AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES AMENDMENT ACT
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES AMENDMENT ACT
MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD AMENDMENT ACT
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mr. Timbrell moved second reading of Bill 163, An Act to amend the Agricultural Societies Act.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, honourable members may recall that on July 5, I introduced three bills into the House, namely, Bill 163, second reading of which I have just moved, to amend the Agricultural Societies Act, Bill 164 to amend the Horticultural Societies Act, and Bill 171, which amends the Farm Products Containers Act.
Bill 163 will increase the maximum government grants for cash prizes at agricultural exhibitions by $500, from the present $1,500 to $2,000. This will raise government expenditures under the program from $300,000 to $400,000 per year.
The $1,500 limit was set more than 20 years ago, and over the years the amount of prize money paid for exhibitors has increased considerably. This is due, of course, to inflation and to the increasing numbers of exhibitors at our fairs. Agricultural societies which organize fairs around the province now pay out more than $2 million to exhibitors of livestock, fruit and vegetables, home crafts and other agricultural products.
I might add that it has been my pleasure to have officially opened a number of those fairs this year. I look forward to visiting even more in the coming years and, of course, to the opening of the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, which will take place three weeks from Friday, on November 12.
The province's 250 horticultural societies, with a combined membership of 60,000, do a great service to their communities. They are involved in landscaping, beautification and other horticultural projects all over the province. The provincial government assists their efforts with grants totalling about $200,000 annually.
The second major amendment I am proposing to the bill will incorporate all these societies and offer protection from personal liability for the individual members -- voluntary members, I might add -- of these nonprofit community service organizations for activities performed under this act. In order that such community organizations continue to thrive, I am pleased to submit these amendments for second reading.
Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, in a period of crisis facing the farming industry, there is nothing particularly earth-shattering about the bills we will be debating tonight; nor is there anything in these bills that is going to be helpful to those farmers who are facing bankruptcy or who are having to sell their farms before they go bankrupt.
I hope at some time during this session we will deal with some legislation indicating the direction in which this government intends to go to try to prevent further farm bankruptcies and to help the farmers when the need for help has never been greater. However, this may be digressing from this bill, An Act to amend the Agricultural Societies Act.
I am pleased the minister has seen fit to increase the maximum limit for grants to the agricultural societies from $1,500 to $2,000 per year. It was a request, as I recall, that was made by the agricultural societies. I believe they requested the limit be increased by at least $500, and the minister has been most generous in meeting that request by extending the grant by the amount of $500. However, in a period of restraint, I am sure the minister felt he had gone as far as he could possibly go. Perhaps when we see some recovery of the economy in Ontario, we may expect the minister to increase that grant even further.
Some of the changes the minister is making in these bills are necessitated by the reorganization of his ministry, something I would like to discuss further tonight but, once again, it does not fall within the confines of the legislation we are dealing with.
Mr. Breaugh: Go ahead, Jack.
Mr. Riddell: No. I am pleased the minister saw fit to reorganize his ministry. I have been saying in committee when we were considering the expenditure estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food that the ministry seems to have been wandering aimlessly for some time. It did not have any goals. We have not had an agricultural strategy of any kind, certainly not during my term in this Legislature. I believe the minister is making an honest effort to change the direction of the ministry.
As I think back to the senior civil servants who I believe were making the policy of the ministry, I think of such people as K. E. Lantz and Gordon Bennett and, prior to them, Everett Biggs and Cliff Graham. They were all graduates of the Ontario Agricultural College, all around the same vintage. In other words, it was a real OAC alumni type of organization we had in the ministry.
I feel the minister has made a proper move in bringing in what we might call some outside blood in the person of a man like Duncan Allan, who has had no agricultural background whatsoever but who learns quickly and can make rapid decisions. I am sure he can give the minister all kinds of guidance.
But I should not come down too hard on people such as Ken Lantz, Gord Bennett, Ev Biggs and Cliff Graham, because these people deserve my respect. I certainly respect them for their abilities and their many talents, but I also have to tell members that these men were trained by my father.
8:10 p.m.
It may be of some interest to you, Mr. Speaker, that my father was an agricultural representative for 42 years; he spent six of those years in Bruce county and 36 years in Middlesex county. He trained many assistant and associate ag reps who were called up to more senior levels of government, many of whom became deputy ministers. I just had to throw that in tonight, because I would like to think --
Hon. Mr. Wiseman: Did he train you?
Mr. Riddell: Yes, he did; and I will be the first to admit that I have never been able to fill his shoes. He was a far better man in every respect than I can ever hope to be.
But I am pleased the minister has seen fit to break up the OAC alumni and bring in some other kinds of expertise not necessarily associated with the University of Guelph. I would like to think it is because of my request in committee that the ministry be reorganized and because I have indicated that the ministry has been wandering aimlessly for years that the minister finally decided to --
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: If you want to believe that, you go right ahead.
Mr. Riddell: I do. I think it is a co-operative effort on our part that we have been able to bring about this change. However, there is one thing in the reorganization that I would like to disagree with the minister on, and that is that he has taken the agricultural representatives away from the 4-H club work, the junior farmer work, the soil and crop improvement work and even the federations of agriculture. Many of these ag reps served as secretaries on livestock associations and what have you. Yes, the minister has included all those organizations under the rural organization branch of the ministry, I believe it is called. He has the ag reps set over into another branch, where it seems to me their purpose now is to act in consultation with the farmers.
It was the ag reps who conceived the ideas of 4-H clubs, junior farmer organizations, crop improvement associations and breed associations. They have been very much a part of them right from their conception. They have nurtured 4-H clubs, junior farmer clubs and these other organizations, and now it would seem that under his reorganization these ag reps are not going to have a role to play.
The minister is shaking his head. I hope he might comment on it when he has a chance again on this bill.
However, I may be digressing a wee bit from the bill. I simply say that we do support the amendments to the Agricultural Societies Act.
Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, the first thing I would like to do this evening is to compliment the Minister of Agriculture and Food on being in the House to deal with these bills. In the past I have not found the minister to consider even minor bills, let alone major bills, worthy of his appearance in the House.
For many years when I was a critic for Municipal Affairs the minister was seldom, if ever, here to handle those matters, even though they were matters of some significance. Now my colleague the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) finds the same thing; I do not think the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett) has been present for the discussion of any bill in the House --
Mr. Breaugh: He doesn't have the ability to understand it.
Mr. Swart: Yes, there is a reason: he does not understand. When I was critic for the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, it was very seldom that I found the minister in the House. Usually, his parliamentary assistant handled these things.
I must commend the minister for being here and for dealing with these bills, which some people might claim are not terribly significant bills. I guess it shows either that he has a great interest in agriculture, and I hope that is the reason, or that he is dedicated to seeking the leadership of the Conservative Party and ultimately the premiership. Whatever the reason, I am glad he is here to deal with these bills.
The bill before us, to amend the Agricultural Societies Act -- the colloquial term is fall fairs boards -- might not be considered to be terribly important, but it is my understanding that there are something like 225 agricultural societies in this province that hold fairs of one type or another. They are the display windows of the extremely valuable agricultural production in Ontario. Therefore, the agricultural societies have to be pretty important organizations within our society, whether one thinks of the New Liskeard area with the agricultural production of grain and hay and corn produced in high quality and abundance, or whether one thinks of the corn in the area north of Middlesex and up through Grey and Bruce, the vegetables that are grown in the Kent-Elgin-Essex area, the giant dairy herds we have in Oxford, or the area I am more familiar with in the Niagara Peninsula, the fruit area.
The fall fairs, such as the Niagara Regional Exhibition, do fill a very important place in displaying the agricultural products of this province and in making the urban community aware of the great wealth and high quality of our agricultural production.
Although it does not make any great changes, I do consider the bill we are dealing with to be a very important one. This party supports the bill because, on balance, it makes some improvements. As the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) mentioned, it does not deal with the real problems facing our agricultural community, such as high interest rates, which incidentally the member for Huron-Middlesex supports. The bill does not deal with cheap imports, and it does not deal with the excessive middleman markups, which are real problems to our agricultural community.
I guess the bill does streamline the operations and the agricultural societies, although I have to say it does not deal with some of the financial problems they have either. Some of them are in real difficulty, and the one in my area is no exception. They have been caught, as have the farmers, with high interest rates. If they have built new buildings or if they expanded just before the interest rates went up, they took out loans and now find themselves in real difficulty. That is another area that is not dealt with here, but is certainly an area where some consideration should be given by the Minister of Agriculture and Food.
It was mentioned by the member for Huron- Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) that this bill makes changes to deal with the new reorganization of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food. This reorganization has put the home economics branch, the agriculture and horticultural branch, the youth extension section, agricultural manpower services, the rural development branch and perhaps some others all into one new branch, which is called the rural organizations and services branch of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. It may well be true that this streamlines the ministry's operation and I suspect it does --
8:20 p.m.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: With respect, I think the honourable member is getting into Bill 172, unless we are going to debate them all at once, which I had not thought we were. When he is talking about streamlining, that is Bill 172.
The Deputy Speaker: I appreciate the minister's bringing forward the point of order. I know the Speaker allowed great latitude during discussion of Bill 179. But, now that we are into second readings of more or less routine business, I wonder whether all members could try to restrict themselves to the particular bill at hand.
Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised the minister would rise on that point of order. Surely that is in sections 1, 2 and 3 of Bill 163, which we have before us. The minister should read the explanatory notes and he would find this bill makes changes to deal with that matter. I see he is nodding his head and I am glad he is willing to correct that mistake he made in calling me to order.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: That's one you owe me.
Mr. Swart: As I say, that is included here. There probably is merit in this organizationally, but I do have to point out on behalf of at least some of the agricultural societies that they do have some concern about that reorganization. When they are thrown in with a great many other branches and services, they have some understandable apprehension about losing the status they had before. There were separate branches for the agricultural and horticultural societies, and they no longer exist. I hope when the minister gets up, he will be able to assure us that there will no lessening of the status of the agricultural societies, that they really will not be submerged in a larger organization and that they will receive at least as much consideration and service as they did in previous times.
I am not objecting to that section. Certainly as far as being strictly technical is concerned, it has to be changed to conform with what exists already in the ministry. The minister does not need to come before this House to reorganize his ministry, but if he does reorganize it, then the acts must conform with that reorganization, and this is the only chance we have to refer to that matter.
I am aware that the second change made in this bill provides that the agricultural societies shall submit within 90 days of their annual meeting their annual financial statement to the director of this branch. That makes sense. I believe they previously had to provide it by March 1. It did not matter when they had their annual meeting, the statement had to be provided by March 1. I think this makes a great deal of sense.
Also, agricultural societies now must provide the names of their directors and officers within that 90 days.
Another change that has been made for which I commend the minister -- at least it is mildly beneficial -- is that agricultural societies no longer will have to get approval ahead of time for displays, programs or competitions they may have. Under the old act they had to get such permission. Obviously, it makes a lot of bookwork inspection unnecessary. Such a degree of paternalism towards agricultural societies was not warranted and the change is desirable.
Another desirable change is that all agricultural societies will be incorporated under this act and will not have to be incorporated under the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. This must have provided 225 agricultural societies, or perhaps even more than that, with a great deal of bookkeeping, a great deal of work for the societies themselves and for the ministry, which really performed no useful function. This is a better way of bringing it about.
It has been mentioned that the maximum grant on expenditures for agricultural purposes has been increased from $1,500 to $2,000. That is not a terribly large increase, but with the other needs of agriculture which are not being met at the present time, as a result of which -- I know we are not talking about the same amounts of money -- there are an increasing number of bankruptcies, it would be rather difficult to argue for a much greater increase at present.
This bill provides for some other minor amendments which, in a small way, do improve the service of administering the agricultural societies in this province. With those comments, I will conclude by saying we will be supporting this bill. We will not be moving any amendments to it, but perhaps in his final remarks the minister would like to make some comments about the reorganization in his ministry and what the grouping of all these together in a much larger branch within his ministry might mean.
Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak in support of Bill 163. The previous speaker has covered most of the clause- by-clause items that are of interest. I can say without any hesitation that I would not have any problem at all in calling for a larger increase than $500 in the amount that is awarded for prizes.
When one thinks of the tremendous amount of volunteer work that goes into these fairs and the promotion they give to agriculture, the exposure and the community spirit that arises as a result of these activities, and when one considers the pitifully small portion of the provincial budget that goes into our agriculture ministry as a whole -- something in the order of one per cent -- I have no hesitation in saying it hardly keeps up with inflation over the last number of years.
One of the agricultural societies in my riding, in the hamlet of Merlin, which is largely a cash crop rather than a livestock producing area, has gone out of business in the last two years. I do not have any answers myself, but it does appear that in the cash crop areas, once the livestock go out of the fair a lot of the life goes out of the fair.
We should all be scratching our heads trying to come up with some alternative programs that might be carried on by agricultural societies in those areas which are largely cash cropping, and that includes quite a bit of the southwestern part of Ontario, particularly in the counties of Essex and Kent. It is not true in Elgin. The livestock area in Elgin seems to be doing well. I would say the agricultural societies in Elgin that I have been visiting over the last five years are making progress and probably going ahead, if anything.
8:30 p.m.
I do not want to be hard on the minister in his first presentation to the Legislature, but I really feel in these times of economic distress that we are having, as was brought out by all of the arguments and debate on Bill 179, that the minister has brought forth a mouse at a time when we really need an elephant.
Hon. Mr. Norton: How is the member going to pay for his elephant? On a credit card?
Mr. McGuigan: My credit card is quite all right.
One of the problems we have today in agriculture is the nonpayment of producers. It is getting to be very serious. The producers deliver their produce and they are not paid for it.
We have two phoney acts in Ontario, one being the Grain Elevator Storage Act, which offers very little protection to the producer. It puts the operator of the grain elevator in jail if he contravenes the act, but there is no money for the producer. I understand the minister has something in mind to strengthen that act and I would have thought that in these trying times he would have brought that forth as one of his priorities.
The Farm Products Payments Act is another example of an act that is on the books and yet has not been activated. The minister has always hidden behind the fact that the producers could not agree whether or not they wanted it brought into effect. There was a division of opinion. But as soon as we had a bankruptcy there was no problem about having agreement among the producers. We did not have a referendum. We did not have a big debate about it. We had the thing brought in to cover livestock.
The Deputy Speaker: And the Agricultural Societies Amendment Act?
Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I think it does cover agriculture because all of these items are shown at these fairs. The people who are interested in the act are interested in all of these items.
So we have all the other agricultural items that are not covered by a payment scheme. Over the years I have been dealing in the fresh fruit and vegetable industry it has pretty well been the accepted thing that one pays for the product within 10 days. The reason is the two rating services in the United States which rate people in the business. If one wants to get a four-star rating, one pays within 10 days.
Up until the last two years most of my big accounts paid within 10 days. I now find it is running 30 to 40 days. When we complain to the people to whom we sell our product they say, "Our policy has not changed; we are still working on 10 days." Nevertheless, my cheques come 30 to 40 days late. Perhaps the delay is in the mail; I do not know. But I am pointing out that we do not have protection in this area. In the United States they have the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act which covers this. I would commend that to the minister.
We have the problems of soil erosion and the minister knows of the serious problem in the Rondeau watershed area in my riding.
We have the problem of a lack of a food council. I remember a number of years ago we had a food council which was a liaison group between producers and marketers. As an example, just a week ago this past Monday, producers in my area who pack fresh peppers for the Toronto market this summer collectively packed about 40,000 bushels of peppers which came in from Cedar Springs Cherry Growers' Co-operative Ltd. Incidentally, it is located in Blenheim but goes under the name of Cedar Springs.
They shipped 40,000 bushels of peppers to the Toronto market and to the trade at an average price of about $6 a bushel. A notice came 10 days ago that they no longer wanted Ontario peppers, although we have a fair supply of them on hand. If we look at quotations in the paper we see that while the price in Ontario is $6, there are none; and the price in New Jersey is $12.
I realize this has happened because the retailers are not willing to take any chances of a frost in southern Ontario and the supply being cut off, and New Jersey is only two days away. It seems to me if we still had a food council, some of those things could be ironed out. Some liaison work could be carried out there. The minister would be doing a lot of good in his quest to replace a lot of fruits imported from many parts of the world, notably from the United States.
I have strayed enough, Mr. Speaker, and you have been very kind. I just want to mention these items to forcibly bring to the minister's attention that we have a lot of serious problems. I would hope he would address some of those problems very quickly.
We are very happy to support this bill.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond briefly to some of the points raised by honourable members opposite. First, let me reply to the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) and the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) with respect to the reorganization.
It certainly has been, is and will be the intent of the reorganization to strengthen the rural organizations branch. By placing together under one executive director, Mr. Knox, all of the activities which previously were carried out in separate branches to do with junior farmers, women's institutes, 4-H club activities and so forth, the intention is to strengthen our services to rural Ontario.
I can give one small example which is typical of the kind of thing we are looking to do in the future, and that would be the announcement I made on the press day for the ploughing match at Lucan, in the constituency of the member for Huron-Middlesex, that we are expanding the 4-H clubs to include clubs in financial management for the senior 4-H club members, which we are backing up, starting in 1983, with five annual scholarships to encourage our young people to continue their education in business management and agriculture.
This is just one example. Another, as I see it, would be the assignment I have given to Miss Molly McGhee, the former head of the home economics branch, to carry out a review of all of our services and programs as they relate to rural women. We recognize that the situation and the needs of rural women have changed dramatically in this last generation and, therefore, the ministry must make sure these programs are adapted and suitable to those changing requirements, again under this rural divisions branch.
Those are just two examples, but two that have come fairly quickly off the mark since the reorganization, of the kinds of things we want to do to extend the breadth of services available to all rural organizations and to all people in rural Ontario.
Second, I want to assure the member for Huron-Middlesex that we are not taking the ag reps out of these areas. I would anticipate in the future that the ag reps, the associate ag reps, the assistant ag reps, the engineers, the economists and all the people in our county and district offices will be just as involved, or more so, in the future as in the past with all of these organizations.
I give as an example the meeting I had with the executive of the Ontario Ploughmen's Association, also on press day at Lucan. They were concerned. I am aware that there are a number of people who have various and varied concerns about their organizations because with change comes uncertainty. It is going to take time for us to deal with each of those expressions of concern and uncertainty to try to assuage them.
They were concerned that in future our ag reps or officials of the county and district offices would no longer serve as secretaries of the local committees which work five years in advance on the International Ploughing Match and Farm Machinery Show. I assured them that was not the case, that we anticipated being just as involved with them and organizations like them in the future as in the past.
8:40 p.m.
The fact that there is a separate branch now for ag reps and a separate branch for rural organizations in no way implies that they are going to work in isolation. In fact, the ag reps call on many branches, such as the plant industry branch, the animal industry branch, the finance and policy branch, whomsoever they need in the ministry to give them advice and information that they can then impart to the people they serve in the various counties and districts around the province.
Let me say to the member for Huron-Middlesex and the member for Kent-Elgin (Mr. McGuigan) it is obvious that the bills I have put before the House tonight for second and third reading are not earth-shattering. They are not going to solve the current problems of agriculture, and I did not pretend when I introduced them that they would. I do submit, though, that some of the things I have done since becoming Minister of Agriculture and Food have been aimed at trying to resolve some of those problems. I particularly draw attention to the efforts on my part and the staff of my ministry to develop a better national stabilization program.
I repeat again what I have said on so many occasions, that anything members can do -- I am looking particularly at the party opposite -- to convince the federal Minister of Agriculture that he should answer the call of the provinces and the producer organizations for such a program, or at least answer the call to examine how such a program could be put together, would be very beneficial to the farmers of this province.
I realize this is straying, but in the spirit of the co-operative arrangement tonight, let me say there is going to be a meeting on November 4 and 5 in Regina, which I have had a fairly significant role in calling, with the co-operation of the Honourable Mr. Berntson, the Minister of Agriculture of Saskatchewan, to which all provincial ministers are being invited, as are representatives of the three main national producer organizations: the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association and the Canadian Pork Council.
I have invited representatives of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Ontario Pork Producers' Marketing Board, the Ontario Cattlemen's Association and the Christian Farmers Association to go with me to Regina. It is our intention to forge a consensus about the need for a better national tripartite stabilization program and then to go to Ottawa to seek some answers.
I have written Mr. Whelan to this effect to put him on notice of what we are doing; so I am holding nothing back from him. I am certainly aware of what the member for Kent-Elgin says, which is that there are bigger issues that need attention, and I am trying to deal with those. I think this one issue is critical. Anything we can do between us to assist the farmers in the province would be very beneficial.
As a small aside, the member for Welland-Thorold chides me a bit for the size of the increase. I am sure if we were increasing a fee or a charge by 33 1/3 per cent he would be castigating me and the government for such an increase. Here we are increasing the size of the maximum annual grant from $1,500 to $2,000 which, as the member for Huron-Middlesex pointed out, was the figure requested by the society. That is a one-third increase, and to increase the budget by $100,000 at a time of fiscal restraint is significant.
Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The minister once again has his facts a little mixed up. I said it was difficult for me to promote a greater increase than that. Comments were made more forcefully by some of the other members, but I did not chide him particularly on that point.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Robinson): I do not accept that as a point of order. I will accept it as a point of privilege to correct the record though.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Anyway, I am sure if I were proposing to increase a fee or a charge to somebody by that amount he would be on his feet complaining.
There were a number of additional points raised by the member for Kent-Elgin. Yes, we are working on amendments to the Grain Elevator Storage Act, which I would hope to introduce this fall.
Second, with regard to the Farm Products Payments Act, it is a voluntary program. I think the member knows the story of the development of the beef cattle protection program. When I met with staff shortly after I became minister, and with one gentleman in particular who is sitting under the gallery tonight, I was told when we came to discuss the question of the need for financial protection in the beef industry, "Mr. Minister, you are not going to solve this one." When I asked him why, he said: "The last three ministers have tried. The last three deputy ministers have tried. There is no consensus." I think the member knows that was true.
When I met with the Ontario Cattlemen's Association and representatives of the other parts of the beef industry, there was no consensus at all. In fact, about mid-April I met with the executive of the cattlemen's association. I went around the table and said: "I want to know where each and every one of you stands on this proposal. Should it be a compulsory program? Should it cover everybody or should it be voluntary and have only partial coverage?" I forget how many men were sitting there. I will say eight or 10. I heard eight or 10 different positions. There was no consensus.
I did not mean to be a bit of a seer but I said at the end of the meeting: "The day will come when there will be a bankruptcy of a major cattle dealer. It will be somebody you have known all your lives. It will be the last person in the world you would ever expect to go bankrupt and to have a serious negative effect on producers. Then we will be back here."
Two weeks to the day later there was a bankruptcy in the member's part of the province. As soon as I heard of it, I called in that executive that afternoon and said: "The talking is over. There will now be a program." Three weeks to the day after that I announced a beef cattle protection program which took effect on September 1.
I am sure the member knows -- I know his colleague the member for Huron-Middlesex knows -- even to this day there are still some who do not think there should be a program or who do not agree with the way it is done. The fact is the problem is serious enough I felt we had to take it out of the discussion stage in which it had been for five or six years and act.
On the matter of soil erosion, I certainly agree with the member. We discussed that briefly at the Pioneer seed plant near Chatham about five or six weeks ago. As I told the member that day, we are reviewing our small capital grants program to see if we cannot, quite frankly, drop some that do not have a great impact on rural Ontario and redirect the money to priority areas, including soil erosion and conservation.
With that I conclude my response and hope the bill will pass quickly.
Motion agreed to.
Ordered for third reading.
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mr. Timbrell moved second reading of Bill 164, An Act to amend the Horticultural Societies Act.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I would now like to propose second reading of the bill to amend the Horticultural Societies Act. The amendments will permit the formation of new horticultural societies and also incorporate all societies in existence.
Under present law, the only municipalities permitted to have more than one horticultural society are those with more than 100,000 people. This restriction was imposed when local boundaries were much different than they are today. Many smaller municipalities have been grouped into larger units with the result that a number of communities have been prevented from having their own societies.
The amendment I propose, which has been requested by the Ontario Horticultural Association, will permit local municipalities of 25,000 people or more to have two societies with an allowance of one additional society for each additional 25,000 in population. The 250 horticultural societies have a combined membership of 60,000. They do a great service to their communities. They are involved in landscaping beautification and other horticultural projects. We assist them with annual grants totalling about $200,000.
The second major amendment I am proposing will incorporate all the societies and offer protection from personal liability for the individual members of these nonprofit community service organizations for activities which they perform under this legislation in order that such community organizations may continue to thrive. I am pleased to move second reading.
8:50 p.m.
Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, unlike the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart), I am not going to go through these bills clause by clause because I do not think one can enter into a lengthy debate on motherhood, and unlike that member I am not one to send copies of Hansard back to my riding. I do not feel I have to do that.
We are going to support this bill. There is nothing contentious whatsoever. We are pleased the minister has met the request of the horticultural societies to permit the establishment of more societies in populations of less than 100,000. I am pleased these societies will be incorporated so they will not be held personally liable for any actions they may take, as long as they are not taking wilful actions which would bring about a lawsuit.
Many times, a person serving in these societies can bring about a libel suit on something of which he is innocent, or thinks he is innocent, and the first thing he knows he is in trouble. It is hard to believe we have not had more problems in the past in this connection. To avoid those problems, I am pleased to see the amendments do include the incorporation of these societies so the members will have some protection from lawsuits.
I want to compliment the minister on being able to make decisions. He was talking about making a decision on the beef cattle protection plan. He is quite right. The three ministers prior to him grappled with this problem and, because they were not sure how popular it would be to force a program of this nature, they chose to set it on the back burner. I compliment him for bringing it off the burner and making a decision because I know he did not get consensus on the part of all the people connected with the beef cattle industry.
He still does not have agreement from such organizations as the Toronto Livestock Exchange as he well knows. It feels it had an excellent working program which it considered to be a preventive program whereas the minister's is a reactionary program. But as he says. not all livestock producers ship their cattle to the Toronto stockyards; therefore, the program the Toronto Livestock Exchange was operating did not cover the farmers who sent their cattle through dealers or directly to packing plants, or wherever they chose to send them. I am personally pleased he made a decision in that regard.
The member for Welland-Thorold is certainly the last one to stand up and challenge the minister about getting his facts mixed up. Once again, he tried to imply today that I suggested in my speech that interest rates should be raised. In my speech, I talked about the number one issue facing this country: controlling inflation. I said when governments endeavour to control inflation, one of the first things they do is they restrict the money. When one goes to that kind of anti-inflationary monetary policy, when banks are forever lending money and see the money dropping in value day after day, they have to protect themselves somehow, which means higher interest rates.
What I am saying is higher interest rates are a result of an anti-inflationary monetary policy. I do not care how the member for Welland-Thorold wants to read it. If he wants to go into the country with me and debate this on the platform with one of the farmers, I would be more than happy to accommodate him. I sincerely hope if the member is a church-going person he will take some time when he goes to church to reflect on some of the things he says during the week because he is twisting the facts.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Robinson): Order. Please address your comments to the bill.
Mr. Riddell: I am pleased that the minister clarified the facts in connection with the role that ag reps will now be playing, because the ag reps were somewhat concerned that they were no longer going to be involved in the junior programs in the county, 4-H, junior farmer, soil and crop improvement associations, livestock associations and what have you. They were wondering what their role was going to be, and I am glad the minister has indicated they will be just as involved in these kinds of services as they have been in the past.
In connection with the minister's efforts to encourage the federal Minister of Agriculture to co-operate in a tripartite stabilization program, I am certainly prepared to co-operate in every way I can because I agree with the program. I think one of the reasons he is receiving flak from the federal minister is that he introduced a program similar to this to the provinces, I believe it was four years ago, but he could not get the co-operation of the provinces, including Ontario.
He indicated to me that he did not get a response from Ontario. The minister is going to say: "Why go back in history? Why do we not move ahead?" I agree; I think we should move ahead. But he was turned down on a similar program, and now maybe he has his back up a wee bit -- that along with the fact that he is a very strong proponent, as the minister well knows, of marketing boards. I believe the federal minister would love to see a marketing board established for the beef and pork industries, but he is not getting the co-operation of a majority of the livestock producers; and studies that have been done have indicated that the livestock producers would like to try the tripartite stabilization program the minister refers to.
The minister talks about going to Regina and bringing in members of the industry to such a meeting. I always fail to understand the reason that the Agriculture and Food critics of the opposition parties are not involved in some of these discussions. The minister knows we are all elected members of this Legislature. We are all part of the Ontario government. We are all trying to do what is in the best interests of Ontarians. Let me remind him that practically every country has some form of government, but it is only a democracy that has opposition members. The point I am trying to make is that an opposition is very important in the democratic process with which we are blessed in this province and in this country. Therefore, I fail to see the reason that the agriculture critics are not taken into the minister's confidence and allowed to participate in some of these meetings.
How does the minister know that I or the member for Kent-Elgin (Mr. McGuigan) or the member for Welland-Thorold could not go to Regina or Ottawa when he talks to Mr. Whelan to convince the federal minister that we should be embarking on a tripartite national stabilization program? We might be a lot of help to him; we certainly would not be a hindrance to him. I believe it is time that the opposition members got involved in the process instead of the minister believing that we are on this side of the House simply to stand up and criticize him or any of the ministers for the various programs they introduce in the Legislature.
So I just toss that out for any consideration the minister feels it is worth. I would be more than pleased to accompany him to Ottawa in order to sit down and talk to the federal Minister of Agriculture so that we can get some kind of program in effect that will give the farmers, not only in this province but in Canada, some protection from the very things that we see taking place today.
Once again, I digressed a wee bit. We are supporting Bill 164.
9 p.m.
Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I rise to voice the support of this party for the bill we have before us. These amendments to the present Horticultural Societies Act are needed, and for that reason we are supporting it.
I regret that the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) feels threatened when we in this party discuss a bill fully or stick to the bill or, for that matter, when he has his own statements thrown back at him, statements in which he defended the high interest rates which apply to farmers as well as other segments of our society. That is all on record. He did exactly that. It is something with which this party wholeheartedly disagrees. The government should have intervened long ago to hold interest rates down to at least the rate of inflation.
There is room for differences of opinion and if the member for Huron-Middlesex feels high interest rates are beneficial to society, it is his right to express that distorted view.
Once again we have changes made in the bill because of the reorganization of the ministry. I accept what the minister has said to this point about the services not being lessened. Certainly these organizations consider this will be a trial, at least for a period of time. That is fair. All of them are concerned that they may not receive the same service as they did before. I suppose any change is subject to that kind of interpretation. We will wait and see.
The main provision of the bill, to permit one horticultural society to exist for each 25,000 population in a municipality, is a belated amendment. During the wild days of the formation of regional government, we had numbers of communities incorporated into one municipality. I think I am right in saying that to this point, the ministry has never attempted to prevent the functioning of horticultural societies which existed at that time, whether there were two or three or four communities which may have been incorporated and thus two or three or four horticultural societies within one municipality. We appreciate that.
It seems wise to bring the law in line with what is actually taking place and because of the formation of regional government in the larger municipalities there is real need for this change to be made. I also think it is a good move to provide for annual meetings to be held in any one of three months -- November, December and January I believe -- rather than being confined to the month of January, as was the situation under the old bill.
I have looked into this a bit, but I am not aware of any legal action being taken against members of horticultural societies for liability. Nevertheless, it is wise to have them all now as bodies corporate and, therefore, prevent these hardworking community-minded groups from being subject to court action because of some liability.
On all counts, we support Bill 164.
Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support Bill 164. I want to point out to the minister the tremendous opportunities I feel we have here in Ontario in this particular aspect of the horticultural industry. The greenhouse industry is not mentioned in this bill, but much of the work of horticultural societies depends upon the products of that industry. Just think for a minute. We should have the same habit in Ontario as they do in European societies of taking home a bouquet of flowers or using a bouquet of flowers as decoration in the house. The Dutch people particularly, but Europeans generally have the very fine habit of displaying flowers in the house. It is an industry that needs support in Ontario.
At the present time, we have a little relief through lower costs of energy, but if one reads and believes the people who are talking about the long-term problems we face with our energy supplies, we are due to have much higher costs in the not too distant future. There are a great many things that can be done by way of research and development to lower costs for people who operate greenhouses. I think members already know some of the results of those experiments. The Agripark in Huron has started on the development to provide steam for greenhouses. I believe it is true -- correct me if I am wrong -- that to date unfortunately we have not seen any of the people who traditionally run greenhouses in southwestern Ontario move to that area.
It is quite understandable that people who have operated a business in a particular area where they have their roots are very hesitant to move. Yet, in the long term, I think the future of that industry probably lies in capturing waste heat at that source or other sources. I realize today is not perhaps the best time to talk about such things, but I submit we should be thinking of some program of assistance to help people, especially young people, move out of the traditional greenhouse area and get in on that free heat at the Huron park. I just lay those things out to the minister.
A lot of opportunities lie in an area that is also labour intensive, as we move into the system of robotics and so on, and face the problem of fewer people having jobs in manufacturing. Here is one area that is labour intensive and is not likely to change a great deal. It requires the loving tender care of skilled workers to do this work and there are some great opportunities.
Motion agreed to.
Ordered for third reading.
MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mr. Timbrell moved second reading of Bill 172, An Act to amend the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Act.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I wish to propose this bill to amend the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Act. In essence, it would authorize the minister to delegate his or her powers and to extend legal immunity to officials, employees and branches of the ministry. This would bring our act in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food into line with similar acts of other ministries, certainly those with which I have been involved over most of the last nine years.
As it now stands, every contract entered into by any branch of the ministry must be personally signed by the minister. By permitting the minister to delegate his powers to the deputy minister or other ministry employees, much of the detailed work in handling routine contracts will be shifted to other levels of the ministry.
The other section of the bill will exempt from civil liability the deputy minister or any ministry employee and any member, officer or employee of the Agricultural Licensing and Registration Review Board and the Farm Products Appeal Tribunal for any act done or omission made in good faith in the execution of that person's duty.
9:10 p.m.
Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, once again we find nothing contentious in this bill. Many of the points we have already dealt with in the two previous bills, that is, exempting members of the ministry and, in this case, members of the appeal tribunal from any personal liability; so I do not think we need to elaborate any further on that.
I agree that the minister should not be wasting his time when he has more important things to do, particularly at this time in our history when we are going through a recession such as most of us have never encountered. I was born at the time of the last Depression, and now we are going through a very serious recession when our business people are in trouble and our farmers certainly are in trouble.
I read just yesterday that there has been a 45 per cent increase in farm bankruptcies this year --
Mr. Swart: Sixty-five.
Mr. Riddell: Sixty-five -- compared to the same time last year.
Mr. Martel: Is that the Ontario figure?
Mr. Riddell: No, all Canada. But I think we have seen only the tip of the iceberg. The farmers are looking at some of the worst prices they have had in years: corn at $2 a bushel, soybeans at $5 a bushel. We are told we will be lucky if we get $15 a hundredweight for our white beans. There just does not seem to be any product, except those that are produced under a marketing board with price-setting powers, that even comes close to the cost of production for these products.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Pork.
Mr. Riddell: Yes, pork is a good price right now; the minister is right. Beef has been relatively good, although it has taken a bit of a drop recently. But the cash crop farmers are now going to start to fill our galleries in the same manner as the livestock producers did a year ago.
When the farmer takes the price for his product this fall and goes to the bank next spring to get an operational loan and the bank manager asks to see his financial statement, his cash flow and all the rest of it, and when he sees what the farmer has done in the last year or even the last two or three years, he is simply going to say to the farmer, "I am sorry, but I cannot give you an operational loan" or "I cannot extend your loan." These farmers are going to be in trouble unless this minister comes in with some kind of program, whether to extend the farm adjustment assistance program, to enrich it or to come in with something different.
I know he is relying on a tripartite national stabilization program, which will help, I agree; but we have to do something at the provincial level and we have to do something at the federal level or we are going to see farmers go down the tube faster than we have ever seen happen before.
Once again, I am digressing from the bill, but I want to tell the minister my concerns about the farming industry. I do think the minister has more important things to do than to sign his name to every little contract the ministry enters into. I think it is a move in the right direction to relieve him of this responsibility in the hope that he will lay his emphasis on the problem we have today in the farming industry.
I appeal to the minister to bring in some kind of program or to let us know before this session ends what he intends to do to keep the farmers in business.
Mr. Swan: Mr. Speaker, we will be supporting Bill 172 as well. As has already been mentioned, there are really just two sections to this bill.
One part of the bill is to delegate the authority of the minister to deputies or others of the senior staff for signing contracts, etc. As has already been stated, I think there will be agreement that this is a wise procedure. The Minister of Agriculture and Food has more to do with his time than to sign documents. In addition to that, there are ministerial responsibilities. If there are mistakes made, he is still responsible whether or not he signs the documents.
The proposed change does not relieve the minister of any responsibility, but it relieves him of some work. Certainly senior officials in his ministry would be selected who would not make foolish mistakes in signing documents. Therefore, I see no disadvantages, only an advantage to that.
I have some reservations and perhaps some questions about the second part of this bill. My reservations are really not that individuals in the ministry should be exempt from liability. I think that is reasonable. They are hired to do a job and, if they make mistakes in the line of duty, as individuals they should not be liable unless they are made in bad faith. But the ministry itself should be liable.
I am a little concerned about the liability of the ministry. It may be because of my ignorance of the legislation in this province. It seems to me here, as with the federal government, that it is very difficult to prove that the government is liable and that individuals almost never win suits, even if the government is liable, unless they can prove bad faith against the government. It does not matter whether it is a Re-Mor issue, where there was admitted negligence on the part of the staff; the Premier (Mr. Davis) would not accept liability, because the act exempts them unless bad faith can be proven.
It is my understanding, if I remember correctly, that there is general legislation in this province, as there is at the federal level, which basically exempts governments from liability unless there is bad faith. When it says, as it does, in the compendium of background information, that the liability of the crown for any act of its officers and employees is specifically preserved, I wonder why the minister did not go forward and settle for the loss that was due to incorrect information given with regard to spraying. I think I am correct in saying there was substantial loss in that regard, but the government absolved itself from any liability. This is the pattern generally.
When the minister gets back up, I would like him to make some comment about the exact liability that he thinks his ministry and the servants of his ministry have. To me, the situation I have just mentioned was a clear case where faulty information was given. In the private sector, we know very well that if we buy a product and that product causes damage -- it does not matter whether it is Thalidomide or whether it is tea kettles that are soldered instead of welded -- the companies are liable. Why should the government not be liable when it gives faulty information for all the costs of very excessive damage to farm crops or in any other area of government operations?
9:20 p.m.
We are talking about the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Act, which is a pretty broad title. I have to agree that many of the farmers are facing disaster this fall. Today I had some consultation with the Ontario co-ordinator of the National Farmers Union. She said the true picture in Ontario at present is that the bankruptcies among farmers, those who are legally bankrupt and those who have gone out of business but have not filed bankruptcy, number about 550.
It is also true that the number of cash crop farmers who have gone into legal bankruptcy this year is four times what it was last year. They are really the ones who are being hurt. The official figures are something like 11 last year and 42 this year. The minister may say this is not a large number, but it is almost a fourfold increase. When the cash crop is sold this fall and the returns are not adequate to meet the liabilities, there is going to be an epidemic of bankruptcies.
That epidemic is due to the Liberal policy of high interest rates. There is no question about that. Two or three years of those high interest rates have forced farmers into the position they are in today. It is the greatest single factor. When I hear anybody defending high interest rates, I am quite sure they do not have at heart the interests of the farmers, the home owners or the poor businessmen.
I too have deviated somewhat in my comments on this bill, but in our present situation no one can talk about any dimension of agriculture without bringing into the discussion the serious situation in which the farmers, the basic producers in this province, find themselves. It is a situation that is going to get much worse in the short period ahead. Regardless of the fact that interest rates are now coming down, a lot of the damage has been done.
Back to the bill: Subject to the explanation of the minister with regard to the exemptions of liability for the ministry -- not for the individuals; we have no argument with that -- we will be supporting the bill.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, as both members opposite have pointed out that there have been numbers of bankruptcies in agriculture this year, I guess we have started the estimates of the ministry about six weeks early.
Mr. Riddell: Just to give the minister some idea of what he should be prepared for.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Okay. They are up this year. I do not take a lot of comfort from the fact that they are not up anywhere near as much as they are in the rest of the country, as the member for Huron-Middlesex points out.
Mr. Swart: They are still the highest in Ontario.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I just got through saying I do not take any great comfort from it. I want to point out to the honourable member that in Ontario we produce more than 50 per cent of the agricultural output of this country. We have more than 80,000 farms in this province. While I think at this point last year Ontario had registered 60 per cent, and maybe even close to two thirds, of the bankruptcies in agriculture in Canada, this year it is around 40 per cent. It is still too high. I recognize that. Any time a good farming operation goes out of operation, that in itself is a tragedy.
The intention of the ministry in formulating the farm adjustment assistance program was to stand behind farmers and farms that could remain or be viable with some assistance. To date, we have approved assistance to more than 2,800 individual farmers in the province. In most cases this involves granting rebates of up to five percentage points on their outstanding operating debt, and in fact we have approved rebates on outstanding operating debt well in excess of $500 million in 1982. So this is very tangible assistance to a number of farmers.
As a matter of fact, I have discussed this with a number of groups around the province, most recently yesterday with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. I had the president and a number of the directors of the federation in to see me. We had a very good discussion on a number of matters, and I assured them that the ministry has completed an analysis of the program in 1982 and is preparing an assessment and proposals to go to cabinet. But we recognize in the ministry that we have to put together some proposals for 1983 inasmuch as we have not been able to get the federal government to agree to this better stabilization program and we will need a further bridge to the point when that comes into effect.
On the question of liability, there is no suggestion here or anywhere else that the ministry is trying to escape its liabilities. Certainly, if the ministry has made mistakes and we are found to be liable, the ministry will pay. In this most recent incident, to which the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) referred, the facts do not necessarily substantiate some of the headlines. We have heard -- and do not forget that the issue arose in the third week of July -- from 10 farmers that I am aware of in the province who allege there was a problem on their farms as a result of some information in Publication 75.
I am advised by the head of our legal branch that we have in hand one notice of proceedings against the crown. We do not yet have an opinion from staff as to the government's liability, but I want to assure members that there is nothing in this specific example or in this legislation, or in anything I have ever said or done as a minister, for that matter, to suggest that we are trying to escape liability. Clearly, the ministry or the government, if it is found to have been negligent, will be liable and will pay accordingly.
What this does is to correct some oversights in the case of the Farm Products Appeal Tribunal and other bodies to make it clear that in matters of good faith -- in other words, in matters where they are simply applying their best judgement -- they are not going to be individually liable, as is the case, as members know, in legislation for virtually every other ministry, at least those with which I have been associated for almost nine years as a minister.
Motion agreed to.
Ordered for third reading.
FARM PRODUCTS CONTAINERS ACT
Hon. Mr. Timbrell moved second reading of Bill 171, An Act to revise the Farm Products Containers Act.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I have several amendments to propose to the Farm Products Containers Act which cover containers used in the packing of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in Ontario in the fresh market.
The existing act established a fee of one per cent of the cost of containers used in Ontario to pack fruit and vegetables for the fresh market. This fee, which has been paid by the growers who use these containers, covers the operating costs of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association. The association exists for the benefit of the province's fruit and vegetable producers and acts as a voice for their industry. It is this association that has asked the government to amend this act.
The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association was established in 1859 and represents about 12,000 commercial fruit and vegetable growers in Ontario. In recent years it has experienced some financial difficulties. The one per cent fee has been collected by the manufacturer of the container and then turned over to the association but, unfortunately, in too many cases the fee is never collected.
The major amendment I am therefore proposing to the act gives the duty of collecting the one per cent fee to the sellers, who are all in Ontario, rather than to the manufacturers, some of whom are outside the province.
9:30 p.m.
Once a year the association asks all the container companies it has on record whether the fees have been collected on behalf of the association. This is done by letter. Major container companies usually comply with this request but some companies do not. Since the association's financial demands are increasing and since it derives most of its income from container tolls, it is clear that if all manufacturers did not comply with the Farm Products Containers Act and regulations, the association would suffer. That is exactly what is happening.
The annual container fees collected are about $170,000, or 85 per cent of the association's annual budget of $200,000. The association feels it should be collecting about $300,000 a year for container fees and, since it tailors its activities to the present level of income, necessary activities must be curtailed because of this lack of revenue.
There are several problems with the present procedure of collecting the one per cent container fee.
First, manufacturers who are charging the one per cent complain that some of their competitors are not doing so, which places them at a competitive disadvantage.
Second, it appears that with some companies the one per cent is included in the price and is not shown on the invoice; so there is no way of knowing that these moneys are being collected and remitted.
Third, companies are inconsistent in applying the one per cent, showing it on some invoices but not on others.
Fourth, some companies say the amount of the fees is not sufficient to remit immediately so they wait a few months and then problems arise owing to clerical errors or amounts overlooked.
The association's financial difficulty has not developed overnight. In 1978, in fact, a review committee was set up to see how the association might place itself on a firmer financial basis.
Consideration was given to four methods: increasing container fees, increasing marketing board membership fees, collecting a levy directly from the growers in lieu of the container fees, and a direct membership fee paid by all producers.
The review committee recommended that the most practical method of financing the association was through the container fee, the marketing board membership fee and an acreage levy on the pick-your-own roadside market operators.
Because many of the container fees -- which represent 85 per cent of the association's income -- are not being collected, I am proposing several amendments to the act which I believe will bring the bill up to date.
In essence, the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association will be given more power. The duty to collect licence fees will be transferred from the manufacturer of containers to the seller of containers and the seller may be required to provide information about the sale of containers to the association. The association may be authorized to recover licence fees by a suit in a court of competent jurisdiction and may be authorized to require a seller to account for licence fees payable to the association.
The power to make regulations requiring licensing will be transferred from the minister to the Lieutenant Governor in Council. There is a point to be made here. Under the present act, the minister's order concerning the imposition and collection of licence fees is subject to approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, which really means it is a regulation. Under most acts, regulations are made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council; so I simply intend to bring this act into conformity with other acts and with what really amounts to the current practice.
The Lieutenant Governor in Council will be authorized also to exempt any type of container from the regulation. The regulation under the act already exempts harvest and storage containers as well as incidental packaging materials such as -- what does one call them? -- the cups that go into the packaging of peaches.
Finally, the maximum fine for the first offence under the act or regulations will be raised from $50 to $500 and the maximum fine for subsequent offences will be raised from $200 to $5,000. Incidentally, these fines have not been increased since the act was passed in 1947.
The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association is a worthy organization which represents an important part, in fact, a cornerstone of Ontario's agriculture and food industry. It must remain viable and strong. I believe these amendments, which have been requested by, discussed with and supported by the association, will improve the procedures by which producer licence fees are collected and paid to the producers' association.
None of these amendments has any financial implications to the province, obviously. I respectfully submit these amendments for second reading at this time.
Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the minister will recall that I have had correspondence with him dating back to June 28 regarding amendments to the Farm Products Containers Act. My correspondence stemmed from a lengthy conversation I had with one of the former presidents of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association who resides in my riding. He indicated to me the type of amendments the association would like to see the minister introduce. I indicated what its concerns were to the minister in my letter.
The one request the association made, which the minister did not honour, but I can probably understand the reason now that he has written to me about it, was for the authority to audit the books of the sellers of these containers.
Just as the minister indicated, the association felt that all the money collected was not getting into its treasury. There were ways of working the invoices and so on, and the association thought it might be able to correct that through an amendment.
The minister indicated to me in his letter that the OFVGA did seek authority to audit the records of these sellers and, while it has been decided that this degree of authority would be excessive, Bill 171 has a provision to require a seller to account for licence fees payable to the association.
The OFVGA also would be authorized to recover licence fees by suit in a court of competent jurisdiction. Also, I think the increase in the fine, to serve as a deterrent, was a good move on the minister's part.
I received a call from the former president of the OFVGA, the one with whom I had a discussion in June, over the weekend. He told me the association is quite happy with the amendments the minister has introduced in this bill. He said: "We would like the bill to go through with dispatch. Do you see any problems with it?" I said: "No, I don't. If you people feel your requests have been acknowledged, then I don't see any reason to give it lengthy debate or to send it to committee."
He asked, "What do you think the New Democratic Party is going to do?" I said, "The NDP will likely find some reason to be critical, because they will say this levy that is collected is passed on to the consumer." Of course, we have the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) standing in his place and forever criticizing the prices consumers have to pay for a product, whether or not they reflect the prices the farmers receive at the farm gate.
I had to tell him I was not too sure what the NDP was going to do in this case, but I hoped the member for Welland-Thorold would see the urgency of having this bill passed as the OFVGA does not want any further delays in getting these amendments passed.
In connection with the liability of the ministry, particularly in connection with the chemical that was used by farmers in excess, because, as I understand it, the decimal place got in the wrong place in the recommendations in Publication 75, I would have thought the minister's response to the member for Welland-Thorold would have been that the member underestimates the intelligence of farmers. They know full well the publications that emanate from the ministry are guidelines. They also know that they do not dare use a chemical unless they read the label on the can thoroughly, including the bottom line.
I think it is an insult to the intelligence of farmers to suggest that they would simply take a look at the guidelines that are put out by the ministry, ignore the label on the can and go ahead and apply the chemical in accordance with the guidelines. These are nothing more than guidelines, and I do not know how the ministry can be held responsible for guidelines it puts out when the thing to go by is the label on the can. The farmers know full well that is what they should be doing before they ever apply a chemical.
9:40 p.m.
Before I sit down I have to get through somehow to the minds of the New Democratic Party that interest rates are one measure of controlling inflation. If we were to allow inflation to run rampant the way the NDP would like us to do -- and they cannot tell me different, because they say the government should continue to pour money in -- if that were to happen we would have inflation running rampant to the point where there would be a crash that would make the crash of 1929 look rosy.
The farmers know this. The farmers tell me, "Jack, we are prepared to pay high interest rates if we can get a price for our product which would take into consideration our input costs, including high interest rates." They know inflation has to be controlled. They know the NDP are talking nonsense when they talk about letting inflation run its course. If that ever happened, we would be into a depression which would see not 500 but literally thousands of farmers go bankrupt. The farmers are smart enough to know this. I hope this will put an end to the nonsense I hear being preached by the member for Welland-Thorold about high interest rates.
Something has to stop inflation in this country. But build it into the input costs and give the prices that the farmers deserve at the farm gate, and they will contend with the high interest rates. I am surprised the member for Welland-Thorold has not got the message.
Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, the fourth one tabled by the Minister of Agriculture and Food which we have dealt with this evening.
I find it a little embarrassing to find myself so much in support of the first four bills that we are not even moving any amendments at this time. I would not, however, want to give the minister the impression that this sort of thing is going to continue. I am sure we will be crossing swords over some of the measures he will be proposing, or over his lack of measures, with regard to the serious agricultural problems that face our society.
I too have had some discussion with the members of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association on this bill. I come from the Niagara Peninsula, which is the main area in Ontario where fruit, as well as other products which use containers, is produced.
I acknowledge the mental capacity and wisdom of the farm community. Unlike the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell), they are able to see that if there is an excessive markup by the middleman it is not only the consumer who suffers but the producer as well. If the member for Huron-Middlesex thinks the milk producers are not going to suffer because of the seven cents per litre increase in the price of milk -- and it may end up even higher than that -- he is out of touch with the realities of the producers in this province.
Surely anybody who is concerned about society generally wants to see the most efficient handling and processing of the farm produce between the farmer and the consumer so the farmer can maximize the amount that he gets at the lowest possible price to the consumer.
I find no conflict whatsoever in the two portfolios I have, that of Consumer Affairs critic and as critic for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. It is a fact that frequently in the party to my right one person gets up and talks one way and another person gets up and talks another way because they sit in a different location and because they have different responsibilities.
In this party we have a more unified caucus and a more unified policy. We find there is little conflict between the interests of the consumer and the interests of agriculture. I can state categorically that I believe in the long run the marketing boards are good for the consumers of Ontario. They not only will provide for the consumer, long term, an adequate supply of food, but will provide it at an even price. If they get an adequate return, they will provide it at a cheaper price than if it is left to the ups and downs of the marketplace without any marketing boards.
I am not saying that all marketing boards, like all unions or any other organizations, are always perfect and always make the right decisions. I am saying the principle of marketing boards is sound and the consumer will benefit from well-run marketing boards in the long run.
If I may just turn it around, I would hope the member for Huron-Middlesex will come to that realization at some point while he is still the critic for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
The bill we have before us must be one of the briefest acts on our statute books. This bill is actually about twice as long as the previous one, which I think had only three sections. This has six. I am not sure whether that is progress or not, but that does not really matter because once again I believe this bill makes some improvements in the ability of the fruit and vegetable growers' association and the Ontario Beekeepers' Association to operate their associations to their own benefit and to the benefit of society generally.
The move in recent years on the part of the government to nave regulations promulgated by the Lieutenant Governor in Council instead of by the individual ministers is perhaps a move in the right direction. We support section 2 of this bill. It gives a greater uniformity and a wider supervision in regulations.
When I sat on the statutory instruments committee, we spent some time going over many regulations and found that some of them were somewhat contradictory. Some of them seemed to exceed the provisions of the act. To have regulations promulgated by the Lieutenant Governor in Council seems to me to be a wise move and I accept the minister's word that it conforms to what is done in most other acts.
It is obvious that the switch to the collection of licence fees for containers from the retailers is a wise move. Sometimes the retailer and the manufacturer are the same company.
I suspect when the bill was originally passed in the 1940s there were many small manufacturers. Almost all manufacturers marketed the containers they produced. It was not such a difficult thing in those days. Now, with only a few manufacturers spread across various parts of this province -- and, for that matter, of this nation; some of the containers come from outside this province -- it becomes very difficult to assess these licence fees against the manufacturers. So the move to assess them against the retailers is a wise move and makes them easier to collect.
9:50 p.m.
I suspect it will mean, though, and there is no doubt about it, that the fruit and vegetable growers' association will have more companies to collect from than previously, perhaps two, three or four times as many; perhaps the minister can tell us some of those figures. In spite of that it is going to be easier to collect, and there is no question that it is going to be more uniform.
I guess this is a kind of unique way of actually financing a growers' organization. It is perhaps the only one, but it seems a very commendable way of financing it. The more they grow the more they pay. It is a sort of self-governing licence fee that is assessed against the producer, and I think it will be a fairly easy way of collecting it with the amendments that are being made by this bill.
I notice something in this bill that is unusual in bills that are before the House, and that is, the explanatory notes under clause 3 are not complete. It says, "The Lieutenant Governor in Council will be authorized to exempt any type of container from the regulations." In fact, the exemption goes further than that. It can also exempt any class of producer. I would be glad to have the minister amplify what class of producers might be exempt from this and what type of container might be exempt from the licence fee.
As has already been mentioned, the minister has inserted clauses in this bill that will make it much easier for the growers' association or the honey producers' association to determine what fees were collected by the sellers of the containers and to collect those fees from them.
Finally, I concur with the increases in the proposed fines for anybody contravening the act, because I believe these fees were set perhaps 30 or more years ago and even the decrease in the value of the dollar means that by this time, in order to get the same amount, we should increase it four or five times. In addition, in this day and age, when we are more sophisticated in bookkeeping and so on, there is less excuse for any operator to err in or refrain from paying those licence fees to producers.
Once again, this party has no hesitation in supporting and expediting this bill. The member for Huron-Middlesex in his comments was just playing a little bit of politics. He knows full well that we in this party are aware of the problems facing the agricultural society and well aware of what are improvements and what are backward steps that sometimes are brought forward in legislation.
Members can be assured that when measures are brought before this House that are going to benefit our basic producers in this society, we in this party are going to be supporting them.
Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, it is with particular pride that I stand and give my support to this bill, because in 1974 I was president of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association. From 1947, when this bill was first brought in, until very recently, within the last five years, I sat in on discussions at annual meetings and throughout the year on this very problem.
I am not going to be critical of this bill. If I was critical it would be in asking why former ministers did not bring in this correction some time ago. Nevertheless, the minister has brought it in and I commend him for doing so.
I would like to say a word about the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association. It started in 1859, before Confederation. It is the oldest agricultural organization in Canada. Its beginnings go back to the Niagara Peninsula area and it gradually grew to take in vegetable growers. There were at one time two independent bodies, a fruit growers' association and a vegetable growers' association. In the 1940s they came together to form the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association.
Through those years, one of the things the association has supported and stressed has been proper grading of the commodity. One of the problems we have had in Ontario is the fact that our producers are very close to the market and it is very simple to run things from the farm into the market with very little grading. At the same time, they are competing in the overall market with products that were shipped from the United States, and those that cross the border run into Canadian Department of Agriculture regulations.
Then when they are displayed here in Ontario, they run into the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food regulations, so those products were always graded to a high standard. That is an old fight and we seldom hear anybody today complaining about grading, but the grading laws we have, I want to point out, are a result of the co-operation between the Ontario fruit and vegetable growers and both the Canadian and Ontario governments.
I would like to mention that horticultural producers are among the most independent people in the world. If we look at the range of products they produce we will not find one product that is sold under a quota or supply marketing system. They have an underlying philosophy that they will compete in the market and they will let the market rule. They demand that the marketing rules, that is the system under which they trade, be fair trade.
I mentioned before that Ontario and Canada have some catching up to do with the United States in the matter of protecting the horticultural producers under the rules of trading. We have good regulations for those items that are covered by marketing boards, but we have many products that are not covered by marketing boards and are unprotected.
I commend the minister for moving the point of action to the seller. I might mention an event that took place this summer. Some time in June, about 21 producers of containers for this industry went on strike. To the best of my knowledge they are still on strike. There are no meetings scheduled until the very end of this month between the participants, and possibly these factories will not be back into production until Christmas time at the earliest.
10 p.m.
This caught not only the fresh fruit and vegetable industry but the canning industry and beverage industry at the time of the year when their demand for containers is greatest. To get by, they have had to go to the United States for many of their containers. Fortunately, business conditions in the US were such the producers there were quick to change over to our type of containers and produce the dyes and the printing to meet some of our regulations in supplying these containers.
Those containers run into a duty across the border which I think is about 17 per cent. I could be corrected on that, but they do run into duty.
Early in August I wrote to the then Minister of National Revenue, Mr. Rompkey, asking him to waive duty under these conditions, pointing out it would not cost the government of Canada any budgeted money because it normally does not receive income from that area. I had a reply from him a few days ago saying they will consider this. They do have a mechanism for refunding the duty. Application has to be made to a review group.
Of course, this is limited to agricultural producers or their agents and it does not include any container companies. If it were to include container companies, they would be coming down on the side of one of the participants in the strike. We do not have any quarrel with any industrial group coming finally to a strike situation. We deplore that it has to happen but that is part of our collective bargaining system. We certainly deplore it when third parties are hurt at a time when their demand for these products is greatest.
As a matter of information, I point out to the minister there is an avenue of relief for those people who have brought in containers. It is not an easy avenue. They have to supply a great deal of information as to how it is affecting their business, their financial records and so on. I would not want to convey the impression it is just a matter of walking up to the desk and getting a cheque, but the system is there.
One of the other things the fruit and vegetable growers have done over the years is a great deal of promotion for their industry. They have put on displays at the Canadian National Exhibition and at the Royal Winter Fair. These have been well received and have done a great deal to help their industry.
They have also on occasion gone to regional fairs such as the Western Fair and put on displays there. They are very much an independent group of people dedicated to solving their own problems. I certainly commend the minister to the thought that these people do a lot towards helping themselves. Any additional help he can give is probably the best money he can spend in that direction.
Back in 1972, the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association, the Canadian Horticultural Council and the Canadian Fruit Wholesalers Association embarked on a self-help program whereby moneys were donated by people in the industry, the producers. I think some money probably came from some of the container people, from wholesalers, from the retail chains and from the Canadian and Ontario governments.
That money has not been used in the advertising sense where one goes to the media, the newspapers, radio and TV, and pays to rent so much space or time, but has been spent in promotion. That is a system whereby one creates a lot of interest. They try to attract the attention of the media and, really, what they are looking for in a sense is free advertising. But it is not totally free because in order to attract attention, they have to put on a good show themselves.
This group, the Fresh for Flavour Foundation, has in the past put on a good show. They set as their aim 500 pounds of fresh produce consumption per person. They have now reached something above this and are way ahead of consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables in the United States, where it is in the area of about 340 pounds.
In the last year or so, in applying to the Ontario government for these funds, I think they have run into a great deal of opposition, more from some of the people next to the ministers than from the ministers themselves. I think they are rather trying to protect Foodland Ontario operation.
Of course, that is a good operation and the producers of Ontario certainly support that operation. The minister knows that he is going to be faced with certain cutbacks in his advertising. He is spending about $40 million a year. Recently, about $1 million of that has been to agriculture. I want to point out to the minister that if he is cutting in the area of agriculture, he could probably maintain a level of service at about the present level by diverting some of those moneys to the Fresh for Flavour Foundation.
The government's argument always has been that it thinks there is a spillover of Fresh for Flavour to imported products because the Canadian fruit wholesalers, as part of this program, use Fresh for Flavour in some parts of the season for offshore products. There is very good co-ordination between all the elements in this picture and it even includes a US fruit and vegetable organization, the United Fruit and Vegetable Shippers. They may co-ordinate the shipping to try to coincide with our Canadian season. The government may lose the goodwill of those people, and I think to some extent we have lost some of that goodwill. Through the abolition of the food council we have lost some of that goodwill.
The minister does the industry a great disservice. This industry is small enough in numbers of people that those in the industry pretty well know one another. It is really a small number of people and they have excellent relationships. By harnessing those excellent relationships, I suggest the minister would be doing a great deal for the industry and could maintain the level of service at its present high level.
Another activity of the organization has been to fight for uniformity in legislation. By going to the Canadian Horticultural Council in Ottawa, we would soon realize that we are a part of Canada rather than one, balkanized unit here in Ontario. It is very easy to say we will stop the importation of Washington apples into Ontario, or the importation of potatoes into Ontario. As soon as we raise any such point, and it has to be done at the federal level, the British Columbia apple people will say, "We ship our McIntosh apples down to San Francisco and that is our big outlet, so do not go tampering with the importation of apples." Or the maritime potato growers will say, "We ship the bulk of our products down into the New England states, so do not go tampering with those." Through participation at the provincial and federal levels, we have a group of people who thoroughly understand the Canadian marketing theme and are very responsible in their actions.
I have great pleasure in speaking to and supporting the bill.
10:10 p.m.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I will not keep the members long. I just wish to react to a couple of things.
On the Fresh for Flavour issue, which again I was apprised of shortly after joining the Ministry of Agriculture and Food in February, we have that matter resolved now. I had a meeting with representatives of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association and the Fresh for Flavour Foundation in April, May or June, somewhere in that period. The member is quite right. Representatives of the ministry worked very hard for the last four to five years to develop and expand the Foodland Ontario program to the point that it is one of the best recognized programs of its kind anywhere in the country, perhaps in North America.
We were concerned that the two were being intertwined in some promotions which were not meeting the objectives of Foodland Ontario, and there were examples. I know that one of my staff -- and he may have broken a law, I do not know -- took an ad from a subway car because it was for citrus fruits. I believe it was for citrus fruits; I could be wrong, but I think that is what it was. It had the Fresh for Flavour Foundation logo on it and the Foodland Ontario logo. Obviously, we are not promoting citrus fruits.
The proposal I made to the group, which was subsequently accepted at the next meeting of the boards of directors of the Fresh for Flavour Foundation and Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association, was very simple. Do not forget we are talking about shared-cost promotions. When they talk about wanting to promote fresh strawberries in June, we say, "All right, we agree, and we will contribute whatever number of dollars towards that and -- "
Mr. McGuigan: Salad month.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Yes, salad month is another one. We agree to put in so much money and the growers put in so much money.
In those cases where we are involved financially, it was agreed that the materials that will be presented to the public will have nothing on them but the Foodland Ontario symbol, so that symbol will be used throughout. But on the materials that are presented to the trade to continue the work of the maintenance and development of goods in the trade between growers and wholesalers and buyers, that material will show both the Fresh for Flavour Foundation symbol and the Foodland Ontario symbol, so that it will be evident it is a joint effort and it will only be on those things that we have agreed to participate in as a ministry. I think that issue is resolved.
Mr. McGuigan: I think it's a very fair arrangement.
Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Thank you.
As the member pointed out, there is a means of rebating to some growers extra moneys expended by them as a result of the current strike by the suppliers and manufacturers of containers, albeit a cumbersome one, and we are pleased to have that assistance and co-operation from the federal government through Revenue Canada.
The member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) raised the question of exemptions. Neither the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association nor the ministry are planning any further exemptions than those that already exist, which I mentioned in my opening remarks on this bill. The section of the bill only regularizes what is now in place.
Mr. McGuigan: Just on a point of information, to offer a suggestion of an item that the minister might want to have exempted. That would be containers used in interprovincial or export trade. He might want to do that because there is a constitutional problem there, I think. Also, he might want to exempt the people in, say, northern Ontario who gather blueberries and use the containers, which is a separate branch of horticulture. I just offer those as things you might want to exempt.
Motion agreed to.
Ordered for third reading.
MALVERN WASTE REMOVAL ACT
Hon. Mr. Wells moved second reading of Bill 174, An Act to provide for the Removal of Certain Waste from the Malvern Area.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to make a few comments on this bill. Unfortunately, I was not in the House at the time the bill was introduced. It was introduced by one of my colleagues on my behalf. It is, of course, a bill I support and that I believe all the members of this House will support, and I hope I can indicate the reasons for this.
The bill deals with a problem that is peculiar basically to McClure Crescent in the Malvern subdivision of the borough of Scarborough. To trace the history of it, back in 1940 there was a firm on Church Street in Toronto called Radium Luminous Industries Ltd. They were in the process at that time -- and this, of course, was during the war -- of making radium instruments for airplanes, I believe. They owned a 10-acre farm in the Malvern area in Scarborough. To that farm they transported certain waste from their factory on Church Street, and it was incinerated there at the time. They sold it to the farmer there; he incinerated it and then spread the ashes over his property, using them as a fertilizer experiment, as I understand it. That was way back in the mid-1940s.
At that time we all were wearing wristwatches that had radium numbers on them, and it was an accepted technique for making instruments, watches and so forth, luminous. I draw that point to the attention of members because there is a controversy over the nature and hazardousness of this particular soil. It certainly is hazardous to the extent, for instance, that wearing a radium watch is hazardous; and I guess this has been proven by the fact that today you would have a very difficult time buying this kind of watch, which went out of style because it was felt that the radioactivity from such a watch would be hazardous. So while there may be an argument about the degree of hazard concerning this soil, there is no question that there is a certain low-level radioactive hazard connected with the soil.
In 1953 the area where this farm was located in Scarborough was expropriated by the Ontario and federal governments under a land banking program. That land then remained dormant for a considerable number of years. In 1973, the Ontario Housing Corp. began to develop the Malvern site and, through arrangements with private developers, to build homes and sell them to residents.
In 1975, I am informed, the Ministry of Health radiation protection branch was contacted by a photographic firm on Church Street. This firm had a problem. They were continually finding that the films they used were inexplicably exposed before they had actually been used. When they opened them they found that somehow they had been exposed as if they had been used. Upon investigation by the Ministry of Health it was found that radium traces were in that building. This discovery led to a look at the history of the building, this being the same Church Street building that Radium Luminous Industries had been located in during the war.
The tracing of the history of that building in 1975 led to a discovery of the activities that were carried on at the farm in the Malvern area of Scarborough. At that time the Atomic Energy Control Board and National Health and Welfare conducted soil testing and sent samples to the Ministry of Health. From the information I have been given, no abnormal levels of radioactivity were detected at that time.
That seems rather strange to me, and I guess it does to all of us. The explanation apparently was that the testing that was done and the holes that were drilled at that time missed by some 50 feet the areas where the low-level radioactive soil now has been found to be present. Although the discovery of what had actually happened in Malvern occurred in 1975, there appears to have been no general concern or alarm that there was a problem then.
10:20 p.m.
Then we move five years forward to November 1980, when two journalism students from Ryerson doing some tests discovered unacceptable levels of radioactivity in two backyards in the McClure Crescent area. They located the site, I am told, on information from a chemist who had worked on the farm during the Second World War. I have no other information as to why they happened to get in touch with this chemist or how this came about. The results registered by their radiation detector meters were confirmed by University of Toronto physicists. So the presence of low-level radioactive soil on McClure Crescent in Scarborough became publicly known and became the concern of the residents who had bought homes in that area and found this soil was in their backyards around November 1980.
At that time, the Minister of the Environment of the day indicated that responsibility for radioactive waste rested with the Atomic Energy Control Board. Mr. Eaton of the board said AECB would check all the properties and remove topsoil for temporary storage elsewhere until permanent facilities could be found. MacLaren Ltd. was hired and testing was conducted. The results of that testing is available in a report, Radiation Survey of the McClure Crescent Area of Scarborough, Ontario: Interim Report to the Atomic Energy Control Board. Where the radioactive soil was present, where it was most concentrated and so forth, was outlined in this report of the AECB.
What happened after that is perhaps better known to the members of this House. This area is located in the riding I have the privilege and honour to represent. From the very beginning, when the presence of the soil was indicated and the concern of the residents was pointed out to all of us, both I and the federal member for the area, the Honourable Paul Cosgrove, felt that the only reasonable and sensible thing to do would be to have the soil removed, even though there are certainly conflicting opinions about the degree of hazard the presence of the soil will cause.
There is no question in my mind that the soil remaining in the backyards and in the front yards and around the properties on McClure Crescent will be a hazard forever to those people who live there, no matter what anyone else believes. Be that hazard an actual one or an imagined one, it is a hazard. It is a hazard in a number of ways to those people and, therefore, it must be removed.
Mr. Cassidy: The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton) does not think that. He says it is just psychological.
Hon. Mr. Wells: I said it is a hazard in a number of ways. Certainly, even the psychological presence of something that in fact may not be a total health hazard is a hazard. I have had numerous arguments with the medical officer of health in Scarborough, who is not prepared to say it is really hazardous to have that soil there.
That is why I made the comments I did about wearing luminous wristwatches, because we all wore those. I still have one in a drawer at home. We all wore them at one time. We now feel they are hazardous. Whether it would have caused us any hazard over a period of 20 years, I do not know, but the fact is that none of us would take a chance on wearing them any more; so we do not wear them.
Hon. Mr. Snow: I still have one on.
Hon. Mr. Wells: The minister should take it off then, especially sitting beside the Minister of the Environment. It will present a problem to him.
The other well-known facts concerning this matter are that the Atomic Energy Control Board then prepared with MacLaren a very detailed program to remove the soil. I think it affects about 40 homes and it totals something like 6,000 tons of earth that would have to be removed.
A total plan was devised by MacLaren, which is very knowledgeable in this particular area because it previously did a removal of low-level radiated material in the Port Hope area. It did a study and projected a plan for removing it from this area which was presented to the residents.
The basic problem which then arose was where this soil was to go. The first proposal by the AECB was that the soil should go to the mine in Bancroft. History shows that was not an acceptable decision for the people in Bancroft. Ultimately, the mine itself, as I understand it, decided the soil should not go to Bancroft.
So Bancroft was not the site where the soil was to go. Bancroft was suggested because there was a low-level waste storage area there that the mine was using for certain mine tailings. Anyway, that was not to be the site the soil would go to.
Next, a committee of AECB and others suggested a site somewhere in Camp Borden.
These were all temporary sites, because the ministry and others are still in the process of developing a permanent site for low-level radioactive material, something that has not been developed yet except for the site Ontario Hydro has at the Bruce generating station which is for a higher degree of low-level radioactive material in the soils.
The Camp Borden site, of course, became embroiled in a legal controversy. It became embroiled in injunctions that were placed by local residents and an ultimate decision -- are my friends getting a little anxious to speak over there?
Mr. Charlton: No.
Hon. Mr. Wells: I thought perhaps the best thing to do tonight was to give the members the total history so they would have the background on this.
Mr. Conway: It is rare we see the government House leader line-fencing it, and it is quite exciting.
Hon. Mr. Wells: The situation in Camp Borden and the court cases around the Camp Borden situation were such that, ultimately, the federal government and therefore AECB felt they had no authority and no money to accept what we always said was their responsibility: to remove the soil.
We were then at the point, following the Camp Borden court decisions, faced not only with the refusal of Camp Borden as a site but also with the refusal of AECB to do anything more to remove the soil and with the complete washing of its hands on the part of the federal government of any responsibility in this matter.
As my friend the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) knows, the Premier (Mr. Davis) in all this had sent three or four telegrams suggesting Chalk River, which suggestion was at some times politely rejected and at other times not politely rejected.
Hon. Mr. Norton: In Sean's backyard.
Mr. Conway: I said yes to Port Hope.
Hon. Mr. Wells: It was the feeling that Chalk River might be an appropriate site, but that was rejected. The key here is that after the Camp Borden court cases, the federal government vanished from the scene. It then became clear that if this soil were to be removed, it would have to be removed by the province and the municipalities concerned. Since the Camp Borden situation, we have had no success in interesting or getting AECB or the federal government to do anything more in this area.
The net result is that we have Bill 174 to give the legal framework within which the borough of Scarborough, in partnership with the Ontario government -- the Ministry of the Environment -- and with the moneys voted by this Legislature, can remove that soil from the Malvern area once and for all and rehabilitate those properties in an acceptable manner. This bill is very necessary if that is to be done.
The one thing still missing from the bill, which does provide for the Lieutenant Governor in Council to name the position, is where it is going. At this point I cannot say where it is going, but I suggest that it would be frivolous to decide to oppose the bill just because we do not know where it is going.
Any attempt on the part of the opposition to take a tack such as saying, "We are not going to give the authority to the borough of Scarborough and the province to remove the hazardous soil," is not keeping very good faith with the people of McClure Crescent in the Malvern area of Scarborough. They will then become a partner with all the other obstructionists who have been there to see that so far nothing has happened as far as McClure Crescent is concerned.
I invite the members opposite not to join the obstruction team, but to come with us and support this bill. In due course this House will be fully informed as to where the soil is going. In my wind-up remarks I will be happy to discuss some of the ideas where the soil might go. My first choice is the Beare Road landfill site in Scarborough, but even that is being opposed and residents are taking us to court over that site.
I urge the members to support this bill.
On motion by Hon. Mr. Wells, the debate was adjourned.
The House adjourned at 10:32 p.m.