give any rationale at all. He could not justify why he was refusing.

I remember a previous minister, the member for York Mills (Miss Stephenson), at least found a very expensive excuse. She told us, "We cannot introduce the amendment now" -- I think it was in 1978 or 1979 -- "because we need an actuarial study. A very expensive study concluded that the Workmen's Compensation Board did not need money and she was able to stall the increases in workmen's compensation benefits because she found that excuse.

The present minister was not even able to find a single excuse. I read carefully what the minister said the other night. He said, "We introduced amendments in 1978, 1979 and 1981 and in the fullness of time we will introduce amendments." In the meantime, what will injured workers do? That is why I am perplexed by the fact that the government is suggesting there is a need for a public forum for the discussion of the Weiler report and the white paper on the Workmen's Compensation Board. This is just diverting attention from the immediate needs of the workers.

11:50 a.m.

Nobody can dispute the fact that this is the only group in our society -- I challenge the minister to name any other such group of people -- which receives benefits or pensions and which is not in a position to have an increase as a result of an increased cost of living.

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker: We are trying to speak to the motion.

Mr. Di Santo: I am speaking directly to the motion.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Scarcely.

Mr. Ruston: Isn't it normal procedure? Is there something wrong with it?

Interjection.

Mr. Di Santo: If I understand correctly, his whipship does not wish me to speak on the motion. I do not understand the point.

As I was saying, I was perplexed. The government, by suggesting there is a need for a further study of both the Weiler report and the white paper by the resources development committee, is in effect diverting the attention of the public from a more immediate decision that the government should have made but did not.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Do you people talk to one another over there at all?

Mr. Di Santo: As my colleague the member for Nickel Belt has said, if the minister is serious he should, at this late date, think of immediately introducing an amendment to the Workmen's Compensation Act so it can be passed before the end of this session. That would have more validity than spending four or five weeks this summer studying the Weller report. I do not understand why his whipship is so intolerant. This is an issue I feel very strongly about.

Mr. Robinson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: As I look across the House I note a complete lack of opposition faces except for the member for London North (Mr. Van Horne). I have to wonder if they have an interest in this debate and if it is going to go on at great length.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: It is not my intention to be critical of anybody for speaking on this motion, but I wonder if the honourable member understands that all we are trying to do is to refer this to committee and accomplish what the third party wanted.

I do not think there is any debate on our part about whether or not it should go to the committee. I wonder if the member could be reminded that he will have ample opportunity during four or five weeks of the summer to say what he is saying. It is my feeling that debate on this should be confined to whether or not the report should be referred to the committee and to the ability to obtain the help they need in dealing with the report. It should not be a debate on some unhappiness the member has with the Workmen's Compensation Board. That is not inherent in this motion, and we must realize that we have a great deal of work to do before the end of the session.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could have a ruling from you as to whether we can speak more than once on this motion.

The Deputy Speaker: It is my understanding that we cannot.

Mr. Van Horne: On a point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Robinson) pointed out that there was no one here, and then noticed that I was sitting off to the side. I would like to point out that the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney) is also in the House.

The Deputy Speaker: Back to the notice of motion: I am looking to direction from all members of the House on this matter as to whether the chair was being a little restrictive in terms of the debate on whether this should go to committee. I think we have been awfully tolerant in allowing a freewheeling discussion on various aspects of the board.

Mr. Laughren: The Tory whip is provoking us.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I do not understand why the Tories --

Hon. Mr. Gregory: If you don't want to pass it, vote it down.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Downsview (Mr. Di Santo) has the floor.

Mr. Di Santo: I am rather amused by the fact that the member for Mississauga East (Mr. Gregory) is becoming more and more intolerant. I think I am speaking exactly on the terms of reference in the motion. I am expressing my positive and constructive criticism in order to come to a position that is acceptable to all the members of the House and is also constructive. I was saying I had some questions about the fact that both the Weiler report and the white paper are being referred to the resources development committee this summer, and I beg you to correct me if I am not speaking directly to the motion, Mr. Speaker.

I was saying I am perplexed. I should perhaps restate what I said at the beginning. I am in favour of a public forum where this important issue will be debated. I also said that the debate has been very long, and I was expressing my suspicion that, by referring this to the resources development committee this summer, the government is trying to set up a diversionary tactic to avoid taking responsibility right now for amending the Workmen's Compensation Act.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I would point out to the honourable member --

Mr. Di Santo: If the member for Scarborough East (Mrs. Birch) wants to intervene, I can yield the floor to her.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: It has been pointed out to the member over and over again that this is being done at the request of his own party. Its members suggested that this go to the committee in the summer, and the member keeps speaking against it and questioning why --

Mr. Laughren: No, we support the motion.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: It does not sound like that to me. The member keeps questioning why it is being done. He keeps suggesting the government is trying to delay it. We are doing exactly what they requested.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Scarborough East, but she probably misunderstood me. I am not saying the government is trying to delay debate on the white paper and on the Weiler report. I said, and I want to repeat, that by sending the Weiler report and the white paper to the resources development committee this summer the government is giving up some of its responsibilities vis-à-vis some of the decisions it should make right now about amending the Workmen's Compensation Act in order to increase the benefits.

Moreover, I said I am in favour, and I want to repeat that for the third time, I am in favour of having a very thorough debate on the Workmen's Compensation Board, because I think the present system is outdated. It belongs to the past. It is the result of a capitalistic conception of our society.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: That is exactly why this concern is being expressed. But we are only here to debate the resolution, not to go into a long harangue about what the government is doing or is not doing. We have agreed there is a need to take a look at the Workmen's Compensation Board, and that is exactly what is going to be done. I think the member is taking advantage of the situation to --

Mr. Laughren: Why are you prolonging the debate?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Why am I prolonging it? Because I have sat here for hours and hours listening to a lot of nonsensical haranguing.

12 noon

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I just want to say that I was so pleased to hear the minister up speaking on this issue that I was hoping she would go on longer, actually. I am disappointed that the member for Nickel Belt feels she is unnecessarily prolonging the debate. I was really pleased that she was participating.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Why do you not speak to it?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I will speak in the debate in a few minutes, and I will yield the floor from time to time to her.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for your patience and for allowing the member for Scarborough East to make her point. She spoke twice. She is quite exceptional for the secretary of --

The Deputy Speaker: Let us not get into a diatribe of personalities.

Mr. Di Santo: I am speaking on the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Not only does she usually not speak, but she also never answers the questions when she --

The Deputy Speaker: Come on.

Mr. Di Santo: I agree with her. For the first time since I have been in this House, the minister made an admission that there is a need to change the Workmen's Compensation Board. That is an admission that all of us agree with, and that is why I was making my remarks, trying to be constructive and --

Interjection.

The Deputy Speaker: Here we go again.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education wants to make a point. If you will allow it, I will yield the floor to her.

The Deputy Speaker: No. She has not asked for anything.

Mr. Di Santo: I do not know whether I will be sitting on the committee, but since I am a member of this assembly and we have this important resolution before us today, I think it is my right to debate the resolution. If I am wrong, I ask to be corrected, because I like the Minister of Education. At this very moment, Mr. Speaker, you are unbiased, objective and impartial --

The Deputy Speaker: I always am.

Mr. Di Santo: -- and you recognize my right to speak on the resolution.

To go back to the resolution, which is very important, we agree with the debate. Since I know that the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) wants to give a very learned contribution to this debate, I will conclude my remarks by saying that we agree with this referral. But I want to ask the minister for the first time whether he does not feel compelled at this point to increase the benefits to the injured workers by introducing an amendment in this House before the end of the session or, if not, to stand up and have the moral courage to explain why he does not want to do that.

Mr. Ruston: Mr. Speaker, I will very briefly say that I am very happy that we are sending this to the committee. I am sure they will have every opportunity to meet on it, peruse it and come up with some great resolutions to the problems we have now with workmen's compensation. I was glad to hear the Minister of Labour say that if it took three weeks, four weeks or five weeks, it would be fine. We are glad to hear that; so we certainly approve the resolution.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I rise only in confusion about the Minister of Labour speaking again.

The Deputy Speaker: No. I clarified to the member for Nickel Belt that we are speaking only once to this.

Mr. Laughren: That is what we said.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: That is what I thought.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Member for Scarborough West, have you spoken to this?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I have not yet.

The Deputy Speaker: Would you like to?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: No.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: I am having trouble, because I cannot recognize the Minister of Labour. What should I do?

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, I was just wondering whether there were going to be any further speakers.

Mr. McClellan: Unless we are provoked, no.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Fine.

Motion agreed to.

House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF NORTHERN AFFAIRS (CONTINUED)

On vote 701, ministry administration program; item 1, main office:

The Deputy Chairman: The member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Is he taking over for the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden)? I believe she adjourned the debate.

The Deputy Chairman: There is no adjournment. The member for Beaches-Woodbine will have plenty of opportunities to participate. Was the minister in the middle of a reply?

Mr. Van Horne: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: As we left the last debate, the minister was about to respond. I quote from Hansard at page 2166:

"Hon. Mr. Bernier: My response will be lengthy."

"The Acting Chairman: Then I would suggest it might be appropriate to move it on to the next time slotted for your estimates."

I submit that the minister should have the floor to proceed with the flow we were enjoying in the last estimates debate.

The Deputy Chairman: Does the member for Nickel Belt want to hear from the minister at this point? It seems there is something unfinished at this point.

Mr. Laughren: I have no problem with that.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Thank you very much.

I believe that when we wound up last time, as the member for London North (Mr. Van Horne) has pointed out, the member for Beaches-Woodbine was discussing the wild rice issue. She was going on at great length about the extension of the moratorium and so on.

I listened to her with great interest, and it was typical of the kind of contribution that comes from an individual who has done little research and has little knowledge about a subject that is really a northern Ontario matter. I doubt if she even knows how to cook wild rice. I get a little annoyed when members go on at great length about something they are not totally familiar with, when there are so many members, such as the member for Nickel Belt and the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes), who are very well informed.

It was obvious in the course of the input by the member for Beaches-Woodbine that there was very little background knowledge. It was superficial and missed the whole point of the debate we were having about trying to maximize the benefits not only to our native people but to the entire community. She missed completely the point that I and, I think, others were trying to make.

The question was asked of me, what has --

Mr. Laughren: Now that you have got the smear out of the way, you can get on with the facts.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It was not a smear, just the facts. I am disappointed she is not here.

The Deputy Chairman: To the member for Nickel Belt, who was kind enough to give up the floor for the minister, I say that we shall give you a chance to respond shortly.

Mr. Laughren: I realize now that I made a mistake.

The Deputy Chairman: It would be pleasant to hear from the minister. Then we shall be pleased to hear from you.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: He has the floor and a lot of gall.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The member for London North and, I believe, the member for Lake Nipigon inquired as to what the Ministry of Northern Affairs has done and is doing with respect to its involvement in wild rice.

As Minister of Northern Affairs, and in my former role as Minister of Natural Resources, I have long recognized the economic benefits of wild rice development to the residents of the north, including the traditional significance of the crop to our native people.

Beginning in 1978, the Ministry of Northern Affairs funded the following projects through the Ministry of Natural Resources:

A wild rice inventory: a complete inventory of the wild rice crop in the Kenora, Dryden, Fort Frances, Ignace, Sioux Lookout, Red Lake, Hearst and Gogama areas.

12:10 p.m.

Applied research: assessing the suitability of waters for planting wild rice; planting new nonshattering varieties of wild rice in natural lakes of Ontario; testing new techniques of harvesting wild rice; the use of satellite technology and aerial photography for rice inventories; studies on (1) effects of undecomposed rice straw on production of rice beds, (2) determining most desirable water levels and (3) improving rice production through control structures.

Educational program: demonstrations of mechanical harvesters; slide production -- A Pictorial View of Wild Rice Production in Canada; technical assistance to various wild rice producers; planting two lakes for research and field demonstrations; and, with the Ministry of Natural Resources, we produced a wild rice recipe book.

The last item we were involved in was the printing of posters and on-site checking of certain complaints as part of the enforcement package.

The wild rice research project at Lakehead University was initiated in August 1981. The thrust of the study is to increase the production of wild rice in Ontario by examining the effects of fertilizers, herbicides and water depth on the production of wild rice. Scientific analysis of these factors will result in recommended management techniques, which will benefit the industry in general and help stabilize yearly yields of wild rice.

In the past, major fluctuations of wild rice crops have been a serious factor in constraining the development of the industry. An important facet of the program is the extension service which provides assistance to all user groups to examine local problems. Information meetings have been held with representatives of Treaty 3 and the Ontario Wild Rice Producers Association.

Under the guidance of the project leader, Dr. Peter Lee, field sampling, observations and laboratory experiments will be conducted during this, the second year of a five-year program. Wild rice user groups have continued to show interest in and support for the program. Program updates will be communicated to these groups directly and through the yearly progress reports.

I would like to read into the record just a paragraph of Professor Lee's first-year report, which I know will be of interest to members. It is the last paragraph on page 67, carrying over on to page 68. It reads:

"Informal meetings have also occurred with wild rice researchers from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, California and Minnesota. Probably the most exciting development was the spirit of co-operation among those who are genuinely interested in the wellbeing of this industry. For the first time, Canadians will be admitted to the growers' organization in Minnesota, being renamed this summer the International Wild Rice Growers Association.

"In Canada itself, Lakehead University, the University of Manitoba and the University of Saskatchewan have agreed to co-operate in their wild rice research programs so as not to duplicate research. University personnel from the two neighbouring provinces are currently trying to obtain research funds from their respective provincial governments.

"The Ontario Ministry of Northern Affairs, for its part, has actively encouraged this cooperative effort and hopefully the other provincial governments involved will adopt a similar progressive attitude."

That is the final page of Professor Lee's first-year report. It does point out to the honourable members that we are very actively involved in research and promotion of this product.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Chairman, when we met last week the minister promised to provide copies of that. I still have not received a copy. Is that because it has not been sent, or was it sent to the wrong place?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I just have my one copy with me, but the members will get a copy.

Mr. Van Horne: We will get one?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: They are in the office. I am sorry, I did not bring them over with me.

Mr. Van Horne: Will the minister see that we get them as soon as possible? I would appreciate it.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes. We can have one for the member for the weekend. We will do that.

I would like to wind up by noting that in my very recent discussions with Willy Wilson of the Emo area, who is now actively involved in the promotion not only of harvesting but also of processing and marketing and all other aspects of wild rice from a native point of view, he pointed out that three years ago Saskatchewan produced very little wild rice. Last year it produced more than 500,000 pounds. This points out that by staying the way we are, in what we might call a stagnant position, we are really doing harm not only to this province but also to our native people by not getting on and moving ahead in an aggressive way.

With the amount of research being done now in the various universities and the co-operation we are getting, the benefits can be tremendous to the whole community of northern Ontario.

That winds up my remarks as they relate to wild rice. I have some other comments and answers with respect to The Atikokan Story. I have a response to the 15 recommendations. Mr. Chairman, If you want those now, I could read them into the record.

Mr. Van Horne: I would appreciate it.

The Deputy Chairman: Please do.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The member for London North asked if I would put on the record our response to the 15 recommendations made in The Atikokan Story, which was prepared by the Municipal Advisory Committee. I have that with me and I would like to follow up on that right now.

I would point out first that The Atikokan Story referred to by the member and of which he has a copy was prepared by the Municipal Advisory Committee. The Municipal Advisory Committee is a committee established by the municipalities. It has only elected representatives and it reports directly to the Ministry of Northern Affairs, both in the northeast and in the northwest.

The committee prepared this report to chronicle the efforts of Atikokan in rebuilding the community's economic base after the closure of the two iron ore mines. As I pointed out a moment ago, it is in an advisory role to the minister and it presented me with The Atikokan Story report on October 6, 1981. I have taken the recommendations under advisement and in a letter dated December 9, 1981, forwarded copies of The Atikokan Story and the recommendations therein to my cabinet colleagues for their information and follow-up.

Of the 15 recommendations directed towards the province, the majority are being acted on and are already normal practice within the provincial administration. It should be remembered that since its inception in December 1974, MAC, as we know the committee, has provided a format for northern Ontario communities to review many of the specific concerns that northern communities have about their development. Matters such as the high cost of transportation, the importance of recreation and, most recently, diversity in economic development have now been reviewed from the municipal perspective. I find this exciting and commend the municipal representatives for their efforts.

Before getting too specific, it should be noted that MAC is not the only body in the north making its concerns known to the provincial government. Other groups, such as the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities, the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce and the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, meet annually with cabinet to discuss their concerns. Of course, these groups do not necessarily have the same opinions.

More specifically, to the questions asked concerning the recommendations made to the province in The Atikokan Story, I have the following comments.

Recommendation 1: Northern Affairs as a co-ordinating ministry with discretionary funding. I point out that MNA remains as the co-ordinating ministry in the north and maintains its discretionary funding and flexibility in dealing with northern issues. I think the key to the Atikokan success was our flexibility in providing these discretionary funds.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry to interrupt, but I have a question on that. When we have an instance such as we had in Mississauga a year and a half or two years ago with the derailment, one has to move very quickly. We know that one of the ministries has been assigned as the lead ministry to co-ordinate all the activities in a happening such as that. Does that hold for the north?

In other words, I am not sure whether it is the Attorney General or the Ministry of Labour or which it is that is the lead ministry. If something were to happen in the north, would that same ministry be the lead ministry or would it be the Ministry of Northern Affairs?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It all depends on the type of requirement. In a disaster, the disaster relief fund comes into play and the Attorney General's office, along with the Solicitor General's office, moves in and looks after those specific disasters. The Ministry of Natural Resources has been assigned certain areas of concern, which I believe are fires and floods in the north. We just play a supporting role in those disasters.

12:20 p.m.

But where there is a community decline or a special requirement in relation to a disaster, such as the closing down of a mine in a community, then by order in council we have been designated as the lead ministry. That is what we were in the Atikokan situation. An order in council was passed by the cabinet that designated Northern Affairs as the lead ministry, and we were given certain authority to assist in a monetary way. It worked exceptionally well. We have been given that authority as well with respect to Pickle Lake and in the South Bay mine closure, where we were designated as the lead ministry to go in and work very closely with the community and its people as that situation moves ahead, and we try to be the one contact for the government.

I think we all realize that in a situation such as Atikokan it becomes very difficult and frustrating for the municipal leaders, who are seeing a decline in their tax base, to walk through the government and touch base with all the various ministries.

My deputy has correctly pointed out to me that we were also a lead ministry in the Field disaster, where several floods and a hurricane occurred. By order in council, Northern Affairs was designated as the lead ministry. We actually rebuilt that community, with funds in excess of $3.5 million spent in the Field operations. I am sure the member for Nickel Belt has been to Field, and I encourage honourable members to see that rebuilt community. It was the excellent leadership and direction given by my assistant deputy minister, Herb Aiken, that made it all possible and made it happen. It is that kind of direction that seems to be working quite well in the north.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Chairman, regarding the wild rice issue, first of all --

Mr. Van Horne: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I interrupted the minister a few minutes ago during his presentation on the first recommendation. There are 15 recommendations, and he was going to go through the list. He has not been able to do the remaining 14, and I would like him to do that.

The Deputy Chairman: Thank you very much. Perhaps the member for Nickel Belt will appreciate that there is some more to go here.

Mr. Laughren: I am appreciating it more all the time.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, that was in answer to your first question.

Recommendation 2 was for a task force on declining communities. We have two staff committees established within the government now. One committee is chaired by the Ministry of Northern Affairs and is looking at a government response to rapid growth situations. We have a second committee, chaired by the cabinet committee on resources development, that is looking at the rapid decline situations. Both committees are nearing the point of presenting their preliminary reports to their respective senior staffs.

Recommendation 3, the development of effective training programs. There is currently a municipal clerks and treasurers correspondence training course based at McMaster University in Hamilton, and several of our northwestern Ontario communities are participating in this program at present.

To provide further assistance, Confederation College has on an individual and group seminar basis assisted with the clarification of certain study units in the above-noted correspondence courses. The business faculty at Confederation College at Thunder Bay has designed and will design education training programs not only for municipal government officials but also for other volunteer groups upon request.

Sessions in the past have been held with the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association and the Thunder Bay Municipal League on such subjects as bargaining, performance appraisal, etc.

We all know of the Municipal Action 85 program, which was introduced recently by my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett), a new training program for municipal staff. The northwest regional staff introduced this program at NOMA in 1982, just in the past several weeks.

Recommendation 4: Shared municipal professional services re joint planning boards, trimunicipal job committees, social and health services. This initiative is coming from the municipal level, as it should, but provincial funding is available for many services, such as planning assistance grants. My ministry has been supportive in working with communities wishing to pursue this co-operative direction.

Recommendation 5: Provincial standards for on-the-job training. The skills development division of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities provides upgrading programs and courses for workers to learn a skill and receive credit certification. Though the training is provided, there is no guarantee that a job will be there upon graduation.

In connection with the Atikokan mine closure, the ministry provided a welding course for skilled operators and allowed individuals with an incomplete apprenticeship at the mine to complete the course after the mine closed. Carpentry and food preparation courses were also offered in Atikokan. A number of the trainees left Atikokan to seek employment elsewhere.

The skills development division of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities establishes provincial standards for on-the-job skills training which must be adhered to with a view to employment skill portability within the province. Competence verification, in part, would come from certification or apprenticeship achievement.

Recommendation 6: A resource depreciation tax. This is an interesting concept which is now being reviewed by the Ministry of Northern Affairs special committee. In the meantime, the province will tax the industry through conventional means and will meet special funding situations, such as Atikokan, through the use of traditional taxing sources.

Recommendation 7: Nature of new communities. We are well aware of the need not to proliferate new communities at every resource site and have used all three options outlined in The Atikokan Story, as the following examples demonstrate:

(a) Northern Affairs recently provided $10,000 for a study of the South Bay mine closure to gain additional knowledge of the benefits of a zippered community concept.

(b) We agree that local government responsibility is important. The recent history in Ear Falls and Pickle Lake indicates the province's willingness to move in this direction.

(c) Piggybacking on existing communities was the concept employed in Ignace and, more recently, at Detour Lake as to municipal boundary extension and sharing of tax revenue by importing communities. We have agreed this is an issue which can be pursued further and is not outside the mandate of the committees to which I referred.

Recommendation 8: A housing buy-back fund. This one does not sit easily. Many houses in the small single-industry communities of northern Ontario are company owned. We looked at the recommendation and wondered what would happen if that same type of program were applied in a place like Windsor. We would rather see economic diversification and long-term stability than vacant houses, no matter who owns them.

Mr. Laughren: When is that going to come to northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It will come. We are working on it. I think our response would be to spend our dollars on more positive action than just buying up houses.

Recommendation 9: A change in the laissez-faire approach to industry. Our ministry is interested in promoting the development of industry in the north and is confident that through its work with servicing programs and economic development strategies, the north will continue to become increasingly attractive to industry interested in long-term location in our communities.

Recommendation 10: Changes to the small business development corporation program for small remote communities. The Ministry of Industry and Trade is currently experimenting with a program of community development corporations which will have more public money input and which it is hoped will augment the existing SBDC program. George Ormerod of our Sudbury office currently sits on the steering committee for the community development corporations.

12:30 p.m.

Recommendation 11: Pro-active stance by the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. The Ministry of Colleges and Universities was represented on the Atikokan disaster committee, as was Confederation College. Flexible funding may be available, as demonstrated with the Pickle Lake mine closure, whereby Confederation College is supplying a transition counsellor via dollars from the Ministry of Labour. That is 100 per cent funding.

Recommendation 12: Waste heat from greenhouses in Atikokan. This project has been one the Ministry of Northern Affairs has discussed with the Atikokan aid committee. A federal lead group has been pursuing the project for the past two years but it was recently disbanded. The Ministry of Northern Affairs will assist the aid group in its approaches to other ministries in pursuing the technical merits of this idea. The ministry has been involved, as members are aware, in a greenhouse project at Raymore utilizing the waste heat from the TransCanada PipeLines compressor station.

Recommendation 13: Atikokan transition counsellor. The Northern Affairs members of the jampack group -- a final report is being prepared by Lakehead University to review transition counsellor functions and to provide guidance for future counsellors.

Recommendation 14: Increased education services in non-urban areas by community colleges. I refer members to my answer on item 5, which spells that out. We have a number of those being provided through Confederation College. I guess the most recent has been our efforts for manpower retraining in Minaki, where the Ministry of Northern Affairs and Confederation College went into Minaki two years ago and through the efforts of the chairman of the Minaki board, Mr. Charlton, set up a very intensive retraining program that saw the local people, the native people, become better informed and better equipped to take on some of the jobs that will be available to them when Minaki Lodge opens next year.

Mr. Laughren: The ones who used to harvest wild rice.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, they can even do that. They can help with wild rice.

Recommendation 15: The crown land camping policy of the Ministry of Natural Resources. This is of interest to all of us. I understand that at present this is being reviewed by that ministry. I suggest to the member for London North (Mr. Van Horne) that might be one recommendation he should discuss in the estimates of the Ministry of Natural Resources. They would have more information than we would. We have certain inputs to the ministry with respect to our own feelings as they relate to crown land camping and we will be putting those forward, but the actual responsibility for that program is with the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Chairman, I must say I was very disappointed in the minister's remarks on what my colleague the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) had to say about wild rice. The minister found some factual errors in what the member said. I think he has every right and an obligation to point those out, but just to stand up and make the wide smear that she did not know what she was talking about and probably did not even know how to cook the rice is unworthy of the chamber.

When I hear the minister talk about the benefits flowing to the communities of the north with the development of the wild rice industry, I have to take what he says with a grain of salt. If the minister really wants to give the greatest benefit to northern Ontario from its wild rice harvest, he should do two things: One, he should make sure, convince, browbeat, and clobber, if necessary, the Premier (Mr. Davis) into making sure that moratorium is extended. He should declare wild rice as an exclusive Indian resource. That is what the minister should do.

If the minister would do that, it would give an economic backbone to those communities that they do not now have. It would give them a resource in which they have some cultural and religious traditions. It would give them a resource on which they have some expertise. I know the problem. The problem is that they would not develop the resource as quickly as the minister would like to see it developed. That is his fear. I say that the time frames of our society are not always the best ones when it comes to development of a resource.

When that moratorium was declared four years ago, this government promised assistance, and that assistance has been marginal according to the Treaty 3 people. That is simply not good enough. We are a society that can afford to turn over that harvest to our native people. I firmly believe that. I know the minister gets letters from all across Ontario on this resource. This is an opportunity to say to our native people, "Here is a resource which will aid you in your struggle to improve economic and social conditions in your communities." That is what it would allow us and the native people to do, but there is not the generosity of spirit in the minister or his government to do that.

A little over a week ago the Treaty 3 people presented the Premier with what is known as the Paypom document -- I do not have it in front of me, but I think it is dated 1873 -- which states that, "The Indians will be free as by the past for their hunting and rice harvest." That seems to me pretty specific. I am not an expert on it, but I think there is consensus that the Paypom document is a legitimate document. This government should recognize it as a legitimate document and as a legitimate agreement between governments and our native people.

I know it would ruffle some feathers if this government did declare it an exclusively Indian resource. I know it would ruffle some feathers, but in the long run we would be better served if that was done. I would encourage the minister to put aside some of his traditional ideas about how a resource should be developed and let the native people, with our assistance, decide how best to harvest, process and market the wild rice of this province. I think it is a terribly important thing to do and I encourage the minister to do it.

When the native people look at the assistance other groups in society get, whether it is the pulp and paper industry, the automobile industry, whatever, they see themselves as being put on the back burner for any meaningful and substantial assistance from this government. There is some, but it is grudgingly given and it is not enough to allow them to develop that industry the way they would like to develop it.

The other area I want to touch on briefly, because we do not have much time, is northern Ontario hydro rates, a rate structure that would allow Hydro to charge more in the winter than in the summer. The minister has stated he is opposed to that. That is what he says. It is his government's policies that would allow Hydro to do that, but at the same time, even though he is a member of cabinet, he pretends that he is opposed to that structural change in rates.

In making statements like that, one minute you are representing your government, extolling its virtues and beating your chest about how much it has done over the years, the next minute you are saying, "I do not like that policy." As a member of cabinet you cannot have it both ways. I remember reading something in Hansard at one time, I cannot remember who said it now, but the member said, "The Minister of Northern Affairs stumbles across northern Ontario like a wounded moose in a blizzard." When I see the minister doing things like that with policy then I know why people view him that way. That is simply not an appropriate way for a member of cabinet to behave.

The third point I would like to talk about is the question of nursery expansion. As a result of forest management agreements that have already been signed, and I believe eight have been signed now, and there will be 30 signed within the next couple of years, it is going to require an enormous new commitment to silviculture and nursery stock in the province.

Nurseries are being expanded. Some nursery stocking is being contracted out to the private sector. The trouble is, there are all sorts of opportunities here that are not being taken advantage of by the Ministry of Natural Resources. The Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) should be there saying to the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) that there are all sorts of communities in the north that would receive a real shot in the arm if nurseries were established in those small communities. You will never guess the community that comes to mind first.

12:40 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I know exactly what you want. It has to be Foleyet.

Mr. Laughren: I think Foleyet should have a tree nursery.

[Applause]

Mr. Laughren: I firmly believe that and I am very pleased to see other members supporting it.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Let the record show I said Foleyet first.

Mr. Laughren: Right at this time, there is a very nice expansion going on in the Gogama Tree Nursery. I went on a tour of it and I saw a tree nursery up close for the first time. I had driven by and stopped there before, but that was the first time I got a good look at how a nursery operates. That was about a month or two ago and I enjoyed the tour very much. They were very kind, took me all around and explained it fully to me.

I believe there is an opportunity for small communities to establish tree nurseries that would be very useful for those communities. It also decentralizes the jobs in northern Ontario and brings the provision of nursery stock closer to where it will be used. There are all sorts of opportunities and I think it is incumbent upon this minister to make sure those small communities get tree nurseries.

The commitment that will be required under those forest management agreements is mind- boggling. The Ministry of Natural Resources is barely able even to think of the number of dollars required to provide nursery stock for the forest management agreements.

Another point is the whole question of one- industry towns the minister talked about. One can go into small communities that have one industry, but one can also go into big communities that have almost one industry.

Right now in Sudbury, we have a major strike going on and while Falconbridge is not out, Inco is. When there is a major strike, it deals a severe blow to a community that is not well diversified. Sudbury is better diversified than it was 10 or 20 years ago, primarily because of the public sector, not the private sector. If one looks at the new buildings that have been built in Sudbury in the last 10 years, almost all of them are public sector buildings.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: By this government.

Mr. Laughren: No, the federal government as well. It is your government that is always extolling the virtues of free enterprise in the private sector, but that is not who has come in to rebuild the Sudbury community. It is not your friends in the private sector. That is not because the community has not tried.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: What about Sudbury 2001?

Mr. Laughren: That is what I was getting to. Sudbury 2001 tried hard to get the private sector to come into Sudbury. It had some success, but basically it is a serious problem of not having enough diversification. Otherwise, the strike would not have the impact it does on the community.

The one-industry town problem is still not solved. The Ministry of Northern Affairs should be looking after those communities where the Ministry of Natural Resources is pulling out.

When this minister was the Minister of Natural Resources, he authorized the closing of the Ministry of Natural Resources' district offices in communities like Foleyet and Sultan. Then he did not do anything to follow up. Now that he has this ministry's responsibilities, he does not follow up and rebuild those communities because of a lack of a Ministry of Natural Resources office there.

I saw two communities bulldozed to the ground while this minister sat on his hands and watched it happen. I am talking about the towns of Kormak and Island Lake near Chapleau. In both cases, it was as a result of a merger of two companies. Two forestry companies merged, closed out these two towns, completely bulldozed Kormak to the ground and Island Lake is in the process of being emptied out now.

What really bothered me, and I intend to pursue it with the Minister of Natural Resources in his estimates next week, is that the Minister of Northern Affairs and the Minister of Natural Resources watched that happen and did not raise a finger. He should tell me how he can justify two companies merging and wiping out two towns because that simply is not fair.

What I suspect -- what I know happened -- is that it really was not a merger. It was the purchase of one company by another and this minister knows full well that you are not supposed to be able to transfer cutting rights from one company to another. That must go through the crown, if I understand the Crown Timber Act, but this minister and more importantly, the Minister of Natural Resources, allowed that to happen.

He allowed a company to purchase another company's cutting limits and disguise it in the form of a merger, close out two towns while he did not do anything about it. That simply is not the way we should run things in northern Ontario. I am really disappointed in the Minister of Natural Resources because he has responsibility for the cutting limits and the timber rights and so forth, but surely to goodness this minister has an obligation to say to the Minister of Natural Resources: "Why are you allowing them to do that?" Given this minister's previous responsibility, he understands what is happening there. He knows full well that it was Green Forest Products Ltd. that purchased the Island Lake Lumber Co. and the Kormak Lumber Co. and their umbrella company called Wesmak Lumber Co. For the minister to have sat back and allowed that to happen to small communities in the north is simply outrageous and the people were not treated properly when that happened as well.

I cannot for the life of me imagine a community even of that size being allowed to have that happen to them in southern Ontario. I cannot believe it and yet when I raised it with the ministers here, they looked embarrassed and they looked the other way. That is the way they looked.

Finally, because I want to give the minister time to respond, there is the whole question of the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment. God bless us all. That commission is going to spend $10 million before it is through, which is the most expensive royal commission in the history of Ontario, if not the western world. This government seems not to want to interfere, nor do they want to allow the commissioner, Mr. Fahlgren, to appear before a standing committee. I have tried in about three different committees. In every single case, the message is out to the government members: "Stonewall. We don't want Mr. Fahlgren appearing before the committee." That is the message. There are too many issues which the commissioner is not addressing. He is not addressing the whole question of the disposal of nuclear waste in northern Ontario.

Interjection.

Mr. Laughren: He is not. He is not addressing the whole problem of acid rain in northern Ontario. Do not forget that it is a commission on the northern environment and how development affects the people and the environment of northern Ontario. That is basically what the royal commission is supposed to do and yet we cannot even seem to have a discussion with Mr. Fahlgren before one of the standing committees so that we could sort things out.

There are all sorts of things I would do, but this minister has been very quiet on the whole storage of nuclear waste problem. They are doing test drillings for the storage of nuclear waste in Massey and yet this government is sitting on its hands and will not come to the aid of the local people. They are letting Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. go in there and do as they please. I think that is fundamentally wrong because this government signed an agreement with AECL to have storage only in northern Ontario. That is what they have done. Tell me how you justify having nuclear waste stored only in the north and test drilling for storage only in the north. I would like to know how you rationalize that one to your people, your constituents all across northern Ontario in your responsibilities as Minister of Northern Affairs.

I shall bite my tongue and save any further remarks for another day. Thank you.

12:50 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Chairman, if I may respond to the honourable gentleman, I point out to him, on the question of the moratorium, that his colleagues in Saskatchewan and Manitoba have not gone the route he is advocating today. Our production has just skyrocketed, and there is involvement of the native people. In fact, 95 per cent of the people in northern Ontario today who are involved in the wild rice harvesting and production are native people. They are the best. They are well suited to it.

Mr. Laughren: Will you recommend an extension of the moratorium?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I do not think it is the right thing to do. I really do not. We are doing them a disservice. We should bring them into the mainstream and give them some resources to do the thing they want to do. That is what we are going to do, so they can get on with the job. I will support that right to the hilt.

I will do all I can for them, because that is the route to go, to protect their traditional harvesting areas. Let us never forget that. In all the discussions I have had, it has been stressed that those traditional harvesting areas must be protected; there are religious connotations and cultural connotations. They have to be protected, and this government has always said they will be protected. The involvement and interest that is being shown now is encouraging, but to go the route that some are suggesting would be counterproductive.

I must say that the comments of the member for Nickel Belt are a little contrary -- in direct opposition, in fact -- to those of the member for Lake Nipigon in relation to the role of the Ministry of Northern Affairs. The member for Lake Nipigon said, on the last occasion when we were debating these estimates, the advocacy role is something that he expects from the Ministry of Northern Affairs, that it will get in there.

The member condemns me for saying something about Hydro rates. He says I am talking out of both sides of my mouth at the same time. Then he wants me to get involved in the Kormak issue with the Ministry of Natural Resources. I really do not know where he wants me to stand. I have to stand up for the north. I will fight for the north, inside cabinet, outside cabinet, in cabinet committees, inside the government and outside the government. I have made that very clear. Our statement is one we intend to follow. It is effective, and the cooperation I am getting from my cabinet colleagues is most encouraging. We have developed a trust and awareness in regard to the northern parts of our province second to none in any part of Canada.

The member touched on Foleyet; he made some comment about Foleyet. He is exceptionally sensitive about Foleyet. I do not know whether I should read into the record a copy of a letter he distributed to all his constituents in Foleyet, but --

Mr. Laughren: I am glad you have that. Why don't you read it into the record?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You want it in the record? This is a letter dated May 1980. It is a report to Foleyet. It is one page. It is a little lengthy, but I will read excerpts from it. The member said, "Not too long ago, the Foleyet local services board passed a motion to request that Foleyet be put into the Cochrane South provincial riding." The people of Foleyet wanted the boundaries changed for their particular --

Mr. Laughren: No, not all the people. There's a difference.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The people did, yes.

The member goes on to say, "I was surprised to learn of that decision, since nobody had discussed it with me. I didn't learn about it from newspapers or television; the radio stations phoned me. I should point out that not all members of the local services board agreed with the motion." Well, I understand they did.

Mr. Laughren: That is not true.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: This is what I was told. He is very unhappy with the way they have gone, he goes on to say --

Mr. Laughren: Read the whole letter now.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Do you want the whole letter? Okay.

"I must admit that I was not happy with the way things were done. In my 10 years as your MPP, I have always tried to be open, accessible and above board with the people of Foleyet. You can imagine how surprised I was to start receiving phone calls from reporters who wondered why Foleyet was unhappy with me. When I was elected as your MPP in 1971, Foleyet had been represented by a Conservative MPP for many years. Despite being represented by a government member for so long, Foleyet had no community centre, no decent firehall or fire truck and no ambulance."

We had a call from Foleyet, and the gentleman told me that the present member did not know they had a firehall or a fire truck until he pointed it out to him.

Mr. Laughren: That's nonsense. Do you believe that?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: That is what he told me.

The member went on: "I fought very hard in the Ontario Legislature for Foleyet and other small communities to receive a decent share of government funds. I believe that at least partly because of my efforts Foleyet has now had some facilities and services it did not have in 1971. I have returned to Foleyet many, many times to make myself available to its people. I have made many good friends in Foleyet, and I intend to return many more times."

But I think the final paragraph is the climax. You have to listen to this one:

"The chairman of the local services board has been quoted as saying that Leo Bernier is responsible for government grants to Foleyet. That is complete nonsense. Mr. Bernier, along with other government ministers, had never heard of Foleyet until I began insisting on an improved level of services for all small communities."

Mr. Kolyn: When did Floyd ever sign the cheque?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: He added: "As a matter of fact, I do not hesitate to take some credit for the very existence of the Local Services Boards Act."

Mr. Laughren: Do you deny that?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Well, you were not very supportive until I twisted your arm a little bit.

But it is interesting that the people of Foleyet still feel very strongly that they should be with the riding of Cochrane North. My colleague from Timmins, the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope), assured me he would love to have Foleyet in his riding.

Mr. Laughren: You should hear the calls I get from Massey.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: So I think we will refer to the member now as the member for Nickel Belt less Foleyet.

Mr. Laughren: Just give me a nursery.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Okay. Seriously, the member made reference to the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment.

Mr. Laughren: What about the nurseries?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, that is a good point.

He indicated he was disappointed that they had not reported on all subjects, such as nuclear waste and acid rain. I want to point out to the member that the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment deals with the area north of the 50th parallel. There is no nuclear waste testing going on in that area, and acid rain is really nonexistent there.

I do not know what the royal commissioner will report when he does report. As you know, the commission will end on December 31, 1982, and he will report by March 31, 1983; so we will see the results of his work. It is extensive work, I must say, and in his first report on the Detour Lake road he slapped the government's wrist.

Interjection.

Hon Mr. Bernier: Yes, he did, and I think that is his role. I looked at that report with interest.

Mr. Laughren: That was not his report; it was just a commissioned report.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The commission or whatever it was. Anyway, I think he is moving down the right road. There is involvement by our native people, which is important. There are a number of groups, the Kayahna group, the Taben group, the Windego group --

Mr. Laughren: Atikakee?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Not Atikakee. They are all involved with funding from this government to the royal commission in that particular way.

Mr. Laughren: Did you know that Hudson wants to join Nickel Belt?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No, I am sure they do not. Hudson is quite happy to be in the Kenora riding. They love being there.

Mr. Laughren: They do not like the water rates.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: They can have the water system, I can tell you that. I have been trying to get rid of it now for five years.

Getting back to nuclear waste testing in northern Ontario, I have written to people in Massey to point out to them --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, they have contacted me on a number of occasions. The fear that is being generated by some of the members' comments that there will be a disposal site there is absolutely wrong.

Mr. Laughren: I never said that.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Well, you are creating fear by trying to leave that implication. This is only testing.

Mr. Laughren: They will not sign a statement saying they will not put it there.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: There will be public involvement; there will be approval given by this government before any waste disposal site is ever established anywhere in this province.

Mr. Laughren: That is what has us worried.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It will be five or 10 years before we require a disposal site. In fact, the federal Minister of State for Mines, Judy Erola from Sudbury, informed me that there is enough space now at the present site of the nuclear plants to house those reactor rods for the next 30 years. She said we really do not need a waste disposal site for 30 years, and we have lots of lead time.

If we do not experiment, if we do not look, plan and try to find the best possible site, how will we ever know?

The Deputy Chairman: Perhaps the minister can find an appropriate moment where the acting government House leader can get a motion in.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: This is a good time to wind up this session.

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

The House adjourned at 1 p.m.

4 juin 1982