INFLATION RESTRAINT ACT (continued)

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The House resumed at 8 p.m.

INFLATION RESTRAINT ACT (CONTINUED)

Resuming the debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 179, An Act respecting the Restraint of Compensation in the Public Sector of Ontario and the Monitoring of Inflationary Conditions in the Economy of the Province.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, since I am not exactly sure where I left off at six o'clock, perhaps I should start over again.

Mr. Hodgson: Good idea.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Go ahead.

Mr. Ruston: It was so good you could run it through a couple of times.

Mr. T. P. Reid: With all that encouragement from over there, I was talking just before six o'clock about productivity and the need for the government to be dealing with it in some concrete and comprehensive way. The government looked at a productivity council some years ago, but we have heard nothing of it in this current debate. As I indicated, we need that to wrestle inflation to the ground here in Ontario, and we obviously need it as well in the civil service of Ontario.

We are graced tonight with the presence of the Chairman of Management Board (Mr. McCague), who has been telling the civil servants, the deputy ministers and everyone else who will listen, that the 1980s is a time when we are going to do more with less. I have yet to see a full-scale performance appraisal system set within the Civil Service Commission, and I see little being done within the government itself in terms of cutting down its own wasteful and unnecessary expenditures. If we are going to put restraints on the civil service lower end, so to speak, I think it is only fair we do that across the board.

I want to bring to the members' attention a question which I put on the Order Paper and which was replied to on June 24, 1982. It had to do with the communications officers, information officers and public relations officers within the government. The answer from the Chairman of Management Board is very instructive. I draw attention to the number of people we have in those positions. I will tell in a few minutes what their salary levels are, but it is instructive to know that their main job, along with that of the executive assistants to the various cabinet ministers, seems to be to be plumping and PRing for their particular minister in the yet-unannounced leadership race.

It is interesting that we have a bill of such import dealing with such serious matters in Ontario, and yet when we on this side and the public at large look across to see what these very same cabinet ministers are doing, we are treated to the unedifying spectacle of half the cabinet falling over each other in their quest for the golden mantle which they expect the Premier (Mr. Davis) is going to cast aside in the near future.

I happened to be down at the Conservative convention a couple of weeks ago, since I was asked to appear on cable television to comment on the new economic policies of the Conservative government in the 1980s, along with the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. Cooke), representing the New Democratic Party. It was fortunate that we did not have much time to comment, because there was so little to comment on, although certain people who were present there made a bit of a splash in theF newspaper because of their contributions.

What was very interesting was the spectacle of the minuet being danced by the Tory leadership hopefuls. The Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) is in the right ministry, because I am sure he must have had about four extra hands grafted on for that particular weekend. If you want to see the fastest hands in the east, you should see the minister's. They were just going like this: "Hi, Mary. Hi, Suzy. Hi, Paul."

Mr. Speaker: I am not sure this has anything to do with the bill.

Mr. T. P. Reid: We are talking about restraint, Mr. Speaker, and how members of this cabinet cannot restrain themselves in the economy of the province let alone restrain their well-known political ambitions to replace a Premier who, quite frankly, seems not to be in the biggest rush to go anywhere.

As a matter of fact, I understand that as late as Tuesday the Premier, in his own unctuous and biblical, way announced to those who would listen and those who had better listen that he was not about to leave or be pushed out by a certain person who might be mounted on a manure machine, or have a scalpel in his hand, or even by somebody driving a used car to bump him Out of the way so that he could assume the mantle of leadership the Premier wears so well and with which he provides so little leadership.

So when we talk about restraint in this chamber, for most of those who sit opposite in the first two rows it is really restraint of their ambition and their egos for a while rather than the restraint of spending.

I was speaking about the government really being serious about the restraint program as evidenced by this bill. I indicated earlier that it might prove its restraint to this side of the House, to the civil servants and to the public at large by doing something about its own backyard. We would like to know, for instance, what all these parliamentary assistants really do. They certainly are well paid for what they do not do. We would like to know, for instance, what does the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Eaton) do? Why does the minister need an executive assistant?

Mr. Cooke: Why does he need a portfolio?

Mr. T. P. Reid: Well, he needs a portfolio because that is the closest he is ever going to get to the cabinet. We have to soothe him a little bit.

Mr. Martel: We have got Phil champing at the bit there.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Well, we have the honourable member who only opens his mouth to change feet and who also has ambitions that way, I am sure. As a matter of fact, all those pros on the back bench there are looking a little lean and hungry these days. I heard the bears were invading the urban areas, but this is ridiculous.

Mr. Speaker: Now back to the bill.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Before I was so rudely interrupted by my friend from the north, I was explaining about all the public relations officers the government has, and in a speech on my empire-building bill in a couple of weeks, which I know everyone in the chamber will look forward to, I will discourse at some greater length on this.

8:10 p.m.

The salary ranges are entitled PRO 1, PRO 2, PRO 3, AF 17 and so on. If you are an AF 1 in public relations, you are earning anywhere from $34,925 to $43,175. One could look at tile ministries by name. If one looks at the salaries being paid in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, for instance, the secretarial salaries alone are $86,000, the technical salaries are $176,000, the photographer's salaries are $41,000 and the manager-supervisors salaries are $210,000. We are talking about 10 people and seven supervisors there; I have not quite figured that one out. Then, of course, we have a director on top of the supervisors; those of us in the Legislature might be interested in knowing that the director's salary range is from $43,775 to $53,300 for being a public relations person for a government ministry.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food is only one. It is interesting if one looks at this chart, if one looks at the answer here, one can almost tell who is ahead in the leadership sweepstakes; it is the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell). We all have another name for him, but he was very instructive at the Tory convention. I do not know whether he was trying to look rural, but he was standing there with his hands in his pockets. One could almost see the hay in his teeth. But he was not shaking hands like the old Minister of Health. He just seemed to be standing there waiting for the people to come to him.

Mr. Conway: What about Frank?

Mr. T. P. Reid: Well, the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) was very interesting. He had his makeup on for the television. I do not think Rogers Cable is a Treasury fan, because it did not do a thing for him with all the makeup its people had on him. His usual pallid complexion is an improvement over the way they had him made up. I was reminded of Vincent Price in one of those horror movies like The Cask of Amontillado or something. But that is another story.

Mr. Roy: Didn't he go to New York to take acting lessons?

Mr. Speaker: On with the bill, please.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I am talking about the government's restraint program and how they are restraining themselves in terms of public relations and information officers within the government.

I will run over these figures quickly to give members an idea; these are for just one small segment of these people. The Ministry of Citizenship and Culture has one supervisor at $34,550; the Ministry of Community and Social Services has three supervisors, for a total bill of $105,625; the Ministry of Education has four supervisor-managers for 5143,300; the Ministry of Energy has three supervisor-managers for $106,725; the Ministry of the Environment has four supervisor-managers for $136,500.

When we get to the Ministry of Health, obviously the Minister of Health is back in the race, because we see that he has six supervisor-managers for $225,393.

The list goes on and on and on. What it means is that these people are being paid between $35,000 and $50,000. These are supervisor-managers. This is the biggest growth industry in Ontario. Do we really need all these people to make all those people look good? The answer obviously is yes, because they do not look good by themselves and they need all the help they can get.

It is beyond belief and beyond conscience that we should be asking people who are making $15,000 and $20,000 to take a five per cent increase because there is not enough money in the pot, when these people, whose main job is to be politically astute enough to get their minister's name mentioned -- and all of us have seen some of the crapola they turn out -- are making $45,000 to $50,000. I bet if the member for Middlesex (Mr. Eaton) knew those people were getting that much he would resign and become a public relations officer for Ontario.

There really is a large credibility gap between what this bill is trying to do and what the government itself is doing. We have the Treasurer and the Chairman of Management Board here, the two people who most closely control the funds of Ontario. We are going to wait to see where their commitment really is and where, to use the words of the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea), they are going to produce the self-discipline so we can see it, and where they are going to start cutting down so there is seen to be real sacrifice on all parts.

This is a serious problem. Inflation, if we do not do something about it, is going to cause so many irreparable problems in the near future that what we are talking about today will seem like the equivalent of the Boer War as opposed to the Second World War. It is going to be that serious. I say again, as I said earlier, we have to appreciate as a country and as a province that we are all in this together. We are all to some extent responsible for inflation, because we all want more. We all have higher expectations, and there obviously is not enough pie to go around to satisfy all of them.

I referred earlier to The Zero-Sum Society by Lester Thurow. He makes the point as well that there are needs and wants but that in our society the needs often become wants once the original needs are satisfied, and that our society is quite capable of producing needs or wants, whichever term is preferred, that will never be satiated. We have proved over and over again with advertising, television and all the rest of it that our needs will never be completely satisfied; I guess we have to appreciate that they never will or can be.

We in this party reluctantly support this bill. We are going to have a series of amendments. We believe this is only one small step in saying to the people of Ontario that we are all going to participate in this fight against inflation. What we want to see is some concrete evidence from the government side that they are serious and not just using the civil servants in this instance because the public opinion polls show this is a popular approach, but that they, through the Treasurer, the Chairman of Management Board and the Premier himself, are serious about restraint and bringing down --

Hon. Mr. McCague: You know different, Pat. You're being silly.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Pardon me?

Hon. Mr. McCague: You're being silly, and you know it.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed, please.

Mr. McClellan: George, are you saying he is being silly because he supports you?

Hon. Mr. McCague: He's being silly, and he knows it.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, the Chairman of Management Board says I am being silly. I do not understand why I am being silly.

Hon. Mr. McCague: I don't understand your statement either; so we are even.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I know the Chairman of Management Board is very well intentioned and has said a lot of smart things, but he still has not done anything about the civil servants in management positions. He has not done anything about implementing a performance appraisal that will make sense. If the Treasurer had not put the reins on them in this bill, applying it to anybody making more than $35,000, what would he have done about it? He has been giving those civil servants in management positions automatic increases that nobody else in this province even knew about or would understand. But he is sitting there saying he is serious about restraint.

Hon. Mr. McCague: I did not say that.

Mr. T. P. Reid: He is not? He never did say he was serious about restraint? I agree with him. I am merely standing in my place. I have talked about a number of other areas, but surely to goodness the man who has one of the levers on the purse-strings and the Treasurer, if they are at all sincere, should be doing something about these particular items.

We have the Chairman of Management Board, who can do something about the actual restraints, and we have the Treasurer, who can do something about an actual economic recovery and development program. Surely it is not asking too much of them to have them pick up their obligations and for at least one of them to set aside his premiership ambitions and get along with the job.

8:20 p.m.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, in introducing this legislation the Treasurer stated that this is a program to get inflation under control. It was further stated that this should be done by avoiding draconian methods. As I listen to the various members of the Conservative-Liberal government speak, I also hear that somehow this is to be done as some kind of metaphysical way of creating jobs as a result.

No one can quarrel with the objectives of the unholy trinity of Trudeau, Davis and Peterson. But the questions that each of us must ask are very simply: Is this the best method of accomplishing these objectives? Are there alternatives that in a free and democratic society are more acceptable? Are there other solutions with fewer negative side effects that will none the less supply a better cure for the present problems we are facing in this province?

In the next hour or so, I want to outline some of the measures --

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Are you serious?

Mr. Philip: Or two or three hours, depending on how many interjections there are.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Philip: I want to outline to you, Mr. Speaker, and through you to the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller), exactly some of the policies that I, as our party's Housing critic, feel can be addressed to one of the most inflationary factors in our society here in Ontario, namely, the problem of affordable housing.

It has already been pointed out by other speakers from our party that the rollback will mean a loss of about $1,084 for the average clerical worker. Wednesday night in my riding office I met with one of those average clerical workers. She is a single parent trying to support three teen-age sons and one younger child. She said that she would go crazy if she did not work, that she enjoyed her job and that she enjoyed being out there contributing in the work place. She stated that she felt she was contributing to society in her work at Humber College. But she wondered how on her very small wage, which is being frozen, she could pay the elaborate amount of money that is being charged for her rent by the Ontario Housing Corp.

She said to me, "I would be financially better off, perhaps, if I did not work." She said she has always worked since she first immigrated to Canada, but she cannot afford to send her children to college. She asked: "What am I going to tell my son next year? He is getting very high marks at the collegiate. His friends are going on to university. But I, as a single parent with three sons to support, simply cannot afford to give him those extras and send him on to university even though his marks and intelligence merit it."

What she was saying is what the working poor and the lower-middle class in Ontario are saying over and over again, namely, "The moment we try to better ourselves, this government hits us again and again." I explained to her that we in the New Democratic Party had forced an inquiry into OHC. I told her about the proposals made by our committee that would have made her living accommodation more humane, reduced government costs and made OHC more accountable. Then I had to tell her that this very same government had used its majority to squash, to defeat that report made by an all-party committee. The report happened to be tabled after March 19.

A few minutes later, I had an OHC resident in my office. He was worried about eviction because he was on strike and could not pay his rent. He said: "I had $500 in the bank before the strike. I have used it now to pay my rent, but on $60 a week strike pay I simply cannot pay my rent any longer. I need this money to feed my family."

I said that I would try to get OHC to hold off the eviction notice but that he would eventually have to pay the full amount of his rent even though he was not earning any substantial income while on strike.

I also had to tell him that if he happened to improve his income as a result of that strike, he would have to pay higher rent and this is a form of double jeopardy. Unfortunately, even though that problem was dealt with in our committee report on OHC, the government decided to squash that as well.

I will not go through all the proposals made by the standing committee on administration of justice in dealing with OHC. But I want to deal with a few of them, because I think those directly related to inflation and housing costs have a certain amount of truth that should be looked at by the Treasurer, who has come up with a simplistic method that he claims is attacking inflation.

We advised that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing should revise its annual housing demand survey in co-operation with local housing authorities in municipalities and that it should directly address the issue of rental housing affordability. We proposed that the ministry of housing develop a co-ordinated master list measuring the total demand for low- and moderate-income assisted housing, and that where severe shortages exist, it should act on a variety of housing programs to provide the necessary housing.

We proposed that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing conduct a study on the supply and funding of temporary shelters and hostels. My colleague the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) has dealt with the very sad situation of single people, singlenesters, who have been forced out of Ontario Housing into the private rental market and who have no place to live in this city.

The OHC, we said, should assume a greater role in the provision of emergency housing. But the minister refused to listen. We also said that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing should support a variety of public and public-assisted housing programs but to give preference to nonprofit and co-operative housing and OHC owned and operated housing. We said the current rent supplement program just was not working.

We further stated that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing should provide funding where requested for a greater percentage of rent-geared-to-income units within co-operative and nonprofit housing projects.

We talked about how OHC should embark on a program of small-scale, low- and medium-density public housing construction within Ontario municipalities now facing severe shortages of affordable rental accommodation. We talked about the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing's need to embark upon an active program of purchasing and rehabilitating existing, well-located buildings to provide housing.

In addition to that, as the Speaker will well know, our report in its 119 recommendations showed ways in which this publicly owned corporation could operate more cost-efficiently. There were concrete and specific proposals, but the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the housing authorities have refused to implement them.

So when this government talks about saving money, about cutting back on costs, one has to ask why it has not taken action on the proposals that have been made, in this instance by the standing committee on administration of justice but many times by committees of this Legislature which have spent hours and received expert advice on the problems that came before them.

For a rigid, ideological reason this Treasurer and this cabinet cannot do anything that flies in the face of their ideology, no matter how pragmatic, no matter how sensible, no matter how much economic sense these proposals may make. Even some of their own back-bench members of these committees have been persuaded of the soundness of some of the advice from experts and ordinary people who have come before the committees.

8:30 p.m.

In a sense, the two families living in Ontario Housing that I have spoken about are at least somewhat better off than the people who line up at my riding office, and I am sure at the offices of all the members from the Mississauga, Metro, Durham and urban areas, asking for Ontario Housing, asking for assistance in finding affordable housing. At least the people I have just spoken of have housing. The family I described publicly this winter that I was trying to get into Ontario Housing was in a different situation. They lived in a van in Mississauga in January, February and March. Luckily, a store owner took pity on them and supplied them with a hydro cable and a heater so they did not have to constantly run the van and burn up valuable gasoline as the man went day after day to try to find a job.

Families in need must wait, we are told, for an average of eight months for accommodation in Metro Toronto, in order to get Ontario Housing or some form of geared-to-income housing. This is testimony to the abominable failure of this government to deal with the housing crisis in the major urban areas. Between April 1 and July 31 of this year, the housing authorities' waiting list for family housing grew from 5,300 to 6,001 requests for housing. This is not a true reflection of the need for assisted housing. As MPPs will tell us, countless numbers of people tell them, "We went down to the housing authority and they discouraged us from even applying because they told us it would take so long to provide accommodation."

Grace Morris, the director of the Rooms Registry Service Open Door Centre that operates out of All Saints' Church in downtown Toronto, has stated that housing in this city is at a crisis point. She has been helping the poor find accommodation since 1972 and she says the housing squeeze is so bad now that some agencies have given up in frustration. She says: "We still do a certain amount of business, but nothing compared to what we used to be able to do. There just is no housing out there."

The Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto in a report published in April stated, "The total supply of affordable housing now falls short in Metro by at least 20,000 units and this situation will probably deteriorate during the next 12 months." According to Albert Rose, who, besides heading the Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority, is an economist and professor of social work at the University of Toronto, "Politicians are not pressing the issue because it is not a popular one." He said: "Nobody is screaming to get back into this game, because people have different feelings towards others in need. To add to the problem, the profile of the needy is no longer the image of the hardworking Canadian family down on its luck that won popular sympathy in the past."

Now, Mr. Rose estimates, and his figures are supported by Jean O'Bright, an information officer with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, that between 60 and 70 per cent of families applying to live in public housing in Ontario are single-parent families headed by a woman, who is often receiving welfare payments, is a newcomer to the country and quite often is a member of a visible minority. What Mr. Rose is saying is that because there is not public support for these minority groups that seek housing, this government is not motivated to act. That is sad because this government has a responsibility to act on behalf of all of the people, be they newcomers or residents here for generations. To govern by polls, as this government does, is not only wrong but will create more problems in the future and will add to the violence in our society. In the long run it is short-sighted, even from the government's point of view.

The problem we are talking about here is not just Metropolitan Toronto. Whenever I pick up any of the newspapers from across the province I pick up stories like the one I found in the Ottawa Citizen:

"Tamara and Jennifer huddled together Wednesday evening, wet and scared, while thunder boomed and lightning filled the skies. Although they crouched in the small pup tent along with their father, Barry Woodcock, it was not a typical family camping trip. Their campsite was a parking lot behind the Ottawa housing authority at 220 Laurier Avenue. The tent was their home.

"As the rain streamed down, Barry Woodcock said that he felt he was in a catch-22 situation. He was told by the housing authority that he could not apply for emergency housing without putting an address on the application form, yet he cannot afford housing in the first place."

This is typical of the stories I hear as our party's Housing critic and that MPPs across the province are hearing. I have families come to me and say, "We have to get into Ontario Housing but we cannot. We have no place to stay tonight." In some cases -- and I have run into a number of these -- they say, "If I desert my family, my wife and kids may get into a women's shelter, and I will spend the evenings in bus terminals and coffee shops," and so forth. That is happening in this very city.

The tragedy also is that even if these people were able to afford accommodation in the private market, and many of them cannot, there are very few vacancies. If we look at the vacancy rate for April 1981 and compare it with April 1982, which is the latest figure we have, we see that in Hamilton in 1981 it was 1.1, today it is 0.6; Kitchener 1.7, in April 1982, 1.4; London 3.9 down to 2.6; Oshawa 1.3 down to 0.2, and I understand there are more recent figures showing it is considerably lower than that. Ottawa was 2.4 down to 0.4; St. Catharines-Niagara 1.9 down to 1.3; Sudbury 2 per cent down to 0.7; Thunder Bay 2 down to 1.6; Toronto, a slight improvement, 0.4 per cent up to 0.6 per cent.

But even these figures do not tell the true story. The kind of accommodation that is being produced in this city is luxury accommodation. The middle class cannot afford the rent in those buildings, let alone the poor.

In May 1982 the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs (Mr. Bennett) with much fanfare announced two projects -- "info-rent" and "renthab." Half a year later no funds have been allocated for either of these programs. One must ask, why the delay? Why announce it so far in advance if they did not have any concrete and specific plans they could implement? Why raise people's expectations when there is nothing to deliver? The minister promised 3,000 to 6,000 rental units under the info-rent program. Not one has been built.

While the government talks about this legislation being a tool against inflation, it does absolutely nothing to reduce the cost of the most essential commodities in everyday life, namely housing.

8:40 p.m.

As our party's Housing critic, I was expecting the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), the minister responsible for rent review, to deal with the problems of rising rent in this province. One would expect that as minister responsible for this farcical administrative price restraint review program, at least he would have had rents as part of that review program; but it is not included. It is specifically exempted. Instead, he has done no such thing. He has excluded it in an arbitrary way and preached to us when we asked him why rents were not covered by this.

According to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing officials, whom we contacted only a few months ago for an estimate, there are approximately 915,000 controlled and 190,000 uncontrolled units. Of the latter, the post-1975 exemption from rent review applies to about 72,000 which were constructed or occupied after January 1, 1976, and 11,000 are excluded because they are called luxury accommodation. These figures do not tell the real story.

In my riding, for example, a very large percentage of all rental accommodation is exempt. It is not exempt because it is luxury, but because our area happens to have a lot of new construction or post-1975 construction. That is where the vacant land was. The members from Mississauga and from Scarborough will have similar kinds of situations. A person who, for reasons of work or health, wants to live in that community has very little choice because almost all, if not all, private rental accommodation is exempt from rent review.

I have just had a visit from some residents at 236 Albion Road in Rexdale. They have received rent increases of from 14 to 30 per cent. They asked me what they could do about it. I said, "Very little. You are exempt from rent review."

In 1977, our party asked that new buildings be covered under rent review and we moved a motion in committee. The Liberals voted with the Conservatives to exempt them. More recently, when a bill on a similar matter that I had introduced came up for debate in this House, the Conservatives, not wanting to take a chance on embarrassing the member for St. George (Ms. Fish), which is a riding with many apartment buildings, decided to block the bill rather than have a democratic vote because some of their members out of sheer embarrassment would either have had to vote or take a walk during the vote.

In recent correspondence with the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), I asked him to take action with his federal counterparts on what was happening in the limited-dividend buildings. Limited-dividend buildings that are federally funded are supposed to be subject to rent control. At least they use that word, but the kind of control they have is the most secretive kind of control. One would think they were under the control of the Ombudsman or something like that and were something that could not really be revealed to the public.

Mr. and Mrs. Clive Henry were hit with a 28 per cent increase last September when the rent on their three-bedroom apartment went up by $103 from $372 to $475. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson faced an increase of 30 per cent from the beginning of June 1982 when their three-bedroom cost them another $118.

These are buildings that are subsidized by the taxpayers. These are buildings under the so-called rent review program of the federal Liberal government, but they will not allow a public hearing. They will not allow me or the tenants to look at the books. Indeed, when my assistant called and said, "We want to know what kind of control program you have and how much the mortgages are," she was told by an official at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.: "Don't rock the boat. Things are a little shaky there. Do not stir any waves."

I continued to stir the waves and it was very interesting. The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) refused to do anything, let alone write to his federal counterpart and ask what the heck was going on in those buildings, but after making enough noise about it and after it hit the newspapers, suddenly all of the people in those buildings received reductions to a 14 per cent increase in rent. Why should a 30 per cent increase received one month be suddenly reduced to 14 per cent? If something very sneaky and secretive is not happening in those projects financed by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., I do not know what is.

The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who is responsible for that, at least should have taken time to deal with his federal counterpart and say, "We may have goofed in not having those buildings under rent review, but you have some forum that you call rent control. At least open it up. Since you say you are controlling it, why not have public hearings? Why hide everything from the public?"

Why cannot tenants come forward and look at the landlord's books? Why can they not look the landlord or his representative in the eye and say, "Your estimates are too high. You did not do the kind of work you said you were doing and we can challenge you on your receipts." Instead, the federal department responsible for housing is even more reactionary and secretive than this government.

Furthermore, those who are covered by rent review are not being protected from inflation by this government with regard to their rents.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): The honourable member will tie his remarks in to Bill 179.

Mr. Philip: I am, Mr. Speaker. If you have been listening, you clearly know that I have been dealing with the topic of inflation. In his opening remarks, the minister said that this was a bill to deal with the problem of inflation. I am dealing with a very specific area of it, namely, the inflation in rental and housing accommodation and that is what I will be dealing with for the rest of the evening during my talk. I am sure you will find it quite interesting as you listen.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Rent review is not covered in the bill.

Hon. F. S. Miller: The bill does not cover rent review at all.

Mr. Wildman: That is the whole point.

The Acting Speaker: All I ask is that the member's remarks tie in to Bill 179.

Mr. Philip: That is fine, Mr. Speaker. I would not expect the member for Mississauga East (Mr. Gregory) to understand about inflation as he travels around in his government limousine. Perhaps some of his constituents can tell him something about it because there are even more rental buildings in his area than in mine. He might learn something if he just listens a bit.

If we look at the average rent increases granted under rent review in the year 1981-82, we see that the figures are extremely high. In Hamilton, for example, 17.2 per cent was requested, 13.36 granted; Ottawa, 19.37 requested, 16.88 granted; Sudbury, 18.72 requested, 15.89 granted; Thunder Bay, 17.33 requested, 11.68 granted; Windsor, 24.25 requested, 17.71 granted; Toronto, 21.08 requested, 13.13 granted; Etobicoke and York, 18.02 requested, 14 granted. I could go on and on down the list.

That only tells part of the story. As any of us who have represented tenants before the rent review board know, there are numerous cases of 20, 30, 35, 40 and even 50 per cent rent increases being granted by the rent review board. A short time ago, a community legal worker for the Metro tenants' legal services wrote the following:

"The landlord of 40 Earl Street in downtown Toronto has applied to the Residential Tenancy Commission for rental increases ranging between 35 and 105 per cent. The landlord of the premises is a company known as 495929 Ontario Ltd. However, after requests from both the Residential Tenancy Commission and the tenants, the landlord has refused to disclose the principal owners of the corporation.

8:50 p.m.

"Instead, the company's solicitor, Mr. Sam Nash, has hidden the corporation behind a veil of secrecy by refusing to disclose their identities. This action has led tenants to suspect something improper in the landlord's motive in requesting the increase. The previous landlord has gone bankrupt in 1981 after the tenants had won $11,700 in refunds illegally charged in rents.

"At the hearing of the landlord's application on July 8 at 7 p.m. on the third floor of 77 Bloor Street West, the tenants are demanding that the landlord's application for rent increases be thrown out by the commissioner. This is the first time that any such request was made."

The most recent example of what is happening in the rental market is the announcement by Cadillac Fairview Corp. Ltd. that it has sold a substantial chunk of its $270-million portfolio of 10,931 units for a forecast profit of $50 million to $100 million after taxes and expenses have been paid.

There is certainly no restraint, cutback, suffering or sharing the misery, as the Treasurer would say, by Cadillac Fairview. With $50 million to $100 million after taxes and expenses, one is not doing too badly. I would think its board of directors could take a couple of trips to the casinos in the Bahamas on that amount of money.

The important question is not that Cadillac Fairview, which by and large has been a fairly responsible landlord compared to others we have been dealing with, has made a profit but rather that Greymac Mortgage Corp. is the buyer of record. Some in the industry are quoted as stating the mortgage company is really acting for other interests, most probably from offshore.

One would think the purchase of a major apartment holding by offshore investments, indeed the speculation of offshore interest, might be of concern to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Indeed, it might occur to him that this kind of speculation, particularly by out-of-province money, may be having some effect on the inflation in rental accommodation in this city. The minister and his predecessor before him have refused to look at this question.

This party tabled a resolution in this Legislature that a study be undertaken of speculation and its effects on rising rents and the influence of offshore speculation in particular on rising rents. The Conservatives voted against it and refused to deal with the problem.

We in the New Democratic Party tabled a series of amendments to the Landlord and Tenant Act and to the Residential Tenancies Act over the last year and a half. These are proposals that, if implemented, would fight inflation at little or no cost to the taxpayers. One would think this would be of interest to the Treasurer and to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. One bill gives authority to the commission to order a reduction of rent where a landlord's financing costs may have gone down.

We are seeing examples of this. A few months ago mortgages were coming in at the 20 per cent mark. We are now finding as we get closer to the US congressional elections that the interest rates are dropping.

One would think it would occur to this minister that if there is a system, as there is, of a landlord increasing and passing on his financial cost to the tenants under the rent review act, if those financing costs go down and most of these landlords have taken out one-year or even six-month mortgages at the 20 per cent level, there would be an automatic review and the landlord would be told: "Fine. We gave you a rent increase of 30 per cent last year because of high finance costs. Now you have a saving because the interest rates have come down a little bit. You will be ordered to reduce your rents." But the minister of course does not seem to be interested.

Why should a policy so logical, so perfectly in keeping with the spirit of rent review, be ignored? The only answer one can see is that the minister is not interested in inflation costs that are passed on to the tenants.

Landlords who have obtained large increases because of the Trudeau interest-rate policy will have windfall profits in years to come if by any chance interest rates do come down. One can expect that they should come down, according to some economists, about January or February.

We also asked that the Residential Tenancy Commission be authorized to pay a tenant's costs when he has lost wages and incurred costs by challenging illegal rent increases and illegal activities by landlords. The government decided they would not go along with that. It is okay, under the rent review system we have, for a landlord to pass on his costs, including consulting fees, to the tenants. But it is not okay for tenants to pass on costs, even in instances in which they are proving that the landlord has acted in an illegal or nonlegal manner.

We also asked that the landlord be required to produce receipts for expenditures when a tenant or tenant representative requests him to do so. This would apply to any expenditure over $100. Miscellaneous expenditures under $100 would not exceed five per cent of the total cost a landlord is claiming. If they do, receipts would have to be produced.

For many years tenants have complained that certain landlords have padded and exaggerated their expenses at rent review. This bill would have given tenants a systematic manner of checking on this. There would be no extra cost to the rent review board, no extra cost to the taxpayers, simply a manner of ensuring that the body mandated to do certain things can come to fair conclusions. But this government refused to do that.

We also asked the Residential Tenancy Commission to investigate whether or not repairs projected by a landlord in justification of a rent increase have actually been carried out. Landlords have used inflated projections of major renovations and then have not carried them out or had only part of the job done, a cosmetic job rather than a real job. We wanted to allow the commission to call another hearing to provide an opportunity for an investigation where there was some suspicion this was being done.

At a rent review hearing the other day I said to the landlord, "What proof do we have that these projected major repairs in the plumbing system will be done?" He said, "Well, you have to take my word for it." I said, "But we have taken your word before and out of four major plumbing jobs you projected last year, only one was done." He said, "Well, you have proof now that I will do it." And I said, "What is the proof?"

He came out with the city of North York work order requiring him to do it. I said, "Well, it is fairly clear then that you intend to do it when you are taken to court, but is it not true that your building is up for sale again?" He said, "I refuse to give that information." I said, "Is it not true that in Vancouver there is a real estate agent trying to sell your building?" He said, "I refuse to give that information."

We know what will happen. He will sell the building and the next landlord will be back asking for the same money to repair the same lifters, the same plumbing system, so those people above the fifth floor can have a warm bath or warm shower when they get up in the morning or before they go to bed at night, something they are paying for. To his credit, the rent review officer said, "We really have no proof you are going to do it, and in looking at the way in which you finance this project it is fairly clear to me that you are just speculating in the building and that you plan to sell it. I have no proof you are not going to sell it without the repairs being done."

9 p.m.

But what would have happened if I had not been there and if we had not had one of the better, more-responsive rent review officers? The fact is we cannot guarantee a uniformity of decision-making, and therefore we have to make rules that will stand up and rules that we can go by in acting on behalf of tenants.

We also asked that a landlord who obtains vacant possession of a rental unit for the purpose of making repairs or renovations be required to apply for approval of the new rent he would be allowed to charge. We said this would prevent landlords from evicting tenants as a way of getting out from under rent review, which is what they are doing.

We said it is reasonable, if a landlord wants to repair and improve a building, to ask for a rent increase, but that he should be required to produce his bills after those improvements have been done and that the new rent should be set taking into account the expenditures he has made. This would stop the practice of cosmetic improvements in buildings that are used merely as a way of getting out from under rent review. Again the government has failed to deal with this very specific problem and the inflationary effects it has.

We also asked that the Residential Tenancy Commission be allowed the power to make an independent inquiry into rents being charged by a landlord. Certain landlords have a reputation for raising rents illegally. The rent review board, the people responsible for monitoring rent review, know who these landlords are. When I say to the rent review officers, "Here we have an example of an illegal rent increase by this company," they will say to me, "Oh yes, he is a guy who does it all the time."

I am told by rent review officers, and indeed by Mr. Green, who is a very able public employee -- he is head of the rent review office for Etobicoke and York -- that they catch maybe 10 per cent. This is because under the present legislation it is only a tenant who can initiate the inquiry and lay a charge that he has had an illegal rent increase. Most tenants are either afraid to do it or know perfectly well they cannot find out what the previous rent was unless it happens to have gone before rent review. That means only 20 per cent of all buildings, then, can be checked up on.

In the old Residential Tenancies Act, which was declared improper and unacceptable by the courts, there were certain sections that if proclaimed now would solve this problem. One way of solving the problem is the method I have just described; that is to give the rent review board the power to initiate its own investigation when there are suspicions of illegal rent increases.

The other is simply to set up what the government itself decided to do, namely a rent registry system. One would think the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) and the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, if they really believe in the objectives set out by the Treasurer, would at least have said: "This part of the bill is in no way contested by the courts. We will proclaim this section, or we will introduce a new bill that will deal with this section in the bill that is perfectly acceptable."

But they have not done that. Instead of responding to the legitimate concerns of tenants to the artificially inflated rents, instead of fighting inflation by plugging the loopholes, this government has created pseudo-scientific studies. The first one to come along was Rent Control and Options for Decontrol in Ontario, turned out by the Ontario Economic Council. A more recent one and much more blatant -- and I can understand why it was released in the summer when the House was not in session -- is called The Impact of Rent Review on Rental Housing in Ontario. This is a staff research report turned out by the Ministry of Housing.

If one looks at that one sees what a sham it is. One can see that the government is using taxpayers' money to create this pseudo-scientific study that has more holes in it than some of the housing it refuses to repair. I can understand why the report was released after the Legislature was adjourned and without the benefit of a press conference. If I had a document that was this shoddy, that stood up to as little scrutiny as this report does, I would want to release it during the summer months when the House was not in session. I would want to release it without a press release. I would certainly want to give it out with as little fanfare as possible. Nevertheless, Conservatives and other opponents of rent review will attempt to use the unsubstantiated claims in this report.

One of the greatest disappointments in the report is what it does not contain. The ministry commissioned Price Waterhouse Ltd. to survey landlords. The questionnaire contained a comprehensive section on financing. Financing is what we are dealing with, is it not? Financing high interest rates was part of the commission of this report. It requested details of mortgages, renewals and other factors which identify the impact on rental housing costs of the Liberal policy of high interest rates. Even though only 35 per cent of landlords responded fully to the survey, the presentation of the financial data in summary might have given us some insight into what was happening in the rental market and what was inflating it. It could have given some of the reasons for it and where we could move to stop this kind of inflation.

The report nowhere outlines this information, except to note that the ratio of debts to building value exceeded 100 per cent for two landlords. Big deal. They found two landlords who had a large ratio of debts to building value. It does not tell us why there was that debt. It does not tell us about the causes, nor does it tell us about the factor that interest rates play in inflating the cost of housing under buildings that are under rent review. This failure to address the fundamental problem of high interest rates marks the entire report.

Mr. Conway: I want to hear Piché.

Mr. Piché: As soon as he is finished.

Mr. Roy: You are next.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Robinson): Order. The member for Etobicoke has the floor. Please continue.

Mr. Philip: In keeping with the Conservative government's failure to press vigorously for Ottawa to reverse its damaging policy of high-cost money, those who compiled the rent review study consistently understate the role played by interest rates. Furthermore, they make the arbitrary assumption that half the cost to government of rental construction problems should be attributed to rent review but they offer no proof. It is a matter of faith.

The Alberta experience showed the contrary -- that when rent controls were taken off, apartment starts did not increase. As a matter of fact they hit a 13-year low. The silly arguments that somehow construction starts are related to rent review is the same lie that is being told over and over again by Paul Cosgrove and his colleagues in Ottawa and is repeated by this provincial government in the ministry of housing report.

All one can say is that at least the provincial government seems to learn all the bad things from the federal Liberal Party. Anyone who represents tenants before a rent review board, as I do, knows full well that financing costs are larger than any other cost item when landlords make their cases for increased rents. In fact, they average about 60 per cent of the total cost.

It is because interest rates remain so high that more and more landlords are seeking increases above the guideline level of six per cent. For the year ended March 31, 1982, requests for higher- than-guideline rent increases were lodged in respect to 18 per cent of the controlled units in the province, three times as many as went before rent review in 1980 and 1981.

9:10 p.m.

The fundamental defect in the report the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing tabled is matched by other serious flaws. Since barely more than a third of the landlords surveyed responded fully, it is doubtful the data collected are representative of the rental market as a whole.

Furthermore, the fact the surveys were conducted only in Toronto and London means that experience in other communities has not been directly assessed. Finally, the elaborately compiled calculation of direct and especially indirect financial costs of rent review uses questionable assumptions to inflate the costs and to reduce the benefits.

Another defect of the study is its simplistic presentation of the shelter allowances as being a more effective means of helping the poorest tenants. Not oniy do the authors of the report fail to understand the importance of rent review as a means of protecting the housing of hundreds of thousands of middle-income as well as lower-income tenants, but they ignore the experience elsewhere of shelter allowances.

This was reviewed in 1981 by the Ontario Legislature's standing committee on administration of justice in the course of its study on Ontario Housing Corp. The report of that all-party committee found that shelter allowances were financially or fiscally irresponsible. Not only do they constitute the most expensive way of housing people in the long term, but they cannot be relied on to provide shelter in the long term either.

As soon as the rental markets become tight and there is upward pressure on rents, landlords are refusing to renew rental agreements. We are seeing this happen in this province. While shelter allowances can play an emergency role in providing homeless people with places to live, it makes more sense to provide an adequate stock of housing. It makes more sense to increase the co-op and nonprofit sector. This would create jobs as well as housing more people.

The report from the Ministry of Housing refers frequently to the fact that rent review in Ontario has created two classes of tenants and landlords. That is quite true. The solution is not to remove and dismantle rent review, as they are suggesting, but rather to include those in the private sector that are not already included; that is to say buildings occupied after January 1976 should be under rent review, not excluded as at present.

We in the New Democratic Party agree that all tenants and all landlords should be treated in the same way. But we should not, as the report quite correctly states, have two classes of landlords and tenants. Surely the way to do that is to remove the exemption, not bring everybody to the highly inflated level that would happen if rent review were to be removed completely.

We recognize the right of the landlord to set his base rent on a new building, but surely, after that base rent has been set, rent review should come into force. Rather than spending the taxpayers' dollars to discredit rent review, the Conservative government should have implemented some of the very policies we have been promoting, the tenants' groups have been promoting and, in the case of Ontario Housing, a standing committee of this Legislature has been promoting and proposing.

One would have expected the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, the minister responsible for the so-called price restraint program and for rent review, would have shown some leadership and dissociated himself from this report that has been putting a scare into so many tenants.

Instead, we have heard nothing from him saying: "I disagree with the conclusions. I disagree with the shoddy research of this report. It makes no economic sense. It particularly makes no economic sense at a time when our government is talking about limiting salaries suddenly to try to blow rent review out of the water so their rents will go up as their salaries are controlled."

Instead, some of the back-benchers of this Conservative Party, members of this Legislature, have tried to accuse me of being alarmist to tenants. They have been upset by the fact that I have explained to tenants what exactly is in this report, a report by their government. I did not turn out the report. It is their government that commissioned this, that spent the taxpayers' money on it. Instead, they reiterate over and over again that the Premier (Mr. Davis) in the last election promised that as long as he is Premier, rent review would be kept -- but they do not say in what form.

It is interesting that in the last election the Premier, when questioned by reporters, refused to comment on that very issue. The reporters asked him: "You say rent review will stay on, but in what form? Will it be like the ex-Conservative government in Manitoba had it? Will it be like the conservative government in British Columbia," albeit called Social Credit -- which makes it more like the provincial Liberal Party probably but, none the less, is another form of conservative government -- "where it gradually creates a slow death for it?" They asked him: "Will you be changing it? Will you be plugging the loopholes in the present act?" He refused to answer those questions.

The fact is that that report is an official publication of the government, and it does argue for the abolition of rent review. The fact is that the Conservatives in this House recently blocked my private member's bill that would have extended rent review to thousands of Etobicoke residents and other residents across the province. The fact is that the Conservative government has refused to enact legislation requested by the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations to stop illegal rent increases.

The fact is that this government has delayed legislation requested by the city of Toronto to stop the demolition of good-quality, rent- controlled buildings in this city and, therefore, is an accomplice to the demise of affordable rental housing and, indeed, to its decrease and the throwing of people into the uncontrolled market. The fact is that this government has just introduced legislation that limits salaries but does nothing about the huge increases some tenants are receiving under the present rent review system.

The government may have members, such as the member for Lakeshore (Mr. Kolyn), or the members of one or two of the other Etobicoke ridings, writing to the paper saying, "Mr. Davis made a promise and it will stay." Yet day after day we see this government is deliberately, conscientiously, systematically undermining its own rent review program.

Then it has the audacity to say it is fighting inflation. Fighting inflation for whom? It is certainly not for the tenants who are receiving, in some cases, 30, 40 or 50 per cent increases. It is certainly not for the tenants who are getting illegally ripped off by landlords. It is certainly not for the Ontario Housing tenants who are being charged very large amounts for their rents and are being discouraged in a negative way from going out and improving their lot, trying to work more and develop themselves.

Not only is this government not increasing affordable housing, but it is an accomplice in an unholy alliance with those who would decrease affordable housing in this city. We have seen what happened when I introduced an amendment to the Planning Act to stop the demolition or conversion of moderately priced rental accommodation in Metro Toronto to luxury rental and condominium buildings. Stephen McLaughlin, the Toronto planning commissioner, has stated that the continuous loss of inexpensive housing in the city of Toronto will create a situation whereby the rich will live in the downtown core of the city surrounded by suburbs to which the poor will be forced to migrate.

We can see this already happening. If members go to my riding, or to the Mississaugas or to certain parts of Scarborough, they will see that is exactly what is happening. People are being thrown out, are being forced out of the downtown area, the Bathurst-Eglinton area, and they are combining, often illegally, two and three families in apartments in the Scarboroughs, the Mississaugas and the Rexdales.

There are two routes that developers use to get around municipal and condominium conversion bylaws which make it difficult to convert rental buildings directly to condominiums. One technique is to upgrade to luxury rental and then later convert. I have suggested to this government on countless occasions -- and I spoke to you about it earlier, Mr. Speaker -- a way in which we could handle that problem, but the government refuses to deal with it. The other is conversion by demolition.

9:20 p.m.

Conversion to luxury rental accommodation could be discouraged by an amendment to the Residential Tenancies Act requiring a landlord to appear before a rent review officer and justify his rent increases after he has upgraded the building. To stop conversion by demolition what we need, surely, is an amendment to the Planning Act giving municipalities permission to stop the demolition of rental buildings, with exemptions for those where vacancy rates are high enough, where the land on which the building sits is zoned to a much higher density than it has or where there are structural or major health problems in the building.

Indeed, that is what the municipality of Toronto asked for in Bill Pr13. The bill sat -- and I see the chairman of the committee sitting over there reading his newspaper -- in that committee while that committee did absolutely nothing for four weeks. While the chairman knew he had the bill before the committee, he did nothing to call the committee to order to deal with it. I cannot help but believe, then, that he was part of the conspiracy of this government in not wanting that bill to come forward.

When the bill did come forward --

Interjection.

Mr. Philip: Why else would a committee sit and not do anything for three weeks when they had a bill that was sent to them by this Legislature? When I asked the chairman and the other members of the committee that the committee at least have hearings during the summer months to get the hearings under way --

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): The honourable member is tying his remarks in to Bill 179?

Mr. Philip: I am dealing with Bill 179, Mr. Speaker. I am dealing with the inflationary costs of housing. I am dealing with the very principle that the Treasurer said his bill was addressed to, which was to reduce inflation. I am talking about one way in which a committee of this Legislature could have helped that but instead chose to act on the side of the developers who did not want that bill through, despite pressure from the city council of the city of Toronto.

The committee has not yet sat. Indeed the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry), whose riding is personally affected, has openly stated that he does not believe the city of Toronto should interfere in the property rights of the landlords. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has said the same kind of nonsense. The parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who also lives in that area or represents people in the general vicinity, has stated his opposition to the bill. And the local Conservative alderman voted against the principle of Bill Pr13 in city council.

What about the rights of the tenants? What about those people who have lived in that community for years and years, who in this case have gone to those synagogues, have belonged to the various groups that are in that area? There is not one synagogue in all of my area. To have those people displaced into my area or into the Scarboroughs is not only to displace them financially but also to displace them culturally.

One would think that even if the minister did not understand on economic grounds, on grounds that it is having a high inflationary influence on their rents, at least he would understand as a man who is cultured and who understands the values of culture that these people are being displaced in a cultural sense and that this is reprehensible. But instead this government chooses to go with the landlords rather than with the rights of the community.

There are solutions to the present rental inflation crisis in this province. I have just introduced an omnibus bill that provides concrete solutions to these problems of tenants. One of the actions taken by this bill is that, while it maintains the present six per cent ceiling on rent increases that can be made without the approval of the Residential Tenancy Commission, the bill further extends protection for tenants by tying the total rent increases the commission can grant to the consumer price index for one year, between October 1, 1982, and October 1, 1983.

We recognize the problems of small landlords. We recognize that in most cases they have a higher percentage of equity in the building than the larger landlords, who will rarely have more than 15 per cent of the purchase price. Therefore, we make an exemption for those in the bill. The Residential Tenancy Commission could also grant increases above the index in those exceptional circumstances where that one-year freeze would create a bankruptcy situation. We feel that is reasonable. If the government is going to freeze tenants' salaries, if it is going to share the misery, why not share it with some of the large corporate landlords as well?

I introduced that bill because the present act has failed to protect many tenants. Some landlords are extracting increases of 40, 50 and 60 per cent or higher. We in the New Democratic Party say this must be stopped. The government refuses to plug the holes in the present system, so we have introduced an even more radical kind of surgery.

Frankly, a year or two ago I would not have considered such a proposal. I somehow had faith that the representations of lawyers on behalf of tenant groups and simple common sense, plus our arguments and the arguments of the opposition, would cause the government to say, "We have to deal with the loopholes that are creating inflation in the rental market." Since it has not, now we are faced with the need for a more radical kind of temporary program further down the road. That is why we have asked for the granting of a freeze on rents.

The bill I have introduced is really a charter of tenants' rights. It would bring all buildings under rent review. It would reduce the obligations of tenants to pay for the refinancing of buildings. It would improve tenants' right before the Residential Tenancy Commission and it would raise the interest paid on security deposits from six per cent to the current Canada savings bond rate.

The bill would also allow the Residential Tenancy Commission to conduct research and make reports on matters of tenant protection, such as foreign purchases of apartment buildings and speculation in the apartment field.

9:30 p.m.

I want to give one example of what speculation can do to inflate rents.

Two buildings consisting of about 200 units were sold in January 1981 by the federal agency, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., for $2.5 million to Steveston Investments.

Even as someone with legal experience in the real estate industry, Mr. Speaker, you may find it hard to believe that to make that $2.5-million purchase from CMHC, Steveston Investments paid down $37,000. For $37,000 they were able to pick up buildings worth $2.5 million.

The buildings were turned over in April 1982 for $4.8 million, giving Steveston Investments a rate of return on their investment of 6,212 per cent. Not bad.

Steveston Investments is not pulling in its belt in these times of inflation; it is not suffering. The first sale resulted in an increase to tenants of 12 per cent, and the resale has resulted in the new owner making an application for a 30 per cent increase.

While some tenants in those buildings are having their wages frozen to an increase of five per cent by this government, they are getting their rents hiked 30 per cent and the speculator has made a profit of more than 6,000 per cent on investment.

What kind of government can talk about fighting inflation and then allow that kind of thing to happen? Surely the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations could have taken some very simple actions when he heard about that.

He could have denounced the sale of the apartment buildings to private landlords by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. and committed himself to asking the federal government not to sell any more of its rental stock. Indeed, he should have asked the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett) to refrain from selling any more of his rental stock.

He could have imposed a speculation tax on all buildings sold less than five years after purchase. That would have removed much of the incentive for the quick turnover and speculation in buildings which have put so much inflationary pressure on tenants' rents.

He could have removed the exemption from rent review of apartments renting for more than $750. With the present sale of buildings and the constant turnover of buildings, many middle-class residents will be facing that $750 in the next few years.

He could have expanded the Ontario Mortage Corp. into an Ontario mortgage and development corporation, constituting a fully vertically integrated and publicly owned development corporation capable of acquiring and developing land and buildings and competing directly in the housing market.

If the federal government did not want these buildings, the provincial government could have bought them and used that purchase to keep rents down. Instead, it refused.

Through an Ontario mortgage and development corporation, the he could have selectively intervened in cases where tenants would be adversely affected, such as in the sale of Cadillac buildings, and acquired such projects for conversion to co-operative and nonprofit corporations or ownership by local housing authorities.

He could have required that finance costs on only 75 per cent of the purchase price of a building be counted as legitimate expense by a landlord for rent review purposes instead of the present 85 per cent.

He could have acted to protect the existing rental stock by passing legislation to allow municipalities to stop the demolition of buildings, as is being requested by the city of Toronto and is being delayed by this government and the people it chooses as committee chairmen.

About this time last year, when the Legislature opened, we forced an emergency debate to shame the Conservatives into applying pressure on their federal brothers to deal with the crisis of high interest rates.

At that time we suggested there should be an immediate moratorium on all rental rates and mortgage renewals to keep them at the rates then being paid. This would have meant that families with 12 per cent mortgages would have continued to pay at that rate for six months to a year.

We suggested that the moratorium would give immediate relief to home owners, that the tenants would be protected from further outrageous rent increases as mortgages came due on apartment buildings and that the current round of rent hikes was in many instances the result of massive increases in mortgages for apartment buildings already in place.

Second, we pointed out that such a freeze would put pressure on the federal government; Ontario could say that interest rates had come down substantially, and the banks would bring pressure to bear on the federal government to do the same thing.

Some people will say that such a moratorium would lose the banks some money. But even Allan MacEachen thought at that time, and stated, that the banks should bleed a little. One must ask where the banks have been bleeding under this Conservative government and under the federal Liberals in Ottawa.

We argued that the banks would have responded to the moratorium and that all past experience suggests the federal Liberal government is more likely to listen to the banks than to ordinary people.

We argued that the short-term moratorium was essential. We said that we must look at some serious long-term solutions to the housing questions, that decent housing was the fundamental right of every person in Ontario and that to guarantee that right we had to take mortgages out of the marketplace.

We offered a very concrete proposal on how to do that. We suggested that the Conservative government had succeeded in convincing many residents in Ontario that a high interest rate policy was purely a federal matter.

The fact is that there are a number of actions the provincial government could take to ensure that the crisis of high interest rates does not recur in the same way in the future. We pointed out that Ontario has a vehicle for providing lower-interest loans and mortgages if only we would use it.

In 1921, the United Farmers government started the Province of Ontario Savings Office. The primary purpose for the establishment of POSO was to borrow money by accepting deposits from the public to make low-cost improvement loans to farmers. However, with the return of the Conservatives in 1923, the farm loan program was suspended and POSO became a vehicle to encourage and promote thrift among Ontarians.

At present, the primary function of the Province of Ontario Savings Office is to take in savings deposits from the public. These deposits total $641 million. No funds are lent to individuals or companies; the deposit funds become a loan to the Ontario government and part of the consolidated revenue fund. In the 1980-81 fiscal year, POSO also provided the provincial Treasury with an operating surplus of $4.8 million.

It is interesting to contrast this with the success of the Alberta Treasury Branches. I want to point this out, because we are not advocating radical, pie-in-the-sky ideas. Some of the policies we are asking this government to implement have been implemented by other Conservative governments, such as the government of Alberta.

The Alberta Treasury Branches offer consumer, agricultural and commercial loans. A mortgage loan program introduced by them has made 15-year term mortgages available compared to eight-year term mortgages offered by banks. Thus it assists home purchasers.

Based on Ontario's population of 8.63 million, each branch of the Province of Ontario Savings Office serves 411,000 Ontarians. If Ontario were to provide branch services equivalent to those in Alberta, there would be 865 branches instead of the 21 that currently exist. In contrast with the $640.7 million on deposit in POSO, the Alberta Treasury Branches have $2.3 billion on deposit and a loan portfolio in excess of $1.9 billion.

If we want to use the government to bring down costs, if we want to create jobs as the Treasurer has suggested, surely this is a vehicle by which to do it.

Similar policies have been advocated by the next government of British Columbia, the one under Dave Barrett. At present, the progressive government in Manitoba is implementing such policies.

Are they needed? Look at what is happening to housing starts in Ontario. In June 1982, housing starts in Ontario were as follows: Hamilton 115, compared with 255 in June 1981; Oshawa 31, compared with 286; Ottawa 150, compared with 342; St. Catharines-Niagara 59, compared with 87; Sudbury 15, compared with 152; Thunder Bay five, compared with 35; Toronto 1,133, compared with 3,359; and Windsor, as could be expected, 11, compared with 25.

If we look at the historical pattern under this Conservative government, we can see that in the past few years, housing starts have gone increasingly down: in 1976, 84,682; in 1977, 79,130; in 1978, 71,710; in 1979, 56,887; in 1980, 40,127; in 1981, 50,161; and, of course, they are increasingly down this year.

9:40 p.m.

A study by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing was carried out in October 1981, based on a telephone survey of 5,839 home owners in Ontario cities. The study shows that home owners who will renew their mortgages in the next two years will face an average increase of almost 40 per cent in their monthly payments.

This bill talks about inflation, and the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) talks about inflation. That is inflation, and the government is doing nothing about it.

Furthermore, the study indicates that in 1982 between 45,000 and 50,000 home owners will be facing housing costs that will take 30 per cent or more of their income. That is inflation.

The government has done nothing to deal with this inflation. No doubt before an election it will come out with a whole series of promises of how to deal with it. If the members think I am being cynical, I remind them of what happened during the 1975 election campaign.

At a pre-election rally in Waterloo on September 11, 1975, the Premier (Mr. Davis) made the promise of a mortgage interest subsidy plan. By the plan, Ontario home owners would receive a tax credit of as much as $500 a year if their mortgage interest exceeded 10.25 per cent.

In 1975, facing an election, the Premier said there was a crisis because mortgage interest rates were above 10 per cent and he was going to do something about it.

The province would offset three quarters of the mortgage costs above 10.25 per cent on principal residences. The maximum relief would be available to those with a $30,000 mortgage at 12.25 per cent. Someone with a $20,000 mortgage at 11.25 per cent would receive around $187.

The tax credit would be fully refundable even if the credit exceeded the amount of tax payable by the home owner except where a home owner without a mortgage took one out for this purpose. There was that safeguard in the Premier's plan. The credit would apply to existing new and renegotiated mortgages on new and older homes.

The Premier estimated the cost to the Treasury of this program would be about $25 million for the first year. He also estimated the plan would encourage the construction of 10,000 more homes in the following year. The plan would only go into effect, however, if the federal government failed to act on mortgage rates within 30 days. Of course, that happened.

It is fine for the Premier, in an election campaign, to promise a mortgage relief plan. We have waited. We waited in 1975 for it, in 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981; and we are still waiting. That is how the Premier keeps the promise.

Where is the promise that was so urgent in 1975 when mortgages were so much cheaper than they are today? If there was an emergency in 1975, why is there not an emergency today when interest rates are so much higher?

In contrast to the Conservatives, who do not keep their promises, the NDP in Manitoba made a promise in its election campaign and, on forming the government, is now implementing that program. The government is committed to providing 15 percent, five-year term mortgages. It is the provider of the mortgage funds at favourable borrowing rates which it can engage in long-term borrowing.

The maximum house price is $64,000. The maximum amount of a loan is $55,000. There is no income ceiling, but the program must be used to finance a person's primary residence. The rate of interest for the new mortgage approved will be reviewed on a quarterly basis and will reflect the province's cost of borrowing. Once the person has a mortgage, he will benefit from the five-year fixed term.

The Manitoba government also is initiating a substantial program of housing rehabilitation. It has a number of homes in which 40 to 50 per cent of the cost will be for renovations. The government will also approve purchases of rundown homes in which 40 to 50 per cent of the cost is for renovations. Substantial funds will be made available to facilitate these purchases and to allow people to bring these homes up to good housing standards.

That creates jobs. That fights inflation. That keeps the promise which the Davis government has not done -- the 1975 promise we are still waiting for.

Mr. Shymko: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I have not heard the word "Ontario" in all the comments that have been made by the honourable member. Is this Manitoba or is this Ontario we are talking about?

Mr. Philip: I can understand how the member for High Park-Swansea --

Mr. Shymko: Where would you get the $4 billion?

Mr. Mackenzie: What bothers you, Yuri?

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the honourable member could get back to the principle of the bill.

Mr. Philip: I can understand how the member for High Park-Swansea cannot understand about housing. He is the one who, together with his friend the member for Parkdale (Mr. Ruprecht), is fighting innocent people who want to put a group home into his neighbourhood. That is the kind of housing he wants them to fight. He wants to bash people who do not want to end up back in penitentiary --

Mr. Speaker: Now back to the bill, please.

Mr. Philip: -- who want to improve their life and who want to work for people. That is the kind of redneck housing policy that member believes in.

The Toronto Star, in an editorial, called him the redneck that he really is when he uses innocent people to get votes. That is the kind of despicable thing he does.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Shymko: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Now can we get back to the principle of the bill, please.

Mr. Philip: You are quite right, Mr. Speaker. I was distracted.

Mr. Shymko: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: In making an innocent comment about Ontario and Manitoba, I do not think I deserved the type of insinuations about being a redneck and whatever other insinuations the honourable member is --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Cooke: It is a fact.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: A straightforward description.

Mr. Mackenzie: The truth must hurt.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the member for Etobicoke please get back to the principle of the bill?

Mr. Conway: Oh, for the good old days of Ed Ziemba.

Mr. T. P. Reid: He has done the impossible, he has made Ed look good.

Mr. Philip: I will get back to the bill. I appreciate that the member for High Park-Swansea gave me a refreshing pause to get up some more steam. I have another three quarters of an hour in which I can deal with the principle of the bill.

I have not even mentioned the Ombudsman once. I did not mention the Ombudsman at all in this speech, until the member brought it in. The Ombudsman has acted in a secretive way in hiding the finances from the citizens of Ontario --

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that has anything to do with the bill.

Mr. Philip: -- as the Premier has in hiding his interest policy that he promised in 1975. It does have some relevance to the bill.

What I am dealing with is very clear. This government, as I pointed out earlier when the member for High Park-Swansea was not here, has said that the purpose of this bill is to fight inflation. What I have been talking about for the past hour and a half are ways in which the government can fight inflation.

Clearly, what I am dealing with now is how one government, unlike this government, has kept its promise and is fighting inflation. I am trying to point out to the member for High Park-Swansea, and to all the other members, just how a government that is responsible can behave in dealing with the inflation policy. I am sure that the member for High Park-Swansea will understand that this is directly on the bill.

9:50 p.m.

If I may continue. The province of Manitoba also has a program that will aid people in the $20,000 to $30,000 income group by providing subsidies of up to $200 a month in order to reduce their gross debt service ratio. In order to be eligible for the program one must raise the 10 per cent down payment. The program will seek to avoid the assisted home ownership program fiasco by giving direct subsidies and by not calling for the repayment of any of the subsidies.

Builders also can benefit from the Manitoba program. The program I have described will stimulate the demand for housing. The goal of the program is also to create economic stimulation and to create jobs, which the Treasurer said was his objective in introducing the present bill. Essentially, the program means that builders who have plans to build can approach the government and the government will be willing to accept some of the risk. The builder wishing to proceed makes a proposal for units valued at less than $64,000. This would include multiple units and condominiums as well as free-standing structures. The government would then consider giving certain types of financial guarantees and may also agree to buy back unsold houses.

It is not so long ago that I was speaking in the city of Chatham. There I met with a builder who had houses that had been on sale for over two years, but because of today's interest rates people could not afford to buy them. Indeed, he was selling them two years later for less than the cost of building them, and people still could not buy them.

If the kind of program introduced in Manitoba, in a market that has more vacancies and lower rent costs and where there is less of a crisis, can be implemented by the Manitoba New Democratic Party government, we believe it can surely be implemented by the Conservative government here.

We in the New Democratic Party believe that inflation in housing can be successfully fought. We believe the ultimate goal of the development and delivery of housing should be the elimination of exploitation in the housing industry by shifting the focus of the housing market from the present profit orientation to people orientation and by guaranteeing access for all people to a chance for suitable housing at a price they can afford to pay.

To this end, rather than introduce this kind of bill we suggest the government should acknowledge that the provision of housing, from planning and land assembly to construction and maintenance, is ultimately a public responsibility and that within this context it should accept the necessity of direct government intervention in the housing market in order to control prices and provide enough housing to satisfy people's needs.

We believe the government should recognize the need to provide a wide variety of affordable housing aimed at meeting the diverse requirements of people with varying lifestyles and income levels as well as the differing characteristics of Ontario's many communities.

We believe the government should engage directly in the development of new housing and the rehabilitation of existing housing and encourage municipal governments to do likewise by way of financial incentives and enabling legislation.

We believe the government should expand the Ontario Mortgage Corp. into an Ontario mortgage and development corporation constituting a fully integrated and publicly owned development corporation capable of acquiring and developing land and competing directly in the housing market as well as having a full range of financial powers similar to those of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

That kind of corporation could maintain an adequate supply of affordable housing, maintain the downward pull on housing prices, counter corporate concentrations in the development industry and implement the social and economic policies of the government with respect to such matters as social integration, energy conservation, servicing cost reduction and job creation.

We believe the government should selectively acquire, through the Ontario mortgage and development corporation, existing developer- owned land assemblies in and around major urban areas, including both undeveloped lands and potential redevelopment or rehabilitation sites in both suburban and central locations. By either of these means, it should involve itself in the acquisition, by expropriation if necessary, of fine development lands and central land assemblies held by major development corporations, or of controlling interests in one or more of the major development corporations where this would prove more economically expedient than acquiring solely their land holdings.

In so doing, they would achieve public control of housing and the land markets and provide a source of suitable lands for public development, and private development as well. The government could selectively purchase through the Ontario mortgage development corporation existing multiple housing for public use. It could be administered and owned by resident control, co-operatives or municipal housing authorities, or even by the Ontario Housing Corp. It would provide that existing tenants are not displaced against their wishes, as is happening at present.

We believe in the development of public land banks held by the Ontario Mortgage Corp., in accordance with the following principles: give the highest priority to co-operative housing ventures, to municipal, provincial and other nonprofit or public housing projects and to crownhold ownership projects, where the title of the land would remain vested in the crown in order to reduce initial purchase costs and control a future resale price; encourage a large number of builders to be active in actual housing construction in order to encourage price competition and discourage corporate concentrations; plan construction and development activities in such a way as to minimize seasonal fluctuations in the construction industry; plan new developments in consultation with tenants and resident organizations as well as full co-operation with local municipalities and their planning policies; encourage the participation of such groups in all stages of the development programs; and design new developments so as to emphasize energy efficient provision of public transit, protection of the environment, preservation of prime agricultural lands, respect for existing communities and other local social responsibilities.

Those kinds of policies we are advocating are fairly specific, they are fairly concrete and they are not radical. This kind of co-operation between the public and the private housing sector, involving regulation rather than ownership in some instances, this combination of mixed economy we are advocating, would go a long way to reducing the inflationary costs of housing in this province.

The bill before us does nothing to fight the inflation and the shelter costs in Ontario. This government has done nothing to develop innovative programs in housing in this province. This bill is merely an example of a government that rules by polls rather than with compassion; that rules without intelligence, without empathy and without the kind of pragmatism that is necessary to deal with the present problems of inflation. This bill, the minister, and the Conservative-Liberal government that is putting it through, are long in rhetoric and short in substance. It is what one might expect from a government that is both intellectually and morally bankrupt. I will be voting against the bill.

Mr. Piché: The member for Etobicoke (Mr. Philip) did not give me too much time, but I still have half an hour. I hope to use that half hour for what I have to say.

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate on the inflation restraint program. As the Premier (Mr. Davis) has stated, this issue is of vital concern to the health of the economy and to the future prosperity of all Ontarians. Given what is at stake, it is the duty of all of us in this House to give this matter our most serious consideration.

Mr. Conway: You don't need to read that. Give it with fire.

10 p.m.

Mr. Piché: That will come after.

Mr. Speaker, I begin by addressing an issue which, as both a resident and a representative of northern Ontario, is of great concern to many of us. Permit me to call to the members' attention an incident which occurred in this House during the afternoon session of Tuesday, September 21. I refer to the reaction which greeted the Premier's announcement that as an example of our need to reflect on all our expenditures and to take into consideration changing priorities, the government had cancelled its order of the Canadair Challenger jet.

[Applause].

Mr. Piché: Yes, I need that.

Mr. McClellan: Is this your maiden speech?

Mr. Piché: No, it is not.

The record tells us that at this point the Premier's remarks were interrupted by interjections. I would assume that anyone who was in the House at the time would agree that description is an understatement. What we witnessed was a riot of hysterical self-congratulation by the honourable members on the opposite side. I will not bother to speculate what interpretation of the government's actions sparked their seeming enthusiasm; however, it would no doubt involve a total misrepresentation of the facts which led to the decision.

I was somewhat dismayed by the response of the opposition parties to the Premier's announcement. They appeared to be totally oblivious to the fact that as a result of this decision, the people of northern Ontario will be deprived of important equipment which would have provided an invaluable backup to the existing dedicated air ambulance service.

Mr. Sweeney: Which he never should have bought in the first place. Who do you think you are kidding? They had $12 million and did not know what to do with it.

Mr. Piché: If members will listen, they will see what is coming after this. Why this should give the opposition parties reason for celebration escapes me.

Mr. Wildman: Why are you attacking the Premier?

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order, please. The member for Cochrane North has the floor.

Mr. Piché: Mr. Speaker, you will note that I said I was dismayed, not surprised, by the reaction of the opposition parties. In a sense, I suppose that I anticipated a reaction which would demonstrate a total insensitivity to the needs and interests of those who live in northern Ontario. My lack of surprise can be accounted for by two factors.

First, as the Premier pointed out, the opposition had always been cynical about the government's intention to use the Canadair 600 as an air ambulance; I repeat, as an air ambulance.

Mr. Cooke: With good reason.

Mr. Wildman: You sound as if you have been hit by a water bomb.

Mr. Cooke: This isn't on the principle of the bill.

The Acting Speaker: Order, order.

Mr. Piché: They have consistently misrepresented --

Mr. Sweeney: He is embarrassed, Mr. Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: Order, I can hardly hear the member because of the interjections. Order, please.

Mr. Epp: You don't have to say that now.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Piché: Mr. Speaker, they have consistently misrepresented the potential for using the aircraft as an emergency vehicle.

Mr. Cooke: Withdraw.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Cooke: He is out of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Sweeney: He is getting worse than Phil Gillies.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Piché: The resolution introduced last December by the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) -- who, incidentally, is not in the House today -- makes no mention whatsoever of the benefits to be derived by the people of northern Ontario from the use of this aircraft as an emergency vehicle.

Mr. Sweeney: It cannot even land at northern airports, what are you talking about?

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Piché: The member for St. Catharines did address this point in a communiqué he issued December 3, 1981, in conjunction with his resolution. He said that the argument put forward by the government that the Canadair 600 was chosen because of its adaptability as an air ambulance was weak because the aircraft could not land at so many air fields in the province.

The government was aware of the factors and the design features which limited the Challenger's ability to function as an emergency air ambulance in northern Ontario. The government contracted to have certain alterations made to the spoilers and the landing area.

The Acting Speaker: I would ask the honour- able member to tie his remarks into Bill 179.

Mr. Piché: These modifications would have improved the short-field landing ability of the jet, giving it the ability to land and service a good majority of the population of the province. Apparently, it did not appear to anyone on the opposite side that this greatly enhanced the multi-task role envisioned for the jet.

Nor did it appear to them that the addition of the jet would increase the flexibility and the efficiency of the dedicated air ambulance system which is so crucial for the wellbeing of the people living in northern Ontario.

Mr. Wildman: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: A point of order from the member for Algoma. The member for Algoma has the floor. The member for Cochrane North will take his seat while this point of order is heard.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, along the lines of the point of order raised earlier by the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Shymko), could you please ask the member for Cochrane North to speak to the bill that is on the floor?

The Acting Speaker: I have asked the member to tie his remarks into the bill.

Mr. Piché: Mr. Speaker, the remarks I am making now --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order. Will the member tie his remarks into Bill 179, please?

Mr. Piché: Mr. Speaker, I am speaking to the bill. This was in the opening remarks and that is where I am placing my own comments.

These facts received little attention either in this House or in the media. To be frank, we on this side must accept some responsibility for this also. I know now that we should have been more forceful and persistent in presenting the case, in describing the positive contribution which could be made by a multi-task aircraft.

The second reason I was not surprised by the opposition's response was it was so typical of their general attitude towards the north. The opposition's attitude towards the north has been out of sight and out of mind. This has been shown time and time again.

I prefer to think the attitude of my NDP and Liberal colleagues is caused by lack of knowledge and not by lack of feeling. If they knew how important the dedicated air ambulance service was to the north, and how vital it is that the service not only be maintained but improved, I am positive their jubilation would be tempered by concern.

Permit me to make a statement of the obvious. Northern Ontario is a vast region with a small population. There are 800,000 people in an area the size of western Europe.

I am aware many of the members opposite believe that northern Ontario is a wilderness as vast and severe as the political wilderness in which they have lived for so long. I would take this opportunity to assure them that this is not the case.

Mr. Cooke: This is pretty heavy.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: That was almost poetic.

Mr. Laughren: What about the Kapuskasing unemployed?

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Piché: I am not finished yet. I will be coming to that. Just give me the opportunity, then I will tell them.

Mr. Cooke: Let's get to the meat of your speech. Let's get to the guts of your speech.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: They can all ride the plane.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please. The member for Cochrane North should not be deterred by these interruptions. May they cease?

Mr. Piché: In the north, the combination of difficult geographical features, vast distances and a small and scattered population create problems with the delivery of services, and our citizens in the north have as much right to these services, and to the same quality of service, as their compatriots in the south.

10:10 p.m.

Health services in particular are especially difficult to provide. While in the south you can walk or drive a few miles to the nearest special medical facilities, in the north the distances are greater, travel is more difficult and services are less accessible. Too often we forget that what in the south is taken for granted, in the north requires considerable planning, effort and expense.

As the mayor of Kapuskasing for some 10 years I worked with a group of northern mayors from North Bay to Hearst who were committed to improving the delivery of health services to the people of northern Ontario. In particular we worked very hard to impress upon the provincial government at that time the necessity for introducing a dedicated air ambulance service using jet aircraft. These books are available to anyone; it is all in there.

Mr. Conway: Give them to the Premier.

Mr. Piché: He has a copy already. In fact, he had the first copy.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Piché: The reason we laid such great emphasis on this service was that the system then in place, which relied on chartered aircraft, was poorly equipped, unco-ordinated, undependable, slow and dangerous to both patients and staff. The only positive things that could be said about it were that the air crew and medical personnel involved were skilled and dedicated and that the service was better than nothing.

The Acting Speaker: I would ask the honour- able member to tie his remarks in to the bill.

Mr. Piché: These are my opening remarks, which I am coming back to. Let me illustrate the kinds of conditions that existed at that time and that were typical of the service before the introduction of our present system. In September 1977 a Kapuskasing municipal employee shattered his leg in an accident and had to be rushed to Toronto for treatment.

On the flight to Toronto, accompanied only by an orderly on the plane with no medical equipment or drugs, the patient's leg began to swell inside its cast, causing him extreme pain. The pilot had to land at Sudbury, and the patient was rushed to the local hospital, where they operated. Communications were so bad that it was not until hours later that the patients doctor in Kapuskasing and the doctor in Toronto awaiting his arrival in order to operate learned what had happened. The patient did eventually get to Toronto, where a second operation was necessary and took place.

Another example is of a nurse who made a five hour trip from Thunder Bay to Toronto aboard a small Piper Aztec with an acutely ill elderly patient on board. Again the plane was very poorly equipped, and no drugs or painkillers were supplied. The temperature on the plane could not be controlled, and the pilot and the nurse had to share the one flashlight on board. The nurse used it to check her patient's lifelines and vital signs, the pilot to read his navigation charts and to check for ice on the wings.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Piché: These circumstances were not rarities; they were the rule rather than the exception before the present service. I could go on, but I believe these examples suffice to indicate that in the past the only merciful aspect of the mercy flights came with a successful landing. Fortunately, the Minister of Health saw the need and responded positively to our request for improved service. As a result of government action a dedicated air ambulance system for northern Ontario was initiated on July 6, 1981.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Piché: This system, built around five aircraft, both fixed wings and helicopters, is in my opinion the best service of its kind in Canada if not in North America. This year the air ambulance system will make a projected total of 5,745 patient transfers. Of this total, 1,706 will be carried out by scheduled aircraft, 2,554 by charters and 1,485 by dedicated air ambulance. In northern Ontario dedicated air ambulances will make 300 patient transfers out of Sudbury, 330 out of Thunder Bay, 422 out of Timmins and 433 from Sioux Lookout.

Mr. Cooke: It is pretty confusing isn't it?

The Acting Speaker: It is consistent with the trouble I have had with other speakers in getting them to obey rulings.

Mr. Shymko: It all comes down to helping the sick, the suffering and the dying.

Mr. Piché: That's right.

The Acting Speaker: Order. All I ask is that the member for Cochrane North who has the floor speak to Bill 179.

Mr. Piché: Most of these transfers involve flights of considerable distance. For example, more than 60 per cent of the mercy flights from northeastern Ontario terminate in Toronto. I know of no method which would measure the value of this service to the people of the north. I can think of no method which would enable us to put a dollar value on the relief of pain.

The new service has greatly increased the quality of care which can be provided to patients using the system. The dedicated aircraft are fully equipped with all the necessary medical and communications technology required to ensure a comfortable, safe and well co-ordinated transfer.

The Challenger jet would have completed the air ambulance program for northern Ontario. It was very important that aircraft be brought into service, but unfortunately northern Ontario is taking a second seat again because of the opposition.

Improvements in transfer equipment were complemented by a program to upgrade the skills of the medical attendants. Currently all dedicated air ambulances are crewed by individuals who are especially trained in all aspects of air escort work.

Interjections.

Mr. Piché: That is right. In southern Ontario the crew of Bandage One has advanced lifesaving skills training. Because the crew of Bandage One is able to be in constant contact with a physician, they are permitted to perform a wide range of medical acts, such as administering drugs, which cannot be performed by air escorts in the north. This is not to imply that the air escorts in northern service are not well qualified. The emergency medical care attendants who staff the northern service are fully trained in the techniques of emergency medical care. They have also had intensive training in northern survival skills.

The government has put in place a program to ensure the northern emergency medical care assistant will be able to perform the same duties as the air escorts in the south. At present the EMCA role is limited by the fact the great distance in the north, given the available communication equipment for the crews, makes it impossible to be in constant communication with a doctor.

To overcome this problem, the government is building a new communications system in northern Ontario. This new network, the Northern Ontario Ambulance Radio System, when fully installed will enable northern crews to be in constant communication with a physician during a transfer. The first communication unit, NOARS, was opened in Sault Ste. Marie May 31, 1982. A second unit is scheduled to come on line in Thunder Bay in late 1983.

In addition, northern crews will be able to increase their medical expertise by participating in a pilot project in paramedical skills to be held in Toronto this fall. This training will enable them to take full advantage of the opportunities to improve medical care offered by the NOARS network.

The Acting Speaker: I would ask the honour- able member to remember we are speaking to Bill 179, An Act respecting the Restraint of Compensation in the Public Sector of Ontario and the Monitoring of Inflationary Conditions in the Economy of the Province.

Mr. Piché: Mr. Speaker, I am coming to that. My opening remarks have to do with the cancellation of a jet and I am trying to explain here what the cancellation of the jet is doing to northern Ontario. Nobody else seems to realize the important role this jet was to play as an air ambulance.

10:20 p.m.

I am trying to put some facts here so they will understand that in northern Ontario we do not have the facilities they have in the south. Down here anyone can walk into all the facilities one has, whether it is in Ottawa, Toronto or St. Catharines; in the south one has that, we do not.

We need fast transportation. We need the kind of equipment this government was going for, which we have now in the smaller aircraft called the Citation I. But this Challenger 600 would have done exactly what many of us wanted, and there are eight years of work. I have a copy of this book for anyone who wants it. The mayors of northern Ontario at that time asked for this for northern Ontario. We had it and they got it cancelled. That is the importance of it.

Mr. Wildman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Just for your clarification the member is indeed speaking about restraint. What he is doing is opposing the Premier's decision to get rid of the jet. He is opposed to this restraint package. I just thought we should clarify that for you.

The Acting Speaker: That is not a point of order. The member for Cochrane North has the floor. The member will please continue.

Mr. Piché: In addition, northern crews will be able to increase their medical expertise by participating in a pilot project in paramedical skills to be held in Toronto this fall. This training will help them to take full advantage of the opportunities for improving medical care offered by the new communication network.

Although I am somewhat disappointed that current priorities require the cancellation of equipment which I believe would have made a significant contribution to improving northerners' accessibility to health care, I am comforted by a number of things.

First, we have a good system in place and plans to improve it. The Challenger 600 would have done that just beautifully. Second, I am confident this vital service will not suffer as a result of the Management Board's review of public sector expenditures. Third, while in northern Ontario we have lost an air ambulance only for a short time, we gained two water bombers. This equipment will help protect --

Mr. Wildman: You sound as though you were hit by one of them.

Mr. Piché: I will answer that later. Mr. Wildman, you should be supporting what I am saying here.

Mr. Wildman: I agree with you; we need an air ambulance.

Mr. Piché: Mr. Wildman, I am not too sure sometimes that you represent the north. You voted against it so you have shown that you were against what we are trying to accomplish in northern Ontario.

The Acting Speaker: You will call the honourable member by his constituency.

Mr. Piché: As I just mentioned, this equipment will help protect valuable resources and of course northern jobs. The member for Windsor-Riverside heard that.

Mr. Cooke: How?

Mr. Piché: I am getting to it.

lnterjections.

Mr. Piché: The Premier said he was certain the people of northern Ontario would understand the necessity of restraint at this time. Speaking as a northerner, one of the very few in this House, I can assure the Premier we do understand this is a time when sacrifices have to be made by all Ontarians for the sake of future prosperity.

The northern economy rests on a relatively narrow base of primary resource industries, mining and forestry. The people in these industries work very hard and make a substantial contribution to the economic wellbeing of this province. The world-wide recession has led to a reduction of demand and has had a severe impact on production, sales and consequently employment in the resource sector.

During the debate, much has been said about the problems of northern employment. I am sure everyone would be delighted if it was within the power of this House to legislate people back to work by legislating demand. Unfortunately, we do not have the ability to require our foreign and domestic customers to consume more of our resources. What we can do is put in place policies that create an environment that will hasten economic recovery by increasing business and investor confidence. We can encourage other jurisdictions and economic actors to do likewise. We must also do what we can to soften the impact of the recession on our people and put in place programs that will help them until our policies for economic recovery take effect.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Piché: I believe this government has taken all three of these measures. The first two have been much discussed and I will limit myself to one observation on the third element. When we speak of providing relief from unemployment, most of us speak of job creation. On this front, the opposition holds that government action has been inadequate. Of course, I reject this contention. Government action has been premised on the need to provide short-term relief without introducing policies that would jeopardize long-term recovery.

The government has introduced job creation programs that are targeted on those sectors hardest hit by unemployment and having the greatest potential for direct and indirect job creation. Of special interest to the north are the five special federal-provincial job creation programs that have created to date 31,230 weeks of work for 2,125 laid-off workers.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: I would ask members to keep order. Carry on.

Mr. Piché: Northern workers have also benefited from the employment incentive program for unorganized areas administered by the Ministry of Northern Affairs. I would urge the Premier to reject the ill-advised suggestions of the opposition. In my opinion, those gentlemen advocate policies that place at risk the economic future of the province. It is a political triumph of expediency over fiscal responsibility. They persist in believing there is a quick fix. Most of us do not share in that belief. I think the proposed restraint program points us in the right direction and will create conditions that will not only speed recovery but ensure that Ontario is in a position to take full advantage of that recovery.

This is only part of my address, Mr. Speaker. Would it be in order now to ask for an adjournment?

The Acting Speaker: Yes, we are close to the hour. Will you move the adjournment of the debate?

Mr. Piché: Yes, but I will return on Thursday.

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

Mr. I. M. Johnson: Mr. Speaker, on a point of personal privilege: I think it would be remiss of this House to let this day go by without paying tribute to the election victory yesterday of James Lee in Prince Edward Island and to wish the government of Prince Edward Island success in the difficult years ahead.

The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.