Journal des débats 1982-oct-12 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege, on which I rise as a private member, it has come to my attention that on October 18 of this year it is the intention of this assembly to play host to a visiting delegation from South Africa. I want to say that as a private member I am deeply concerned and, quite frankly, personally outraged at the thought that public moneys will be expended to provide for a luncheon for this delegation from the world's most notoriously and officially racist regime.

I take very strong personal exception to this. I am not sure of this, but it has been drawn to my attention that a memo was circulated from Mr. David MacDonald, who, I believe, is the manager of the parliamentary and public relations office under your direction. I just wanted to ask you to seriously reconsider this particular initiative.

I would hope that in this day and age of human rights, keeping in mind the Legislature's position on Bill 7 and those marvellous jingles which tell us we are all one, that we will not, as members of this assembly, be seen to be involved with a delegation from South Africa, whose apartheid policies are so retrograde and so outrageously racist.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point as the member for Renfrew North and support his statement. I suggest it is offensive to all members of this House that we should be seen to be courting, in our Legislature here, members of an apartheid regime. It brings to mind other things that have occurred in the last year or so, such as our Ombudsman's thinking it was appropriate for him to travel to South Africa.

It is bad enough that our Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) allows us to continue to promote South African goods in our liquor stores and for us to have double standards which I think should offend most of the moral standards of people in this province.

Surely we should not be playing host to this kind of group in our Legislature, Mr. Speaker, and I ask you to do what you can to make sure this does not take place.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, on the point of privilege, I would like to associate myself with the comments made by the member for Renfrew North. I would just like to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that it is important that some of us get these matters on the record lest it be seen that you as Speaker, representative of all the assembly, give some sort of tacit approval or acquiescence to these people and lest it be seen that the Legislative Assembly of Ontario somehow is catering to or giving some form of support to that group. I want to associate myself with my colleagues in saying I quite agree that you should not, and Ontario should not, in any way play host to this group.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you very much for your expression of opinion. I have to say, interesting as it was, it does not constitute a point of privilege, but I thank all the members --

Mr. Roy: I think it is a point of privilege. I think it is very important.

Mr. Speaker: With great respect, it is not. But I do thank the honourable members for sharing their views.

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, since I did raise the point, I want to be very clear on it. As a member of this assembly I am personally and deeply concerned about the fact that public moneys are going to be expended in my name on behalf of this assembly to entertain a racist delegation with which I want neither truck nor trade. I do consider that very much a matter of personal privilege.

I do not want this assembly, to the extent I can personally influence it, to be seen to be involved in any way, through hospitality or otherwise, with a delegation the majority of whom is from the National Party, which I consider to be racist. As I say, I want no part of.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you very much. As I said before, your point is well made and your remarks will certainly be taken into consideration.

[Later]

Mr. Speaker: There was a matter raised earlier that I think is of sufficient importance that it should be responded to as quickly as possible. Earlier this afternoon the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) questioned what he saw as the assembly's involvement with a South African delegation. I think there has clearly been a rather serious misunderstanding as to its actual role in what is going on.

There was concern expressed that the assembly was to play host to a visiting delegation from South Africa and further concern was expressed that public moneys would be expended to provide for a luncheon. I want to make it abundantly clear that neither the Speaker nor this assembly is in any way involved with the delegation or with the luncheon. The visit was initiated by the consul in Toronto and the luncheon is being sponsored by the South Africans. They only expressed the desire to meet, if possible, with legislators during their time here.

The luncheon will not be held in this building. I want to stress very strongly that the South Africans have initiated the visit, are hosting the luncheon and are paying for the luncheon. I hope that clears up any misunderstanding that may surround this visit.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of privilege: I think you will understand that perhaps one of the reasons for the confusion was that the invitation my colleague the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) saw, and at least the one I saw, seemed to emanate from your office. We were left with that impression because of the type of invitation it was and the number of members who were invited from different parties. We were left with the impression that somehow the Speaker's office was involved in the organization of this luncheon.

If there has been some confusion, I think it is mainly for that reason. I appreciate, and certainly my colleague will appreciate, your explanation that your office, on behalf of all of us, and the government of Ontario are not involved in the organization, funding, etc., of this luncheon.

ORAL QUESTIONS

MCMICHAEL CANADIAN COLLECTION

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Citizenship and Culture. The minister is no doubt aware of the great controversy that surrounded the McMichael Canadian Collection a year or so ago. At that time the ministry pledged itself to trying to clean that up.

I am sure it is a matter of great concern that the controversy bubbled up again over the weekend with respect to the cost overruns and the plans for that particular gallery. I would like to ask the minister, when did he become aware of the cost overruns? Who authorized those cost overruns? On what basis were they authorized? Why was it announced only yesterday?

Hon. Mr. McCaffrey: Mr. Speaker, the original forecast was that the renovations would cost $4.7 million. I was made aware of the new number, which was to be in excess of $9 million, in the spring. I could get an exact date. I remember very clearly it was in the spring, because upon being briefed on the additional costs I was anxious, as the Leader of the Opposition would be himself, to go and see the facility and to try, as a layman at least, to judge the efficacy of those expenses.

I authorized those additional expenses on the basis that we were committed to doing what was absolutely essential to protect what that building houses. I think it is imperative that, when we look at these numbers, we remind ourselves that this unique gallery houses a collection of art valued, though estimates vary, somewhere in the order of $40 million.

I would add that, notwithstanding the numbers, everybody in this assembly realizes this is a unique Canadian treasure. That it should be housed in anything other than a first-class facility with all the appropriate fire and humidity controls would have, in my judgement, been irresponsible.

Further, the gallery will attract some 300,000 visitors a year so that the essential safety precautions were built in to those additional costs and, on that basis, we were happy to authorize the additional required expenses.

2:10 p.m.

Mr. Peterson: Why did the minister decide to suppress this information, or at least not be forthcoming with members of the public and members of this House, about those additional expenditures of some millions of dollars in order to complete these renovations, particularly when he will recall, as we recall, that one of the big issues surrounding the change of status of Mr. McMichael of a year or so ago was presumably -- shall I say it? -- his lack of management competence, his one-man-band running of the gallery, his lack of sharing of this information with some people, particularly when the minister pledged last spring to be open with members of this House and the public?

I quote the minister from the House of April 20, presumably about the time he was aware of these additional expenditures. He said: "The memorandum establishes information-sharing arrangements between the collection and the people of the province by making collection policies, practices and priorities available to the public and by making appropriate minutes of future board meetings available to the public as well." In fact, Mr. Taylor, the chairman, had pledged himself individually to an open-minded, open-handed standard of conduct in our approach to the affairs of the collection.

Now it appears after the fact that certain minutes relating to these matters either have not been included or have been deleted. These matters of expenditure of large sums of public funds have not been shared with the public, as was the minister's intention. Why did he not share that information with the members of this House and the public when he was aware of it last spring?

Hon. Mr. McCaffrey: It was my intention that the minutes of the board meetings be made public. That is my intention and has been from spring to this very minute. If there are some specific minutes of the board's deliberations that have not been made public or have in fact been altered, I will inquire into that this afternoon. I will undertake to do that, because that was not and is not the intention.

I was made aware, as I say, in the spring -- I think it was specifically in May -- and at that stage members of the board and I were fully prepared and anxious -- with pride, I say again -- to show those additional costs at the time of the partial reopening, which was scheduled for June, some two or three weeks after those numbers were made public. Because of a series of strikes the June date was rescheduled for July, for August and, as we know, it was not until the last four or five days that the partial reopening was held.

It was my very strong view, and one I still hold, that when those numbers were made public it was imperative that members of the Legislature, the press and other interested citizens have an opportunity to view what was actually done with this money. I think central to understanding what the heck the additional $4.5 million was about is to the see the facility itself. It was our intention to do it in June. For reasons beyond our control they were not able to have that partial reopening because of the strikes that plagued us at the Royal Ontario Museum as well.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that there is a controversy over the expenses having doubled and that there are also some opinions which differ from his assessment -- in fact, the director of the Friends of the McMichael Gallery said the $9.8 million of work done did not appear significantly different from the estimated cost of $4.7 million a year ago -- and if the minister thinks that everything under the sun has been done, will he be able to table with this Legislature all the estimates and the changes and all the relevant documents so we and the public will know exactly what the situation is?

Hon. Mr. McCaffrey: That is a good question, Mr. Speaker. The member for Perth (Mr. Edighoffer) a couple of weeks or 10 days ago put three very detailed questions on the Notice Paper, answers to which are being provided today. They will go some considerable distance to answering the detailed kinds of questions on the additional costs that the member for Downsview inquires about.

The member for Downsview quotes a view. Listen, there are all kinds of different views. There are some armchair architects and armchair construction people who have some views as to what this might actually have cost. I respect those views; I just do not agree with them.

Mr. Peterson: The issues here are twofold. Number one is the management of public funds, where it appears the minister is no more competent than was the previous administration of that gallery. Number two is the issue of openness and the secrecy about these particular decisions. Now the minister has admitted that he did not want to share that with the members of the public.

Was that not the reason for all of this happening, as quoted by Mr. Mclvor on the CBC, who quoted Michael Bell as saying, "'The decision to double the amount was made without any public knowledge,' says Michael Bell, gallery director, 'so government officials would not be prejudiced by any public outcry'" ? What kind of sharing of information with the public is that?

Hon. Mr. McCaffrey: I say again we are very anxious, in the full light of visiting the gallery, seeing and touching the additions and the construction that has been done, to make people abundantly aware of how that additional money was spent. I think it is important to realize that the $4.7 million, the original estimate, did not become $9.4 million overnight. In fact, this process was stretched out over a period of some six months.

During that six-month period the attitude of senior people within the ministry was, as it quite properly should have been, to review in detail each of those new numbers that were coming along. In fact, the Ministry of Government Services went out to do an independent investigation of it.

Throughout the six months, as the real costs escalated, the determination was to make certain that those renovations were essential and that they were done with the full support of this Legislature, which is the case when anybody sees the facility. I will say one more time that in June, at the time of the originally scheduled partial reopening, we would have announced this.

The chairman of the board, Mr. Taylor, is a first-class individual who has made a tremendous contribution to that gallery. I might say too, in passing, he is a gentleman with a first-class business reputation who, like most of the members of this Legislature, understands the value of this investment.

Mr. Peterson: That has nothing to do with it. If the minister knew in April, May and June, he should have shared it with the people of this province who are paying the bill. He should have learned by the previous minister's incompetence on this issue.

HYDRO CONTRACTS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Energy. The minister is no doubt aware that Ontario Hydro announced last year that it was amending its agreement with Denison and Rio Algom to reduce its deliveries by nine and 15 per cent respectively in order to "correct a potential oversupply of uranium in the 1990s."

Is he aware that documents filed with the Ontario Energy Board revealed that, starting at about 1993, Hydro will be taking close to two million pounds a year more than it needs to supply estimated demand even with Darlington going full blast at that particular time and even though there will be an overcapacity in the system, according to the minister's own estimates, of some 50 per cent? The bottom line is that this will cost the consumers at least $100 million in unnecessary fuel at that time. Does the minister not think that is a terrible waste of public and consumers' money?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I am not familiar with the documentation to which the Leader of the Opposition makes reference and I think I would make it my business to read that material. I am not so sure that the conclusion to which he comes is necessarily the conclusion on the basis of the facts, but I will be glad to review that information.

Mr. Peterson: It is obvious in these very critical matters the minister is not aware and that is what is so terribly disturbing to us. We have asked the minister before to refer the matter of system expansion -- and this matter relates very much to system expansion -- to a committee of the House, to a number of members who do take our energy future very seriously, so that the committee can at least review it if he is not prepared to. Would the minister do that?

Hon. Mr. Welch: May I remind the Leader of the Opposition of what he asked me. He suggested that there was some material filed with the Ontario Energy Board which clearly sets out, without any doubt, that Hydro was going to buy more than it needed with respect to certain fuel. I am not familiar with such a document that says that, and before I would answer any question based on that I would want to familiarize myself with the documentation to which he makes reference. Surely that is a reasonable request on my part.

2:20 p.m.

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the minister if in the process of looking into this he finds that amount of uranium being purchased now, why would he and his government not have second thoughts about the Madawasaka Mines Ltd., which they shut down and sent miners looking for other work he suggested they could find? Why in heaven's name would he ever consider not keeping that mine and Ontario miners working when he is talking about extra purchases?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, if the member for Niagara Falls had listened carefully to his leader's question he would have realized that he was not talking about the requirements now but about something related to 1993. I fail to see the connection between the supplementary and the main question.

WELFARE PAYMENTS

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Treasurer. Pressure is mounting in society at large for some measure of social justice for those people who are the poorest in our society, and today there is a vigil by an ecumenical group which was here this spring and has been forced to come back this fall because of a lack of action. I ask the minister for his response to their statement: "We believe what is at stake is the moral conscience of a province and the moral will to change Ontario's spending priorities. We believe that the people of this province do not wish to keep recipients of social assistance living in desperation."

We know he is concerned with our triple-A rating, but what is his concern for these people? Will he be spending the kind of money which can restore to them some of the money they have lost to inflation over the last five or six years?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, it is easy for the honourable member to assume that he can pull a statistic out and say that we do not treat people who have economic problems fairly compared to other provinces. I suspect my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea) would be able to document the whole range of programs, beginning with subsidized housing, that are available. I would suggest that this province has, in total, a very good record.

I am keenly aware that the problems of that group are becoming more grave, as are the problems of many other people in society, because we are adding to their numbers these days with unemployment. I think I am as aware of that as the member must be. The fact remains that we have a whole set of needs in society. This province and this government have always prided themselves in treating the less fortunate people fairly. That is one of the reasons we have managed to maintain our position as the government.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, you will note that in my initial question I did not raise any comparison with other provinces. I was asking the minister to act in this province.

Will the minister confirm today that his statement on page 17 of the budget address did not apply to these recipients, that statement being, "I now serve notice to all recipients of provincial funds that they should not count on future funding at or above inflation rates," given that employable singles have not had any increase at all since February 1981? Will he guarantee the principle that their inflation costs will be passed through and that he will protect these people in these hard times?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The member has chosen one date, February 1981. I believe there was a change in the general welfare assistance rate about a year ago, if my recollection is correct. The minister can confirm whether that is so or not. I thought it was about that time that there was a change. In any event, I am neither confirming nor denying the changes. They will take place as we make the allocation process known.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, in a recent speech given by the Treasurer's counterpart, Jacques Parizeau, he mentioned a book called the green book, which is apparently known only to some senior civil servants in every government across Canada, and which, in fact, does provide a comparison from province to province as to social welfare payments, housing and so on.

To clear up all this confusion and to show just what great fellows they are over there, would the minister consider getting his hands on this green book and tabling it in the Legislature so that we can compare to see what the people of Ontario who need it most are getting relative to other provinces?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I am not personally aware of the green book.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am quite disappointed that the minister did not even know there has not been an increase for this group of general welfare recipients since last February. I hope that does not reflect his interest in this issue.

Can the minister tell us what he is planning to do about the burden on municipalities now that the federal minister, 11oyd Axworthy, a friend of our Liberals here to the right, says there will be no extension of unemployment insurance benefits, therefore, the huge number of UIC exhaustees that we have been anticipating is going to fall this winter on to the welfare roll.

What is the Treasurer going to do to protect the municipalities which cannot afford to have the 20 per cent imposed on them for that huge number of people who are going to be added? Will he be assuming his responsibilities? It is this government and the federal government which have caused the unemployment in this province. Will he be accepting the costs or will he be passing this through to municipalities that cannot afford it?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The member is editorializing unnecessarily and falsely. It is not our government that has caused unemployment nor is it the federal government that has caused unemployment. He knows it. He just likes to slip those little zingers in whenever he can to keep up his old myth. The truth is that --

Interjections.

Mr. Rotenberg: The Socialists ruined Britain.

Mr. Speaker: Never mind the interjections, please.

Hon. F. S. Miller: We will be dealing with all those matters in the fullness of time.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I just draw your attention to the fact that the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg) just called Margaret Thatcher a Socialist. I find that hard to believe.

Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Speaker, just to correct the record, the member is putting false words in my mouth. He should know better.

JOB CREATION

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I will direct a question to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer tell me how many families in Ontario are in the situation of having no one in the family employed?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the honourable member has the answer for me.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I do. I was hoping I would not have to supply all the answers for the minister today. I am sure if I had asked the question about how our credit rating had been over the last 10 years, he would have been able to give that to me without any difficulty.

Would the minister be interested in knowing the answer to the question? It is that over the last year the number of Ontario families in which the head of the family is unemployed has increased by 155 per cent and the number of families in which no one is working has increased by 166 per cent. When is the minister going to tackle those problems and create jobs for those individuals?

Hon. F. S. Miller: That is a question that is asked daily, and it is a serious question. I have tried to set out the course of action we are going to follow. We have taken two sets of measures in Ontario in the last while; one that the member likes to allege has had no results. I would allege it has had very good results. The fact is the climate is not good for anything. It is hard to see what we have done because there has been a general decline in employment.

It would have been worse had we not stepped into the marketplace and created many jobs in highways, in building, in creating houses through the renter-buy program, which by the way is taking off quite quickly at this time, contrary to what the member says. I am getting the best results ever from the Toronto Real Estate Board of late.

In the last couple of months sales have gone up dramatically, which means jobs will be up dramatically in this province because of actions we are taking, actions in the north to work with the federal government to put people under section 38 of the federal act so that we can get some of them back to meaningful work. None of those matter to the member. He keeps on assuming we have done nothing.

The second phase was to put the five per cent in place, Bill 179, which is going to help us with employment no matter what the member's party says about it. That is the basic objective of it.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, part of Bill 179 was the promise that there would be further programs announced. We are getting into the middle of October and we are going to have higher unemployment with winter setting in. The minister has told us repeatedly that he is waiting for the federal government but that, if it does not act, he will.

Can the Treasurer tell us his precise timetable? When is he going to act if he does not hear from or have agreement with Ottawa? Can we expect an announcement in this House by the end of this month about a program for the people of Ontario that will deal with the unemployment in Ontario over this winter, which is going to be severe?

2:30 p.m.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, my colleague knows that when we are negotiating with another level of government, the last thing we do is set out precise timetables for what we will do in the event they do nothing.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the Treasurer, the actions he has taken have left us with a loss of 120,000 jobs. I shudder to think how much worse that might have been if all these actions had not been taken.

Is it not the case that on May 19, 1981, the Treasurer called on Ottawa to act and placed the burden there? On October 22, he called on Ottawa to act. On March 11, 1982, he talked about imploring the federal government to act. On March 12, he called on his federal Liberal friends to act, and again on March 16 and March 19 he called on the federal government to act.

When will the Treasurer act in a way that does not lose us 120,000 jobs but, in fact, creates jobs?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The fact is that the federal government did not act in those cases; it has changed the Minister of Finance and the ministers responsible for economic development. The fact is that it has been spending a good deal of time in the past two weeks reordering its priorities. We expect to see job creation programs coming in shortly, and we are ready to work with the federal government.

NONHOSPITAL BIRTHS

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Health: On July 5, I asked a question about a proper program for the training and licensing of midwives in Ontario. We now have the benefit of the statement by the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario on that subject. The minister said at that time that the object of what he is trying to accomplish over the next couple of months is to have a pattern and program in place, as he says, with a view to making sure these kinds of circumstances are clarified.

Three months have gone by since that commitment from the minister. Can we now have a report to the House on what progress has been made to co-ordinate the development of standards for nonhospital births?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, we have had some continuing discussions with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. They simply have not concluded yet. I think it will probably be several months before we are able to resolve a satisfactory situation with them.

Mr. Breithaupt: Three months have gone by, and now the minister expects several more will go by. In the hope that we will have a clearer approach, I wonder whether the minister will consider the necessity for some sort of formal task force in this area so the component parts can be assured not only of his interest but also of the interest of the Legislature in this subject. Will he consider the task force approach so the various groups involved will have the spur of his interest to make sure this problem is appropriately dealt with?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Yes, I am willing to consider that approach; it seems to be a fairly reasonable one. Perhaps after a couple more weeks, when I next have a chance to meet with the college, we will alert them to that issue. Perhaps the task force route is a commendable way to go, and I thank the honourable member for the suggestion.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, while the minister is looking into the possibility of providing more midwives for the province, will he also look at the need for nurse practitioners in the north, particularly in those places where for a variety of reasons we do not have the ability to attract doctors and where there is a shortage, or rather a complete lack, of medical services?

Will the minister look at the nurse practitioner paramedic service at the same time?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I do not think we would want to do it in the same task force setting because, if we were going to go with the suggestion made by the member for Kitchener, then I would want to confine it to achieve the goals he set out.

The question of scope of practice is one that I intend to address in the next few months in one of a variety of mechanisms I am currently looking at. The underserviced area situation and the use of nurse practitioners and other practitioners would certainly come within the scope of any review we did on the whole scope of practice issue.

PRIVATE SECURITY FORCES

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Solicitor General: Given the revelations before the Ontario Labour Relations Board in the Automotive Hardware case and with the release today of the report Beyond the Law: The Strikebreaking Industry in Ontario, by Waldie Brennan and Associates for the steelworkers, will the minister not agree that the evidence underlines the need for a full public inquiry and will he now call such an inquiry?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, the first answer to the honourable member's question is that the Securicor investigation is still before the Ontario Labour Relations Board and has not terminated yet. I am not sure of the decision or the final evidence that will be put before that board and the outcome of it.

As to the report he has mentioned, I have not reviewed it yet. When I have, I will make a comment. I have just received the report today.

Mr. Mackenzie: Is the minister concerned about the substantial growth in the private security industry, one of the very few growth industries in Ontario, where there has been a 10-year increase of 92 per cent in employees, from 7,800 to 15,166? That means there are now almost as many private security operators as there are public police in Ontario. Does the minister not feel this situation requires legislation limiting the role of private security forces at least in critical labour situations?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I am aware that there are increased numbers in the private security business and that it is a growth industry. There is legislation that controls the working and functions of those individuals in the private security forces, and legislation will be forthcoming to further adapt those individuals to the present working conditions. That legislation will be coming forth in the near future.

LESLIE STREET SPIT

Mr. Elston: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. Since 1959 the Leslie Street spit area has been used as a cheap dumping ground for excavation fill, but we have learned only recently of the extensive degree of contamination of the material going into that area. Will the minister not agree that the Toronto Harbour Commissioners have been operating a waste disposal site without a certificate of approval and that the spit still needs such a certificate of approval as required under part V of the Environmental Protection Act?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, I think the honourable member is somewhat misinformed on the specific matter of jurisdiction. If he looks at the location of the spit, he will find that substantially it comes within the jurisdiction of the authority.

I also point out for his benefit and that of other honourable members that monitoring took place prior to the introduction of our new policy with respect to any soil or fill that could be deposited in the spit. More than 80 per cent of the soil was found not to be a problem, but it is true that there were some soils going in, particularly from some of the old --

Mr. Elston: What about the other 20 per cent?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Yes, it depends on whether one wants to take the most negative approach or an approach that puts it in a reasonable perspective.

In fact, the situation is well under control. We have in place what is probably the most complete prototype in terms of monitoring. As I think I indicated earlier, if the prototype works well during the course of the next few months, as we see this in operation, it may well be a prototype that should be extended to other parts of the province.

Mr. Elston: I can understand that 80 per cent of the fill is all right, but it is the 20 percent and the damage being done by that 20 per cent that really concern me and a number of my colleagues here. I think the minister really ought to be concerned about it as well.

Given the magnitude of the unacceptable fill which is going into that site, as documented in his ministry's study, is the minister not concerned that the fill excavated from areas other than his designated control areas may be contaminated at levels above the lake fill quality guidelines and that such contaminated material will still be going to the Leslie Street spit area? Will he expand his designated control areas, and when will his program be amended?

2:40 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Norton: It is not a question of amending the present program. The member was looking at his next question and not listening to the answer to the first. I pointed out that what we have in place is a prototype. If it works -- and I think it will -- if it is effective, we will then consider expanding it to other areas.

The point that is important for the member to bear in mind when he starts talking about the 20 per cent is that while we have acknowledged that approximately 20 per cent raised some concern during the monitoring period, it was not because --

Mr. Elston: Twenty per cent isn't a serious problem.

Hon. Mr. Norton: If the member would stop talking for a moment, he would hear the answer. That is his problem. That was his problem the first time I answered him: he was not listening; he was babbling.

Mr. Elston: Answer the question.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Most people I have met cannot do two things at once: talk and listen. If the member asks a question, I assume it is because he wants an answer.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Is the member's mouth in or out of gear at the moment?

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

Hon. Mr. Norton: Yes, Mr. Speaker, if you will invite the member opposite to listen.

The point is that there has been very close monitoring of the water quality in that area and there has been no indication of deterioration. We have been monitoring in the area around the spit and in the area of the water intakes in that general location, and there has been no indication of any deterioration. We will continue to monitor it very carefully.

The question as to when there might be consideration given to extending the prototype depends, of course, upon the results of the monitoring over the next couple of months. I would say we should have a fairly good idea in a few months.

Mr. Charlton: Mr. Speaker, since the ministry's study indicated some of the contaminated fill that exceeded the lake fill guidelines was coming from outside Metro Toronto and since the study indicated very clearly that fairly substantial amounts that exceeded the guidelines were going into that spit, why was there no action to stop the dumping that exceeded the guidelines?

In view of the fact that we are the only jurisdiction on the Great Lakes still dumping this kind of material into the Great Lakes, how can we deal effectively with the questions of Great Lakes water quality being studied by the International Joint Commission and a large number of other groups when we continue to allow that kind of material to go into Lake Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Norton: First of all, Mr. Speaker, the inferences in the question, as it was phrased, are substantially unsubstantiated. It is true that there is a very small amount coming from outside Toronto. But in the first instance, with the establishment of this prototype for detailed monitoring, the reason we did not extend it to cover all sources was that it was generally believed by the people most knowledgeable in the field that the chance of contaminated soil coming from those areas was minimal.

One has to understand that the sources of contamination that have raised the concern are mainly industrial sources and fill from highly populated areas, and particularly from the southern part of the city of Toronto, where by and large land filling took place in the previous century and during which time there was no monitoring of fill in terms of whether it was contaminated. Because of the concern about that, we decided that was the area in which to establish the prototype and the monitoring on a blanket basis and in those designated areas outside it where there was known to have been industrial activity that could have led to the contamination of the soil.

As I say, one has to bear in mind that what we are talking about is a prototype. If it works well, and certainly I am optimistic about that, we will look not only at extending it to other areas that may be providing fill for areas in this vicinity, such as the spit, but also at the possibility of extending similar monitoring programs elsewhere in the province.

JOB CREATION

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer. Is he aware that the number of employables on welfare in Chatham has gone from 115 in September 1981 to 467 in September 1982, which represents about a 400 per cent increase? Is he further aware that the projected budget for welfare in that city in 1982 has gone up by 34 per cent over 1981?

What is the Treasurer prepared to do to create jobs in that city so that we can make taxpayers out of the unemployed people instead of having them rely on unemployment insurance and welfare when they want to work?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the honourable member takes such a great interest in Chatham. It is not the area he represents. The member who does represent it has seen me as recently as today on that very topic.

It is interesting to note that a good deal of work has been done with the company in trouble there, International Harvester. I understand they are now maintaining their Canadian operation there. I believe that is one of the cities we put a technology centre in, if I have not lost track of those where we are doing something about it.

Mr. Cooke: How many jobs?

Hon. F. S. Miller: There are jobs there; that is the main thing. Every job is a job, but the member wants 10,000 jobs all at once. It happens to be a city to which we have recently given a grant under the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development to help them assess their economic future, and we are going to be working with them on that too.

Mr. Cooke: Is the Treasurer aware that in the first six months of the federal industry and labour adjustment program, only 78 jobs have been created on the labour side -- those are jobs created to get people off welfare and back on to unemployment insurance -- and there are 2,500 more people waiting in that jurisdiction for jobs just to get back on the Unemployment Insurance Commission rolls? At that rate, it would take something like 12 years under the federal program to deal with those people.

It is very clear that the federal Liberals are not prepared to create the jobs. The Treasurer has a responsibility in Chatham and across this province. What is he prepared to do to create real jobs: not five for 10 at a technology centre, but long-term and short-term jobs for those who are collecting welfare? Does he not see that if he gets them off welfare and back on unemployment insurance, if he does not care about anything else at least the province is saving money?

Hon. F. S. Miller: If I came into a city and found that the people there were reasonably optimistic about finding some solutions to their admittedly terrible problems, should I say: "Don't be optimistic. Believe in me. Things are going to get worse"? That is what the member said last week, is it not? That is the kind of message he is sending around this province to everybody.

Mr. Cooke: That's really brilliant, Frank. That's your sense of the absurd: throw your hands up in the air.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, in a discussion, I believe, last Friday with the Premier (Mr. Davis) about some of these unemployment statistics, particularly in automotive cities, he bemoaned the fact that he had no influence over demand for automobiles, that there really was not very much he could do about it and that ultimately when demand came back in the United States all our problems would go away.

The Treasurer knows, according to his own studies, that even if the automotive industry comes back to full health, it will probably employ 20 per cent fewer people than it did at its peak some two or three years ago, and he knows that we have a major structural problem in southwestern Ontario, particularly in areas that are dependent on the automotive industry.

What is he doing? What plans does his ministry have to deal with those people who will never go back to work in the automotive industry again because of the changes in that industry?

2:50 p.m.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult for the member to talk that way and at the same time be asking for that industry to take steps to become more productive, because I have heard him do that. The first effect of improved productivity is a reduction in the number of hours required to make a unit of product. That is one of the major problems we have to face in the North American automobile industry. Unless I am wrong, the last time I saw some figures -- they could be quite wrong -- it took about 33 per cent more man-hours to produce a car in North America than it did in Japan. One of the reasons for that is that Japan has a lot more robotization.

We have taken steps through the Ministry of Industry and Trade to establish a centre for robotics and another centre for computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing in Ontario to bring Canadian designs and manufacturing up to the point where they are competitive with Japan and other countries. I have a great belief that every time the number of man-hours is cut in making a product, that product becomes more affordable and makes more jobs, not fewer.

FUNDING FOR EDUCATION

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Education; it may help her to get a higher rating on her report card.

While the recently announced financial restraint program is very specific on its limitation on public sector wages and salaries, it is either silent or rather vague on the elimination of wasteful spending on such items as advertising or the retention of adequate funding for areas that are considered to be essential.

Will the minister assure the House today that her government will meet its financial commitment to provide sufficient funding to permit boards of education to carry out their obligations under the provisions of Bill 82? Will she assure parents of children who require special education services that her ministry will provide the level of funding that was promised when she introduced Bill 82 in the Legislature?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, in all the discussions that have been carried on in the past several months regarding restraint, there never has been any suggestion that the proposal related to the annual increase in funding for special education would be modified in any way.

Mr. Bradley: If one is to believe the words of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett) when he was speaking to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the general policy of the government will be to limit or severely reduce the amount of transfer payments made to municipalities and, one would assume, to boards of education. If that is to be the case, will the boards of education and those interested in education not be in a good position to say that once again the Minister of Education has established a mandated program and that at a very crucial point she is prepared to pull out the financial rug?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: To my knowledge, there has not been any really good example of that complaint which registers most visibly with the members of the opposition. I do not believe the minister was speaking on behalf of boards of education. I think he was speaking to municipal governments only.

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of Education inform the House whether her ministry in the past two to three months has commissioned a Gallup poll to undermine Bill 82, the law that gives students in this province special education?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, in the four years I have been minister, we have not participated in a Gallup poll, except one, I believe, carried out for the annual meeting of the Canadian Education Association in Winnipeg in 1980. To my knowledge, there has been no other Gallup poll in any way involving the Ministry of Education.

MILK PRICES

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), I will put my question to the Premier. It concerns the price of milk.

Is the Premier aware that the farm gate price of milk is going up by 2.62 cents per litre next Monday, an increase that the farmers have been required, as I am sure he knows, to fully justify by their increased costs of production? Recognizing that dairies and supermarkets have marked up farm gate prices during the past three years by an average of 125 per cent and probably will use this as a further occasion for a substantial markup, and in view of the Premier's new concern for price restraint in Bill 179, will he tell us what discussion he or any of his ministers have had with the dairies and the supermarkets? What increases are they going to apply to consumers, and what has the Premier told them?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I have had no discussion personally with any of the retail outlets. Unlike the member for Welland-Thorold, I still have a number of milk producers in my constituency. Actually, some of the finest milk producers in Ontario are in my riding. I am very familiar with their increased costs and with the quality of the product.

I also know there is going to be a price increase. It will probably impact upon me more than on the member for Welland-Thorold, because that is probably a larger portion of my liquid intake than his; so I am aware of that part --

Mr. Kerrio: I wouldn't bet on that one.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, I never apologize for drinking milk, unlike the member for Niagara Falls. It is a very nutritious food. He should drink more of it. It would be better than that which he does drink on occasion.

Mr. Kerrio: That's not what I said.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I was referring to water.

Mr. Kerrio: I can't drink my water --

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, I understand the member cannot drink his water --

Mr. Sweeney: That's right; it isn't good. That's what we have been trying to tell the Ministry of the Environment for years.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can only say to the member for Kitchener-Wilmot, I used to try to tell him a lot of things when he was in his former position, and he never agreed; that is why he left education to come into politics.

I say to the member for Welland-Thorold, I will ask the minister. Obviously, the member has already made his determination, but I am delighted to know that he does sense farmers are entitled to some increase.

Mr. Swart: Will the Premier not agree that if it is more than a five per cent markup it might not be in accord with the spirit of his bill? Will he also not agree that milk is rather an essential product and that he knows the retail price of a litre of milk has gone up by more than 30 per cent in Toronto in the past 27 months?

Perhaps I should inform the Premier of two others things if he does not know them. The farmers' share of the retail price has dropped dramatically in the past five years, and seven of the nine other provinces do have some control of the price past the farm gate, which means that milk is now selling in Montreal, for instance, at 77 to 78 cents a litre, compared with 88 to 89 cents here.

Will the Premier put some meaning into his government's profession of concern about prices by getting in line with the rest of the provinces and bringing in legislation to control milk prices to supermarkets and to the consumers?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I find that one of the most intriguing questions asked by the member, whose questions are always intriguing and sometimes irrelevant. What I really heard the member saying was that he has convinced his leader, who is campaigning either in Timiskaming or York South, to change his position on controls and he would now support a control program.

AGGREGATE POLICY

Mr. J. A. Reed: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Natural Resources. The minister will recall a meeting we had on August 31, 1982, at which time the contentious issue of the 10-point aggregate policy was discussed. The minister will also recall giving an undertaking to respond publicly to the controversy surrounding that 10-point aggregate policy. The minister may also recall receiving a letter from my office about 10 days ago reminding him of the subject once more.

Now that yet another municipality is being forced to freeze land without official cabinet approval, does the minister agree with the public statement made by his own official, Mr. John Masham, who stated that the 10-point aggregate policy, which is now being used to influence these municipalities, has not been approved by cabinet? Will the minister undertake to withdraw the aggregate policy pending the introduction of the new aggregate bill that has been promised and the accompanying aggregate policy?

Hon. Mr. Pope: Mr. Speaker, the 10-point aggregate policy to which the honourable member is referring is a ministry policy document that was printed in 1979, has been referred to as policy since that time and had its basis in a 12-point policy approved by the cabinet in 1979.

3 p.m.

The fact of the matter is, as I indicated in reply to a question from the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) in the spring session, that at the same time we were introducing the new aggregates act we would be introducing a new, revised policy statement on aggregate extraction and that we hoped to incorporate that policy statement under a section of the Planning Act as a statement of government policy with respect to planning matters.

When I have been contacted by the media I have tried to make it clear that this policy is under review, that a new policy is going to be issued on the introduction of the aggregates act, and that the honourable members will have a chance to review both the new policy and the act with myself in some form we may establish.

I have also tried to indicate we are still committed to a program of resource mapping throughout Ontario. That does not mean we are freezing land or that we are telling the owners of the land what they have to do with their land. It means that, on a very organized basis under our strategic land use planning program, we are trying to indicate to the people of the province where the resources are, the extent of the resources and our own best prediction, based on our own experience and expertise in the ministry, of what the requirements will be for that resource in future.

There have been some disagreements with the policy statements contained in the district land use plans under our co-ordinated land use planning program in southern Ontario. We have received a number of comments from municipalities and interested individuals.

I have indicated on more than one occasion in this House that we do not have a final co-ordinated land use plan for southern Ontario in place, that we expect and want comments on the various proposals that have been set forth, and that we want proposals and ideas from the citizens. That is why we had the open houses and that is why we will be filing with the Legislature in this fall session the documents in response to our land use planning program. That is why all these reviews are going on.

I reiterate that a document which maps where the aggregate resources are located in a district does not mean we are tying up that resource where it is now and then not allowing the owner of the land to do what he will with that land under the provisions of the Planning Act, using the local planning authorities and the Planning Act of this province and using the Ontario Municipal Board process which is available to every citizen, both to bring forward proposals and to allow for objections to proposals. That system is still in place and we have not changed it.

We do require some recognition that when one is preparing official plans and zoning bylaws, one should have reference to the resources located in one's planning area, be it wetlands, be it flood plain lands, be it where the aggregates are located or be it where the forest resources are located. One should have reference to those things. It is not that one has to follow boundary by boundary with the plans and documents produced by the Ministry of Natural Resources, but a municipality should have reference to those things when making planning decisions.

Mr. J. A. Reed: The minister has admitted this whole issue is in a state of flux at the present time and he should remember that in two municipalities land has been frozen by official plan amendment. An attempt is being made at the present time to freeze 16,000 acres of land in Halton using this old policy. The minister himself admits the strategic land use plan is not in place or finalized. He admits the old policy is about to be replaced.

Why is he continuing to insist on twisting the arms of these municipalities in order to freeze land? As the minister will recall, the freezing issue was a debate that was carried on about agricultural land six years ago. Now he is getting his own civil servants to force the freezing of land. Will the minister not withdraw the policy?

Hon. Mr. Pope: A reference to aggregates in the official plan and inclusion of a schedule in an official plan which shows where the aggregate resources are located is not freezing the zoning or changing the zoning, with all respect.

I have looked into the member's allegations over the last two weeks. He knows that they are not true. He knows that we are not freezing anyone's land. He knows that the farmers are still continuing to farm on that land, and that to change the agricultural zoning it will be necessary to go through an Ontario Municipal Board approval process and through the municipal planning organizations. He knows all that. Why would he repeat the statement that we are freezing land when he knows we could not do that even if we wanted to?

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, surely the minister is giving an incorrect statement to the House. Does he not realize that the policy of his own ministry, which has been circulated to the Ontario Municipal Board and to municipalities, states that they may not zone that land for anything which will preclude the use of it for aggregates at some future date? It may be zoned for agriculture, but it may not be used to build on. Is he not aware of that statement in his own document? How can he stand here and say that he is not freezing the land?

Hon. Mr. Pope: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member should go back and read the document. He refers to point 7, and point 7 does not set up agricultural use for land against aggregate extraction. He has been repeating that same illogical argument throughout the Niagara Peninsula and he should stop it. He knows it is not true. Why does he not go out there and tell the people the truth?

WAGE AND PRICE RESTRAINT PROGRAM

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer. Is he aware that public health nurses in North York have a starting rate $8,100 below the rate for public health nurses in the city of Toronto and $6,100 below that of sanitation inspectors in North York who do similar work but who are mostly male? Is the Treasurer aware that the public health nurses have been negotiating for over a year to achieve catch-up with the inspectors and Toronto nurses and that it would require a 41.6 per cent increase to achieve parity with the Toronto nurses?

I would like to ask the Treasurer if he agrees that the nine and five formula in the restraint bill will not only scuttle the lengthy negotiations that have been going on but will leave the nurses farther behind due to the operation of the percentage principle? Does the Treasurer think the continuation and worsening of this shocking discrimination against a group of 110 dedicated health workers who do the preventive work in the schools and the community is fair treatment under the restraint bill?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I was not aware of those figures, although we recognized when the bill was brought in that there would be such cases. We will have to wait until the control year passes to address the differences.

PETITION

MCMICHAEL CANADIAN COLLECTION

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, under standing order 33(b), we the undersigned petition that the annual report of the Minister of Culture and Recreation for the year ending March 31, 1981, be referred to the standing committee on social development so that the committee may conduct an inquiry into the spending and proposed spending for renovations incurred by or on behalf of the McMichael Canadian collection.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Why don't you raise it at Mr. Taylor's dinner on Monday?

Mr. Peterson: I will.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will be there to help you. I will mention just what you are doing to help out.

[Later]

Mr. Speaker: I want to take a second or two to inform the Leader of the Opposition that his petition is in order.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

CITY OF CHATHAM ACT

Mr. Watson moved, seconded by Mr. Mitchell, first reading of Bill Pr28, An Act respecting the City of Chatham.

Motion agreed to.

3:10 p.m.

TOWN OF STRATHROY ACT

Mr. McNeil moved, seconded by Mr. Williams, first reading of Bill Pr38, An Act respecting the Town of Strathroy.

Motion agreed to.

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order relating to standing order 81(d), which reads, "The minister shall answer such written questions within 14 days." I wish to point out that the following questions from the Notice Paper of October 12, 1982, are in violation of that standing order: questions 230, 231, 232, 234, 235, 237, 238, 239, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272 and 273.

I cannot remember a time in the period I have been in this House that this standing order has been so flagrantly ignored by ministers of the crown. I hope, sir, you will undertake to speak to the appropriate ministers with respect to the enforcement of this standing order.

Mr. Speaker: I am sure the government House leader has taken note of your complaint and will prod his colleagues into action.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

INFLATION RESTRAINT ACT (CONTINUED)

Resuming the adjourned 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. Swart: Mr. Speaker, about the point of order made by my colleague the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan), I would like to comment that the answers we are getting to the written questions in this House now are not a great deal better than those we are getting to the oral ones.

I had the opportunity of Friday to make a few comments on Bill 179, and I do not intend to repeat those comments here, except to say how seriously we in this party consider this bill, because it is a philosophical bill. It sets out the philosophy of the Liberals and the Conservatives for dealing with the massive economic problems we have at the present time, those of inflation, economic stagnation and massive unemployment.

Whether it is the Conservatives here, the Liberals in Ottawa or, for that matter, the Liberals here, their sole answer is public wage restraint. That has the highest priority both in Ottawa and here. It is the only measure they have brought in to date to deal with our massive economic problems and it separates us very clearly from both the Liberals and the Conservatives.

It is such a philosophical straitjacket that we had the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) defending high interest rates the other day. Even though the number and the percentage of farmers who have gone under because of high interest rates is increasing dramatically, the member defended those interest rates.

To date, he has been the main spokesman for this bill of a sort of philosophical nature, so I presume he has been speaking for the party. He supported this bill and stated that, really, all that was wrong with it was it did not go far enough. It separates us from the Liberals and the Conservatives as nothing else can.

We believe high interest rates are the major economic cause of our problems at the present time. We believe high interest rates are not the result but the major cause of inflation, a major contributing factor to the stagnation and unemployment we have in this province and in this nation.

The solutions are to intervene directly to lower interest rates, to provide an economic plan for employment, to intervene where prices are unreasonably high and to provide greater purchasing power and fairer sharing for lower income groups. That is our philosophy. The philosophy of the Liberals and the Conservatives on the other side to deal with all these problems is wage restraint in the public sector.

I also pointed out that in this party we think Bill 179 is dangerous. As the Liberals and the Tories want, it turns the focus on unions and wages instead of on the real issues and the real solutions. The purpose of this bill is to do just that. It is a political purpose of the cheapest kind.

Last Friday, I accused the member for Huron-Middlesex of playing that game. He denied he was playing it. I have looked over Hansard since that time and I have to confess to him that he did not use the word "unions" in the speech he made. Instead, he talked about the workers of this province. Whether it is unions or workers, there can be no question he was primarily laying the blame on them and, therefore, trying to provide the solution by saying the answer to this problem is to force down the wages of the working people. Even if it means breaking contracts, that does not matter.

Subsequent to my comments on Friday, I picked up the St. Catharines Standard and found the Tories in Great Britain, not surprisingly, were doing exactly the same thing. That paper contained a Reuter story from Great Britain about the Conservative convention there. The heading is, "Tories Blame Union Leaders." It is rather interesting because it is so typical of what is going on here, but it is being done more subtly here than there.

The article says: "Britain's Conservative government sought Thursday to shift the blame for worsening unemployment, saying it is largely the fault of labour union leaders intent on fighting a class war. Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit told Conservatives at their annual conference that the government is making substantial progress in the fight against unemployment as it had in the fight against inflation."

3:20 p.m.

Then there is a surprising paragraph: "The number of jobless has doubled since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her right-wing government came to power in 1979. There is now a record 3.34 million, 14 per cent of the labour force. Tebbit, speaking in a debate on jobs, said, 'Militant left-wing union leaders have led their members down the road to unemployment for the sake of political dogma.'

"The debate reflected worries of many Conservatives that they probably will have to fight the next general election, probably in 1983, trying to explain high unemployment to the voters. Home Secretary William Whitelaw expressed these fears when he told a group of left-wing Conservatives that failure to tackle unemployment and an image as an uncaring party could hurt them at the polls."

We see the Conservatives here going down that same path trying to follow those policies and although the speeches have been a bit more subtle than this blatant statement, nevertheless they have clearly indicated or tried to leave the impression among the unemployed in this nation that it is those who are working who are the real enemy, pitting one against the other and following in the pattern of their mentor, Prime Minister Thatcher of Britain.

I just point out in no uncertain terms that if anybody is starting a class war in this province or in this nation it is the Conservatives over on that side of the House and their Liberal colleagues in Ottawa, because they are the ones who are taking action against the working people of this province and this nation.

I pointed out that in addition to the class nature of this bill, and it is a class bill, there is no question about that --

Mr. Rotenberg: It's a very classy bill.

Mr. Swart: Yes, the member is bashing public sector unions. He probably thinks that is classy. I have no doubt he does. Trying to pit the unemployed against the employed, that is probably classy in his view.

Mr. Rotenberg: We are not pitting anyone; you are the one who is starting the class war.

Mr. Swart: In addition to the class nature of the bill, in addition to its ineffectiveness, we oppose it for two other reasons. It is grossly unfair because it pits the public sector against the private and, even in the public sector, it pits all of those low-income employees against the doctors. They have discriminated against everyone, all the public employees who are paid out of the public purse, except the doctors.

As I said, the part of the bill dealing with prices is largely a façade. It is a joke, a hoax. This government's record of giving any price protection to consumers is a blank. There is a total absence of legislation and these proposals before us have no meaning. They are simply political and are put in there simply to make the bill saleable.

In question period today we had an indication of the insincerity. Seven out of the other nine provinces have legislation which controls the price of milk past the farm gate. One asks the Premier (Mr. Davis) about this now that he has introduced Bill 179 -- which conceivably has two purposes, to control public sector wages and to control at least a segment of consumer prices -- and he does not really even answer the question. He just evades the whole issue.

Even if the bill had some clauses in it which were meaningful, how could we trust a government like that to administer it so as to give any protection to the public?

I talked a moment ago about the difference of philosophy between us and the Liberals and Conservatives. Part of that philosophy is the whole matter of the division of income in this province and this nation, whether it is going to go to the workers or whether it is going to go to profits.

Part of the reason we have serious unemployment at the present time is the tremendous increase in profits during 1978, 1979 and 1980. I know profits are down substantially this year. They were down a little bit this year. It is partly a result, again, of many of these corporations dirtying their own nests. They are now getting stuck with the mess.

In 1978, profits went up 24.6 per cent over the previous year. There was no talk then about controls. In 1979, profits went up 45.2 per cent over and above the 24.6 per cent of the previous year, and in 1980 they went up another 12.7 per cent, far faster than the rate of inflation. In fact, in 1979 the group that was surveyed went up from $7.25 billion to $10.5 billion. At 45 per cent that is over $3 billion.

If that kind of money had been left with the consumers of this province, who then had bought new cars and had bought new refrigerators and all the other consumer items we needed, it would have gone a long way to keeping many more people employed. That money was really not needed at that time for greater investment; it was needed for purchasing power to buy the goods that we can consume. So today we do not have anything like enough purchasing power. But if we had used a few billions of that we would have had many more people working today.

As all of us know, Bill 179 has two sections. One of those sections, as I have already stated and as everybody else here has stated, deals with the matter of wage controls in the public sector. Conceivably, the other part of it deals with price control. I could not help but be amazed when the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), the man who has responsibility for the administration of that part of the bill -- I believe it is part III, if I am not wrong, the whole matter of price controls -- got up to speak on this bill and spoke for a total of nine minutes.

He dealt with what he considered to be the Tory philosophy of inflation, but he never mentioned one single word about administration of price controls or how he expected it to work. We heard a nine-minute speech from the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations with not one word about consumer prices or what he intended to do or what regulations he intended to enact, because the bill itself is very skimpy. I guess he probably thought that section of the bill was hardly worth mentioning, so he did not do it. And in that respect he was right.

Mr. Philip: He exempted tenants from protection, even.

Mr. Swart: Yes, he exempted them; no further legislation at all for tenants.

So we have this tremendous contrast between the way the government is going to treat prices and the way it is going to treat wages under Bill 179. First of all, let us compare the length of time it is going to apply. We know that for the wages of some groups this bill is going to apply for one year. It will apply to very few for just one year; for most it will be over one year. We know that for some other groups it is going to apply for two years.

I think it was the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) in this party who went into that to some extent. There are even areas where it will apply to wages for three years. The average is probably something like a year and a half or two years during which the workers in the public sector will have their wages controlled. By comparison, how long will any price control be effective? The bill lays it out very clearly: not one day more than one year.

Subsection 27(2) of this bill states: "Where the minister is of the opinion that a price increase may not conform with the criteria, he may refer the price increase to the board for investigation where the price increase occurs on or after the 21st day of September 1982 and before the later of" -- watch these words closely -- "(a) the 1st day of January 1984…" If the bill did not go any further than that, it could mean it was going to apply from September 21 of this year unti1 December 31 next year. But then there is clause (b), which says, "in the case of a public agency or a person regulated by a public regulatory agency that has implemented a price increase on or after the 21st day of September 1982 and prior to the 1st day of January 1984, the day one year from the last such increase."

3:30 p.m.

It is going to apply for 12 months, period, and nothing longer than that, even though the wage side of it can apply for one, two or three years.

Anybody who has looked at this bill knows that the wages are regulated. The government does not leave it to regulation to make the five per cent and nine per cent limit on these public sector workers; that is written right into the bill. But when we come to the price control section, there is nothing written into the bill. This is all it says: "The minister shall establish economic criteria by which price increases shall be reviewed."

Further in the bill, it says the minister may not even make any regulations to put in firm price controls. Section 32 states, "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations further defining the terms 'public agency' and 'public regulatory agency.'" That is the only power the minister has under this section of the bill. But if we go back to section 25, dealing with wages, it states, "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations (a) designating any compensation plan or class thereof to which this part applies…" and we have another five clauses of that, and then it gives him the wide-open section at the end. But he may not even set any regulation with regard to prices.

If the Lieutenant Governor in Council decides there should not be an increase in price of any commodity above five per cent, whether it is natural gas or whatever the case may be, the minister does not have the power to enact a regulation. He can make a statement but he does not even have the power to enact a regulation.

What kind of fairness is that? There is no question about it, this bill was consciously designed to make a façade of the price control section to sell its wage restraint section.

The government of this province has shown again and again in a great variety of ways that it is not interested in giving real protection to the consumers and is even less interested in consumer price protection. On September 29, the Toronto Star had an interesting local article, which I want to quote. It was by Rick Brennan, and it states as follows:

"Ontario does the least of any province to protect car owners, consumer advocate Phil Edmonston says. Edmonston, president of the Montreal-based Automobile Protection Association, made this claim Monday as he officially opened the association's Toronto office on Granby Street.

"'Ontario is one of the worst provinces, in my opinion, for consumer protection. It's a disaster. Your consumer ministers have been a disaster,' Edmonston told reporters.

"Edmonston cited as an example how Oldsmobile owners in Ontario who discovered their cars had Chevrolet engines in them lost $250 each and an extended warranty through the procrastination of Frank Drea, then consumer affairs minister.

"Edmonston said General Motors had agreed to the cash payment and warranty extension provided the provincial government didn't take further action. Drea wouldn't agree and did nothing else to aid the owners either, he said.

"'We want to get in Ontario a strong series of laws to protect the motorist,' Edmonston said."

It is his job to protect the motorist. We in this party want to get into legislation a strong series of measures for the general protection of consumers in this province, because they are at a tremendous disadvantage with this government. What the government has not done for car owners is indicative of what it has not done for consumers in general and what is not going to be done by this bill we have before us.

I am sure you will recall, Mr. Speaker, because you were here then, that the matter of these Chevmobiles was raised by myself and, I believe, one of the Liberal members, on a number of occasions with the then minister who, in his usual bombastic style, said, "I am not going to sell out the consumers and sign away their rights just to get $250." How phoney that is. He knows no consumer could sue General Motors for a sum of $200, $300 or $400 and take them all the way to the Supreme Court. That was his way of saying that our government was not going to intervene in this matter.

So those owners of these Chevmobiles, which I believe were 1978 models, got nothing when they could have had $250 just by the then Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations being willing to sign a document. But he refused to do it, just as he refuses to intervene in all other consumer matters.

The Deputy Speaker: Back to the bill.

Mr. Swart: I believe I was speaking to the bill, Mr. Speaker, because ostensibly there is a consumer price protection in there. I am trying to point out the need to strengthen that section of the bill to make it a meaningful section and to show how people are being ripped off. I intend to do that for a short period of time longer; to show how people are being ripped off and the need that we have for some genuine consumer protection in a bill that is the first even to mention consumer price protection. I think you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that is a reasonable item to discuss in the bill we have before us.

This bill we are discussing, according to the government's own pronouncements, is an inflation-fighting measure only. They said there was no other purpose to this bill, that the whole purpose of the bill is to fight inflation. So I want to say just a few words about my definition of inflation.

First, I want to provide proof of what I am saying by quoting from the nine-minute speech made by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) on September 23, between 5:51 p.m. and six o'clock. He said: "That is the reason this bill is here today. It is to address the issue of inflation…"

The member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell), who is not in the House at this time, also used the same type of phraseology in putting forward the same argument: that this bill was necessary; that it did not go far enough but was necessary to fight inflation; and that there was no other reason for it except to fight inflation.

I went through a major war and a Depression, and I can remember the term "inflation." I looked it up in the dictionary. Traditionally, "inflation" means there is too much money chasing too few goods. That is what inflation is about: inflation is when there is too much money in circulation and there are too few goods. Thus the price of the goods is driven up because there are too many people trying to buy the same products.

3:40 p.m.

The member for Huron-Middlesex dealt with the philosophy of the Liberal Party. He was the only one I heard deal with it at length, and he insisted he was an economist and had consulted all kinds of other economists and could not find anybody who disagreed with him. He said that here in Hansard: "The government must restrict the growth rate of the nominal money supply... Gearing the economy down from a high inflation rate to a low inflation rate will, in all probability, entail a prolonged period of high unemployment and high interest rates. For such a restrictive monetary policy to be successful it must accomplish two objectives. First, it must indeed lower the actual inflation rate. Second, and more difficult, it must lower inflation expectations... Under competitive market conditions, a declining rate of inflation requires excess supply conditions which can be generated either by increasing supply relative to demand or by reducing demand relative to supply."

In other words, he is saying, either there are not enough goods in our society or there is too much money. He is harping back to the philosophy of 50 years ago, that there is too much money chasing too few goods. That is our problem today, and, therefore, we have to cut back the money supply. What could be more ridiculous than that?

He went into this at great length, but it is absolutely ludicrous. Have we got too much money today in the hands of the people chasing too few goods? Are we not selling enough new cars because people have too much money or because there are not enough cars? Are we not selling enough houses? The housing situation is worse now than it has been in 22 years. Is that because people have too much money or because there are not enough houses on the market? That is absolutely crazy.

The word "inflation" as used today means only one thing: price escalation. That is what the word means today. We say we have an inflation rate of 12 per cent. That means the consumer price index goes up by 12 per cent. Today it has nothing to do with the matter of too much money chasing too few goods. A person who puts that argument forward is living in the pre-Second World War years. It was exactly the same thing during the Depression. It was not a case of a shortage of goods and too much money in circulation. It was the same thing we have today. People did not have enough money to buy the goods we could produce and were producing, and people were laid off and they had less money. It was the same cycle then as now. Anybody proposing that, whether it is the government or the Liberal Party, is not in touch with the real world and the realities of the situation we are facing today.

I want to make one other point before I leave this issue of inflation; that is, price escalation. If we want to deal with it realistically, it is price escalation in relation to average purchasing power. When we talk about an inflation rate of 12 per cent, that means prices have gone up by 12 per cent, but if in this past year the average income has gone down by three per cent in relationship to that, we have an inflation rate of 15 per cent. We have to compare the two if we are really going to compare the effects of inflation.

As I said, the definition of "inflation" is really escalating prices. If we want to do something about inflation, we hold prices down. That sounds very simple. I realize it is not that simple, but the objective must be to hold prices down if we really want to fight inflation.

Of course, there are several factors that set the end price, including wages; we know that in this party. But -- and in this we again disagree with the Liberal and Conservative parties -- the end price to consumers is not always based on costs. The other two parties are quite willing to say that if the private sector deals with all of this, everything will be fine. I am going to go into that a bit, but that simply does not work in the prices we pay today, for many items are not really based on the costs of production.

We do not subscribe to the blind faith that the price is always right and that there can be no government intervention. In fact, such intervention is sometimes frequently necessary if the consumer is going to get a fair deal. On Friday morning, when he was asking a question, the deputy leader of this party, the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds), read into the record a statement from Mr. Biddell on price controls. Members will remember that. It was carried in CA Magazine. Of course, Mr. Biddell is now the head of Ontario's Inflation Restraint Board.

Under the heading "Yes, We Can Beat Inflation in Canada by Keeping the Prices Right," he said this: "Simply put, high inflation is a continuing unacceptable rate of increase in the prices we have to pay for the goods and services we consume. To contain inflation effectively we must slow down the rate at which prices are increasing. We must control prices." Again this is, I guess, a fairly logical assumption.

He goes on to say: "Most people believe that this is just what the UK, the US and then Canada did under our respective anti-inflation programs the last five or six years. The fact is that, except for a very brief temporary price freeze in the UK and the US programs, none of us did" control prices, from what he is saying.

"We did not control prices," he said. "We attempted to control some profit margins, and we controlled wages and salaries and we controlled dividends, all in the hope that by doing so we would inhibit price increases. Our efforts had some success, but not nearly what we might have had and could in fact achieve now if we set about it in a more direct fashion: by directly controlling price increases."

That is a quotation from Mr. J. L. Biddell, who is head of the Inflation Restraint Board at the present time.

I just want to pick up on what he is saying. I want to say this because I think it is important for us to say it, and particularly in this party, because we believe it; that is, competition is perhaps the major and the most effective way for consumers to get the best products or services at the best prices. It may be a hell of a way of setting economic priorities in our society. It may be a terrible way of providing for employment, of doing economic planning. But, generally speaking, true competition will give us the best product at the best price. We in this party believe that, and I hope all parties throughout this House believe that.

But what we believe that the other parties do not believe is that if you do not have true competition, then you have to intervene to get it. And if you are dealing with monopolies or with only a few companies, you are not getting that competition, you are not controlling the price to consumers; then you have to provide some alternative, because consumers have the right to assume that they are getting a good product at a reasonable price.

There are three situations when a consumer pays too much unless the government intervenes. One of these is on natural monopolies, whether we are talking about Bell Canada, natural gas, hydro or cable TV. Any private company that has a monopoly will exploit the consumer unless government intervenes, and government has an obligation to intervene and to intervene in a way that is going to adequately protect the consumers.

3:50 p.m.

The second area where we need to intervene and where consumers are paying too much is where there is lack of competition. I can point to several examples, such as the production of salt in this province or the production of prepared cereals within this nation. There is also the processing and distribution of milk, and the matter of ethylene glycol for our radiators, where we have two companies in this nation that are producing it and quite frankly admit they are not competing. Government has to intervene and should have intervened.

The third area where we need to have government intervention and where consumers are paying too much at present is in the matter of multinational companies, which to a very large extent control the market in this nation. Usually, their headquarters are in the United States. In many instances they automatically assess the dollar differential against the price in Canada, even though the product is made in this nation and there should be no dollar differential whatsoever. I shall be giving examples of two or three of those, and I shall be giving more than that in the areas of tissues and detergents, where we have this situation.

Make no mistake about it, these are a very real part of the reason for high consumer prices. In many areas they are unreasonably high. If anyone does not agree with that, I suggest that he talk to the consumers.

I had a person say to me the other day: "You know, going into a supermarket and going down the aisle is almost a religious experience. You see the women looking at the price tags and they say, 'Oh my God, oh my God.'" People are concerned about the rising prices that we have in our society, and they expect a government to deal with the situation such as we have today and to intervene on their behalf when competition does not give the needed protection to the consumers.

I want to go into the issue of the excessive rates we are paying for home heating to the Consumers' Gas system and the total inadequacy of the government to deal with this matter. They already have an agency set up to protect the consumer and to talk about what is needed in this bill to give that needed protection.

Last February, Consumers' Gas was awarded a 32 per cent increase in domestic rates from February 1981. That is not my figure; it is the figure of the Consumers' Gas.

I have a letter here from Mr. R. W. Martin who, as members well know, is the president of that company. He lists all the rates, the increases that have been given to Consumers' Gas since 1964. He also gives the figures for the average bill. He points out that in February 1981 the average home owner paid $657.02 for gas for heating, and in February 1982 the average home owner paid $870.64, which is an increase of 32 per cent in one year. At the same time, this government is saying to public employees, "You should be satisfied with a five per cent increase."

The increase that Consumers' Gas got in February 1981 amounted to $77 million for its own purposes. It had nothing to do with the pass-through of costs by the energy agreement between Ottawa and the provinces. It had everything to do with the increase that was awarded to them by the Ontario Energy Board. In fact, prior to that time, they were getting something like -- these figures are rough, but they are not too far off -- $225 million.

Consumers' Gas was to distribute the gas it bought from the pipeline coming from the west, and it got $77 million more on top of that $225 million for distribution purposes. Even if we take out all their additional costs, interest rates, dividends and everything else, they still will have, they predict, a 20 per cent increase in profits up to October 1, 1982. That is what that raise is going to give them.

The markup they got in February 1981 on the wholesale price of gas, including taxes, was 60 per cent. The traditional markup they had been getting over the years was in the neighbourhood of 20 per cent. They said all this to me; so I have it and I can provide anybody here with the figures. Traditionally, they had been getting about 20 per cent. But in February 1982, when we were in tough economic times, when all kinds of people, not just consumers and not just residences, but businesses and so on, cannot afford any additional costs, they gave them a markup of 60 per cent of the increase in the wholesale cost of gas.

Consumers' say publicly: "We have to have a lot more money for distribution because we are doing a lot of conversion. There are many people going off oil and going on gas." I checked out the figures they submitted to the Ontario Energy Board and I found they are up only very slightly over their projections for 1982, for which they were awarded this increase over what they got last year. Not only that, the federal government this year awarded $15 million to the gas companies in Ontario for the changeover from oil to gas for the extension of lines in nonprofitable areas, and Consumers' got $7.4 million of that $15 million in addition to this increase they have been awarded.

That increase was consciously designed to give greater profits to Consumers' Gas, and that is exactly what it did. In the application they have before the board now, they admit their profits after taxes will go up from $102 million last year -- that is their projection this year -- to $137 million this year, a 35 per cent increase in profits, and the increase was consciously designed to do that.

We in this party thought that was a bit unreasonable, so we thought we should appeal it. There is a provision under the Ontario Energy Board Act that anyone may appeal, if so desiring, any award made and the appeal goes to cabinet. We appealed on March 22, saying that was an unreasonable award. Immediately after that, Consumers' applied for another $83-million increase on top of the $77 million they got last year. They applied for another $83-million increase this year for themselves for the distribution of natural gas, which would have put the rates up again by about another 23 per cent. They would have put it up this year, after having an increase of 32 per cent last year.

There was a woman in Port Colborne, by the name of Lillian Clark, who decided this was a bit much. She had watched the debate here in the Legislature, had read Hansard, had heard the answers from the Minister of Energy and others defending the increases they had last year and, more than that, saying that they were not going to intervene this year with the Ontario Energy Board, that they were not going to tell the OEB things were tough and they should keep their increases to a minimum, that they were not even going to tell the board they should have a policy, a rate structure, that would conserve energy. They would not even tell them that.

4 p.m.

She decided the only way we could get some restraint there was to start a petition. She collected some 45,000 names on a petition that was presented in this Legislature and in the end was presented to the OEB hearings on the new rates.

Consumers' Gas proposed that this year again their profits should increase from 16.25 per cent return on equity to 17.25. In fact. while the average profits of other corporations generally have gone down 50 per cent this year, Consumers' Gas is saying its profits should go up, that it should increase its return on equity from 16.25 to 17.25 and, in so doing, increase the base rate that consumers are paying from $6.23 up to $17.25 monthly. Whether one uses any gas or not, one would have to pay $17.25 monthly.

As a result of that petition, and perhaps to some extent as a result of our badgering the government, Consumers' Gas made a change in their application. It appeared on the surface to be a great improvement, that they were giving a great concession to the public in cutting down the requested increase. They said they were cutting the $83 million to $48 million, that they would really go along with a six per cent increase for this year and would be happy with it, and they appeared to be the good guys.

That was really nothing more than a con job on the public, because they really did not decrease what they were asking for one iota. Oh yes, they said they would go down from $83 million to $48 million in their request, but the difference, the $35 million, was money they owed the federal government for deferred taxes: they would not bother paying that back this year; anyway, they were getting a very cheap rate of interest on it. They did not drop any of their demands for their own purposes.

The six per cent was an equally big con job, because what they said was, "We are willing to accept a six per cent increase in the price to the consumer if we get all of that." Do members know what that means? Suppose you have a producer, a processor and a retailer. It is as if the retailer says, "Yes, I will go along with the five per cent increase in the retail price of the product as long as I get it all," and the processor says, "Well, I will be satisfied with a five per cent increase as long as I get it all," and the producer says, "I will be satisfied with a five per cent increase as long as I get it all."

It adds up to a 15 per cent increase, and that is exactly what this added up to. In fact, it was over a 15 per cent increase that Consumers' Gas wanted in the amount of money they were going to get for their own purposes this year. Yet they made all the headlines by saying, "We will go along."

In fact, I was looking at Union Gas too, if I can just pick this out here. Darcy McKeough -- members will remember that he had something to do with the Conservative government here -- made the comment, "We're going to ask for only a 4.4 per cent increase this year." That 4.4 per cent increase means a 20 per cent increase in the amount of money that is going to go to Union Gas for their own purpose of distribution. It is kind of a con job they are doing.

The headline in the financial section of the Globe and Mail is that Union Gas is going along with a 4.4 per cent increase, trying to make out they are good guys when in fact they have applied for a 20 per cent increase in their return for themselves. Of course, on top of that 4.4 per cent there will be the added costs of the wholesale price of gas.

Mr. Speaker, it has just been drawn to my attention, and I want to draw to your attention, that we do not have a quorum in the House. Therefore, I think we should cease this debate until we get one.

Mr. Speaker ordered the bells to be rung.

4:09 p.m.

The Acting Speaker Mr. Cousens): We have a quorum.

Mr. Swart: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it rather important that there be some discussion on the prices section of this bill because there has been practically none to date and not one word out of the government, as I pointed out previously. All they deal with is wages. There has been not a word about prices and obviously they are not going to do anything about it. There is no sincerity.

I was talking about the tremendous increases in the rates awarded to Consumers' Gas Co. They had asked for 32 per cent this year. We appealed the 32 per cent back on March 22 of last year. Let me put it another way. The award amounted to a 32 per cent increase in gas rates for the residential consumers of this province.

We wrote letters, we raised it in the House and we wondered what had happened to the government. Month after month, we had no reply to the appeal which we had made and arguments which we had documented in that appeal.

Then five days before September 21, we got a notice from them that our appeal had been turned down, five days before they were going to restrict the wages of the public servants. Five days before they were going to bring in a bill which, ostensibly, has something to do with controlling certain prices, particularly administered prices that come under the jurisdiction of the Ontario government, they gave that 32 per cent increase. Not one cent did they knock off that.

Surely, it is not coincidental that they brought that in five days before this. They did not want that cluttering up the so-called price control system. They did not want questions being asked in the House such as, "Are you now going to allow a 32 per cent increase in the gas rates to Consumers?" No. That would have been rather embarrassing. So they bring in this approval without giving a single, solitary reason for allowing that excessive award.

What have they done since that time with regard to the new award? The Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch) has sent a letter to the Ontario Energy Board saying that, in making its decision, the board should give consideration to the restraint program of the Ontario government. A copy of that, of course, went to Consumers' Gas. What did Consumers' Gas do on this $48-million request which they have, which was to increase the profits for this year? Consumers' Gas said, "We will cut $1.7 million from that."

Do the members know where they are going to cut it from? It will be cut from the wages of the workers. Profits are still going to go up. There will be no reduction in the request at all. The only reduction since the first request -- there is $83 million extra -- has been to say, "We are not going to ask for the money to pay back the federal government." Now they are saying, "We are going to knock the wages down by $1.7 million." But for their profit and for their other income, they are going to leave those requests where they are at the present time.

Everyone here knows that those gas rates are going to hurt commerce, they are going to hurt home owners and they are going to hurt the industries of this province, many of which cannot afford that kind of an increase this year. If the government had any sincerity in wanting to control prices, what they would have done this year would have been to have frozen the rates. After a 32 per cent increase last year, they should have frozen the gas prices and allowed not one penny more in the rates for this year. They would still have had adequate profits. But no, they did not have the courage to do that sort of thing. They did not even have the concern to do it.

I want to look at another monopoly, Bell Canada, that giant Canadian company which last year asked for a $550 million increase in revenues. It received $440 million out of the $550 million it had asked for. This year it has made profits of $559 million net, which is up 100 per cent over the previous year.

In fact, profits are 25 per cent higher at Bell Canada than ever before in the period ending at the end of last year. Then, for the first six months of this year, its profits went up to $303 million, 19 per cent above last year.

Last year it was a 100 per cent increase and in the first six months of this year it went up another 19 per cent. Of course, most of that increase it received last fall did not show up in last year's profits. It is showing up in this year's profits. Not only that, here in Metropolitan Toronto it applied an eight per cent increase last May to home owners' rates because the population had passed a certain number in this metropolitan area.

The Ontario government was involved in those hearings. The Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) assured me when I raised the issue with him a year ago that they were going to have representation there and they were going to be tough on this. They were not going to permit Bell Canada to get anything other than what it was entitled to. I wonder how many people in this nation think it was entitled to a 100 per cent increase in net profits last year and another 19 per cent in the first six months of this year, other than what it was entitled to. I wonder how many people in this nation think it was entitled to a 100 per cent increase in net profits last year and another 19 per cent in the first six months of this year.

Where was the Ontario government? It was conned. There is no question about it. The member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) knows that. How much have the rates gone up there for Bell Canada? The member for Cochrane North knows how they have been conned. Where was the Ontario government, which was supposed to be fighting on the consumer's side in those hearings?

Where is the government of this province now when Bell has been battling for and has won corporate restructuring which will take a lot of its operation out from under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and it will be able to increase those profits or shift them from one area to another? There has not been a word out of this Conservative government in opposition to that restructuring program.

The government in Ottawa is not that averse to seeing that Bell Canada gets a tremendous income, but if it had a little encouragement from this government it might intervene. There are a few of the cabinet ministers, including I believe Mr. Ouellet, who say they are thinking of changing legislation to prevent this corporate restructuring from taking place.

Where is the government of Ontario? Is it in there saying to the federal government, "Yes, you must do that because the Bell users of this province are going to pay much higher rates if this corporate restructuring goes through"? No, there has not been a peep out of the government. That is the government which has introduced this bill that mentions prices but incorporates nothing in the legislation which will do anything effective about it.

What a dismal record on which to place any hopes of this government protecting the public on consumer prices in the regulated sector.

I now want to turn to the second area, and that is why consumers pay more for many products than they should because of lack of competition, not monopoly per se but because for one reason or another only a few companies produce a particular product and there is only marginal competition.

First, I want to talk about the salt producers in this province. There are three companies which produce salt: the chemical division of Domtar, which produces Sifto and other salts; a Canadian salt company which produces --

4:20 p.m.

The Acting Speaker: I would ask the member to tie this in, somewhere, with the second reading of Bill 179.

Mr. Swart: That is a reasonable request. The way I am going to tie it in is by demanding that the government bring in legislation, or change its present legislation, to include measures which will provide for more competition. I have to point these out as examples because they are very real.

There is the Canadian Salt Co., which produces Windsor brand salt and others; and the Iroquois Salt Co., which produces only road salt. So, in fact, we have only two companies in Ontario theoretically competing for the market for table salt.

There is an interesting aspect of this with regard to road salt. For the last 10 or 12 years every salt company in Ontario has bid the same price on salt to municipalities. Every municipality that asks for bids for salt gets an identical quote for the price of salt, the only difference being transportation charges.

I was municipal affairs critic and the municipalities wrote to me about this. They have written to the combines investigation branch saying this should be investigated, but the combines legislation is not strong enough to apply so the salt companies continue charging identical prices. There are only two which supply the market for table salt, so obviously they have a nice, cosy rate.

I have here some rather important examples. I have Sifto salt which, as I have said, is made by the chemical division of Domtar, in a two-kilogram package. I also have a package of Sterling salt which I bought in the United States. We have investigated its wholesale price and so on. The package I have has a net weight of five pounds.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Mel, there are no cameras here now.

Mr. McClellan: This is for your benefit, so that you will learn something.

Mr. Swart: It is for your benefit; yes, it is.

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member has the floor.

Mr. Swart: These are important items; when we are putting on wage controls we want to have some real price control. I want to show that we do not have it.

This Sterling salt, five pounds or 2.27 kilograms, sells in almost any store in the United States for 85 cents to 90 cents and was bought within the last 10 days, as were all the items I have here.

Sifto salt is made in Canada and has nothing to do with the United States prices. A two-kilogram box, which contains about a quarter less than the package of Sterling salt, sells for $1.41, almost twice the price of the Sterling salt. But there is more competition in the US market and the price, therefore, is substantially lower than it is here.

I also have a one-kilogram package of Sifto salt, which sells here for 75 cents. I have Sterling salt in a 737-gram package, which contains about three quarters of what we have in the Sifto salt package and sells for 29 cents. One would think that is worth investigating; that the government would start looking into something like that to find out why there is such a substantial difference in those prices.

It shows up in another way, too. As one would expect it would, it shows up in the profits of the salt companies; as much as we can dig them out, because Domtar does not separate all of its products, even its chemical division.

The Canadian Salt Co. has had a steady increase in profit. Last year, a pretty tough year for most companies, their net profits went up from $8.2 million to $9.9 million. That is more than a 20 per cent increase in their profits last year. Why? Obviously, because we do not have adequate competition legislation in this nation and there is a place for the Ontario government to get into the act. I will be talking about that a bit more later.

Let me go through another area where there is lack of competition in the items that consumers buy, and that is with regard to cereals. There are five companies that produce cereal products in this nation. Four of them are quite large. Those five companies are Kellogg, General Mills, General Foods, Nabisco and Quaker Oats. They are the same companies that produce in the United States. There are more companies but these companies also operate in the United States and, of course, their headquarters are, by and large, in the United States.

A little over a year or a year and a half ago the Federal Trade Commission there had charged Kellogg, General Mills and General Food Corp. with overcharging the public by 15 per cent, of taking $1.2 billion because of their monopoly practices between 1958 and 1972 -- practices which they say are still continuing in the United States. Since that time, the United States, under the Reagan administration, has weakened the legislation to a very substantial degree. The charges have not been proceeded with but they are well documented for anybody who wants to read about them.

In this country, the situation is actually worse. We do not have as many companies competing and also our federal competition laws are much weaker than they are even in the United States. I just want to give an example of what is taking place with regard to prices. Just so we keep this within context, I want to point out that this is all related to this bill and to the need for sections of this bill to prevent these things from happening.

In the supermarkets, the price of Cheerios -- one of the better products nutritionally -- has gone up from 86 cents to $1.63. That was a 95 per cent increase since January 1979. That has gone up a bit faster than wages have gone up, has it not? It is a bit faster than the farmer's return has gone up on these sorts of things too.

I have here a 300-gram package -- that is 10.6 ounces -- of Cheerios which sells for $1.63. We can buy the same Cheerios in the United States. This box here is 10 ounces -- 283 grams; about five per cent less -- is $1.09 compared to $1.63. Why? These are produced here in Canada and are not imported from the United States. They are produced here. Of course, perhaps the transportation costs are a bit higher here. They are not any higher in Ontario than they are in the United States, but if there is going to be a more or less uniform price across the nation the transportation costs are perhaps a bit higher. Actually our energy costs were lower, and still are a little lower, than the costs in the United States. Oats do not sell for any more here than they do in the United States. The main reason, once again, is that there is no competition in the cereal field. There is no real competition and so the consumers are being ripped off. We need much stronger competition legislation.

4:30 p.m.

Even in these tough times, cereal companies are not really doing too badly. I would like to read members a section of the annual report of the Quaker Oats Co.: "The Quaker Oats Co. of Canada Ltd. achieved record sales and earnings in fiscal 1982. Net sales rose 15.1 per cent to $184 million and net income improved by 21.3 per cent to $5.9 million. This followed a year of exceptional progress in fiscal 1981, and during the past five years net sales and net income, before extraordinary items, have grown in a compounded average annual rate of 11 per cent and 14.5 respectively."

I think most of the workers of this province would be happy if they had a compounded increase in their wages during the last five years of 14.5 per cent. But whom does the government apply restraint against? It lets these companies go scot-free and applies restraint against the public workers, reduces them to five per cent.

In case members think that is an exception, perhaps I should also read them a section of the annual report put out by the chairman of General Mills: "Despite the widespread economic problems that characterized the past 12 months, I am pleased to report that General Mills' family of companies experienced another successful year. Consolidated sales revenue in fiscal 1982 rose 5.2 per cent to $202.5 million, compared with $192.6 million in fiscal 1981. Net earnings, before an extraordinary loss item, were $9.5 million, an all-time record and 27.6 per cent greater than those of the previous fiscal year." The profits of this fiscal year were up 27 per cent.

Mr. Cooke: They are really hurting.

Mr. Swart: Yes, they are really hurting. There is no question about that.

Kellogg has not really done too badly either. I have a couple of their boxes of cornflakes here with me today. I have a package of Kellogg's cornflakes, 525 grams. It sells in the supermarket for $1.67. That has gone up from $1.53 since June. These were all bought either in Loblaws or in Dominion, our two largest supermarkets.

I have another package of cornflakes brought over from Niagara Falls, New York, and this package has in it 680 grams compared to 525. It sells for $1.49 over there, so the Canadian price is some 60 per cent higher. It is the same company; it makes the Kellogg's cornflakes here. Of course, Kellogg's has also not done badly in recent times. Incidentally, that $1.67 box of cornflakes was only 95 cents back in 1979 -- a 75 per cent increase since then.

Mr. Haggerty: What are the wages in comparison?

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Robinson): Order.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order. Recognizing that the official opposition wants to debate it with the third party, I am sure it could do it somewhere else and enable the member for Welland-Thorold to continue.

Mr. Swart: That sounds reasonable, Mr. Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: Order. I have asked the member for Erie (Mr. Haggerty) particularly, who is being responded to by the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye), to please allow the member for Welland-Thorold to continue his speech.

Mr. Cooke: The member for Windsor-Sandwich is not here.

Mr. Swart: It might interest the House to know that Kellogg's were able to increase their profits this year by something like 20 per cent. That is fabulous. Their profits went up from something like $39 million to something like $56 million. That poor company, which pays a minimum to the farmers and I guess cannot even afford to have a union, got 30 per cent return on equity this last year.

Mr. Haggerty: How about the difference in the price of milk over there? You should mention that.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Swart: I was just going to start talking about milk because it is another area where there is, I say frankly, a substantial amount of competition but where the competition has decreased dramatically in recent years. Because of that, consumers are paying a great deal more for their milk than they were a few years ago or than they should be paying at present. Milk now sells for 88 cents. That is before the increase next week, about which I asked a question of the minister today.

Mr. Haggerty: That is within the guidelines.

Mr. Swart: That will not be within the guidelines. That was an interjection of the member for Erie.

The Acting Speaker: Please ignore the interjections and continue with your remarks.

Mr. Swart: I predict that the increase on that milk next week will be more in the order of 10 to 15 per cent when the dairies and the supermarkets tack on their increases along with what the farmers get. Oh yes, the farmer is below the five per cent, you can be sure of that, and he has to justify every penny he gets for it; but the dairies and the supermarkets, which do not have to justify it, are going to add on a substantial amount.

The price of milk now is 88 or 89 cents a litre. It was 67 cents in July 1980, 27 months ago. It has gone up 21 cents, or 32 per cent. Out of that increase of 21 cents -- and the member for Middlesex (Mr. Eaton) will know this -- the farmer got only 8.25 cents. Only about 40 per cent of the increase went to the farmer.

Of course, there is a very real reason for it. The government does not have any control past the farm gate. They make the farmer justify every additional dollar he gets per hundredweight, but once it gets past the farm gate the dairies and the supermarkets are free to do as they like with the price. The figures bear this out, if I can find my copy here underneath these cereals.

4:40 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Eaton: You have so many figures you are confusing yourself. You can't find them.

Mr. Swart: No, I am not confusing myself because I know them by heart. It always helps if one can quote them from a document. The facts are that the share going to the farms now is substantially less than it was five years ago. By less, I mean about seven per cent less than it was five years ago.

Yet in those other provinces which have control after the farm gate, the share the farmer has been getting has been held equal or almost equal. In Quebec, where they have perhaps the most comprehensive legislation to control the price of milk, it sells for about 10 cents a quart less than it does here. That varies whether one is talking about one quart or one litre or two litres or three quarts or four litres. I have the prices here which I just secured from the milk marketing board in Quebec.

One litre of homogenized milk sells there for 77 cents; I am talking about the Montreal area and comparing it with the Toronto area. It sells here for 88 cents, 11 cents more. They have a minimum and maximum price there too under their controls. The maximum one can charge for it in the Montreal area, an urban area, is 82 cents. The price here is 88 cents.

Two litres of homo in Ontario are $1.72. In Montreal it sells for $1.52 and the maximum price they can charge is $1.62. For four litres of homo -- they do not have the three quarts here -- the minimum is $2.88 and the maximum is $3.12. It sells for $2.88 in Montreal. If we go to two per cent milk, we find a litre here costs 87 cents. It is only one cent less than the homo milk here. In Quebec it is 73 cents. It is four cents less than the homo in Montreal. Two litres sell here for $1.70 and in Montreal for $1.45, while four litres sell for $2.62.

They have comprehensive control on the prices after the farm gate. That ought to indicate clearly we need that same kind of legislation in this province. That kind of legislation should be in Bill 179 or in another bill tabled at the same time. I have tabled such a private member's bill in this House. If the government were sincere in doing something about prices, it would move into an essential commodity like milk and do what others have done in most other provinces in this nation.

As I look around again, I think I am right in saying we do not have a quorum. I draw that to your attention, Mr. Speaker. Do we have 20 people here?

The Acting Speaker: I am informed by the table a quorum is present. While I am on my feet, I would also apologize to the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) for confusing him with the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. Cooke).

Mr. Roy: Have you got a problem?

Mr. Swart: My figures are correct. I will stake them up against the member's.

Another area where the public is paying too much for an essential commodity is in the area of table sugar. I am sure everyone here knows that in the spring of 1980 the federal government launched a combines action against Atlantic Sugar, Redpath Sugars and St. Lawrence Sugar. It stated they controlled the market and were charging excessive prices. They were convicted in court and a fine of $750,000 was assessed because it was a very serious offence. That was subsequently appealed and they were acquitted.

In acquitting them, the judge pointed out that the federal competition laws were weak. He said there was no question but that they had combined together to set prices which were higher than they otherwise would have been with competition, but they had to prove three things. They had to prove not just that they had combined, but they had to prove intent, and as a result they were acquitted.

Another area in which I have done some investigation over the years is in the matter of the price of ethylene glycol here compared to what is charged in the United States. There are only two companies that make ethylene glycol in Canada. One is Union Carbide and the other is Dow Chemical. Today is a most significant time to mention it because I just checked out the prices.

I have a US gallon of Prestone from the United States purchased at a K-Mart for $3.87, not on sale. I have four litres bought in Canada. I paid $8.88 for this one. The prices vary. At Home Hardware it is $7.99. At Woolco it is $9.49 regular, but on sale for $7.44. K-Mart, the same company that sells it in the United States for $3.87, sells it in Canada for $8.88. At Food City we can buy it for $7.99.

Regardless of where it is purchased, the price here is double what it is in the United States. All of our Prestone is made here. We do not import it. The basic ingredient of ethylene glycol is oil. About two or three years ago when the price of ethylene glycol in Canada went to double the price in the United States, our oil prices were substantially below what they were in the United States.

My assistant and I talked to these companies to find out why they had increased the prices and they said there was a shortage here in March 1980.

Mr. Stokes: There is a glut.

Mr. Swart: From March 15, 1979, to March 18, 1980, they raised the wholesale price from 86 cents a litre to $1.53 a litre. Then they built a new plant in the west and now they have a glut, as the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) has said. Only two companies make it and they are not about to lower the price. Once again the consumers in this province --

Mr. Stokes: Isn't the free market system wonderful?

Mr. Swart: Isn't the free market system wonderful?

Mr. Ruston: If you buy it in the right store, it's all right. You bought it in the wrong store.

Mr. Swart: The member should go out and get it for $3.87.

Mr. Ruston: I did.

Mr. Swart: The consumers are being ripped off on items where there is lack of competition. Where there is competition, it is a different situation. Where there is lack of competition, neither this government nor the federal government will intervene to protect consumers on these matters.

4:50 p.m.

I have used these examples to show what takes place when we have monopolies, such as Consumers' Gas, or when we have a lack of competition. I mentioned one other area, and I want to elaborate on that a bit at present, that is, why consumers are paying too much for what they are buying here. That is because the multinationals add the Canadian-United States dollar differential in setting the Canadian price, even though the goods are totally produced here. Often this is combined with the lack of competition in this country.

I would just point out examples of a product I have displayed in this House before. It is a classic, so I think perhaps I should display it here again today. That is the matter of tissue and, in particular, the big seller, which is toilet tissue. I should immediately say that all the tissue that is sold in this nation is produced in this nation. None of it is imported at all; it is all produced, with one exception, by the multinationals.

The example I have here is in a typical colour that I thought it would be well for me to demonstrate. This was bought in Canada for $1.89. It is Cottonelle, produce by Scott Paper, if I remember correctly the name of the company that produces this bathroom tissue. The other Cottonelle I bought in the United States, four rolls for $1.29. There is quite a discrepancy between $1.89 and $1.29. That is about 50 per cent more we are paying for it here. It is really a bit more than that because these two are not the same size. The one in the United States is a bit larger than the one here in Canada because they are still on the imperial system and we are now on the metric system, so they have cut down on the size here from what it used to be. So we are probably talking about a difference of about 60 per cent. All of it is made in this country.

Mr. Piché: Is it not against the rules to bring all these in? If you look up the rules you will see he cannot do that.

The Acting Speaker: Order. I would ask the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché), if he is making a point of order, to please do it in the correct manner, and if he is not making a point of order, to please come to order.

Mr. Piché: I will give you five bucks for the lot.

Mr. Mackenzie: That is about how seriously they take the bill over there.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Swart: You will notice I have refrained from these kinds of comments to date. Members of this House will know I raised this matter before at some length with the then Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, the member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Drea), and he promised to do a bit of an investigation into it. He came back with figures that he said showed the wholesale price in the United States really was no higher than it was here. I also remember he had to back off those figures because he found out they were wrong.

The price of the Canadian product is not set in relationship to what it costs to produce it here. About four companies produce it here. Studies done in the United States show that if there are only four or five companies producing an article there is not full competition. The price set on that product here is the United States price, plus the 20 per cent of the dollar differential, plus the import duty. There is about a 17 per cent import duty. They set the price here just at a level where the other companies in the United States, the smaller companies, will not bring it across the border to compete against the four companies which make it here.

Once again, because of the indifference of the Conservative government here and of the Liberal government in Ottawa and because they will not intervene in these matters or introduce more effective competition legislation, consumers are paying far too much for the products they buy in this province.

I also want members to see some brands of detergents which are sold in both Canada and the United States. Some of you will have heard of advertising done by Procter and Gamble Inc. with their product Tide. This box, containing 2.38 kilograms or five pounds, four ounces, sells in the United States, where I bought it, for $3.37. This box contains 2.4 kilograms, which is about a half of one per cent larger. In a supermarket here, one will pay for that, as I did, $5.23, which is quite a contrast to the price charged in the United States.

This product is made in Canada. They import, so they tell us, a small part of the ingredients from the United States, but 90 per cent of the ingredients are produced in this country. There are really only three companies that are in the business of producing detergents: Lever Brothers Ltd., Procter and Gamble Inc. and Colgate-Palmolive Inc., all multinational companies.

The studies show that if only four companies are producing a product there is not adequate competition to keep the price down. These multinationals, two of them with headquarters in the United States, set the price on the dollar differential and then add their 20 per cent and any import duties, and that is what the consumers of this province and of this nation have to pay because this government will not intervene.

Procter and Gamble, one company on which I could get this information, has not done badly in the way of profits. Their Canadian profit in 1980 was $41.5 million and in 1981 went up to $46.4 million. That is an increase of only 12 per cent, but they managed also to have a 23.8 per cent return on equity. They are not doing badly, are they?

Mr. Breaugh: That's a little bit above five per cent, isn't it?

Mr. Swart: Yes, somewhere above five per cent, I would think, on the return they are getting on their equity.

As members know well, these are all commodities that are essential to the operation of our homes. They are not luxuries.

Mr. Breaugh: Are any of these included in this bill?

Mr. Swart: Nothing like that is included in the bill.

Mr. Breaugh: Absolutely none of them?

Mr. Swart: No. None of these is included in the bill. In any event, nothing is included in the bill that will lower the price of either services or these commodities to consumers.

I have another and similar product I would like to show members. These are samples I have shown here before. These are tissues again produced by the same company.

5 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Six dollars for the whole lot -- Canadian.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, this is Canadian. This is produced by a Canadian company. E. B. Eddy produces this White Swan, which you buy off the shelf. I bought it at $1.89, which is the standard price if you buy it in Loblaws. You cannot buy it in Dominion; Loblaws now own E. B. Eddy, so they do not compete in that field. And they are both owned by Weston; so Dominion does not buy from them or they will not sell to Dominion, I do not know which.

This is produced by Weston, and this is the same tissue; this is sold in the United States. This one is sold here for $1.89 and this one is sold in the United States for $1.19. It is the same tissue. In fact, they are both sold in metric sizes because they are made here; so they are the same size, the identical tissue, but one is at $1.89 and --

Hon. Mr. Ashe: With all the stuff you are putting out, you should be able to use it.

Mr. Swart: Well, we could use it any time cabinet ministers get up to talk.

The Acting Speaker: Just ignore the interjection, please, and continue with your remarks.

Mr. Swart: It is perfectly obvious that if they can afford to sell that in the United States for $1.19 --

Mr. Stokes: Plus transportation.

Mr. Swart: Yes, plus transportation. They have to transport it to the United States, and I have got the wholesale prices on it. They are selling cheaper there than they are here. Why? It is our wood. It is a Canadian company. Why should we pay more for our own product than they do in the United States? Because we do not have governments that care. That is the reason.

Mr. Stokes: Even the man responsible for the trees does not care.

Mr. Swart: No, no. Our trees are cut down to sell the product in the United States at a cheaper price than we sell it here. Of course, it can be said now, truthfully, that the profits of the forest products companies are decreasing and have decreased pretty dramatically in the last year or so, but I want to point out it is not for that reason. They are not selling their lumber, their newsprint sales are way down, but consumers are still being ripped off in a major way on the matter of tissues.

I have another product here that I want to show too. I think it demonstrates as forcefully as anything can the way Canadian consumers are being ripped off by the multinationals because we have no intervention by government and because the bill we have before us does not really propose anything.

I have here some Kraft Miracle Whip salad dressing. Some of us on this side of the House will have heard of the Kraft company before.

Mr. Stokes: I thought we were boycotting them.

Mr. Swart: I think that boycott is actually over now, but in any event it is worth making a point. I have here two jars that look a great deal alike, as I think anybody would say. The one on my left, which is the Canadian one, contains one litre; the other one contains 32 fluid ounces, which is 0.95 litres, and sells in the United States. The 0.95-litre jar sells for $1.39 and the one containing one litre, five per cent more, sells for $2.69.

Hon. Mr. Pope: I don't believe you.

Mr. Swart: Somebody on the other side said, "I don't believe you." I challenge him to go into either Loblaws or Dominion, pick a jar off the shelf, then go over to any of the Tops or Bells stores in Niagara Falls, New York, and compare the prices. He will find this differential. Until he does that, he should not tell me he does not believe me.

Hon. Mr. Pope: I will choose my store.

Mr. Swart: He probably will choose his store.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: I'm glad you don't do the shopping around our place, because you'd bankrupt everybody.

The Acting Speaker: Order. I am sure the member for Welland-Thorold realizes that by going to these lengths to make his point he is running the risk of greater assistance and interruption from the other side than otherwise might be the case. I will try to maintain order as best I can, but I ask him to please draw his remarks back to Bill 179 and continue from that point.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I will accept your admonition not to pay any attention to the interjections. I consider it a wise admonition, because the interjections are not worth paying any attention to.

But I must say that Bill 179, which we have before us, deals with the matter of prices. The government is supposed to control administered prices and to monitor nonadministered prices. I think we should have some control over the nonadministered prices, not just monitoring, and I am endeavouring to point out the need for that.

I had mentioned Kraft, showing the contrast between the Miracle Whip that is produced and sold in the United States and the Miracle Whip that is produced and sold here. I point out that Kraft's net profit in Canada went from $26 million last year to $31 million; that is an increase of 20 per cent, and the return on equity it experienced last year was 30 per cent. I suggest there is room for it to sell its products to Canadian consumers at substantially lower prices than it does. If it is not prepared to do it, then a government that is concerned about what many people in this nation are now going through would be intervening and changing that legislation.

Many people are having their standard of living dramatically reduced and are unable to buy many of the things they desperately need. I encourage the government to bring in some meaningful price control in the bill. I hope that when this bill comes back from the committee, it will have those changes in it.

Mr. Stokes: What has Kraft done to the cheese producers in eastern Ontario, Osie?

Mr. Swart: I presume the member does not have any answer to the question posed by my colleague the member for Lake Nipigon.

The Acting Speaker: Nor would we like him to answer it. We would much rather hear the member for Welland-Thorold continue.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, we realize there are many companies that are suffering in our society at present. Many of them, particularly the smaller ones but even some of the larger ones, are going broke. It is equally true, as I have shown, that certain companies are exploiting consumers in this nation because they are monopolies, because there are only one, two, three or four of them and therefore there is little competition, or because they are multinational companies that arbitrarily set their prices in this country based on our lower dollar value and the moneys they have to pay on imports coming in.

This government has done nothing, is doing nothing and will do nothing to stop it. This bill is a very real sham in that respect.

I now want to deal with one aspect of this. The government, if it wants to be honest with itself and with this House, knows that what I have said about prices is true. It is true that in the case of monopolies we are paying too much. It is true that when there is no competition we are paying too much. It is true that because many of the multinationals arbitrarily set prices here, we are paying too much.

5:10 p.m.

The government also knows that it has the power to control retail prices in this province if it wants to do so. Oh, I know they have said for years when we raise these issues in the House: "We do not have control over prices. That is a federal matter."

But when in the standing committee on administration of justice someone like me came down on the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations and asked him to get a ruling from the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) on whether they did have control over prices, we got a letter back, a copy of which I have here. It was written to Mr. Ciemiega, the director of legal services, Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, ninth floor, 555 Yonge Street, and it is headed, "Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations: Authority Over Prices."

I would like to read a bit of this into the record, because it is important that this House know the authority the government has over prices, the authority it is not exercising and the authority it is not including in this bill and should be including. This was written by the Attorney General:

"I refer to your memoranda of October 16, 1979, and October 31, 1979, requesting an opinion from this ministry.

"With reference to statements made on page J1615-1 of the Instant Hansard and page J129 of the official Hansard for October 11, 1979, you have asked, 'Does the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations have authority to roll back prices in the province of Ontario?' The answer to that question is, of course, no. As far as we have been able to determine, no Ontario statute confers such a power on the minister.

"I understand that this question arose out of a discussion in the consideration of the estimates of your ministry by the administration of justice committee on October 10 and 11 last. It was suggested that the Legislature had power to enact legislation to provide for the regulation or the rollback of prices in Ontario."

Of course, the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) and I contended on the committee that such power did exist. Again to quote from the Attorney General's letter:

"Several examples of instances where prices were alleged to have been raised unnecessarily or thought to be too high were given. Reference was made to prices fixed outside of the province and to prices fixed in the province where goods sold in Ontario were sold at different prices outside the province. In particular, reference was made to the price of tissue and towelling which are produced entirely within Ontario from Ontario resources and which are sold in Ontario at a higher price than the price charged for the same commodity when exported."

I do not think I need to mention the application that has to today's discussion and the items I am mentioning here. Again I quote:

"Some of the discussion appears to have been at cross-purposes because no clear distinction was drawn between retail prices in Ontario of goods produced in Ontario, prices for exports from Ontario and prices in Ontario of goods brought into Ontario.

"I take it from your memoranda and from a reading of the relevant proceedings of the committee that the question to be addressed might be stated as follows: 'Is it within the competence of the provincial Legislature to authorize the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations to regulate (control or roll back) prices in the province of Ontario?'

"Contracts of purchase and sale are prima facie matters within property and civil rights in the province by section 92(13) of the British North America Act and are therefore subject to regulation by provincial legislation." This, of course, is the Attorney General writing.

"Provincial legislation can regulate intraprovincial trade but not interprovincial trade. Two leading authorities for the proposition that provinces have the power to control prices in the province in appropriate circumstances are Home Oil Distributors versus the Attorney General of British Columbia, and the Carnation Company versus Quebec Agricultural Marketing Board.

"In Home Oil, a 1940 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, provincial regulation of the prices of gasoline and fuel oil sold in British Columbia, including the price of products produced all over the province, was upheld as constitutional.

"In the Carnation case, in a 1968 decision by the same court, the provincial marketing plan for the sale of raw milk by farmers to the Carnation Company, which processed it, was upheld. Even though Carnation paid a higher price under that plan than other processors purchasing from farmers in the same area and even though Carnation shipped the bulk of its products out of the province, the court held the marketing law to be in relation to intraprovincial trade."

It goes on, but let me read the final paragraph. It is headed "Conclusion" and it says:

"So long as it did not purport to regulate interprovincial or international trade or conflict with valid federal legislation in relation to the same matter, it would be within the competence of the Legislative Assembly to authorize the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations to regulate (control or roll back) prices in the province of Ontario."

There we have the ruling from this government that they do have the authority if they want to use it.

Of course, we know that in Nova Scotia the provincial government did use that authority to prevent the increase of prices of gasoline and motor oil and byproducts. In fact, it was based on what they did there that this province insisted that the price of the oil that was in storage for two months not be raised until the old oil was used up. That was not because this government took any initiative in an attempt to control those prices. In spite of this proven need for intervention in the price field, whether it is because of monopolies, lack of competition or multinationals, the government over there does nothing and this bill does nothing.

I was raised on a farm, and I remember when I was a boy we used to have salesmen who would go around selling horses. They would take a number of horses with them and would try to sell these to the farmers. I dare say they were a rather disreputable group. They would move on and you would never see them again, and you would find out afterwards that there was something wrong with the horse.

I remember on one occasion a salesman brought a horse around to my father and told him what an excellent horse it was. My father needed a horse at the time; so he looked in the horse's mouth at the teeth to get an idea of its age. There are some people in this Legislature old enough to remember these kinds of things; you would feel the legs to make sure they did not have arthritis and that sort of thing.

I remember my father giving this particular horse a slap across the rear end; the horse took off and ran right into the side of the barn. My father said to the salesman: "You were trying to beat me. That horse is blind." The salesman said: "He's not blind; he just doesn't give a damn."

I do not know whether that government over there is blind, and I do not think they are, or whether they do not give a damn. I do not really think that is it in total. They must have -- as individuals, at least -- some concern for what is happening to people in this province, for what is happening to consumers, to those people who own their homes or to those people who cannot afford to buy things they were buying before that they desperately need or whether it is even that they cannot afford to get food for their children.

There are those people in our society. I have them coming into my constituency office all the time and it is sad.

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Robinson): Order.

5:20 p.m.

Mr. Swart: What I am talking about is control of prices. Members may make interjections about five per cent; I am willing to deal with that part of the injustice too. What I am talking about now is the injustice of doing nothing about excessive prices in this province, particularly at a time when the government is intervening to force a rollback in the wages of many in the public service.

As I was saying, I do not think it is because those on the other side of the House do not realize what is happening, they are blind to what is happening with prices; and I really do not think they do not care entirely, at least not as individuals. I cannot help but think there are some people in that motley crew on the other side of the Legislature who have some real concern about what some people are suffering.

I realize, of course, that on the other side of the Legislature they move in a world different to that in which we in this party move. To a very large extent they move in the world of the corporate elite, the world of lawyers and the world of their friends the doctors. I doubt very much if many on that side have many close to them who are really suffering at this time. I think that is a fair statement. That said, I think there are still some over there who are concerned with what is taking place today.

I do not know how one could talk better about the bill than to talk about prices and the lack of government concern, and to point out there is nothing in the bill that will do anything about prices and it should, therefore, be amended drastically.

I say again I do not think all those on the other side are unconcerned about what is taking place or about the people who are being hurt. It is simply that they are not prepared to move from the straitjacket of their 19th century economic beliefs. They just cannot step out of it. The blinkers are still there and they cannot see anything other than the system which has been in force for 100 or 150 years.

They think things have not changed and that the old system which worked 100 years ago will work today without the least change in it. That is really what is stopping the government people from finding solutions to the economic, pricing and unemployment problems which we have in our society today.

What need to be included in this bill are tougher regulatory powers over those administered prices and over monopolies generally, or else there has to be public ownership; it is one or the other. In some areas perhaps the tough regulatory controls will work, and in others it will be much better to have public ownership where prices are accountable through the elected representatives in government.

One of these areas where experience has shown public ownership is the best vehicle is the matter of telephone service. In Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the telephones are publicly owned. With the exception of Saskatchewan, they were public utilities and publicly owned before they had democratic Socialist governments. There were some people in those Liberal and Conservative governments who saw the benefits of having a public utility and the people over the years have reaped substantial benefits.

Today in all those provinces residents of cities of comparable size pay 25 per cent less for their phones than they do in Ontario and Quebec. It is a fact that cannot be denied. Their service is just as good and they pay 25 per cent less. Part of that is, of course, the $550-million profit Bell Canada got out of the users of the telephone system in Ontario and Quebec last year and the $303 million it got out of them in the first six months of this year.

There is another injustice even apart from that. Bell paid something like $500 million in federal taxes this year because it made huge profits. Of course, that comes out of Bell Telephone users. It does not come out of Bell Telephone profits, that is sure. It comes from the users. The people of Ontario and Quebec have paid some $500 million into the federal treasury that has not been paid by the people in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. For that reason alone, we should have the system publicly owned in this province.

I know all those members on the other side of the House object to it philosophically. No matter how far one could go to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, the members on that side of the House would not accept that. Then how do they excuse not having tough regulatory powers so they do not rip off the consumers to the extent they have?

Bell had a 100 per cent increase in its profits last year, up again 19 per cent in the first six months of this year. That is inexcusable in these economic times because not only is that a tremendous cost to users, many of whom cannot afford it, but it is a cost to business as well, as the members know. Therefore, it is hurting other businesses.

Another area where there has to be either much tougher regulation or a publicly owned system is the field of automobile insurance. We know that Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Quebec have public systems. Anybody who takes the trouble to investigate the amount motorists pay each six months or each year for their premiums will know it is substantially below what we pay in Ontario.

There are two, three or four reasons why rates are lower in those provinces where they have public ownership. Incidentally, they are all in a publication of the Ontario government which I have here. The opposition members may have seen this publication. I will quote from it in a minute or two.

The rates are lower because their administration costs are only half what they are in the private sector in Ontario and Quebec. They are lower because they instituted no-fault systems which eliminated most of the suits which took place and which, of course, had to be paid by the motorists in their premiums. Those are two of the major reasons and there was no subsidy whatsoever from those provincial governments. They put a levy on the gas, a gas tax. It was not a subsidy. That was part of the rate paid by the people. That is all included in these studies that were made.

5:30 p.m.

It can be said with some justification, and I am surprised that some of the members on the other side did not use it as a legitimate argument, that in some areas of this province the accident rate is higher in the urban areas than it is out there, instead of using illegitimate arguments that have no basis in fact.

The select committee on company law, which commissioned a study on this, points out the advantages of the public system in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and British Columbia. When this study was done it was not in operation in Quebec so an accurate comparison could not be made. Let me read some of the financial comparisons from the select committee on company law report tabled in the House.

The committee members included the member for Mississauga East (Mr. Gregory), the member for Wentworth North (Mr. Cunningham), the member for Durham East (Mr. Cureatz), the former member for Sudbury, Mr. Germa, the member for York North (Mr. Hodgson), the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid), the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick), the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt), the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg), the former member for Simcoe East, Mr. G. E. Smith, the former member for York Centre, Mr. Stong, the member for London North (Mr. Van Horne), the former member for Scarborough-Ellesmere, Mr. Warner, and the member for Renfrew South (Mr. Yakabuski). They commissioned a comparison.

Mr. Rotenberg: What has this got to do with the bill before us? It has nothing to do with the bill before us.

The Acting Speaker: Order. Please try to ignore the interjection and continue.

Mr. Swart: This is not for you, Mr. Speaker, but for those who have short memories and forget that there is a prices section in this bill. I repeat that if we are going to proceed with this bill it is absolutely essential that we make substantial amendments, and one of those should be either public ownership or a rate control board for insurance premiums in the province. It is absolutely necessary that be included in this bill.

To promote that and show how advantageous it is, I will quote some of this report. I am sure members will agree this is relevant to the bill we have before us. "Financial comparisons. Comparing premiums. Information received by the committee implies that premiums charged in the western provinces are generally lower than Ontario premiums. However, there are very real dangers in seeking to draw any inferences from these apparent variations.

"Differences in geography and vehicle population explain most of the variance. Driver categories used for setting premium rates are different. The method of allocating loss costs among various driver categories is different in that the Ontario process tends to be based largely on actuarial considerations while in these western provinces the process includes some consideration of extraneous factors, such as the financial capacity of the under-25 driver.

"Furthermore, there are differences in claims costs per accident from one province to the other. Finally, insurance revenues derived from 'gas' tax in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and from drivers' licence fees in all three provinces also tend to make it meaningless to compare the individual premiums in the various jurisdictions.

"A second basis of financial comparison is concerned with the operating costs of the government insurance systems and the private industry system in Ontario. This comparison involves a complicated process which is explained in full detail in background study 2 to this report. The comments and qualifications contained in section E of that study are very important to an accurate understanding of the comparisons.

"Many factors complicated the committee's analysis of the comparative operating costs. The practices followed by the government insurers and their operating results during the period examined by the committee rendered accurate comparisons with each government corporation and then with the Ontario industry to be difficult. Differences in accounting methods, sources of revenue and the fact that the government corporations are not subject to corporate income taxes contributed to the complexity of the comparison.

"Access by government insurance corporations to possible hidden subsidies or services which were not accounted for in their annual published report was another matter of difficulty for the committee. In this regard, the committee's consultants have made extensive and repeated investigations. As a result of their findings, the committee is inclined to the conclusion that there are no significant hidden subsidies or 'free rides' that would materially distort the financial information under consideration."

There, of course, is the answer that was given.

An hon. member: Is he gone?

Mr. Swart: Oh, he is gone. He could not stand to hear his own report.

"Recognizing the above difficulties, the committee, however, considered it useful to quantify in very rough terms the apparent spread of operating costs between a government insurance system and the private industry system in Ontario. This was accomplished in the following manner:

"(1) The operating results of the three government insurance corporations, as published in their annual reports and certified by the auditors, were analysed in considerable detail. Five years' experience, 1972-76, was included for MPIC and SGIO and three years, 1974-76, for ICBC," the Insurance Corp. of British Columbia, because they had not been in operation long enough before that.

"(2) Because SGIO" -- the Saskatchewan Government Insurance operation -- "results on extension coverage for the period under review were not available, the SGIO ratios utilized were for basic compulsory coverage only. This exclusion does not have a material effect on the resultant ratios.

"(3) Average operating ratios were developed for each government insurer which eliminated certain extraordinary one-time costs and operating losses and adjusted the corporations' operating results to a break-even level.

"(4) These average ratios were then utilized to develop a representative operating cost structure for a government insurance corporation, which is presented in table 4."

I think it worthwhile just to note what they show in table 4. They show that in Manitoba the acquisition costs were 6.3 per cent, in Saskatchewan 6.5 and in British Columbia 7.1. The average for a government insurer was 6.6 per cent, compared to the private system of 18 per cent. Six per cent compared to 18 per cent.

The underwriting general administration, the underwriting and policy processing average, was 3.8 per cent for the government; for the private system it was eight per cent. The claims adjusting was a 7.2 per cent average for the three government insurers, and for the private sector it was 15 per cent.

Surely if anything could indicate clearly the advantage of having a government operated insurance system this clearly points it out, when this was a study commissioned by this government and a report to this Legislature.

Of course, philosophically once again the members opposite do not go for that. It does not matter that it is better; it does not matter if it gives a better deal not only in lower rates but also in prompter settlements, fairer payments and fairer levying of premiums. It does not matter to the members over there. They are opposed to it because it is operated by the government and not by private enterprise.

But even allowing for that, the question has to be asked why they do not have a rate control board here for auto insurance rates. They must be aware that auto insurance rates are increasing very dramatically this year. I have newspaper clippings here, one of which is from May 14, 1981. It is a Canadian Press story, and I quote:

"'Automobile and home insurance rates will probably increase by 30 per cent across Canada starting this year,' said the chairman of the Insurance Institute of Canada. Ian Mair of Montreal said in an interview Wednesday that rate increases for personal lines of insurance have started in reaction to the horrendous company underwriting losses. 'Rates for personal and home insurance have been unrealistically low, and insurance brokers have been competing among themselves and cutting rates,' said Mair, president of the Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd."

Here is a man who is a senior person in the insurance company, a senior private enterpriser, if you will. He is saying they have been competing against themselves in cutting rates and they have to stop that now and have to get this 30 per cent increase.

5:40 p.m.

Then we have -- if I have it with me, and I may not have -- the comment of the head of the Insurance Bureau of Canada, who pointed out that the rates this year are going to go up by something like 25.5 per cent. Yet the government does nothing about it. I raised this in the Legislature with the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), who has responsibility for this, and asked if he was going to intervene because of these proposed rates. His answer was, "I am a little disturbed that the member threw in the issue of automobile insurance because I know his position is that everything should be in the public sector, but I hope he is open and honest enough to agree that the competitive forces in this province have given us extremely low automobile rates. I know he likes to talk about the recent rates without looking at the facts."

Then he says this: "In 1977 premium rates on average have only gone up seven per cent in this province, while the payout on claims has gone up over 52 per cent." Maybe he did not mean to say that. I suspect he meant to say an average of seven per cent a year, not seven per cent. I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Whether I give him the benefit of the doubt on that or not, he has compared oranges with apples, and deliberately so, because he says rates have gone up seven per cent and the claims have gone up 52 per cent.

One cannot compare rates with total claims. There are far more cars now than there were then. Why did he not say how much total premiums had gone up compared to claims? Then one would be comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges. But he does not do that. He tries to let the people of Ontario believe that they are not being exploited on their insurance rates. I tell members that the rates are going up this year. The people of Ontario are being excessively exploited on insurance rates.

This points out the need for this bill to be amended to include some provision for a rate- setting board. Do the members know that they have one in Tory Alberta?

I talked to the director of that board out there -- and I know the government members, the ministers, would tell us, "Oh, it is just another expense and it does not do any good." I talked to Ed Collins, who is the manager of the Alberta Auto Insurance Board, who told me he runs that with a staff of two. Would members believe that? They have another person in part-time. There is Mr. Collins and a woman who acts as his assistant. She does the typing and assists in other ways. They have two staff members and they get an actuary in now and then. Every insurance company has to get approval if it wants to increase the rates of auto insurance; that is the compulsory rates not the voluntary rates.

Do the members know what he told me? He said that since the board was appointed they have saved tens of millions of dollars for the motorists of Alberta by this insurance rating board. Why does this government not bring in a rating board and give us at least that kind of benefit, until we get rid of the government and get in an NDP government and bring in the ultimate, the very best in auto insurance, which is the public auto insurance system?

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Just as it has done so well out west.

Mr. Philip: It has done well out there.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It is great stuff in Saskatchewan and great stuff in British Columbia too.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: They lose money hand over fist.

Mr. Swart: Perhaps the best indication of the value of public auto insurance, which should be brought in here as part of price control, is the fact that after the New Democratic government instituted public auto insurance, the governments in Manitoba, Saskatchewan or Alberta, be they Liberal, Conservative or Social Credit, did not revert to the old system. Yet out there, just as here, they wear blinkers against public ownership; it is contrary to all their principles. But it worked so well they had to compromise with their principles if they wanted to remain or become the governments of those provinces. They had to promise they would not disband the public auto insurance system. There is no better proof than that.

Even if the government has not the courage and the good sense to go ahead with that as part of its protection package to consumers, now that it is interfering with wages, at least it could do what Alberta has done, and that is to have the auto insurance rating board. As I have just pointed out to you, Mr. Speaker -- I think somebody was talking to you and you did not have the advantage of being able to listen -- the Alberta director, Mr. Ed Collins, says that with a staff of two they have saved tens of millions of dollars by approving every increase in auto insurance rates.

I introduced a private member's bill, Bill 25, to accomplish the same thing in this province. I thought perhaps the government here, as another Conservative government had done, might be willing to have an auto insurance rating board to help out consumers in a year when rates are going to go up by 25 per cent, or in any case fairly substantially, but it will not agree to even that kind of protection for the consumers of this province.

Mr. Riddell: If the member for Welland-Thorold wants me to auction the items on his desk prior to the six o'clock adjournment, he had perhaps better wind up his remarks now to give me a little bit of time to get a suitable price for those products.

Mr. Speaker: Is the member for Welland-Thorold going to have an auction now?

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to reply to the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) that he is not going to have any better luck acquiring any of this produce than he had in acquiring the silver tray at the ploughing match.

Mr. McKessock: You are only going to win that one.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Keep on ploughing.

Mr. Breaugh: He will.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: You provide lots of fertilizer.

Mr. Cooke: The minister's interjections just reflect his brilliance.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: It takes one to know one.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I pointed out that the first thing that needs to be included in this bill, in its companion bill, or perhaps even in a statement by the Premier (Mr. Davis) or by other cabinet ministers, is an assurance that with regard to monopolies the government is prepared to have tougher regulatory powers, in some cases to take those industries and businesses under public ownership. I pointed out what had been done in the western provinces with regard to phone rates and auto insurance. I want to make some comments about the need in general for a public advocate bill in this province.

Members of this Legislature will know I tabled such a bill several times, and this year on April 28. It is a bill that would provide for a consumer ombudsman in this province and it is similar to legislation in many states of the United States. Perhaps the best and most successful example is the state of New Jersey because it has the oldest and the most comprehensive legislation. The public advocate's office takes rate hearings and other matters, including environmental hearings, on behalf of the public. It is financed in such a manner that it has nearly as many resources as those that are trying to get the rate increases or are trying to establish operations which may attack the environment. It has been tremendously successful.

They tell me, and it is public knowledge, that they have saved something like $1.5 billion since 1974 for the consumers of that state. I point out they have a population similar to what we have in this province, so the same sort of thing would be possible here. Surely we need it here desperately. Let us take as an example the Ontario Energy Board hearings on gas rates.

Last week I outlined what took place last year and early this year at hearings where Consumers' Gas was awarded an increase which permitted rates to be 32 per cent higher in February 1982 than in February 1981. At the hearings which set those rates, Consumers' Gas had 20 expert witnesses, some of them, of course, their own employees. They had two full-time lawyers during those hearings.

On the other side there were the industrial gas users who had one witness and one lawyer there part of the time; the apartment owners had one lawyer there for a very brief time; and there were the manufacturers of heat pumps who had one lawyer there for a very short period of time. That was the confrontation. There were 20 experts plus two full-time lawyers on one side for Consumers' Gas which was promoting this and had a lot at stake, and on the other side there was not one single person representing the consumers of this province.

If the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch) was here, I know he would say, "Oh, yes, but the Ontario Energy Board is supposed to be doing some investigation on its own." I do not doubt that they do some investigating but they do not have the staff to do it either. They cannot be an advocate before the board in the way we desperately need if we are going to have the kinds of hearings which are going to set rates. We desperately need an advocate that would have the same kinds of resources as the companies promoting the rates.

In New Jersey and in the other states where there is a public advocate or consumer ombudsman, whatever you want to call him, he is provided with funds so that it does not cost the public anything and does not tax the public purse. The companies that are applying for the increase must fund the public advocate's office. It is not on an exact basis of the amount that is spent but they have to fund the public advocate's office. In New Jersey it has not cost the public a cent on its taxes for this.

Maybe it would be fair, and I think even those on the other side of the House might think it was fair, if Bell or Consumers' Gas, which had a lot at stake and wanted to get these increases, had to do that -- and everything that it costs them at those hearings has to come out of the users and the consumers. Make no mistake about it, that is where it comes from. At the second-last hearing Bell said it would get the $2 million back out of telephone rates. They do not pick that out of the air. It may be equally fair that there should have been another $2 million paid in by Bell for a public advocate so the consumer could be represented on an equal basis. This is what is needed with regard to a public advocate.

If we are going to have the rates of a monopoly or perhaps even those which are noncompetitive for other reasons determined by a board or a court, then surely both sides ought to have equal representation and the same kinds of resources at those boards. Yet with that government over there it does not matter whether it is an environmental hearing or a land use hearing. I go to the Niagara Peninsula. Traditionally it is always a David and Goliath battle, with Goliath being the corporation. Unfortunately, it has not ended up in the same way as David and Goliath did.

Mr. Bradley: A party of privilege.

Mr. Swart: It is a party of privilege, yes, but it is a party which sets up an imbalance in favour of its friends. In the case of the corporation versus the consumers, they are on the side of the corporation and they assure that by having these unequal hearings.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize it is six o'clock. Perhaps I can continue the debate at eight, when I will get into the whole area of competition.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.

12 octobre 1982