Journal des débats 1982-sept-24 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege. This morning's Globe and Mail reported that the new head of the Inflation Restraint Board would be getting $70,000 for part-time work. Surely, in this time of restraint, that cannot be correct and I ask the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) to clarify or correct the record.

Mr. Speaker: I think that may be more appropriately asked during the oral question period.

Later.

Hon. Mr. Davis: While I am on my feet, Mr. Speaker, to answer a point of order, if I may:

If the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) was really seeking information about the report in the Globe and Mail, which I have not seen, I should point out that Mr. Biddell is rendering his services on the basis of a per diem to be the equivalent of and not to exceed the salary of a deputy minister. Knowing the pressure on him in many other respects and what his income might be if he were dealing totally with his own responsibility, the per diem not only is reasonable but also is probably well below that which he otherwise would be earning.

Mr. Foulds: If I may, on the point of order --

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary to the main question, please.

Mr. Foulds: The Premier raised the point of order in the middle of an answer, Mr. Speaker. The rate of increase he has imposed on working people of this province may be "well below" what they could have legitimately expected to have received. But then they are a different class of people, are they not?

Mr. Speaker: Now for the supplementary.

ORAL QUESTIONS

PRICE RESTRAINT CRITERIA

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer about some of the technical aspects of Bill 179. There is a section in this bill outlining the restraint criteria to be applied to regulated prices affected by the program. These criteria specify a five per cent limit on increases in profits and wages for regulated enterprise. However, these criteria are contained nowhere in the bill. Subsection 27(1) states simply, "The minister shall establish economic criteria by which price increases shall be reviewed."

There is no statutory requirement for these criteria to be produced as regulations. They do not have to be gazetted and they do not have to be published in any form. Public notification is at the discretion of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), and it is within his power to change the criteria at any time, even on a case-by-case basis, without ever notifying the public.

My question to the Treasurer is this: Why the secrecy, and why is the Lieutenant Governor in Council not empowered to set criteria by regulation as normally would be the case?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the minister in this case is the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who will be handling the regulated prices review through the special cabinet committee on administered prices and with reference to the board. It might be better from a technical point of view if that minister were asked the question. If the Leader of the Opposition does not mind, I will redirect it to him.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, a letter is going out today notifying ministers what the various criteria are that we will be looking at in that committee. I do not have any problem about making those criteria public. If they are changed from time to time, I have no problem --

Mr. Peterson: I can't hear you.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I said the criteria referred to with respect to administered prices are being sent out to the various ministers today. I have no problem about making those criteria public in the near future and, if they are altered, I have no problem about making the changes public.

Mr. Peterson: That is not the full import of the question. It is obvious that when the minister drafted this legislation he copied to a large extent, at least in some provisions, the federal legislation in this matter. That legislation does set out the criteria, and they will come out by order in council so that all Canadians will know what rules they are subject to.

This bill gives the minister a lot more discretionary power than the federal government will have, and he will be able to use that discretion in ways that I feel could be not completely fair in the circumstances. My question to him or to the Treasurer, to the drafter of the bill, is: Why is the minister not prepared to publish these regulations so that all Ontarians understand the rules they are playing by? Why will the criteria not be gazetted? Why will they not be made public ahead of time rather than just being subject to the minister's individual discretion or the discretion of his board?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I think the Leader of the Opposition really understands that this is not a matter of the government trying to keep this whole process secret. I clearly pointed out to him that the criteria will go forward to the ministers. There is no problem with me in making those criteria public. If he sees any advantage in setting up some great bureaucracy to run it in some other way, that may be his point of view but it is not ours. I think this process will work satisfactorily and the public will feel it clearly understands the criteria.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, is it not true that this bill has been deliberately drafted so it will make firm a five per cent limit on wages of public servants but be so soft on prices that they will be able to charge any price they want?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, let me make it clear that I do not know anybody in this room who would not like to be able to say that prices will go up by only five per cent. But the member for Welland-Thorold is a very intelligent man. He is not naïve enough to think the prices paid for gas and for transporting that gas here do not have to be paid for in some way.

No one has any control over such costs. He knows very well they have to be passed through. It is nice to say it and to pretend it can be done, but, as a thinking person, the member knows very well it cannot be done. He knows very well that we will endeavour to hold prices down as much as is humanly possible.

10:10 a.m.

Mr. Martel: The workers can control their mortgage rate, can't they?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Martel: Well, that's what's at stake, for crying out loud. Don't give us that nonsense.

Mr. Bradley: Don't yell at your friends.

Mr. Wildman: You're the ones who are supporting them.

Mr. Peterson: Well, if you don't like them, don't invite them over for dinner.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I caution the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel); I will not tolerate any more outbursts of that kind. I also caution the people in the public galleries, our visitors, that they are not to partake in any demonstrations; otherwise, I will have to clear the galleries.

Final supplementary; the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Peterson: I have another question with respect to the procedures and the secret meetings of the board and the fact that it does not have to disclose. This supplementary is with respect to the wage side. Subsection 3(4) of the bill states that the Inflation Restraint Board "is not required to give reasons for any final order, decision or determination made by it, but notwithstanding the Statutory Powers Procedure Act or any other rule of law ... "

In other words, the minister has gone out of his way to ensure that the board will not have to justify its decisions in the same way that other regulatory boards do in this province. Should not a group of workers have the right to be notified of the criteria and the reasons a decision was made in any given circumstances? Why is he keeping this whole business so secret?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I will refer that question to my colleague the Treasurer.

Hon. F. S. Miller: There is no attempt, and I think my colleague has pointed this out, to keep things secret. The fact remains that one could have a very large, very bureaucratic and very lengthy process if one wanted to go through all the steps the Leader of the Opposition is trying to point out. We have a one-year program. We are trying to keep it as fair and as simple as possible, and that is why that clause is in there.

Mr. Peterson: That is like arguing that the Spanish inquisition was fair. Look, it has to be open and public and everybody has to know the rules for it to be fair. The Treasurer is not doing that; he is destroying the efficacy of his own program already. We are trying to help him. He should not be so stupid.

Mr. Mackenzie: Right on, Dave. Right on target.

Mr. Swart: He's the latest member of the Tory party.

Mr. Peterson: Let me tell my friends, I am a little embarrassed. Frankly, it is not very nice to have such stupid --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Leader of the Opposition will direct his questions over here, thank you.

Mr. Peterson: It is Friday, Mr. Speaker; I will ask an easy question.

PUBLIC DRINKING HOURS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, why is it that the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations in his judgement felt that the international bankers who came to this great province for a conference were mature enough to drink until three o'clock in the morning and that the bars should remain open until that hour, when he does not feel that the people of Ontario are mature enough to do that without the presence of these visitors?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I know there has been a lot of idle comment on that whole issue, but I think the facts are pretty clear. The facts are that the International Monetary Fund is an arm of the United Nations. The federal government indicated to us that since there were people with diplomatic status coming from many nations and since the habits of many of those people were much different from ours, it might be of interest if we could alter the drinking hours.

As a world traveller, the Leader of the Opposition knows some things I do not know, but it is my understanding that when he travels to Italy or Greece, for example, as he does so often and as his colleagues are doing now, he may not start the evening dinner, for example, until 11 o'clock. That is a cultural difference we were asked to accept and to understand, and we did.

Any hotel where the IMF delegates were attending was allowed to extend its hours for that reason. There was no mystery or secret about it. It was acknowledging the cultural differences of visitors coming to this country with diplomatic status. I think we should be commended for doing that.

Mr. Peterson: The minister personally runs the risk of being seen as an incredible hypocrite in this matter. Is he suggesting that there is an incredible cultural difference in Republicans in the United States when they come here? Does he extend the bar hours for them?

Why does he make these arbitrary judgements? Why does he take it upon himself to make these judgements about cultural differences and whether one can drink until one or three o'clock in the morning, depending on his personal conception of their cultural differences or the public morality involved? Is that not a pretty hypocritical thing to do? What are his rules for doing that?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I do not know the Leader of the Opposition's views on Republicans. Perhaps he would like to expound on that a little later. I had nothing to do with that issue.

But, as to what we are talking about now, I would like to think that what I and the board exercised in that area was a thoughtful judgement. The Leader of the Opposition should try it some time; it might work for him.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, considering the variety of cultural differences in the multicultural heritage of Ontario, does the minister not think the board might make a thoughtful judgement on behalf of the people of Ontario as well?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe the honourable member is implying that I am not aware of the cultural differences of people in this community. I respect them greatly. I have endeavoured in many ways to show that respect and will continue to do so.

What I said was that in the cultures of many of the groups that were visiting this city at that time, their eating habits, working hours and daily schedules are entirely different from ours, and their lifestyle is different from ours because of that. Most of the citizens of our province have similar working schedules. The hours of starting work, the hours of finishing work and the times when they eat are pretty standardized.

We were trying to show some respect for visitors. I think that is something we should be doing.

Mr. Peterson: In trying to build that respect for the visitors, does the minister not feel again that changing the liquor laws for a few days to meet their purposes and then having to be pressured into allowing Ontarians to have the same hours, as well as giving those international bankers cut-rate Scotch, letting them buy bottles of Scotch at half price or whatever and forgoing that revenue, makes him look like a hypocrite, particularly when he is trying now to bring in a restraint program and asking for universal co-operation? Does he not think that those kinds of acts he commits destroy his own moral and political efficacy?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I have always thought that genuine respect should not be set aside for particular occasions that have a public purpose, and I do not intend to do that.

Setting aside what I think were some provocative remarks that the Leader of the Opposition really did not mean in his heart, all I will say to him quite openly and frankly is that if he explores legislative documents in Ottawa he will find that once an order in council triggers a process under legislation in Ottawa, we have no choice in the matter. As an arm of the United Nations, the monetary bankers were considered to be diplomats and the taxes applied to that alcohol were immediately taken away.

Before my friend accuses people of duplicity and of silly things, he should understand what the law is.

10:20 a.m.

ONTARIO BICENTENNIAL

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Premier. Can the Premier explain why, in this time of so-called government restraint, the government appears to be pushing ahead with plans to spend between $5.5 million and $10 million on the so-called bicentennial celebrations of Ontario in 1984, which the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) announced last July?

I ask this question in the light of the analysis of a poll done by Kwechansky Marketing Research Inc. showing that "there was much concern about costs" and confirming the findings of the first poll, which showed that "the overall climate of receptivity for a bicentennial ranged from hostile to indifferent."

Is the government pressing ahead with its plans because "Ontario is in need of a celebration for whatever reason, since the province's image has taken a downturn in recent years and Ontarians need something to bolster their spirits"?

If the Premier is serious about government restraint, why did he not announce the cancellation of this expenditure, which would have saved as much as the cancellation of the jet?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the honourable member gets the figures from. Just to ease his mind, no determination as to the extent of expenditure for the bicentennial year has been made.

Mr. Laughren: Oh, did you tell the Provincial Secretary for Social Development that?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I just tell the member it has not.

The member may not wish to participate, whatever amount is spent on the bicentennial. I think it would be rather regrettable if the New Democratic Party in this province did not have some sense of the history and the tradition of this province and was not prepared to join in those celebrations.

I often think that party really does suffer from a lack of appreciation of history and of what makes up this province; it has no understanding of and no pride in Ontario, and no desire to communicate this to the people of the province. I understand that. That is why they remain a party such as they are, with such a very narrow base; that is why they will continue that way.

If Walter Pitman were back here, he would not be agreeing with those members. Some of the more enlightened former members of the party would not be agreeing with them. They had some sense of this province. But the members opposite wear blinders; they have no understanding.

Mr. Foulds: Let me remind the Premier, as a student of history, that the book they are flogging, called As She Began, omits altogether one of the great loyalists and builders of this province, Richard Cartwright. So much for the Premier's sense of history and the sense of history of his committee that is promoting this bicentennial.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Foulds: When George Orwell wrote 1984, I know he was not aware that Ontario would be having an election in 1985.

How does the Premier explain these presentations, which I believe were made to the committee for the promotion of the communication strategy for the bicentennial and which had figures attached to them showing that there would be "at least $5.5 million" in expenditures "to establish awareness of the significance of 1984" and $1 million "to generate a festive celebratory feeling during 1984"? And that leaves aside the projected cost of a film that may be used to develop the celebratory feeling leading up to the celebration.

Does the Premier realize that with the $5.5 million he is projecting to spend on the bicentennial, and which he has not publicly cancelled, he could have allowed 5,500 clerical workers to retain at least $1,000 each, which they will lose under his wage control program?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I guess the member really did not listen to the answer to the first question. He was probably caught off base, as he so often is. He did not want to listen. I only say to him there have been proposals made. We go through this with some regularity over the years. I am sure we went through this in 1967, although I was not a part of it, as it related to our Confederation date.

I can only say to the member what I said a few moments ago: there has been no funding approved of that nature whatsoever. It is being assessed very carefully by those responsible. But I will say to the member now that in some way or other, at funds substantially below that, we are going to celebrate this province's bicentennial. The member does not have to do it; he can sit around and do whatever he wants. But I just hope a lot of Ontarians will join in the celebration of the bicentennial. I understand why he wants to opt out.

Mr. Foulds: Does the Premier not feel, when he is asking working people of this province to tighten their belts, that it is his obligation as the Premier of the province at this time to announce publicly the cancellation of the expense on this 1984 extravaganza?

Does he not think it is important for him to instruct the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea), for example, not to transfer one cent from social assistance to this public relations program?

Is it not important for him to tell the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton) not to transfer funds from environmental protection to this birthday celebration?

Does he not think it is important for him to tell the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) not to transfer funds for school texts and classrooms of this province to this propaganda plan?

Does he not admit that under discussion before cabinet and this committee is the directive that the money for the program, and for the birthday celebration, is "to come from existing budgets"?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will try for the third time to enlighten the member. It is very difficult to cancel something that has not been approved.

Can I spell it out for the member? There has been a committee working for some time related to the bicentennial. They have made certain proposals. The proposals have not been accepted by cabinet. We have not committed any budget in terms of the bicentennial.

Mr. Foulds: Then why did the Provincial Secretary for Social Development announce it in July?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Because we are going to have a bicentennial celebration. I repeat for the fourth time, the member does not have to be a part of it.

WAGE RESTRAINTS

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller), I will direct a question to the Minister of Labour for clarification. I hope he was in on the discussions of the drafting of the legislation.

Can he explain why the government chose October 1, 1982, as the beginning of the control year for wages when that effectively puts 29,000 nurses and 20,000 Canadian Union of Public Employees hospital workers under controls for two years instead of one year?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I cannot explain the reason for the October 1 date. However --

Mr. Cooke: It's just a coincidence.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Just hold on. However, I know there was absolutely no relationship between the October 1 date and the contracts that the member has mentioned.

10:30 a.m.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, if there was no deliberate connection in the choosing of that date, how does the minister explain the obvious injustice that is going to be wreaked upon this special group of health workers? Was there any discussion about whether that was going to be done to save money in the hospital sector so the Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) could meet the doctors' demands? Does the minister not realize that if, ironically, he had set the date on September 21, which is the same date for the so-called price restraint part of the program, those workers would have been under wage restraint for only one year? Does he not believe that is an inconsistency that should be eliminated?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I can say without hesitation that in any meeting I was involved in there was absolutely no discussion, such as the member suggests, as to the date in relationship to the hospital workers -- absolutely none. I would also suggest that, regardless of what date was finally established, somebody was going to suffer.

Mr. Foulds: Does the minister not realize that the imposition of this particular date destroys the historical balance that was established between the Canadian Union of Public Employees hospital workers and other service employees in the collective bargaining process? Does not his last statement simply underline the fact that these controls and this system are unfair to all the public service employees of this province?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: On the contrary, I do not believe these controls are unfair to any particular group. What I indicated before and what I repeat now is, regardless of what date was set, there would be groups that would be inconvenienced or dislocated by it. The member knows that is a fact.

JOB CREATION

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Premier: Given the high and prolonged unemployment in many northern Ontario communities, and given the absence of any government reference to job creation in this current emergency session, can the Premier tell us if his government is giving any special consideration to job creation programs that would specifically assist those adversely affected citizens of the north?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, if the honourable member pursued some of the programs already in existence as they relate to northern Ontario, and I do not have the figure immediately available, but I think under section 38 some 3,000 jobs -- part time, no question about it -- have been created in northern Ontario. I think the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) indicated that, in terms of our overall approach to this, the whole question of economic recovery was as important to us as "restraint," which is a part of what is necessary.

The Treasurer indicated, as I recall, addressing this to the member for London North, that he was pursuing discussions with the government of Canada. I made it very clear, I hope, in my own statement on Tuesday that I still had some hope that the Prime Minister of this country would convene a meeting of first ministers so that we could collectively discuss certain principles, objectives and suggestions, of which there were many in Halifax, related to this. The Treasurer also indicated that, if something did not emerge, later this fall he would have certain proposals to present to this House.

Mr. Van Horne: The Premier talks about restraint, but restraint has been a way of life for the northerners for some years. Aside from the 3,000 jobs to which the Premier made reference, many of which are part-time jobs, I really do not know if there is any hope in his words for the people of the north.

I may be taking liberty with a supplementary, but I wonder, given the nature of this emergency session, if the Premier can give any assurance that one of the three members of the Inflation Restraint Board would be a native northerner so that the needs and concerns of the northerners would be properly reflected and considered by that board.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I will not inquire what the honourable member means by a native northerner. Is he a native of northern London?

Mr. Van Horne: Don't make fun of this.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No. I do not hesitate at all to say that in the makeup of the board we will give consideration to some geographic representation. I hasten to add that because we do not yet know what the work load will be and how it will emerge I cannot give the honourable member the total number of people on the board. The legislation requires a minimum of three, as I recall. My guess is that there will be more than three, and I do not hesitate to say that yes, geographic representation would be quite appropriate.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, may I assume that the Premier is aware of the emergency task force set up by the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker) concerning the Canadian International Paper mill in Hawkesbury, which is shut down? May I make the assumption, first of all, that the Premier is aware of that task force?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am aware there is a task force.

Mr. Laughren: Thank you. I wonder if the Premier could tell us how he squares the fact that when the Minister of Industry and Trade set up the task force he said he set it up because the planned shutdown of the mill was a terrible tragedy and his main concern was securing permanent jobs for the 440 employees threatened by layoffs with the fact that in Sudbury, about 3,000-plus people have been permanently laid off -- not temporarily shut down but permanently laid off -- and we have heard not a peep from a single member of the government? They have done nothing but sit on their hands since that began, and they have had a year's notice.

Hon. Mr. Davis: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, that is not accurate.

IMPORT REPLACEMENT

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Industry and Trade. We all know that recently he and his government have picked up on the New Democratic Party theme of import replacement. As an example, in his May 31 speech to the Ontario Chamber of Commerce he said, "Most of all I want to be satisfied that our initiatives lead to new jobs, new investment, increased exports and import replacement."

Unfortunately, of course, that is only rhetoric on the part of the government. The phasing out of production here and replacing it with imports is being increasingly practiced by many companies in this province, as we know.

Specifically, is the minister aware that the Canadian Carborundum Co. Ltd., of Niagara Falls, which is, of course, a branch of a multinational company, is importing grinding wheels from its plants in Germany and Puerto Rico and knife sharpeners from its plants in Brazil? Until just recently they were produced in the Niagara Falls plant. Employment has thus dropped from 268 in January to 172 on July 1, and the remaining employees are now on a four-day work week.

Has the minister the courage to intervene with the Carborundum Co. and other companies to tell them that these goods must be produced here and that he will enact penalties if they are not?

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, to my knowledge there is no power within any legislation that might affect this government or relate to this Legislature that would give this minister or any minister the authority to use that kind of rather draconian approach. However, the honourable member has raised a very interesting point, and I am certainly prepared to look into the question. If it is possible to establish some form of import replacement, he can bet we will.

Mr. Swart: I have here one of these Carborundum imports; it actually is a knife sharpener. It comes into Canada already packaged. In small print on the back it says, "Made by Carborundum in Brazil." Does the minister know that it is taken out of this package and repackaged after it gets here -- this same sharpener, which is made in Brazil -- and this package simply says, Canadian Carborundum Co., Printed in Canada"? There is no indication whatsoever that it is made in Brazil.

Does the minister not think this kind of tactic, which prevents Canadian consumers from knowing where the product they are buying is made, is deceitful and is to be deplored? What steps has he taken or will he take to let consumers know where the product is made, at least?

10:40 a.m.

Hon. Mr. Walker: I certainly do consider that to be in effect almost perpetrating a fraud. When that kind of label is put on, it does purposely mislead. Labelling of course is a federal question. Labelling and packaging come within the federal level of jurisdiction. That is the kind of thing that should be reported to them and I trust the member will do that. Certainly, I am pleased to be made aware of that and I will take that up with the appropriate officials.

We have a very important job in this province to make sure that the consumer always knows what is a Canadian product. To that end, we expect to launch plans, that will probably be known in the not too distant future, that would indicate how we would go about that. It has been done in the past. There have been very successful moves to initiate a labelling system to ensure that when a consumer walks into a retailer's operation he or she can tell whether or not that product is made in Canada. We want to see that continued and we will be encouraging that very strongly. I think members will be aware of the plans shortly.

KEROSENE COLOURATION

Mr. Elston: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Revenue: The minister will know that his ministry has decided to force the colouring of kerosene in order that more tax money can be extracted from the citizens of Ontario. In particular, can he advise us why he has chosen to dye a fuel which, in the main and for all intents and purposes, can only be used for the purpose of home heating and heating of areas not supplied by natural gas and other efficient forms of fuel?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mr. Speaker, we are looking at the whole issue of kerosene. It is not quite as simple or simplistic as the honourable member puts it. As I understand it, from talking to people qualified in the field, there are generally quite a variety of qualities of kerosene. Many of the qualities, or parts of the sector, in fact are the same as other kinds of furnace oils. That is part of the problem we are trying to overcome with the colouration of fuels.

In other words, like other fuels that can be burnt in a heating system, that fuel can also be used for transportation. If we can come to some resolution as to specific gravity components of the particular kerosenes in question, I think we can resolve it. In the meantime, discussions are going on and it will have to be coloured along with all the other middle distillates.

Mr. Elston: The minister should be aware that many of the bulk suppliers of kerosene have advised their retail outlets that it is not recommended to sell the dyed fuel for the purposes of home heating inasmuch as it may cause fuming in the burners or it may cause a malfunction in the burning units which may cause some damage.

For these reasons, will the minister advise us that he will temporarily suspend the dyeing of the kerosene fuel in order to ensure that the public are not injured in any way because of the fact that there are no studies which his ministry can produce, as far as I understand to this point, with respect to the relative safety to the public of this dyeing program?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Needless to say we have no indication whatsoever, which I emphasize, that there is any problem or any anticipated problem in the burning of kerosene. Keep in mind the actual colour additive is in the amount of 20 parts per million. If one thinks of the proverbial drop in the bucket, that is exactly it. Tests are being carried out that we hope will confirm the fact that there are no problems at all.

If we had had any proof put before us that there was a problem, obviously we would have taken the measure that has been indicated and asked for by the honourable member. Until such time we have some indication that there is a problem, we are still presuming that there is no problem but we are carrying on testing.

TRUE TEMPER LAYOFFS

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Labour. Would the minister indicate to this House what response he has had from the American management of True Temper Canada Ltd. of Hamilton as a result of his meetings of September 3 and any correspondence since?

Further, during these meetings, did he clearly state the position he told me he agreed with in our conversations? Did he make clear the position that to lay off some 70 employees in Hamilton, to dismiss them totally and to set up a new operation in Tillsonburg which could hire up to 100, but which would not allow any of the Hamilton employees the right to any of the jobs there, was simply unacceptable in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member for Hamilton East is correct. I did meet with officials from True Temper, including a top-ranking official from its American operation. I did state clearly I was disturbed about the fact they were proposing to move their facilities from Hamilton to Tillsonburg without giving the workers in Hamilton first refusal on the jobs in Tillsonburg. That was clearly stated at that time. They have responded to me on an interim basis and have indicated they are reconsidering their position.

Mr. Mackenzie: The reconsideration is very weak from what I have seen. In view of the position taken by the minister that the situation was intolerable, which was correct, is he prepared to assure us this will not be allowed to happen? Is he prepared to take whatever action is necessary within his government to ensure this putdown of the workers is not allowed in the True Temper operation?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Basically, I agree with what the member is saying. However, I think we have to bear in mind one thing in this whole situation. True Temper's operations are being severely undercut from a competitive point of view by a Quebec operation and it has lost a considerable portion of its market.

I would not want to see True Temper close its doors. If moving to another location will maintain that operation in Canada and in Ontario, I think we have to co-operate as much as possible. However, I believe there is an obligation on behalf of the company to protect the workers it has at the present time and I fully intend to do everything at my disposal to make sure it does.

ASSISTANCE TO BEEF PRODUCERS

Mr. Watson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Could the minister advise this House whether the beef cattle financial protection plan is in place with regard to the Windsor Packing Co. Ltd. receivership? Will the people who have shipped livestock be eligible for payments under that program?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, the beef cattle protection program came into force on September 1. The ministry was informed early on Wednesday morning that Windsor Packing had gone into voluntary receivership at the close of business on Tuesday. We immediately sent in investigators to look at this situation and those eligible producers will be covered by the plan.

Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I have been asking about the possibility of making the program retroactive for those people who were hurt in the McIntyre bankruptcy. Can the minister give us some legal and financial reasons why it cannot be carried back? Is he thinking of going back several years? Could the minister give us some more information on what he bases his decision?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I dealt with this matter in answer to a question from either the honourable member or, I think, the member for Essex North (Mr. Ruston) around the first week in July. Very simply, it is impossible to choose a date that would be fair to all. I am not necessarily thinking of years. The plan came into effect on September 1 and I think it is not really possible to consider any retroactivity.

10:50 a.m.

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture and Food if he would confer with the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) to deal with the other side of the problem, that is the employees who work at this plant. As he probably knows, when they arrived at work the other day there was a posted sign that said: "Your job has disappeared. The plant is closed." They had no prior notice. Their paycheques have been stopped. Their vacation pay is owing to them. Could the Minister of Agriculture and Food make sure that the Minister of Labour is involved in this as well to make certain the workers are protected in this case?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I am certain the Minister of Labour is aware of it. The minister seems to have left the chamber for a minute, but I will make sure that he is apprised of the member's concerns.

ASSISTANCE TO TOBACCO PRODUCERS

Mr. G. I. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. In view of the devastating crop loss that has affected many farmers and the farm labour force in Haldimand-Norfolk and the surrounding area due to the unusual and unexpected killer frost in that area on the morning of August 29 -- the earliest since August 24, 1940 -- and in view of the resolution from the local townships of Norfolk and Delhi and the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers Marketing Board considering it a national disaster and calling for provincial assistance for the area, where it is estimated that 90 per cent of the unharvested crops were destroyed, will the minister indicate what special financial assistance he plans to offer to those producers who may find themselves in need because of high interest rate payments and extensive financial commitments, since crop insurance will not cover many of these costs?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, we have two programs available to assist. The first is the crop insurance program, which, as the honourable member knows, has been available for a great many years to cover the commodities in question. Work obviously began immediately the problem arose to determine the extent of damage and the extent of the crop that could still be harvested for sale. In a matter of time, conclusions will be made as to the extent of the crop insurance payout.

The second type of assistance is available through the Ontario farm adjustment assistance program. We have encouraged individuals who have been affected to speak with our representatives about their possible eligibility for assistance under that program, particularly for option B under OFAAP, which is a maximum five percentage point rebate of interest on outstanding debt.

Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister about the cases that were looked at by the agricultural representatives in Kent and Elgin in the spring of 1982. Based on normal yields and normal prices, they would seem to be good cases for assistance. However, since that time, the ag reps have been looking at some of these cases and finding that, because of such natural disasters, and especially the deterioration in the price, in the case of grains -- corn, for instance, was projected at $3 a bushel and we are now looking at $2; beans were projected at $7 and we are looking at $5 plus -- these cases would appear to be headed for disaster when they are settled next spring. Has the minister given any thought to any system of rolling over these cases so that perhaps these people would have one more chance?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, at the moment we are involved in a review of OFAAP and our experience with it to date, in order to formulate some proposals to the cabinet of what we should do as the program moves towards its conclusion at the end of December 1982.

I might say, as I said yesterday to his colleague, the official critic, that looking to the longer term, we certainly believe it would be in the best interests of agriculture if we could get a better national stabilization program than exists at present. The Ontario and Canadian federations of agriculture, the Ontario and Canadian cattlemen's associations, the Ontario and Canadian pork producers, grocery products manufacturers, all these organizations have endorsed the principle of development of a three-way national stabilization program to which we committed ourselves in the throne speech of March 9, 1982, and towards which we have been working very hard. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get a definite answer one way or the other from the federal government.

Certainly, as I suggested to the honourable member's colleague yesterday, there may be some things they could do to assist us in getting an answer. I can assure them that we are taking steps in consultation with other provincial governments to bring the matter to a head this fall, one way or another.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, the minister must know that his supplementary farm income stabilization program in this province is just as inadequate as is the federal program. Specifically, I would ask him whether he intends to table a report in this House on this disaster, and when that will be. Will he include in it those disaster cases so that this assembly can determine whether there should be some form of additional assistance going to those people who may be wiped out by that frost?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I had not planned to table a report on this particular situation. As the Treasurer alluded yesterday, we anticipate that the call down on the crop insurance fund this year is going to be rather substantial, particularly due to that late August frost. Certainly, we will be discussing with the federal government how that shortfall in the crop insurance fund revenue is going to be met because a substantial amount of money is going to have to be loaned; but I had not planned on a report.

I noted the honourable member's comments in several of the newspapers supporting the crop insurance program. That program was put in place many years ago to assist those growers who voluntarily participate in it to meet the unexpected and the unusual, which we have seen in several cases this year and which we will see in any given year.

RENT CONTROL

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: Can the minister justify excluding rent increases from scrutiny under the administered prices restraint program for which he is responsible?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, the member for Etobicoke can really analyse the whole situation for himself and appreciate that the rent restraint program has been in effect since 1975. It remains in place. It has been there to restrain rent increases for seven years now. The government does not see any reason to alter that program that was put in place at the time of the original wage and price programs in 1975.

Mr. Philip: Is the minister not aware that even under the present rent review program for those buildings included, tenants in this province are receiving increases of 30, 40 and 50 per cent?

Would he comment on the justice of the case of two buildings in Hamilton, consisting of 200 units, that were sold to Stevenson Investments in January 1981 for $2.5 million? Stevenson paid only $37,000 down and financed the balance. The buildings were resold in April 1982 for $4.8 million, giving Stevenson a 6,212 per cent return on investment, while the tenants are being asked for a 30 per cent increase in their rents to finance that.

What kind of protection is the minister giving to those tenants under the rent review system, including some tenants whose wages will be frozen by the government at five per cent?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: First, we have to analyse the rent review program. We know and understand the rationale behind it; namely, that there can be a six per cent increase in rents unless there can be justification for pass-through of costs; not for increased profits, but for pass-through of costs.

As recently as March 1981, the member for Etobicoke and I and a representative of the Liberal Party quite honestly and openly said that figure might have to go up if inflation continued, but it has not gone up and inflation has continued, so it is true there are undoubtedly many more landlords going to rent review than would have gone in the past.

11 a.m.

The member and I both know, as the leader of his party said clearly in an article in the Toronto Star in mid-August, the key reason rent increases are going up is due to energy costs and interest costs. The program this government is putting in place as an example to the private sector, and one would hope someone else will act if the private sector does not respond, is aimed at reducing inflation and interest rates and, therefore, endeavours to help those tenants who are paying those costs because their landlords are forced to pay them.

We have to be logical about this thing. I understand it is important for some people to find scapegoats, but the member's acting leader yesterday afternoon spoke very strongly about a society and a Legislature that should not seek scapegoats, so the member should not start doing it. Let us start thinking logically about these issues. I believe what he said and I am sure the member believes what he said. He should not arbitrarily go after scapegoats when he does not really mean it.

If there are specific cases in Hamilton, and I am sure the member knows I do not have the details here, I will certainly look into them. As long as they are not cases still in the process of review, I will be glad to respond. If they are still in the process of review, he knows I cannot comment while they are in that process.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, would the minister indicate to the House whether his ministry or the Residential Tenancy Commission is doing any kind of special investigation at present?

Recognizing there are some pass-through costs, and I think everybody recognizes that, is he doing any kind of investigation of some of the refinancing schemes that have all the appearance, at least on the surface, of simply manipulating figures as an excuse to gain more money through the rent review process? Is he doing any investigation of that and, if so, what has he found?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member is suggesting we need some special investigation, because I hope he will accept, as I do, that the commissioners endeavour to see through transactions.

For example, as I am sure he read two or three weeks ago, one of the commissioners saw through -- in his eyes; now it may be appealed so I do not want to say whether he is right or wrong -- a particular transaction where a building was transferred to a son of one of the previous owners, which was deemed not to be a transfer that allowed full pass-through of costs.

He has not come out with a judgement yet saying what the rent increase will be, but he did make that point. I think that reflects the fact the commissioners are aware there can be problems sometimes and that they do endeavour to deal with them. I am not quite sure what point there would be in a study when the commissioners already put their minds to those issues.

Mr. Bradley: There is a widespread problem but I will discuss that with the minister later.

GENERAL MOTORS

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, my next question is for the Minister of Industry and Trade. The city of St. Catharines and the auto workers in that area have received some rather interesting news lately which initially appeared to be very happy news, that a new contract had been obtained and there would be a number of employment opportunities available to those who had been laid off in the area.

Could the minister report to the House what new events have transpired that would make people feel a little uneasy about that and perhaps put in balance the losses and gains in the recent announcements made by General Motors?

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, I think there has been a substantial net gain in terms of what has happened with General Motors in St. Catharines.

As we understand the situation, there will be a net gain of 500 absolutely brand new jobs in St. Catharines in the next few months. There had been some initial reports it might be in just a few weeks. However, our understanding is it will probably take until the end of November and maybe into December before the 500 net new jobs are created there by the transfer of the engine works from Tonawanda, New York, to the St. Catharines GM plant.

There is a substantial net gain there that goes a long way to pick up on the 563 people, I think it is, who have been laid off or are on indefinite layoff from the engine and axle plant and the foundry. I think the 563 jobs that are indefinite layoffs are being replaced by 500 brand new jobs. That is a plus. It is certainly a very substantial step that is being made, and it shows some continued faith in the automobile industry not only in Ontario but also in Canada.

The other side of this is that there is a transfer from one engine to another engine, from the front-wheel-drive to the rear-wheel-drive engine. Accordingly, a certain amount of inventory adjustment and retooling will no doubt have to occur. As I understand it, our information is that there will be a temporary period of layoff, as much as two weeks, for a substantial number of the employees, and there is something like 2,000 employees.

So while it is very regrettable that there is this temporary layoff and it does cover a period of two weeks -- and I hope it does not go any further -- the fact is that when everything is distilled in the process and everything is settled out, there are 500 new jobs that appear to be created now in St. Catharines. That really has to go a long way towards correcting some of the unfortunate levels of unemployment that have been experienced in St. Catharines in the past year.

I think it shows there is a bit of an inspiration in the automobile market. I have been watching some of the figures. The figures that came out on Wednesday of this week are quite promising as they relate to Ford and Chrysler. Both are up substantially over the past year. The year-over-year increase is fairly substantial, and even from last week to this week they seem to be projecting a further 10,000 vehicles to be manufactured in Ontario.

General Motors is certainly down, and there have been a lot of reasons for that, relating to certain plants and to the engines. I think the engines that are in the plant today at St. Catharines are being produced in far smaller quantity than the new rear-wheel-drive engines that will be produced. The level there is expected to be 1,100 per day. So there is a substantial increase, a substantial leg up and certainly an optimistic sign for the St. Catharines area.

MOTIONS

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that the standing committee on resources development be authorized to sit Wednesday, September 29, 1982, and to travel to Windsor.

Motion agreed to.

MOTION TO SET ASIDE ORDINARY BUSINESS

Mr. Laughren moved, seconded by Mr. Martel, pursuant to standing order 34(a), that the ordinary business of the House be set aside to discuss a matter of urgent public importance, that being the severe deterioration of economic and social conditions in Sudbury during the past three months, and the serious problems now and in the immediate future facing the community with Canada's highest unemployment rate and no expectation that government at any level will take any substantive actions to resolve these problems.

Mr. Speaker: I beg to advise the House that the notice of motion was received in time; it does comply with the standing order, and I will be pleased to listen to the honourable member for up to five minutes as to why he thinks the ordinary business of the House should be set aside.

Mr. Laughren: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will not comment on my feelings about having to justify an emergency debate on the conditions in Sudbury. We do indeed have Canada's highest unemployment rate. It is almost 27 per cent and rising. We have had layoffs this year of 850 earlier and 2,000 more recently, and that is not even counting the salaried employees; that is only the hourly-rated, so it is over 3,000 direct job losses.

If I were to use the argument of the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker) about spinoff jobs when he creates jobs, we would be losing tens of thousands of jobs in the Sudbury basin. On top of that, we have had a shutdown from June and it will last until January. I do not know how one can shut down a community like that for a period of six months.

11:10 a.m.

Those 3,000 lost jobs represent businesses, homes and people's educations. In the long run, we do not even know what the impact is going to be. I do know that between 1976 and 1981 Sudbury led Canada in the loss of population of major metropolitan areas. It certainly led Ontario. We can say with some certainty that the future of Sudbury is hanging in the balance of what happens in the next couple of years in that community. If all those people who have been laid off leave the community, the small business community will be devastated by that exodus. If they do not leave, if they stay in Sudbury because of lack of job opportunities elsewhere, then the welfare rates are going to be staggering and, might I say, frightening.

If the members on the government side think for one moment that workers who one minute are proud miners and smelter workers, the next minute are going to be accepting unemployment insurance benefits and after that welfare benefits, they are sadly mistaken. The workers will not accept that, nor should they. I might say I am not making the distinction that certain members of the Conservative Party make when they talk about unrest in the community.

We believe, on this side, there are some very positive actions that can be taken, but we are very worried when we hear some of the comments coming from the other side. When we see the Minister of Industry and Trade set up a task force in one community and ignore the problems in Sudbury, when we hear the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) make asinine statements in a smart-ass performance that was put on yesterday between himself and the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché), we despair that the government is ever going to treat the problems in Sudbury very seriously. We really do despair.

This morning the Premier (Mr. Davis) had absolutely no response to the question of why the minister could have a task force set up in one community with a loss of 400-odd jobs while no substantive measures whatsoever are happening in the Sudbury community where there are over 3,000 jobs lost. Let the Minister of Natural Resources take his place today and tell us about all the make-work projects he has done, his meetings with the federal minister, Lloyd Axworthy, and unemployment insurance. That is not what people in Sudbury want or deserve. We deserve much better than that in that community and expect some answers from the government as to what the long-term plans are.

We would like to lay before the Legislature this morning some very specific proposals as to what we see the answers to be. We have some very specific suggestions to make on the industrial diversification of the community, further processing of minerals, pollution abatement plans, import replacement and self-sufficiency in the community.

We should not have to keep repeating ourselves; this is the second emergency debate in this chamber on Sudbury in less than six months. When members from local ridings like the Sudbury area have to rise in their places twice in six months to provoke an emergency debate in this chamber, it is an indication of just how little the government is doing about the problems in that community.

The people in the community were told that all they needed to help them out was a member on the government side. I have some questions for the member on the government side if this debate goes through this morning. There are some very specific answers we would like to have, because we have made some very specific proposals. It is with that in mind that we have moved this motion to set aside the regular business of the chamber. We did not do it lightly. The problem is serious, It is getting more serious. I very much hope we can proceed with this debate this morning.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and give support to this motion from the member for Nickel Belt. By way of a few introductory comments in what I hope will be a longer debate, I would point out to the members that this is not the first time the House has been asked to consider the plight of Sudbury or some other northern community.

One does not have to look back too many years to another layoff situation in the Sudbury basin. Back in the 1977 era, for example, there were many problems facing that community and many things said by politicians and leaders of some sort or other about the situation facing the people of Sudbury.

Things like this were said: "What the Inco layoffs illustrate more than anything else is the devastating vacuum in economic policy planning." That was said before, and I am afraid we are going to have to say it again.

This theme or thought goes on to point a finger of blame not just at the federal government, as is the wont of some politicians here in Ontario, but also at the provincial government. Both levels have to share some responsibility. It is fairly evident that neither Ottawa nor Queen's Park has had a single, sensible response to what happens in a community that relies so heavily on a single resource industry when the demand for that resource either stops or slows down.

I had the opportunity, when I heard that we might be debating this, to look through some notes of a speech made by the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) when he was in Sudbury only a few months ago. In his speech of June 15, 1982, I find some rather interesting comments. He says, on page 2:

"While the situation in Sudbury is bleak, perhaps it is time to try and look beyond today, and time for some sober thought about what elements can and should be going into economic development in northern Ontario over the long term."

I ask, pray tell, where has the government been? What is the mandate of the Ministry of Natural Resources? Why are we talking about this again without any action?

In another part of his speech, he makes this statement: "It is the job of government, business and labour to work together to make the wisest use of what we have to maintain the strength of our major sectors, to broaden the processing and manufacturing of our resources in the north, to increase the value added in the north and to expand the base of the related service businesses in the north."

If that is the job, let me ask for some examples. What has been done? I am afraid the answer is not very evident to any of us.

I could go on and pick fault with what was said, but I think we have a more important task facing us right now. That task is to debate and, I hope, to pick from that debate some common sense that can be applied immediately to assist the people not only in Sudbury but in other northern communities that face a similar problem. We support the motion and I look forward to the debate.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, the government would agree that there is an extremely serious situation in Sudbury. We believe, however, this government can show it is taking action and that programs are in place, or will be in place, or are planned to combat and help the very serious situation in Sudbury.

For that reason, because we would like to make very clear to this House and to the people of this province and Sudbury what these plans and actions are, we would be very happy to take part in this debate. We support this motion to set aside the normal business this morning and debate this matter if you in your wisdom so decide.

Mr. Speaker: I have listened attentively to the presentations by all honourable members. I find I am in favour of the motion. The question before the House is, shall the debate proceed?

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: I call on the first speaker, the member for Nickel Belt. I would advise the member that he has 10 minutes.

UNEMPLOYMENT IN SUDBURY

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased this debate is going forward. I mentioned in my earlier arguments that the unemployment rate there is flirting with 30 per cent. It is not as though this problem came upon us suddenly.

In 1977, the Ontario government produced a paper called, Towards a Nickel Policy for the Province of Ontario. The present Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) was then the Minister of Natural Resources.

11:20 a.m.

Let me tell members a couple of the things in that report.

"(1) That the government of Ontario take the initiative in proposing to the nickel industry and concerned governments that a 'world nickel institute' be formed to obtain, study and publish a wide range of objective information on nickel on a continuous basis as is done by the small, low-cost but successful silver institute."

Report card: Absolutely nothing done despite the fact that was in 1977.

"(2) Encourage through special Ontario income and mining tax adjustments the adaptation and use of currently idle nickel refining capacity in Ontario and Alberta to refine part or all of that significant proportion of Ontario's mine output of nickel which still goes to Wales and Norway in semi-refined form for refining so as to create jobs in Canada. It is understood that the present Alberta refinery process does not recover precious metals."

So much for the Minister of Natural Resources' (Mr. Pope) silly arguments that one creates jobs by shipping ores out for refining.

"(3) Encourage the refining in Ontario or Canada of the byproduct platinum group metals (PGM) from Ontario nickel mines which now all go abroad for refining to metal. Ontario is the world's third largest source of platinum group metals, but after 50 years still has no PGM refinery based on primary feed. This change would create new jobs in northern Ontario or elsewhere in Canada."

The seventh proposal was, "Encourage consideration of direct reduction of nickel-bearing pyrrhotite generated in the nickel smelting process and utilization of the iron pellets in a mini steel plant in Sudbury, thereby creating new industry and employment -- perhaps 700 jobs."

There are some very specific, positive suggestions that have been made not just by this party but by all sorts of people. The authors of that report know more about mining in northern Ontario than all that gang over there combined will ever know. Yet they ignore the authors' suggestions. Do the members know how out of touch this government is?

Here is a quote from the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) in the Sudbury and District Labour Council's yearbook which came out on Labour Day: "Every year it seems more apparent that Sudbury has firmly established itself as one of the areas of economic growth and development in northeastern Ontario. The old Sudbury image is far behind the thriving, energetic city we know today."

If ever there was a minister of the crown who should resign, should never have been there in the first place, it is the present Minister of Northern Affairs. He is a complete ass and the members know it. That is what he is. He is a complete ass and he does not deserve to be Minister of Northern Affairs.

Then I picked up a press release from the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker). What is he saying? "We have an emergency in Hawkesbury because of a closedown of a plant and it is going to cost 440 jobs." What has the Minister of Industry and Trade said about Sudbury? One big fat zero.

Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I submit the member has used unparliamentary language with respect to the minister. I would ask he withdraw the remark about the Minister of Northern Affairs.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I suggest that the member, who is quite familiar with the Bible, go back and read it. He will find out what an ass is and if he does not think his friend is that, so be it. We happen to have that opinion based on the statements that man just made. Please do not take up my colleague's 10 minutes on junk.

The Deputy Speaker: We are watching the time.

Mr. Rotenberg: Use parliamentary language.

Mr. Martel: That is parliamentary language. The good Lord used it daily when he was on earth so why don't you --

The Deputy Speaker: Order. I listened very closely to the language of the member for Nickel Belt. I was not overly happy with it. I am sure in terms of review you will consider using language more appropriate to this chamber.

Mr. Laughren: I will not call him a complete ass again in this speech, Mr. Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. You make my job awfully hard by --

Mr. Laughren: All right, Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw. He is not a complete ass.

I mentioned the export of nickel to Norway for refining as costing us jobs. We know it costs us jobs. The Minister of Natural Resources can get up and mouth the Falconbridge line all he likes. He is nothing but a puppet for Falconbridge anyway.

The other thing that is so offensive, and the present Treasurer brought it in, is they now allow Falconbridge to ship ores to Norway and write off the processing costs against the Ontario operations. Not only do we lose jobs, we lose tax revenues in Ontario at a time when they are crying for more money. I ask how that makes any sense.

I can hear the Minister of Natural Resources bleating about how we have to get into European markets and so forth. He has been had. We all know that. The people who know more about nickel than he will ever know, the experts, have told us that. He just listens to the Falconbridge line.

The thing that prompted me to be so angry was the smart-ass performance and the sophomoric performance of the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) and the Minister of Natural Resources yesterday about the phosphate deposits. How ridiculous can they get? They both say it is better to put the sulphur dioxide in the air and leave the phosphate in the ground, because in any other way you are going to take away jobs. What a ridiculous pair of northern members to make that kind of argument to let the status quo remain.

Mr. Piché: You should not have said that. There we go; we had that crap yesterday and we've got it again today.

Mr. Laughren: That is exactly what you said. Do not give me that nonsense.

Mr. Piché: It is terrible to try to resolve the problem the way you are going about it. How do you expect to get support?

Mr. Laughren: There is no shortage of suggestions for what should be done in Sudbury. We have laid a number of them before the government. We have said there should be a mining machinery operation in Sudbury. We do not have a mining machinery operation in Sudbury worthy of the name.

The member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) and the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) play a little game between them. The member for Nipissing says: "Oh no, do not do that. It takes jobs away from North Bay." My goodness, what a selfish, parochial view for a northern member to take. The amount of machinery that we could replace that is now being imported is unbelievable and the government allows that kind of nonsense to go on. Is it any wonder we do not take them seriously in Sudbury any more?

What about the member for Sudbury who was going to solve all our problems? When he was elected he said: "Climb the mountain with me. Sudbury has a great future. Just elect me. My government will do things." We have seen what has happened to Sudbury since then. Is there nothing better to do than to hand out cheques? Is the member going to hand out all the welfare cheques when they start being paid in Sudbury? Is that the new responsibility of the member for Sudbury?

We have a federal minister of mines in Sudbury, a federal parliamentary secretary and a provincial parliamentary assistant. Boy, oh, boy, has it ever turned the community around. Is Sudbury ever blessed to have this centralization of power in our community. It is really remarkable.

I have had people telephone me to ask, "Is it true that the member for Sudbury went to the Sudbury Science Centre and handed out a cheque that the science centre had already spent a month or two before?" I said: "I do not know. You had better ask the member for Sudbury. If he needs publicity that badly, ask him. Do not ask me. I would rather not even know, to tell you the truth."

It is not just our party that is making these suggestions. The chamber of commerce told the government how irrelevant their policies are for northeastern Ontario. We have told them and their experts have told them what the answers are for nickel. When there is a downturn, the government uses that as an excuse. I can hear them now, "There is a downturn, you cannot do it now." About pollution abatement efforts, they will say, "Oh, the companies could not afford it now." In the last 10 years Inco alone took $1.5 billion in profits out of the Sudbury basin. They have never lost money in Sudbury. Elsewhere, yes, but not in Sudbury.

What does the government do? They do not look at things over a 10, 20 or 30-year period. They use whatever arguments they want to make now. I can remember the original argument when we were asking for those exemptions to be ended. The argument put forth by the present Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) -- I promised I would not talk about him any more -- was, "We have to grant these exemptions in order to maintain a stable work force in the Sudbury community." What a joke that is.

What we want from the government this morning is some specific policy proposals that will turn the problems around in Sudbury because we do not have to take it any more and we will not. If they think the local members here are going to help keep a lid on things in Sudbury for them when things get hot, they are sadly mistaken. We have no intention of doing that.

Things are going to heat up in that community and the responsibility is theirs because they have done absolutely nothing substantive to turn it around. They have done a few make-work projects, yes, but nothing substantive, despite all the recommendations from their own people who have told them.

They sit on their collective butts and do nothing substantial at all. We have had enough of their temporary make-work projects. They do not replace a career for a miner or smelter man. That is not good enough. We want more and we deserve more.

11:30 a.m.

Hon. Mr. Pope: Mr. Speaker, we do not expect anything positive or any assistance from the New Democratic Party members from Sudbury. We have never expected it. Why would they change their stripes now? They never have been positive or helpful with respect to Sudbury. There is no point in them changing.

They have given us their answer to the Sudbury problem. They have insulted the Minister of Northern Affairs and the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker). They have said I am a puppet for Falconbridge. They forgot to add Inco, but they meant to add it in -- even though the member talks to them more than I do; that is the truth and he knows it. He and his friend the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) talk to them more than I do.

He called the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) and myself ridiculous. He attacked the other member from Sudbury, he attacked the federal and provincial politicians from Sudbury and he attacked Inco. That is his answer to resolving the Sudbury problem.

Mr. Laughren: I have the answer right here.

Hon. Mr. Pope: He just gave us the NDP answer in 10 minutes, insulting everybody.

Mr. Laughren: The big blue book.

Hon. Mr. Pope: His party's policy for Sudbury is 10 minutes of insults. How appropriate, because that has been its attitude in northern Ontario for the past decade. That is why it is where it is.

The NDP members say the problems of the export markets in Europe and the United States right now are a result of the downturn of the market. That is all nonsense. They obviously do not know what is going on in the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Mr. Martel: Nobody says that. Don't be so silly.

Hon. Mr. Pope: They do not want to hear about this either. They obviously do not want to hear about what is going on right now with the International Trade Commission in the United States about Ontario's nickel producers, or in the American Congress right now about uranium, or in the European Economic Community about all our metals and raw products.

They do not want to hear about all these problems or about us securing export markets for finished and unfinished products and how that affects jobs in the Sudbury area and every other resource community in the north.

They say I do not know what I am talking about when I say there is a demand by these markets to have some finishing and refining facilities in the European community, Britain and the United States. I want to read something to them. The members do not want to have a discussion on positive ideas or alternatives.

Mr. Cooke: Let's hear some positive ideas.

Hon. Mr. Pope: They do not want to have that in this forum. Maybe they'll grow up and we will get together outside this forum and come up with something for Sudbury. Maybe they will want to do that for a change and help the workers instead of being silk-stocking Socialists. Maybe they will help the working man.

This is a diplomatic note from the government of the United Kingdom. I am going to read it, because it tells what our predisposition is on refining as they understand our position and it will tell members what the realities are in that market right now. Maybe they will grow up and think about it for a change in terms of what it is going to do for those Sudbury miners. Maybe they will think for a change instead of attacking.

This is an aide-mèmoire under the seal of the United Kingdom government, "Export licence for precious metals concentrates from Ontario," and it reads as follows:

"1. The United Kingdom government understands that the Ontario government is considering not renewing the licence granted under the Ontario Mining Act to Inco Europe Limited for the export of precious metals concentrates from Ontario to the United Kingdom on the grounds that the refining of platinum group metals should be carried out in Ontario."

That is what we were considering. That is our predisposition.

Mr. Martel: We have been saying it for years. You should listen to what has been said for the past 15 years in here.

Hon. Mr. Pope: Just listen to the rest of it. Just listen and learn for a change and try to do something.

"2. It also understands that a similar licence for a 10-year period was granted to Falconbridge for refining such concentrates in Norway last year. The UK precious metals refinery at Acton was one of the assets acquired in 1929 by the International Nickel Company of Canada, formed through the merger of Mond Nickel Company and the International Company Limited. The continuation of the small operation at Acton was important to the plans of the United Kingdom and Canadian interests in the setting up of Inco Canada.

"3. The refinery is one of only two primary precious metals refineries in Europe, and current output accounts for about one third of current consumption of platinum group metals in western Europe. The high value of the metal makes proximity to the market important.

"4. The Acton refinery employs 175 people and has a current book value of two million pounds. The cost of building a new refinery in Ontario would be in the region of 20 million pounds."

Listen to this:

"5. The United Kingdom government would regard failure to renew the licence very seriously since it would result in closure of the Acton refinery with employment and balance of payment consequences and would weaken the UK arm of Inco. This would be likely to have a direct effect on the sales of platinum group metals in the UK and it could affect our sales more widely in the European community."

Mr. Laughren: Who wrote that?

Hon. Mr. Pope: The United Kingdom government wrote that, my friend. They add that "it would also be contrary to the spirit of the 1929 agreement," and they ask us to reconsider.

That is what we are dealing with; if the member will read the realities of what is going on now in the European community, he will know that is exactly the problem. If he cuts off the refining facilities in Europe, his underground miners in Sudbury will have even less market demand for their product. Right now there are other sources -- Russia, the Philippines and Botswana -- that can meet the European needs. The member should grow up, recognize the market realities right now and let us work at trying to resolve the problem.

Mr. Martel: The realities right now are what have you done for 40 years?

Hon. Mr. Pope: The member laughs at the work programs. We never said they were permanent solutions. We said they were temporary. He should not try to say we said anything else. Do not be that much of a hypocrite, I say to my friend.

Mr. Laughren: What are your solutions?

Hon. Mr. Pope: My friend had better not talk, because we have heard his solutions; he does not have any. All he did was attack everyone else for 10 minutes. That is the NDP's answer for everything. Anywhere they go, that is their answer.

We spent more than $6 million in the Sudbury area this year under section 38. It is not a long-term solution; we admit that. But we wanted to help the working men and women of the Sudbury area, to help give a temporary uplift to the economy. The member may laugh at it, he may denigrate it, he may downgrade it. He is attacking the town of Valley East, the regional municipality of Sudbury, Sudbury district government, the town of Onaping Falls, the township of Rutherford, George Island and the Nickel District Conservation Authority. He is also attacking Mine Mill Local 598. Congratulations.

That is the member's answer, to attack everyone who has been trying to help the situation. I am glad that is his attitude, because we on the government side will work with the people of the Sudbury community. We have already given proposals to the federal government, and as soon as we have completed them we will work with the people of Sudbury to get long-term solutions and we will ignore the member, because he does not want to help.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, I observe that the minister suggested he meet the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) outside the House and come up with a solution. If the tone of the meeting outside is anything like the tone we have just witnessed, I submit they will not come up with many solutions from that kind of encounter.

I indicated earlier that I was looking forward to joining in this debate because I do believe in the process of this Legislature. I remind the member for Nickel Belt and the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) that my interest is not based solely on the legislative process.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Van Horne: I was saying that my interest is not based solely on the legislative process; it is also based on a concern for many friends and relatives of mine who are living in the north. I do not think one has to be overly sensitive to appreciate the situation many of those people up there are facing.

There are young people trying to attend university partially on their own resources who are unable to get even part-time jobs. There are people facing mortgage foreclosure because they have not been able to keep up the payments. People who had some sort of resource through unemployment insurance are now faced with the prospect of going on welfare if they are not already on it.

It is not singularly a Sudbury problem, as I indicated. There are many others, as any of the members will see if they take the time to read Northern Ontario Business, which is sent to most of us. The September 1982 issue lists a considerable number of other closures, part-time or long-term, which affect many people: the Griffith Mine in Ear Falls, the Algoma layoffs, Sault Ste. Marie and Wawa, the Abitibi Price shutdowns -- the list goes on and on and on, beyond the Sudbury basin.

I submit to members that we should put all our rhetoric and shouting aside and address ourselves to finding solutions or, at least, to offering suggestions that would lead to solutions.

11:40 a.m.

The major problem in northern Ontario, as many of us see it, is the one-industry syndrome. Most areas are devoid of a diversified economic structure and are subject to the wild fluctuations of national and international markets for the resources. We know that. We have known it for years.

Yet I think it is fair for us in opposition to point to the government and say: "You know that too. You are very much aware of that too. You have studied it to death in many different ways at many different times. Please, why don't you come up with a solution?"

In the past, northern Ontario has been treated virtually as a colony of the south. This colonial status has been reinforced in many ways. One has to look only at the recent suggestion of a two-tier hydro rate system, for example, transportation costs, or any number of factors that reflect that colonial attitude.

Ontario law says that metals mined in the province must be refined completely in Canada. Yet this Conservative government here in Ontario has passed hundreds of exemptions from that law, allowing millions of pounds of semi-precious metals out of the country, providing processing somewhere else. The law is, for all practical purposes, almost nonexistent.

Of the metallic minerals mined in Ontario, about 30 per cent of the zinc, 33 per cent of the nickel and 100 per cent of the platinum group metals are processed outside of Canada. I could go on to give similar figures for cadmium, cobalt and so on, but I am just giving those few examples.

Another problem is the lack of an adequate supply of replacement parts in the mining industry. Most mining equipment parts are made outside of Canada, although these easily could be manufactured locally.

In 1980, Canada's trade deficit in drilling and mining machinery was approximately $1.5 billion, which is five times more than it was in 1970. Ontario's 1979 deficit was $250 million. The Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) himself has agreed that if these were replaced from domestic resources, approximately 3,500 jobs could be created.

I could go on to give other examples of government shortcomings. I could go on too to list many of the studies that have been done on the north.

The Conservative government established a cabinet committee on mining communities in 1977 to look into this very problem. The committee was quietly shelved in 1980 without arriving at any conclusions or solutions. Is the problem so great that there is no solution? There is some question in my mind of what kind of work that committee did. Did it actually meet?

An in-house interministerial committee on single-resource industry communities was established towards the end of 1980 to examine some of these same problems. Has this been done? The second time around we have to ask the same question.

I guess the final example of criticism for the government is reflected in the response of the then Treasurer to the Sudbury Chamber of Commerce, which presented a brief a few years ago concerning the community.

The brief concluded that the unstated strategy of the government of Ontario in its planning was "the colonial exploitation of the natural resources of northern Ontario" for the benefit of the Golden Horseshoe manufacturing hub of southern Ontario.

In response to that, the then Treasurer said that the people of northern Ontario should not look forward to any major industrial development for the decades to come. To date, his words have been proven true.

Finally, the minister in the heat of debate indicated that no solutions were suggested by the members of the New Democratic Party. I am not sure that is accurate, because on many occasions the parties opposite have made a number of suggestions for improving the plight of the single-industry communities of northern Ontario.

One example from our party is that we would create a ministry of mines and establish a comprehensive mineral policy for Ontario. That is one suggestion for a move in the direction of solving the problems of the north.

The Deputy Speaker: One minute.

Mr. Van Horne: The financing of junior mines in Ontario would be encouraged by means of revision of the Ontario Securities Commission regulations. That is another suggestion we have made. The list could go on and on.

I submit in all sincerity, and a select committee was mentioned just a few moments ago by the member for Sudbury East, that it is time to put the partisan politics away and put our heads together to come up with a solution not only for Sudbury but also for all those communities in northern Ontario that are suffering from the single-industry syndrome.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I want to make only a brief comment with respect to what the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) said.

First, my colleague quoted at least six things that we have recommended over the years and that were recommended in a government report in 1977: such things as a nickel institute and the processing and refining of nickel in Canada using the facilities that are here. That was recommended in 1976-77. We recommended those things subsequently.

The other thing I want to draw to the honourable members' attention with respect to what the minister said is that he talked about the markets now. Well, I have been in this Legislature for 15 years, and that is what the joke is. For lo these many years, I have talked about processing in Sudbury and the refining of nickel from Falconbridge. We have talked about getting rid of the exclusions so as to create work in northern Ontario.

Thus the minister should not talk about the conditions just today; let him talk about the long run and the recommendations that have been made over the years. The fact is that the government has not adopted one of those.

What has been the legacy of Sudbury? The legacy is a simple one: Inco and Falconbridge have literally made billions. Inco has never lost a cent in Sudbury to this time; it has extracted. The only type of investment that has come from the mining companies in Sudbury has been more investment to extract more at a higher and faster capacity. But to put anything permanent in place has never been part of the program.

That is the legacy of northern Ontario and that is why I was so ashamed of my friend from Kapuskasing yesterday for the game he played. To play off one part of northern Ontario against another is simply irresponsible. I am going to come back to it.

Inco took its profit and invested it in England. Inco took its profit and invested it in Huntington Alloys in the United States. It bought a battery plant in the United States. It did not create a job in Sudbury outside of extraction. It went to Guatemala. It went to Indonesia. In the area where it has taken out literally billions upon billions of dollars of profit it has not invested anything that is permanent except to extract it faster.

Falconbridge has done exactly the same. Falconbridge went to Norway and refined there, because it bought a bankrupt facility about 40 years ago. They never considered processing or refining in Canada, and in 1979 the Tories gave them the right to write off their expansion in Norway against their Ontario taxes. What incentive is there? What incentive is there for them to invest in Canada when they can invest around the world and write it off here?

11:50 a.m.

They were going to invest in Quebec. In 1971, I raised this with the then minister. I asked him whether he would try to make sure that Falconbridge built its new refinery in Ontario. He said, "No, they were going to Quebec." They spent $5 million in Bécancour, Quebec, to build a new refinery that went down the tubes. But they were going there because they got a tax exemption for 20 years, reduced hydro rates and reduced rail rates. They were going to take it from Sudbury to Quebec, where they had just robbed the Quebec people blind to build it there.

What do we have today? We have another minister who yesterday made another defence of Falconbridge not building a refinery in the Sudbury area because they had to get into the economic market. That is the latest wrinkle. They went over to Norway about 40 years ago, when there was no such thing as the European Economic Community. So we have another excuse for writing it off.

In Sudbury, the future is grim and all we have are people extracting it in a hurry and taking it out of northern Ontario to process somewhere else. The member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) played the game with the minister yesterday.

Let members look at what Mel Soucie says if they think the economic conditions in Sudbury are temporary. In fact, what Inco and Falconbridge are doing now with the economic conditions is they are using them as an opportunity to bring about what they intended to do anyway. They are going to say, "We will take our lumps once rather than twice." They are drawing down.

Soucie says: "We are looking at something that is structurally changing and is going to require some long-term programs to do something about creating other industries, other growth centres in the community if we are going to do anything to regain our feet economically."

By the way, Soucie is the northeastern Ontario economist for the federal Department of Employment and Immigration.

Inco is using the markets now to reduce by 1,100 permanently. Let me tell members over there that they have a lot to be ashamed of, because do they know who started the decline in the Sudbury area? Those beggars did.

In 1974, this government with a stroke of the pen wiped out the fourth largest employer in Sudbury, the Burwash Correctional Institution, and the same day opened one up in southern Ontario. The excuse was that most of the prisoners in that prison were from southern Ontario and it took too long for the relatives to go to Burwash. Do members know where the relatives from the Sudbury district go to see their loved ones who are in jail? They go to Thunder Bay, a distance of 600 miles.

Overnight, the government wiped out the fourth largest employer after having spent $4.5 million in the two previous years putting in a new gymnasium, single male quarters and fixing all of the homes. The government wiped out the fourth largest employer in 1974 and put nothing back in its place. It has been downhill since and they have not introduced a program.

The Minister of Natural Resources has decided to leave but, in the few minutes I have remaining, I want to refer to his statement of yesterday. Certainly we asked about a fertilizer plant, because it is going to take sulphuric acid. I am going to quote from Northern Ontario Business about Sherritt Gordon:

"Sherritt Gordon is also having problems lining up a supplier of sulphuric acid. Canadian Industries Limited has the northern Ontario market tied up through purchase contracts with Inco Metals in Sudbury and Kidd Creek Mines in Timmins. The search for a primary supplier of the acid, necessary for refining the phosphates into phosphoric acid, one step away from fertilizer, is also affecting the timing of the project, Topp said.

"Sherritt Gordon is looking at the potential of shipping raw phosphates without refining, says Topp."

That is what Sherritt Gordon is saying in Northern Ontario Business.

Let me tell my friend from Kapuskasing that Inco's capacity to produce can be increased by a third without a jot of improved capacity. Inco over the years, and CIL before it, produced only two thirds of the sulphuric acid that it was possible for them to produce. They left one machine out of three down permanently because they did not want to glut the market with sulphuric acid. The government of Ontario acquiesced and said, "Dump it into the atmosphere."

They refused to use full capacity. That is why we suggested, if they are going to do this rather than send it out of northern Ontario -- as Topp says they are going to -- at least they should put a fertilizer plant in Sudbury so the people of Kapuskasing could have jobs and so we would use the full capacity of making sulphuric acid. If we put the two together, we will create jobs in the north for northerners.

The Minister of Natural Resources plays silly little games. I was not trying to take anything from the north. I have taken the position, in all my years in Queen's Park, that you process at source. What does the Minister of Natural Resources say? "The way to go about economic recovery is not to process other than at source." If that is the Tory position, that is great. Therefore, they should start with the refinery; tell Falconbridge tomorrow that they should refine all their bloody nickel at Inco, where the capacity is. That is number one.

The second thing to do -- and I have been trying to get it from the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker) now for the past eight months -- is to make a commitment that if the federal government is not prepared to put in the funding necessary to establish that mining equipment company in Sudbury, this government will do what it said privately a year and a half ago it was going to do, and that is to go it alone, without the federal government. That would start it tomorrow.

The Deputy Speaker: One minute.

Mr. Martel: I went to Inco and asked them if they were prepared to proceed even in these economically difficult times. The president of Inco told me they are prepared to go tomorrow but they are waiting for a commitment from the federal government.

There is this little game going on between Tories and Liberals because they are from different parts of the province. The member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) says we know there is a deficit of $168 million. He himself said it at a meeting one night when I was there. Why does he not say the government is prepared to put $4 million in and create 225 jobs and to hell with the federal government? If Erola cannot get it, so be it. Let us do it.

The other thing I suggest this government must do is to start refining all that nickel in northern Ontario, using the Inco excess capacity to do it.

I say to my friend from Kapuskasing, no one was trying to rob one part of northern Ontario at the expense of another. We were simply trying to put two products together to make a product that would create jobs for our people. He should not be so parochial.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, what has brought on this emergency debate today invariably is the issue of unemployment or the degree of employment in a particular community. This community has suffered more than any other in Ontario. I think at this time it has reached the worst proportions; it has gone from about 8.5 per cent last August to around 27 per cent this August.

That is a terribly regrettable situation. I do not think anybody would find any solace whatsoever in those figures. To say that all of us in this chamber have sympathy for anyone caught up in the picture is to offer a trite statement, but that is the case.

The fact of the matter is that we all have that concern. No one party, no one person or no one community can have anything but discomfort whenever figures like those are established, and certainly this is the case.

The short of it is that we recognize the severity of the problem faced by Sudbury and by the entire region. In the past, Sudbury and region have shown a particular resilience in the decade from 1970 to 1980. I think the community has demonstrated impressive resilience in its capacity to attract diversified industry, to take advantage of what industry might arrive there and to attempt to replace jobs that have been lost.

One of the most important areas for the future, and that is really what we have to look at in all of this, is the tourist industry. I think that diversification into a much broader tourist industry in the Sudbury area will --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Yes, I think tourism will lead in a strong way to a fairly stable additional diversification.

12 noon

My friend and colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources, has concentrated on his particular area of expertise and responsibility in the mining industry. Mine applies basically to the nonmining industries. I relate particularly to small business and medium-sized business. There is a fair diversification in the community today.

We do offer a lot of programs that try to help, as much as we can, to make sure the small to medium-sized businesses are able to make profits, are able to stay in business. There has been a demonstrated resilience over a period of time.

For example, in terms of our own programs we have a lot of small business development programs. Right now we have an outside consultant who has been engaged to deal with the 26 individual businesses that so far have signed up. The consultant is showing them how they can take a share of the export market; how they can perhaps cause import substitution; basically, how they can increase their business. So that is in place.

We are planning an export seminar that will be conducted right in Sudbury this fall. There we will help every single small to medium-sized business we can in terms of their exports. We have our major offices in Sudbury. The entire regional offices of our ministry are located in Sudbury. These people are strictly business consultants. They go out and knock on the doors of the individual businesses throughout Sudbury and region and try to help them achieve many things. On a free basis, they give all kinds of advice that relates to domestic marketing, international marketing, plant expansions, new plants and energy programs and the like, not to mention the fact that in the last decade the Northern Ontario Development Corporation has provided some $13 million to a host of individual corporations there, and in the process created 1,043 jobs listed over five years.

The fifth point I would like to make on this is that the technology centre, the Ontario resource machinery development centre is on stream and is proceeding and will be open this fall. I can tell members that as it relates to wood products and mining machinery, it is very important that this facility gets under way. It is important that diversification happens.

The member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) happens to serve very faithfully on the advisory committee we have established for that. I can tell members that the member for Sudbury and I have talked very much of how this may become the magnet. We are anxious to see this magnet develop. One particular fact is a decision was made several years ago in Ottawa when Bell Northern was established by Northern Electric. Bell Northern acted as a catalyst and a magnet for establishing something in the range now of 150 companies that have been spawned from that one single decision. These are the kinds of things that can happen from these magnet-like industries.

We think this will be a magnet because it will focus on mining and wood products. It will focus on the very important diversified area we think can be substituted. The member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) did remind me of the speech we made where we talked about the extreme level of disproportion between the imports and exports as it relates to mining machinery and wood product machinery.

We are specifically anxious to concentrate on that in terms of our technology centre. As the minister responsible for that centre coming on stream I can say that centre is going to focus on that issue and it is going to be able to achieve a lot of spinoff. I think the member is going to see, flowing from that, the kind of diversified industry, the kind of mining and machinery equipment that, as the member has often said in the past few years that I have known him, we should be responsible for producing and manufacturing there right in the centre of the mining district of Ontario.

I can tell the member, this centre is dedicated to that function. We will insist that centre put Ontario, to the extent that it can, on the cutting edge of the technological innovation that will be required. It will be a transfer centre that is world class and without parallel throughout other parts of the country. Its mandate will be to encourage mining and forest industry research and development, and particularly the technology transfer which will increase Ontario-based manufacture of resource machinery and equipment. It will be there to provide a focal point for the development of projects to respond to growing equipment needs. I can assure the members that will be in place by this fall.

When we relate to the matter of the Mining Equipment Co. of Ontario which has been raised once or twice here, and the members from the north have talked to me a number of times on this, we hope to see MECO in place. We have made an opening bid as it relates to our involvement.

I think, while we are awaiting the federal response, it would be awfully foolish for us to say, "If you do not want to bother putting the money in then we will go ahead and build it ourselves." Then they are going to say, "Go ahead." That is the kind of answer we are going to get. One can hardly expect us to go into a negotiation that way. Not only would that be tying one hand behind our back but we would be including our other hand and both feet as well. I cannot imagine anything as ludicrous as that approach.

We have heard a number of suggestions today but, frankly, the part that concerns us most, as the Minister of Natural Resources said when he was here a few moments ago, is that all the members seem to do is attack every other member in sight. I do not think that is fair. I think they have to realize there are solutions and we do want to get solutions. Solutions exist primarily in diversification. That is an extremely important thing.

As it relates to nickel itself, certainly the declining markets worldwide are a contributing factor. I think of the kinds of suggestions that come forward from the member for Sudbury East who has indicated the way to solve the problem of the declining markets worldwide, the way to solve the problems of the nickel markets in Ontario, is to nationalize Inco. That is the way he solves that problem. But not everybody agrees with the nationalization of Inco.

The Sudbury question was raised not long ago as it related to the strike in June. The Sault Ste. Marie Star produced an editorial just a while ago relating to this issue of nationalization, that was brought up by a number of the New Democratic Party members.

What the Sault Ste. Marie Star had to say on June 18, was this: "What these NDP members choose to ignore is that the huge losses Inco is presently suffering are not rooted in company incompetence but are related to the absence of nickel markets, a condition felt throughout the world by nickel producers. As to the latest hint that all would be right with Sudbury and the world if the government would move in and take over Inco, one would have thought that the New Democrats would have abandoned this tired line of thinking before this, considering the indications that the Canadian public just doesn't buy the nationalization of industry line that the NDP has been trumpeting repetitiously for years."

The fact of the matter is, the NDP does not want a solution to the problem because then it would not have anything to talk about. Come and offer us a suggestion and we will try to help. Help us form some solutions and I can assure the members they will have the assistance of this government. We want the solutions; now those guys should start to deliver.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): The honourable member for St. Catharines.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order. The interruptions are out of order; I would hope the member could at least have a clear start.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, when we look at some of the comments made by the previous speaker, the minister, some are of a positive nature but I would like to begin my remarks by speaking to the last comment.

I was not going to make a comment on it but the interesting thing is that, while most of us in this assembly could accept the need for less partisanship on an issue of this kind, and he welcomes the suggestions of the opposition in building some solutions for Sudbury, what really happens when there are some apparent solutions and the opposition does participate in helping to provide those solutions, is that we all know where the credit is taken. It will not be shared with members of the opposition. The government will be prepared to take the full credit so, legitimately, the government does have a responsibility to accept much of the criticism we see today.

When this matter was brought before the House we were in the midst of a debate for which the House has been called back specifically. All of the members of this House have to assess whether, when a matter is placed before members of the Legislature, it is of an emergency nature and should pre-empt that business which is before the House.

Oftentimes, those of us in the opposition who put forward emergency debate items do so for political purposes. We want to score some points against the government; we want to accentuate certain points; we want to look at a matter and have the media and the public look at a matter.

12:10 p.m.

Today's issue, I think, is somewhat different. There may be some political points to be scored, but when I look at the three members who represent Sudbury and those in surrounding areas, the members for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel), Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) and Sudbury (Mr. Gordon), I cannot help feeling that, when they see the dismal prospects the people in their community are facing at the present time, it would be incorrect to contend that there would be a political motivation in placing this matter before the House. I think there is a genuine feeling, even though we have tried to score some partisan points back and forth across the floor, that Sudbury is in a somewhat desperate situation and that it does require solutions that all of us in this House can contribute to; but the people on the government side, of course, have the levers of power and are in the best position to bring about those solutions.

Everyone recognizes that world conditions are affecting our economy; no one says this is not the case. But it does not mean that we abandon our responsibility to try to alleviate, first of all on a short-term basis and then on a long-term basis, the problems that confront the community -- a community in which, by the way, I was born and lived for a number of years. So I am somewhat familiar with the circumstances, and they have not changed all that much except, as my friend the member for Sudbury East pointed out to me the other day in a private conversation, that each year we are seeing the labour force diminish for a variety of reasons, but certainly, in some cases, at the insistence of the two major employers there: Inco and Falconbridge. They wish to carry out their operations with fewer employees to save money on their part.

One of the solutions that was brought forward is, I think, a legitimate one. It is a cry that has been forthcoming from people in the community of Sudbury for a number of years, and that is, sourcing the processing in the Sudbury area. We recognize there are some complications to this, but surely, in an area where Inco and Falconbridge have been able to extract the wealth they have been able to do over the last number of years, those two major employers, those two major international companies, owe it to the people of the Sudbury basin, owe it to the people of Ontario and Canada, to source their processing in that community.

We know that the people in that area are skilled, that they are prepared to take on that kind of responsibility. Both the member for Sudbury East and the member for Nickel Belt have pointed out that there now is excess capacity for refining and processing purposes, so it is not as though we are not capable of doing it technically, or do not have the equipment and housing available at the present time. It is a reasonable solution, not a radical solution, to ask that the wealth be channelled back into the area in the form of processing.

Mining is not always a pretty thing, and all of the members who represent northern Ontario know that it often damages the countryside to a great extent; it often leaves it in a far worse state than it was before. So companies have that opportunity, then, to put back into an area what they take out. There has been some progress, by the way, in cleaning up the area, in brightening up the area, which used to be so blighted by the mining process.

The Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker) says, justifiably, and I know many of the members in the area would say, that part of the solution rests in diversification, that not all of the eggs should be placed in the mining basket. Although mining and the allied industries will continue to be important industries, there is a need for diversification. I face this in my community, though not to the same extent as would some of the members in the automotive industry communities in being very reliant on one industry. So diversity helps an awful lot, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade and other ministries, Northern Affairs and so on, have the opportunity to look at ways of providing new industries and employment opportunities for the Sudbury area.

There was a suggestion that we have a ministry of mines, for a greater focus at least. A ministry of mines would not, of itself, solve the problem, but it would put a greater focus on the specific problems confronted by the mining industry. The suggestions that have come to the House today for a select committee are good ones. People will say a select committee does not solve anything: you sit and score partisan points and you bring in witnesses who are favourable to your point of view. We have seen a number of members from northern Ontario in the House today, and in this case I do not believe, with the desperate situation that faces the Sudbury basin, this would be necessarily a partisan issue. I think there would be some good solutions forthcoming. We would get input from the people who are directly affected, from people in the industry and from people in the labour unions who have made some constructive suggestions over the years. So we should not reject the select committee route as one of the possibilities for assisting the Sudbury area on a longer-term basis.

There is no question that research facilities are coming into being there, but further research facilities could be located in the Sudbury area, not just those related to the mining industry but we could build on those facilities that are there at the present time.

On the matter of location of government facilities, the federal and provincial governments have made some investment, and surely Sudbury, as a major centre in northern Ontario, should be the recipient of further facilities from both governments so that ministries could have direct access to the area and people in the area could have direct access to those facilities. I think this would be a plus for the Sudbury area.

There has to be an acceleration of a retraining program. The member for Sudbury East aptly points out that the two major employers have reduced their work forces and no doubt will continue to try to reduce their work forces through automation and by other methods. This means that some of those people who are going to be out of a job can return to the industry itself, but for a number of others we must have some meaningful retraining program so those people can get back into the work force at jobs that will pay a reasonable wage instead of simply being thrown on the markets.

We have opportunities in the area for pollution abatement. For years, Inco particularly has polluted the area. Yes, it has provided some economic benefits, but it has also polluted the area. It seems to me that we in this province have a chance to develop an industry to produce pollution abatement equipment. The Sudbury area is a good place to locate that.

Many solutions are forthcoming, and I hope the government takes action as soon as possible. Yes, we need the participation of the federal government; but if it is not forthcoming now, the provincial government has the chance to step forward and provide both short-term and long-term solutions to the problems that confront the Sudbury area. Certainly, we on this side are prepared to participate in a very positive way in those solutions.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, I want to begin my contribution to this debate by responding to what I believe was an unwarranted accusation by the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker) at end of his speech in which he accused the members on this side of the House, from the Sudbury basin, of not wanting solutions to the problems in Sudbury.

Mr. Speaker, I had hoped you would call the minister to order for imputing motives, but since you did not do that I would like to respond by pointing out that the members for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) and for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) and the former member for Sudbury have talked in this House for years about import replacement as it relates to the mining machinery industry and they have talked about the need for diversification in the Sudbury basin.

Interestingly enough, this government in the few small steps it has taken in the Sudbury area -- things like the technology centre the Minister of Industry and Trade referred to -- are responding to the kinds of suggestions that have been made by the members for Sudbury on this side of the House. They are not responding as they should; they are not responding in a way that is actually going to do the kinds of things the members here have said should be done in Sudbury, but they are responding because they know the members for Sudbury on this side of the House have been putting forward solutions they could no longer be seen to be ignoring.

I, too, come from a part of northern Ontario that has experienced layoffs in the last few months in the economic downturn we have experienced and, as a member for northern Ontario, I really wonder why we, from a part of this country that has enormous potential, continue to be in this insecure position where we are subject to the vagaries of the market, where people can be laid off and there is no solution for them.

12:20 p.m.

The only answer I can come to is that this government has failed to build on the strengths we have in northern Ontario and the Sudbury basin. It seems we have been talking forever in this House about one-industry towns and their vulnerability. When that industry is in a poor economic situation, what happens to the community? In the case of Sudbury, we have seen graphically what happens.

For some reason, we do not have a commitment. If there is no commitment, as was indicated by the Minister of Industry and Trade, it is not on this side of the House but over on the government side. There has been no commitment to build on the tremendous strengths we have in natural resources and minerals in northern Ontario.

In northern Ontario we supply $2.03 billion worth of minerals in addition to the raw materials from the forest products. That is a tremendous wealth base that we could be building on. But in spite of this tremendous wealth the government here has never taken advantage of those resources. Workers remain insecure. Those who are working are paid lower than those in southern Ontario and we do not have the kinds of health and social services in our communities that are taken for granted in the rest of the province.

This government has done nothing to ensure the economic stability of the resource-based communities in northern Ontario. They can do all the talking they like about the Northern Ontario Development Corp. and the tourist industry, which is another resource-based industry, but those kinds of things do not do anything to employ the numbers of people we see out of work in the resource industries like the mining industry in Sudbury.

Does the Minister of Industry and Trade really believe that tourism is going to give jobs to the 3,000 to 10,000 people who are facing unemployment now and in the near future in Sudbury? I do not really believe he was serious when he said that.

It is not just this party that has been talking about the difficulties in northern Ontario over the last few years. The government itself has commissioned a number of studies. That is really the only growth industry in northern Ontario -- consultants' studies by the government.

I would like to refer to one specifically. This one talks about the Ontario strategy for development. In the study the government looked at the outflow of jobs and capital investment from the north. There is one quote here:

"While economic diversification is the central policy objective, it is difficult to foresee a rapid diversification of the region's economy away from its natural resource base unless very extensive and costly interventions were to be made in the market economy."

That last part is the central issue, "unless very extensive and costly interventions were to be made in the market economy." Although this government admits in its own studies that is what is going to be required if we are going to diversify away from the resource base in northern Ontario, it is unwilling to intervene. It does not want to intervene in the market economy. Let us leave it up to the market economy, the very market economy that has produced the kind of situation we see in Sudbury today.

The Tories cannot do it themselves or at least they are unwilling to do it themselves. They will not use the wealth we have in northern Ontario to diversify the economy of northern Ontario. In the years of growth when they could have been doing this over the past, they did nothing. Now, when the market economy no longer works for Sudbury, we face the kind of devastation we see in that community today.

That same study goes on to say: "It must be kept in mind that while governments can do much to facilitate development in the region, the extent to which such development is realized will depend very much upon initiatives taken in the private sector."

Because the government itself is unwilling to intervene and take action, it says it must depend on the private sector. That sounds very good, but I wonder who the ideologues in this House are. It sounds to me as if they were the government members. The government is going to depend on the private sector, the very people who have screwed things up for years in northern Ontario.

In that very statement in that study, the government members are accepting the continuation of the cyclical boom-bust situation we have had in the resource economy in northern Ontario and Sudbury for years. They accept it. They believe that is the way it has to be; so when it happens, it is too bad. They say, "We don't like it, but that is the way it is." It is unfortunate, but the miners are out of work and they will have to stay out of work until the market economy picks up and things start to improve some time in the future. Then things will boom for a while and when things change, everybody will be out of work again. That is just the way it is. Isn't capitalism wonderful?

We do not accept that kind of thing. We do not accept that we must depend only on the market economy to resolve the problems we face in northern Ontario. We have all said before in this House that we do not agree with Darcy McKeough's attitude that there would not be diversification in northern Ontario for at least another 20 years. That is what he said in 1977. As far as the Ministry of Industry and Trade is concerned, tourism is not going to do the trick.

We have talked about import replacement. We have a tremendous trade deficit when it comes to machinery in this province. In the past, we have left the decisions to private corporations and those corporations have chosen to import rather than to invest here to provide the jobs we need. It has been suggested that because we have a small domestic market we should not be trying to build self-sufficiency here, because that would not produce enough jobs. But Scandinavia has a small domestic market as well. It has built on that domestic market to the point where it is now exporting mining machinery to North America. We should be doing the same thing.

The technology centre does not go nearly far enough to answer the demands that have been made for years by this party for diversification in mining machinery. We should be developing the technologies that will take us into the future, not just trying to resolve the problems we have had in the past. That is going to involve costly intervention. We must be doing it ourselves and not seeking it from the private sector.

Mr. Gordon: Mr. Speaker, Sudbury has been hit hard by the current recession. Three thousand workers are to be permanently laid off. These are very proud people who have every right to be proud because they are skilled in their trades. They are proud of their families and of their community and they deserve much more. I thought the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) made a very good point when he said he was sure the members from the Sudbury region were not here in a partisan sense, but because they truly cared about their community and what was happening to it.

The people of Sudbury are worried. They are hurt, angry and some of them are embittered by the arrogant and unfeeling way in which the workers in the community of Sudbury have been treated by both Falconbridge and Inco. The order of the day with these two outfits is to treat the people of the Sudbury region as if they were serfs and the companies were lords of the manor.

It does not matter whether the union or the elected community leaders ask either company about their plans for the future. The answers that come back are either incomprehensible, evasive or downright falsehoods.

12:30 p.m.

Listen to an interview with W. K. Newman, president of Inco's Ontario division.

Question: "How long have plans been in the making for today's announcement?" This was the announcement with regard to the extension of the layoffs until January 3, 1983.

Answer: "Well, we have the situation under review. We are continuing to look at the options. We arrived at the decision that this was the option we had to institute."

Think back about the question, "How long have you been planning?" No answer; evasion, incomprehensible.

Question: "Can you give us some specific figures on what it costs to operate during a shutdown?"

Answer: "I haven't got any figures with me."

If one looks at the record as it has been written in the papers in Sudbury as to what Falconbridge says when it speaks to the community about its plans for an extended layoff and about its plans for shutdown, it is just as evasive. The point is the companies do not tell their employees or the community what they really plan.

Mr. Cooke: Let's talk about the Tory solutions. What a phoney speech.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Oh come on, all this sanctimoniousness; you wallow in phoney sanctimony.

Mr. Cooke: All he tries to get is headlines; no solutions from your government at all. The phoniest member in this Legislature.

Mr. Rotenberg: You guys are so rude.

Mr. Cooke: He's a Liberal one day, a Tory another and he takes campaign donations from Falconbridge.

Mr. Gordon: It is as if we had no rights at all in the Sudbury region, that we are just there to serve the company. At the same time, I do not think the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) need feel too complacent with his role to date. He has an obligation as a minister of the crown to see that these two multinational firms reveal the true facts to the people of Sudbury and Ontario.

We have a right to know what fate awaits us. Both companies insist in talking in generalities, but I remind the minister that they are the present custodians of a natural resource that belongs to the people of this province.

The people have the right to know in detail whether that formerly profitable stewardship is being prostituted. What is Falconbridge planning for the future? Is Falconbridge planning to be another Amax? Up to the present, it has been in exploration and research, and a producer and marketer of nickel and copper. Does it intend to keep doing this?

How can Local 598, the union, meaningfully negotiate with that company when a heavy curtain of generalized misinformation cloaks the bargaining table? Is it any wonder that 2,000 responsible workers march through the streets of Sudbury in protest?

What are Falconbridge's plans? We have a right to know. They have done away with the research and exploration side of their company in the Sudbury region. What does this mean? Does this mean the Falconbridge operation in Sudbury is going to become static, that it is going to be used merely to prime the pump; that because they are not going to produce as much nickel there they are going to sell their nickel on the world market, the little they produce in Sudbury, and then if they get a bigger order maybe they will go to the Russians and buy some nickel there and refine it in Norway? What is going to happen?

We did not hear one word today from the fellows on the opposite side about what possibly could be happening. They are stuck with that same old line over and over again, much to their own tragic failure. It is unfortunate.

I believe it is time this government took a look at our natural resource options over the next decade. We must examine them. We need information, because markets are changing quickly. The plans of big multinational resource firms are changing quickly in order to meet those markets, but because those firms have a stewardship, because they are the custodians of our natural resources, we must know what their plans really are in order to better protect the people of Sudbury and the people of this province.

I address this to the Minister of Natural Resources. The people of Sudbury want to work. It has been shown in the past that they are a most productive people, and we have a right to know about our future based on the most current information available.

The Acting Speaker: One minute.

Mr. Gordon: The Minister of Natural Resources has the responsibility to see that the wheels are set in motion to find out. I believe this government must gather all possible data to ascertain whether we can afford to continue to allow companies such as Inco and Falconbridge to make fundamental decisions about the development of a natural resource that affects the lives of so many people.

Are we maximizing the benefits of having such a resource? I think not. Perhaps the time has come for us to take over and look at it through an inquiry. We must inquire and find out just what the state of that nickel industry is going to be in the world in the next decade. On that basis, because things have changed very rapidly in the past three years, we are going to have to look at various options, and one option could very well be that we would find it necessary to have the nickel industry in the form of a crown corporation. But that is only one of the options we may be looking at.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and participate in the debate, and let me say at the outset that I congratulate the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) for initiating the opportunity to focus legislative attention on a matter of urgent public concern.

Certainly those of us in eastern Ontario have situations, and my colleague the member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) might very well like to have a similar debate in the very near future about the difficulties that are currently facing his community of Hawkesbury.

But for the moment we are here to talk about the situation in the Sudbury basin, which, as previous speakers have pointed out, is a very serious and ever-worsening one. I myself do not pretend to have any personal experience or expertise in the matter save and except a participation with some members in the winter, I believe of 1977-78, on the select committee with respect to the layoffs at that time in the Sudbury basin.

The situation has worsened considerably since that time. Watching a discussion on the Journal on CBC the other evening, I was impressed by some of the remarks, certainly not all but many of the comments, made about the gravity and the extent of the human tragedy. I cannot speak from personal experience about a situation where over the course of the last 10 years the loss in the nickel industry in terms of permanent employment has been something in the order of 10,000 or 11,000 jobs, the kind of winding down of an industry that has been so important to that part of the province, the kind of uncertainty, the kind of difficulty that has created.

12:40 p.m.

The member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon), who preceded me in this debate, asks for another inquiry. I am a bit like the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman). I think the only growth industry in northern Ontario is for consultants invited in on a routine basis by both federal and provincial governments to study yet again the economic difficulties and challenges of given communities.

Speaking for my own city of Pembroke, we are sick and tired of well-paid, out-of-town consultants dropping in from time to time, usually on a two-year basis, to tell us what we need to do. Not too many of them agree with the views of previous members of their profession who have visited.

There is no doubt -- the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) talked about this very briefly, and I am sure others have as well -- that part of the difficulty Sudbury is experiencing today is directly related to a very serious economic downturn that is affecting an awful lot of the resource sector, not only in Ontario but worldwide. I sometimes despair about our ability as elected officials to speak very relevantly to a genuine economic solution.

I read not very long ago an excellent piece by Richard Gwyn in the Toronto Star about the difficulty in a federal state of both levels of government coming together to work meaningfully towards the resolution of economic challenges. I hear in this debate, as I have heard in so many others, "Well, we won't act until we find out what the national government is going to do." In Ottawa, the national government is saying, "We don't want to act until we find out what the provincial or regional governments propose to do."

I think we in the political community must become a lot more sensible and a lot more relevant in our offerings in these kinds of economic debates, because, quite frankly, I sense from the community a growing despair about our ability to offer much by way of a meaningful response to their problems. Yes, we can always cite the rhetoric, and yes, we can all give a superficial response that in the first instance meets a certain measure of community concern. But I think the people of Sudbury want some clear indication about what government economic strategy is going to be.

With all due respect to the member for Sudbury, I cannot accept that yet another inquiry from this House or any other is going to be seen as anything very substantial. I recommend to the members who may not have read it the very excellent book, now about eight years in print, by Professor Nelles, The Politics of Development: Forests, Mines and Hydroelectric Power in Ontario, 1849-1941.

Professor Nelles very eloquently points out how we got into this problem. He tells us, unfortunately, of the rather unhappy state of relations between government, particularly provincial government in this province, and multinational giants like Inco and Falconbridge, about the kind of loyalty that the member for Sudbury complained of. There ought to be no great surprise. Nelles and many other commentators have pointed out that is about all we can expect.

I was very interested to hear the member for Sudbury say what he said about a possible option of nationalizing Inco. I know the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) was writing down every syllable of that particular emanation and it will be recalled. I want to remind the member for Sudbury about the interjections of the member for London South (Mr. Walker), the Minister of Trade and Industry, and the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope), the Minister of Natural Resources.

Apparently, for a substantial number of the Conservative Party, that kind of nationalization is taboo. Malcolm Rowan, Hugh Segal and the Premier (Mr. Davis), on the other hand, do not seem to mind nationalizing in part an oil company that will not produce one single job in the 1980s in this province by all indications.

Mr. Laughren: A lot of consistency over there.

Mr. Conway: A lot of consistency indeed. The nationalistic bugbear that they like to hang on the left-wing element of this province is a very selective matter with those people. They did not listen to the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller) or to the member for Leeds (Mr. Runciman) or to the member for Cochrane South with respect to nationalizing in part the Suncor business, where we got nationalization at a cost of $650 million.

I have to wonder what the unemployed thousands in Sudbury are thinking when the Minister of Natural Resources says, "We could not have a public interest position, an equity position in the nickel giants in the Sudbury basin because of an ideological predisposition by the Conservative government in Ontario." They have not heard about Malcolm Rowan and, obviously, have not heard about nationalization in the energy sector.

I am reminded as I participate in this debate about the need for an industrial and economic strategy for this province. I am reminded as I stand here today, among others such as the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) who is quite interested in these matters, of the 1981 election campaign when there was a debate of sorts about what was happening to the industrial infrastructure of this great manufacturing heartland.

How I remember -- oh, how I will never forget -- the sum and substance of the offering of the opposite side. In most parts of this province that offering was, "Elect a government member and the sun will shine on a happiness everlasting."

The people of the Sudbury basin have elected the very distinguished former mayor of that great city. One could argue that keeping the promise in that particular part of the province has meant in the past 18 months a tripling in the unemployment rate that at the time was pretty awful and is now something in the neighbourhood of 30 per cent.

I am afraid I am sorry to have to stand here and say that "Elect a government member" has not proven to be a very effective economic policy for many people in the great province of Ontario. I am really looking forward to much more than the former mayor of Sudbury indicated here today about the nature and extent of the clout to which these government members have routine access.

I do not want to hear a moderate call for a legislative inquiry. I want to see the sum and the substance of the great power that vests itself exclusively in government members. I think the former mayor of Sudbury will, undoubtedly before this day is over, want to stand in his place and put flesh on the bones of that promise made 18 months ago, because there are thousands of people in the great city of Sudbury who are awaiting that promise.

One cannot drive from one corner of my constituency to another without seeing those marvellous blue signs saying, "Board of Industrial Leadership and Development." A culvert replacement program on our highways today is the occasion for a BILD sign. We appreciate that, but I want to say that for the thousands of unemployed in the Sudbury basin that is simply not good enough. We believe there must be short-term and structural initiatives taken by this Conservative government to keep the promise to Morley Rosenberg and a hell of a lot of other people.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, it is not often that I have anything very complimentary to say about the party to my right but I must congratulate the previous speaker for putting in a nutshell, if I may say so, the hypocrisy and inaction on the part of Tory members when it comes to dealing with the problems of northern Ontario and in particular the problems of Sudbury.

Sudbury epitomizes more than any other single city in this province the bankruptcy of the economic policy of the Conservative government. As the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) pointed out, it epitomizes the social, the economic and the corporate irresponsibility of Inco and Falconbridge. The member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) was sadly silent when he came to talk to his government about using the power it has had, lo these 40 years in this province. The member for Sudbury, the distinguished former mayor as the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) called him, was sadly and, if I may say so, tragically silent when it came to offering solutions for the people of Sudbury.

12:50 p.m.

In this province we have had inquiry after inquiry into the mining industry. Even from the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Natural Resources and their advisers we have had moderate, sensible solutions to the diversification of industry in northern Ontario, to which there has been no response from the government.

I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that my colleague the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) outlined four or five of the key recommendations of a document entitled Towards a Nickel Policy for the Province of Ontario, Mineral Policy Background Paper No. 4, Ministry of Natural Resources, published in 1977. Then he listed four or five of the key recommendations, to which not one government spokesman has responded.

Mr. Laughren: Not one.

Mr. Foulds: Not one. I remember being in this House during the tragic layoffs in Sudbury in 1977-78, and I thought in my naiveté at the time that I detected on the government benches not only concern, not only sympathy but some anxiety to do something. And they did. The Premier (Mr. Davis) appointed a cabinet committee to look at the layoffs and to look at the problems of one-industry towns in northern Ontario.

I must say we took that in good faith. We thought, "Gee, they understand that there are problems, finally, and they may be doing something." I must say that the anger we express today is genuine, deep and heartfelt, not least since in that instance we discovered a year later the absolute, total deception and fraud that was exercised, not merely on the members of the opposition, not merely on the members of the Legislature, not merely on the people of Ontario, but most particularly on the people of Sudbury, because that committee did not meet once.

The Tory government, the trained seal for the corporate world, particularly Inco and Falconbridge in this case, the cabinet, which under legislation has the authority to govern this province for the benefit of all the people, did not have the courage, intelligence or commitment to meet.

Mr. Piché: Speak up. I cannot hear a word.

Mr. Foulds: The member for Cochrane North can make jokes all he likes. He can make every joke and heckle and interject all he likes. Just go ahead. He should at least make a speech if his government is going to do nothing about the serious situation in Ontario.

Mr. McClellan: Or won't they let you talk, René?

Mr. Foulds: Have they gagged you? Are you afraid to speak in this House?

But there was not one response.

I want to outline, if I might, just one of the recommendations in these proposals; it is listed as number two: "Encourage through special Ontario income and mining tax adjustments the adaptation and use of current idle nickel refining capacity in Ontario and Alberta to refine part or all of the significant proportion of Ontario's mine output of nickel which still goes to Wales and Norway in semi-refined form for refining so as to create jobs in Canada. It is understood that the present Alberta refining process does not recover precious metals."

I think for 60 years we have had a law in this province that said the ores of this province should be refined in Canada. It used to be referred to as section 113 of the Mining Act; under the revisions it is section 104.

Imagine a law that is quite literally observed in the breach more than in the observance, because we have, to August 31, 1982, over 25 exemptions to that law granted by the government. The tragedy is a number of them have to do with nickel-copper matte, nickel-copper concentrate and nickel oxide; and the amounts, shamefully, even in the published material are "not specified."

The companies did not even have to tell them what amount. They just said, "Ship it out." With every single load of ore they are shipping jobs out of this province and this country.

What has the government done to diversify northern Ontario? What has it done to create mining and machinery manufacturing jobs? During the 1981 "Keep the promise" election, the Tory party established a research technology institute at a cost of $20 million, creating 19 jobs. Not one scientist was associated with that institute.

Mr. Laughren: Not one miner either.

Mr. Foulds: As my colleague says, not one miner.

Mr. Martel: Not a researcher.

Mr. Foulds: Not a researcher either. What is it supposed to do?

I say to my colleague the Conservative member for Sudbury, it is hard to take his comments as genuine when he still sits on that side of the floor, because the prescription he outlined about the irresponsibility of Inco and Falconbridge is, first of all, a prescription and an argument for public ownership of our resources in this province. He cannot sit in the Tory party and believe that.

Second, the member's prescription and description is a failure. It is a description of the failure of the government with which he sits. Talk is cheap. Those of us in the Legislature on the opposition side are reduced to talk because that is the nature of the political process; but those beggars, they have power.

In the British parliamentary system they have the power to do something, but they sit idly by when the unemployment figure in Sudbury is 27 per cent. That is unacceptable. It is a betrayal of the aspirations of the people of northern Ontario.

There is a little spinoff that affects me directly. Because Inco and Falconbridge have shut down in Sudbury, a mine, the richest in terms of quality of ore, in Shebandowan near my riding -- and most of those miners live in my riding -- is shut down too.

The Acting Speaker: The member has used his time.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, you are not going to shut me up.

The Acting Speaker: There are three minutes left. The member will take his seat.

Mr. Foulds: Just a few seconds; if I may just --

The Acting Speaker: The member will take his seat. There is still some time left for another member to speak.

Mr. Foulds: May I finish?

The Acting Speaker: No, you may not. Your time is exhausted. Thank you.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: I ask the member to take his seat. You will take your seat right now, please.

Mr. Foulds: I will take my seat.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. I recognize the member for Parry Sound.

Mr. Foulds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I thought I might at least be allowed to complete my sentence.

The Acting Speaker: Your time was allowed. We operate under standing order 34(a). You are given 10 minutes and you used your full time. Thank you very much. The member for Parry Sound has a couple of minutes.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I just want to say that we observe the precedent you have established here this morning.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you, and I do too.

Mr. Eves: Mr. Speaker, in the short time allotted to me, so courteously given to me by the New Democratic Party, I would like to make a few comments as a member for northern Ontario. I have listened with interest to some of the points made by the sanctimonious Socialist member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. Cooke) this morning.

I must say I am a little disappointed in his comments with respect to a phoney member and a phoney speech. I do not think any member who has risen here this morning has talked in a tone that was phoney, or has not made a genuine speech or comment about what he or she thought was best with respect to the current debate and the current serious situation in Sudbury.

Coming from a neighbouring riding that borders on the Sudbury region and having people in my own riding who are employed, and some now unemployed due to the current economic plight of the people of Sudbury, I take great offence at the fact that any member of this House would even remotely suggest that any other member had anything but genuine motives in giving his or her address here this morning.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member has exhausted the time that was left for this debate.

The House adjourned at 1:01 p.m.

24 septembre 1982