STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE (CONCLUDED)
STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND OTHER STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
REPORT
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE (CONCLUDED)
Resuming the debate on the motion for adoption of the report of the standing committee on administration of justice on Bill 179.
Mr. Speaker: Order. As I undertook before leaving the chair for supper hour, I have had a chance to consider the point of order raised by the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick). My conclusion is that a motion was moved in the committee, accepted by the chairman and voted upon after his ruling had been sustained. Therefore, the report having been brought properly before the House, there is no basis that can be made that the motion is out of order.
Mr. Martel: Oh.
Mr. Foulds: Is that it?
Mr. Speaker: That is it.
Mr. Martel: The ruling being so very --
Mr. Speaker: Just a minute. We are not going to debate it. I have made the ruling.
Mr. Martel: I just wanted to say in a nice way that we challenge your ruling.
Mr. Foulds: We have no choice.
Mr. Speaker: Then let us be explicit.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: That was it.
Mr. Martel: I wanted to do it in a gentle manner, and you would not let me.
9:04 p.m.
The House divided on the Speaker's ruling, which was sustained on the following vote:
Ayes
Andrewes, Ashe, Baetz, Barlow, Bennett, Bernier, Brandt, Cousens, Cureatz, Davis, Dean, Eaton, Elgie, Eves, Fish, Gillies, Gordon, Gregory, Grossman, Henderson, Hennessy, Hodgson, Johnson, J. M., Jones, Kells, Kennedy, Kerr, Kolyn, Lane, Leluk;
MacQuarrie, McCaffrey, McCague, McLean, McMurtry, McNeil, Miller, F. S., Mitchell, Norton, Ramsay, Robinson, Rotenberg, Runciman, Scrivener, Sheppard, Shymko, Stephenson, B. M., Sterling, Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, G. W., Taylor, J. A., Walker, Watson, Wells, Wiseman.
Nays
Allen, Breaugh, Breithaupt, Bryden, Charlton, Conway, Cooke, Cunningham, Eakins, Foulds, Grande, Haggerty, Johnston, R. F., Laughren, Lupusella;
Mackenzie, Martel, McClellan, McGuigan, McKessock, Miller, G. I., Newman, Nixon, Philip, Rae, Reed, J. A., Reid, T. P., Renwick, Riddell, Ruston, Samis, Swart, Sweeney, Wildman, Worton.
Ayes 55; nays 35.
Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I rise to continue my remarks, even though this party believes that --
Interjections.
Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I find it passing strange that the government, having brought forth a motion in committee that breaks all the precedents of this House and having presented to this House a report that breaks all precedents and establishes new rules and new methods of procedure --
Interjections.
9:10 p.m.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Port Arthur has the floor.
Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I am amazed that the members of the government party seem to object to debate on this report. After all, it is their report, the report recommends to the House a piece of legislation that they are endorsing, and yet they somehow want the report passed without debate. I find that a little strange, a little unusual.
I did not have time over the supper hour to listen to any of the news reports that went out over the airwaves, but I was asked by a couple of reporters in the hallway whether I was engaging in a filibuster. I want to assure you, Mr. Speaker, and the members of the House, including the members of the government party, that I have no intention of engaging in a filibuster.
Interjections.
Mr. Foulds: Could we have a bit of order, Mr. Speaker? I do have a sore throat and I would like all members who wish to hear --
Mr. Speaker: I just remind the member for Port Arthur, we are not debating the report but actually the motion before the House. The motion is to adopt the report.
Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand completely your ruling. I agree with it. I fully intend to abide by the rules. I want to assure all members of the House that I plan to be back in my riding tomorrow evening to attend a swim meet where my two sons are competing; so we are not in any way going to prolong the debate unduly.
Mr. Speaker: May we have unanimous consent to hear the government House leader?
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I want to indicate that I understand there has been agreement that the standing committee on resources development is going to meet from now until 10:30 to handle the estimates of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, if any of the members who are here want to go down.
Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that you of all people are sympathetic to the difficulties I have in keeping my train of thought because of the constant interruptions by members of the government party.
However, we have before us a report for adoption that is some five lines long. I want to speak directly to that report and to indicate to members, after my preliminary remarks this afternoon, in as succinct and direct a way as I can, why I oppose the adoption of this report.
For those members who have not bothered to read the report, and as the committee chairman or acting chairman or pro tem chairman who brought it in did not read it, I will read it for the edification of the members.
"Mr. Eves from the standing committee on the administration of justice presents the committee's report and moves its adoption: 'Your committee begs to report that it has decided not to proceed with the consideration of Bill 179, An Act respecting the Restraint of Compensation in the Public Sector of Ontario and the Monitoring of Inflationary Conditions in the Economy of the Province, but to report it to the House at this time.'"
One of the main reasons I am rising in my place to oppose this bill is that the motion you ruled in order, by which we must agree, is directly contrary to the motion moved by the government House leader:
"Ordered that the standing committee on administration of justice holds two weeks, approximately 33 hours, of public hearings regarding Bill 179, sitting tonight" -- then he gives a schedule of the sittings, which was agreed to -- "with public participation ending on November 1; and that normal clause-by-clause consideration of the bill start on November 2, 1982, with sittings Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at the times set out above; and that after" -- and this is the important part -- "clause-by-clause consideration is finished, the bill will be reported to the Legislature."
I submit that many times in the committee we had the chairman say to the members of the committee that they had to do such-and-such because of the mandatory instructions of the House.
Mr. Mackenzie: Time and again.
Mr. Foulds: Time and time again. In the mandatory instructions of the House which I have just read, it was the duty of the committee not to report the bill until after clause-by-clause consideration was finished,
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I just remind the member for Port Arthur, that has already been ruled on.
Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I am not quarrelling with your ruling that the motion is in order. I am arguing why, having ruled that the motion is in order, this House should defeat the motion. It is not a point of order. It is part of the debate. It is one of the major reasons that I am opposing this motion and this report. I am suggesting to the House that this report should not be adopted.
I want to move on because I do not have much time left.
Some hon. members: Hurray.
Mr. Foulds: I want to suggest why I am opposing this report in substance. This report recommends to the House a bill that fundamentally infringes upon people's rights. Fundamentally, it infringes on the right of assembly and right of association, and it breaks the rule of law in this province which has been established over many years.
Any report of any committee that does that should be treated with the utmost seriousness in this House. I suggest to you and through you, Mr. Speaker, to all members of the House, that the government has not treated this bill, this report or this Legislature with the utmost seriousness.
When I had the pleasure of leading off on second reading of the bill for this party, I mentioned to the House that democracy, as described by Abraham Lincoln, was government of the people, by the people, for the people. Before the supper hour, the government House leader, a man for whom I have enormous respect, particularly when he was Minister of Education and I had the honour of being his opponent in the House in that portfolio, argued what I think is the most dangerous argument that can be put in a parliamentary democracy.
That argument is simply this -- and I believe it is the argument of the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Jones), the chief government whip (Mr. Gregory) and the Premier (Mr. Davis) -- that the majority must rule; that finally, when you come down to it, the opposition must be brushed aside and the majority must rule. I suggest that the government House leader weakened his case by making that argument.
The government House leader, when he was talking outside in the hallway -- on which I would like to report, because it is one of the reasons that the government has given for pushing this particular report through the House at this particular time -- said that a number of people may be hurt, may be detrimentally affected if the bill is not passed by December 31. I suggest that reason is the most sanctimonious claptrap that I have ever heard, because we had no consultation --
Mr. Runciman: It takes one to know one.
Mr. Speaker: Never mind the interjections, please.
9:20 p.m.
Mr. Foulds: Before the bill was introduced, we had no consultation with people affected by it. We had no consultation with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, with the Ontario Federation of Labour or with any of the public sector unions before the bill was introduced by the government. We had no consultation with any of the opposition parties before the bill was introduced. What we had was a government poll that showed they needed to do something to refurbish their image before the public.
What we have in this province is not government of the people, by the people, for the people, but government of the people by the public opinion poll for the benefit of the Tories. What we have with this report and this motion is the trampling on the rules of this Legislature for the benefit of the Tories, for the benefit of the government party, so that they can get home for Christmas and so they can save the face of the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller). That is what we are engaged in here.
The government party has never taken seriously the statements that this party made from the beginning with regard to Bill 179. We were deadly serious when we said that on September 22 and 23 and we are deadly serious on it now. This bill is totally offensive to what we believe in and what we believe is the rule of law. The only opposition we can mount is the opposition of our poor voices. Our voices will use whatever talent, whatever timbre, whatever sound they can to oppose the bill.
Mr. Gillies: It is the democratic process.
Mr. Martel: What is democratic about it?
Hon. Mr. Ashe: What an irresponsible use of time.
Mr. Martel: We haven't been ruled out of order once. We haven't been ruled out of order.
Mr. Jones: Sure, you had to shut the committee down a couple of times.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Foulds: I was not going to introduce this into my remarks --
Interjections.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Port Arthur has the floor.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I think it would be appropriate if you would ask the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Ashe) to adjust his tiepin. It is obviously causing an aggravation.
Hon. Mr. Ashe: I know where I'd like to tighten it. It would be right around yours.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Violence. He is getting violent.
Mr. Mackenzie: That's what we expect from him.
An hon. member: Mr. Speaker, that's a breach of the Criminal Code. He knows that.
Mr. Mackenzie: That's one of the reasons you are in trouble -- I won't say it.
Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, in very simple terms this bill hits at civil liberties in Ontario in the same way, although perhaps not to the same extent, that the War Measures Act did. This bill hits at what we consider to be the rights of individuals and groups to associate in a way that is unprecedented in Ontario's parliamentary history.
I am well aware the government believes that it has the right to do anything, that it has the right to bring in any law because it has a majority. That is where we have a fundamental disagreement. We do not believe it has that right. We believe the government has a right to bring in a law as long as it is acceptable to the people which it affects, by and large.
This law singles out and victimizes a group of people in this province who need not be victimized, who should not be victimized. This law singles out a particular group of people without their consultation, without protecting their rights, without any consideration for what they want. In fact, it is directly contrary to what these people want, and for what? Any law that is brought in and any report of the Legislature which recommends a law should have some compensating benefits for those affected.
Let me illustrate by referring to perhaps one of the most controversial bills brought before this Legislature which all parties agreed to, the bill that required seatbelts for driving. There was a lot of opposition to that bill. It was mixed, and there were a lot of people who argued that their freedoms were being infringed by that bill. But that bill had the compensating, redeeming feature that all those affected by the bill, those having to wear the seatbelts, were provided with a modicum of safety that they would not otherwise have had. I suggest that the report of this committee recommending this bill to the House has no modicum of safety, no compensating benefits for those people who are affected by the bill.
Mr. Jones: Oh yes, it does. Those arguments were made in the debate in the committee.
Mr. Mackenzie: You will get your turn.
Mr. Riddell: Let him finish, Terry.
Mr. Jones: We have only heard it three times.
Mr. Foulds: The government House leader indicated during the supper break that the government felt this bill was necessary before Christmas. It felt that democracy was being threatened by the New Democratic Party, because we were engaging in the rules of debate. That is a widespread belief held by the honourable members sitting in the second and third rows and, I would suggest, some of those sitting in the front rows of the government side. But I suggest that this bill and the recommendation in this report are fundamentally contrary to the principles of democracy, and that is the reason we are opposing it.
As Aristotle said: "Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects. Because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal." I suggest that this bill fundamentally breaches that principle, because it treats one class of worker, the person who works in the public sector, differently from other workers, those who work in the private sector. That principle of democracy as enunciated by Aristotle is breached.
Aristotle, wise old fellow that he was, also said: "A state is not a mere society having a common place established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. Political society exists for the sake of noble actions and not of mere companionship." I suggest that any bill that does not enhance the principle of noble action is a bill that should not be passed by this House, and a report of a committee that recommends such a bill to this House should be rejected. This bill and this report fail on that count.
Reinhold Niebuhr put it very well when he said in The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." I suggest that this bill and the report that recommends this bill have brought before us man's inclination to injustice.
The government has admitted through the Treasurer and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) that there are certain sections of the bill that result in actions that are not just to those who are on the receiving end of the bill, that there is an injustice visited on them. I suggest that that principle of democracy is being violated by this report before us.
I would like to wind up this section of my short remarks with a quotation from Robert Maynard Hutchins. He said: "Democracy is the only form of government that is founded on the dignity of man -- not on the dignity of some men, of rich men, of educated men or of white men, but of all men. Its sanction is not the sanction of force but the sanction of human nature. Equality and justice, the two great distinguishing characteristics of democracy, follow inevitably from the conception of men, all men, as rational and spiritual beings."
9:30 p.m.
I suggest that the report before us, which we are currently debating, violates that principle of democracy. It does not treat men and women working in the public sector as people who are rational and spiritual beings. I suggest that this report violates that principle and dehumanizes those it is visited upon but, more than that, it dehumanizes those who agree to pass it, those who go for it. For all those reasons, we should not accept the report of this committee.
I want to turn to a few quotations about Canada's historic sense of democracy. Norman I. Smith, who was the senior editor of the Ottawa Journal for a period of time, said something which the House should be conscious of as it forces this report and the procedure of this bill through the House. He said: "Canada's sense of destiny has depended much on whether one sat on a tractor or in an office, whether one lived in 1758, 1867 or 1965, whether one was Indian, Eskimo, French, English, Irish or Slav, whether one liked Ed Sullivan or Noel Coward, a queen or a president. It depends too" -- and this is the important part -- "on whether one believes democracy means majority rule or minority rights."
I suggest that in a true democracy we as legislators have to be as conscious of minority rights as we are of the rule of the majority.
Finally, I want to suggest that we should take a look at other bills that have been processed through this House which have had a less profound effect on the people affected than this bill has, which have received far greater debate, procedurally and otherwise, in committees outside of this House and which have received far greater public hearings than has this bill.
Let us take a look at them. The Child Welfare Act, which was a very important piece of legislation, received months of consideration in committee before it was reported by that committee to this House. I believe the Health Disciplines Act was considered by committee for almost a year before the committee felt it necessary and appropriate to report that bill to the House in the way this committee has reported the bill we have under consideration before us.
My goodness, even the Retail Sales Tax Act last spring and the --
Mr. Rae: The freedom of information act.
Mr. Foulds: We have not had a freedom of information act.
Mr. Rae: Because it was stuck in committee all the time.
Mr. Foulds: I am getting some help, thanks to my colleagues.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The human rights bill, one of my favourites.
Mr. Foulds: Even the government borrowing bill, on which the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid) conducted a genuine filibuster, was before the House much longer than this.
Mr. Renwick: It wasn't that genuine.
Mr. Foulds: Maybe it was not genuine. The cat and dog bill in the late 1960s was before the committee of this Legislature for many more weeks. If the cat and dog bill, which brought more mail to members of the Legislature than any other single piece of legislation, can be considered before a committee for several weeks and months, surely a bill such as this can be considered by a committee for several weeks and months. If it cannot, because this government feels it must be passed before Christmas, let us be very clear about what is happening here. The House leader told us before adjournment at six o'clock that the executive council had decided it needed this bill before Christmas.
I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that our opposition to this bill is a fundamental opposition that is not taken lightly, is not a frivolous opposition. In all seriousness, I suggest the debate has not been conducted frivolously in any way, shape or form. Those affected by this bill have had their rights taken away. More important, I want to say that those who bring about such a law, those who bring about such an arbitrary measure, bring about a debasing of the law, a disrespect for the law.
I suggest the committee report we have before us aids and abets that process because it does not understand that in this kind of parliamentary democracy those of us who feel strongly about the principle of law, those of us who feel strongly about the principle of the rights of association, those of us who feel strongly about collective bargaining rights must oppose such a law with every ounce of strength we can. We promised that on second reading of the debate. We will continue to do that.
Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest, as I always do, to the speeches of the member for Port Arthur. He has taken us over quite an extended terrain in his reference to this report. Speaking for myself, I appreciate what he has had to say.
I do not intend to speak at any great length. I would simply like to indicate my own views as someone who sat for a couple of days at the justice committee hearings. I expressed my views in that committee, albeit rather briefly. I want to indicate that I do not very much like the motion that forms the substance of the report. I say that sincerely, adding to it my own feeling as a member that life in the justice committee had become quite a struggle.
I have only the highest regard for all honourable members who, by virtue of their assigned responsibilities, had to spend a lot longer period of time in room 151 than I had to spend. As I said, I attended only two or three sessions, yesterday's session perhaps being the longest time in the committee. I saw things and I heard things in that room in the course of the debate on Bill 179 that I thought were not very parliamentary and did not do very much to advance the cause of parliamentary democracy in this place.
I want to make my feelings clear on the subject. I think it is extremely important for members of this House, whether individually or as part of a group, who feel deeply and passionately that they do not want something to happen, to express themselves in that respect. I do not think there is a member of this House who is not sensitive to the views of the third party with respect to Bill 179. They have made those views very clear in that particular committee.
9:40 p.m.
In my view there was little doubt, relative to my experience over the past seven years, that what I was seeing in the justice committee was somewhat extraordinary. It was a committee that appeared to me to be in a real deadlock. I indicated publicly and privately to members opposite and to my left that I felt something was going to have to be done if the business of this place was going to be advanced.
The member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick), in one intervention yesterday, drew our attention very wisely to the traditions of this place post-1975, the only time during which I have had any experience in the House. He pointed out that there had existed something like chaos prior to 1975, when there was not the kind of framework that we developed through the House leaders' panel in the post-1975 period.
I want to make it very clear, Mr. Speaker, that my preference is very much for consensual agreement on the way in which we organize --
Mr. McClellan: It is a view from the sidelines.
Mr. Conway: The member for Bellwoods in his capacity as a whip says it is a view from the sidelines. It may be. I would perhaps be prepared to debate that with the member at another time.
I simply wanted to indicate that my preference is very much for an understanding among the members involved, either in the House generally or in a committee particularly, about how we might organize ourselves and discharge the business we have to discharge.
There is no question, and there ought not to be any doubt in the minds of honourable members, that a difficulty is created when one member or a group of members takes the position of being fundamentally and unalterably opposed to something taking place. If that is the view of honourable members, then clearly the work of parliament is going to be made more difficult.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure you are wondering about specific reference to the report at hand. I want to indicate that, like the member for Riverdale, I view the substance of the report, which is now a forced acceptance by this Legislature in a new variant of closure, as a very wrong and regrettable step. I cannot underscore my feelings in that respect too heavily. I think we have developed a precedent in this situation which will not serve this institution in a positive fashion.
I and my colleagues have indicated that we have a series of amendments, 19 in all if I remember correctly, which we want very much to introduce into the debate on Bill 179. Among others of my colleagues, the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) has in his numerous interventions indicated what the position of this party is. I thought the member for Windsor-Sandwich said it very well yesterday when he indicated that it was our preference to keep this bill in the committee, where there are a number of members who have developed over the course of many hours and many weeks a familiarization with the issues and a sensitivity to the hearings, so that we want to keep the focus and the locus in that committee for this particular matter.
We feel that our amendments are important and should be entertained in that particular room, which is much preferred over the committee of the whole or in the Legislature generally. It is because we feel very strongly that the unprecedented nature of the resolution of the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Jones) is as serious as I have indicated we believe it to be, because of that unprecedented new dimension to closure we have in the particular report, because of our concern about making Bill 179 a more acceptable piece of legislation, because of our concern to talk sensibly and seriously to our amendments, which we want very much to put in the justice committee, that we feel very strongly that the motion put earlier today by the member for Parry Sound (Mr. Eves) is not acceptable and my colleagues and I will not be voting in favour of its adoption when that time comes.
We feel this is an important matter that ought to be proceeded with in the justice committee. I think the traditions of this place and the whole parliamentary procedure here will not in any way be enhanced but rather set back by the new dimension of closure, which is the sum and substance of the resolution that forms the core of the report introduced by the member for Parry Sound.
Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the motion to present the report to the House. I think it is a complete farce and I am really amazed at the actions of the government across the way.
I am amazed we can have a debate such as we are having here tonight dealing with this report, which is referring this bill back to the House without doing the work that was supposed to be done in committee. Some of the people who are going to carry the can for the next several years, not just months, as a result of this bill did not enter into the debate at all. I would really like to see the Minister of Labour on his feet to tell us exactly what he is going to do about the kinds of problems that are being created for collective bargaining in Ontario.
We spent close to three weeks in this House when the bill was originally introduced. We had slightly better than two weeks of public hearings. There should have been a lot more time for those public hearings. I do not know of very many bills, certainly not in the short seven years I have been in the House, where we have had over 100 presentations from interested parties. There were a lot more than 100, because there were meetings held all around Ontario where the people who were going to be hurt by that bill were making presentations at mini-hearings organized by some of the unions involved around the province.
We did not hear better than 40 of those groups before the committee. We did have a debate that started on November 2 when it was referred to committee for clause-by-clause. The first two weeks of that debate were tied up in what were procedural motions, I suppose, but they were substantive procedural motions. They were motions that said, "Before we can continue and work this bill clause by clause, we must have some answers as to what this bill is going to do to the future of collective bargaining in Ontario."
The bill may have been brought in by the Treasurer, and as my colleagues say, he is mentioned only twice in it, but it is one that fundamentally affects public servants and working people in Ontario -- not just the public sector, though that is who the Tories have carved out as the guinea pigs or culprits that the people are going to set up and use as examples. That is the group of employees who are being given a real guilt trip and told they are responsible for the economic problems in Ontario.
9:50 p.m.
We were told it is an economic bill that will resolve some of our problems. I do not know, cannot for a minute understand, how an economic bill, this bill that has now been reported back into the House without having been dealt with clause by clause, is going to resolve our economic problems when the only thing it is really doing is removing purchasing power from the hands of an awful lot of people, the majority of whom are low-income workers. I know the Tories seem to have some real problems with teachers' wages these days, and it is true they may run from a low of $24,000 to a high of $39,000 or $40,000. I do not begrudge them that at all, but that seems to have upset some members of the government.
I am much more concerned about the hospital workers, the day care workers, the civil servants right across the broad spectrum of jobs that are performed in government service. I guess I cannot make a better case than that of hospital or social service workers who are earning less than $18,000 -- $16,000 and $17,000 are much more common --and who were able to achieve new contracts negotiated in many cases over months, but freely negotiated at the bargaining table, which finally gave them a two-year agreement, the second year of which was an 11 per cent increase. That is not a very big increase for someone in a $15,000 to $16,000 income range.
This kind of income level includes more than 50 per cent of the people who are going to be affected by this legislation. What happens to these people? Simply, their 11 per cent, as of the beginning of the next year of their contract, becomes five per cent. The government has just ripped up a legal and binding agreement. I cannot understand that. I cannot understand the mentality of these people. They either do not understand what they are doing or we have a bunch of scoundrels across the floor of the House who would pull this kind of stunt on these people.
What that means to a hospital worker, and let us make it very clear, is that in the second year of that contract he or she is going to get about $1,000. At $15,000, it is $1,040 less than they would have had. The figures are disputed on occasion, but somewhere around $800 million is going to be taken out of the economy. We are told that might mean some lower municipal taxes. I have got to see that. What I do know is, this bill has been reported back to the House, those people who would spend every cent of that income are going to have about $800 million less to spend and the Treasurer picks up that money.
When we try to ask him in committee, "Okay, it is an economic bill. Where are the jobs? What is it doing? How is it going to turn the economy of Ontario around?" we do not get any answers. We did get a rather frank admission from him that he had a number of options, one of them being to reduce his deficit in Ontario.
If that is the option, why is 15 per cent of the work force, of the population of Ontario carrying the can totally? It is not just what we do to them in terms of their wages. We have not just literally ripped up that contract so they have no bargaining power any more, but we have also denied them the right to strike. I recognize also that in the public sector there may be some sections of that where that is a popular move. One of those little things in testing the Gallup polls, or the polls that the Tories take, made them decide this was the group they could hammer and use as an example to scare the rest of the work force in Ontario.
I also know that when the government took away that right to strike, when it continued those agreements even though it had arbitrarily broken the commitment made, a legal binding agreement in terms of their wages, it denied them any potential redress or force. We also have a sizeable number of public servants in Ontario who do not have the right to strike and never had it, those covered under the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, and the sawoff for that right to strike was always arbitration, something that this party has never been too happy about. But it was there. It was the avenue open to them.
What did we also do in this bill? We removed totally the right to arbitration. So those who did not have the right to strike and the alternative, the sawoff, the right to arbitration, have also lost the right to arbitration. If there is a dispute and a challenge to any of the provisions of it, one cannot go at anything more than the nine or five per cent; and it is up to that, it is not necessarily the full nine or five per cent.
One can go to the Inflation Restraint Board and there we have set up a czar with powers that were not in the Anti-Inflation Board that we had back a number of years ago and that are every bit as tough as we had, as one of my colleagues mentioned, under the War Measures Act. If they get an appeal, Mr. Biddell and the Inflation Restraint Board make a decision -- and I find this incredible -- for which they do not have to give a reason. There is automatically no written judgement or decision. I have never seen such power put in the hands of one man.
All this means one has no strength whatsoever in terms of dealing with anything in that contract, no matter what some of the Tory members may say. One is forbidden the right to strike and the right to arbitration, one's wages are set arbitrarily and one cannot get a reason for a decision made by one person who hands down that decision. If there are some problems in the work force, we are told, "You can sit and negotiate."
The only negotiations the public service workers in Ontario can have are to go to management at whatever level, whether it is the provincial government, a municipal government or a social service agency, and say: "Please, we think this is wrong in our working conditions. Will you do something about it?" If management says, "No," that is it until the end of this control period.
The argument that they still could negotiate is a hollow one. It is not true. They have no strength whatsoever. I cannot understand the mentality that would decide we can put this kind of load on that small percentage of our population. I also know the intent, and to some extent the government has been successful with it, was that if it were tough enough with the public sector, with the unemployment and layoffs already out there in our community, it sure as blazes could control the private sector as well.
I find it interesting that most of the leaders in the private sector do not want controls as far as the private sector is concerned. At the meeting the Premier recently had with 35 of them, they made the point very strongly that they do not want controls in the private sector. The reason: because of the times and the circumstances, they think that if the controls were there they might be forced to go to nine and five. They think they can keep the wages even lower than that or knock out some of the benefits workers have won.
As a trade unionist, I can say that is happening in contract after contract opening right now. The first thing put on the table is a management request for a rollback of benefits or wages. It is happening in a major way at the International Harvester plant in Hamilton and at any number of other plants. The pressure is on.
These same industrial leaders said to the Premier: "You make doggone sure you don't ease up or back off in terms of the controls in the public sector. They are the guinea pigs. They are the scapegoats." I find that tremendously offensive. I just cannot understand it.
I should point out one other thing that is already happening that is reprehensible to the ultimate. We have raised this with the Minister of Labour across the floor of the House. The bill is not officially law yet, although I understand the retroactivity provision, but we have an arbitration system, which has been the cornerstone, in the public sector in particular, of keeping some peace, some order and some ability to deal with problems, and which is already deliberately being cranked down.
Arbitrators are not being appointed and they are being encouraged not to reach decisions. There have been some vital arbitration cases in the public sector. I find that reprehensible. The Minister of Labour's argument is, "Well, it really does not make sense to go ahead with the arbitration procedures because we expect this bill is going to be law." I have great difficulty accepting that kind of reasoning or argument.
There is another thing happening that I pointed out in the committee before we broke up the other day. That was the fact that in some negotiations going on with some of the hospital workers, they ran into a real problem and they are very uptight about it. Why? Because all of a sudden they were informed the person from the Ontario Hospital Association they have been sitting down and negotiating with in an attempt to reach a new agreement -- it was worse than this incidentally, but I will not go into all the details -- would no longer be dealing with them because he had been transferred to work with Mr. Biddell's Inflation Restraint Board.
All of a sudden, they start seeing appointments of people they have had to negotiate with across the bargaining table. These are the kind of people we are going to have on the Inflation Restraint Board. What future, what hope, what possibility is there for these workers? It just is not there. It is almost unbelievable what is happening to them.
We went to the committee. We heard the people making their case. The case was such that I think anybody who really was concerned with people would have difficulty in not understanding the kind of effect there was going to be on people.
As I was going through my clipping service tonight, I could not help but notice a story from the Brantford paper. I wish the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) were here.
10 p.m.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): As long as the member is dealing with the motion before the House.
Mr. Mackenzie: I am dealing with the bill that has been reported back to this House and why we should not accept that report and why it was stupid to send it hack to this House.
This article says a gentleman in Brantford, named Saleen Yacouba, earns $16,065 a year as a social services worker, the highest pay bracket in the organization. His wife cannot work because of back injuries. Every month he takes home $986. He is expected to pay out $308 for mortgage, $30 for condominium fees, $125 for heat and electricity, $114 for his car loan, $20 for telephone, $8.50 for cable television. It leaves him with their baby bonus cheque, $169 for food and family expenses. He has a family of five. How does he survive?
He goes on to talk about the fact that he had expected in their contract to get a sizeable increase, but at very best, and he does not meet that minimum level, he might see $1,000 in the next year of his contract.
There are other examples, many of them worse than that. These are the kind of people we are nailing to the wall with this legislation. We are not doing it for one year, as we were told. That was the first thing we were told clearly in this House: that we were doing it for one year for a majority of the employees, for two years for a sizeable number and three years for some of them.
In the case of the teachers, and there may be a hallelujah from the Tories that we are finally getting at them, for those near retirement, we are also affecting their pensions; and the effects will be felt for a number of years, not just during the control-period years in this bill.
What is the kind of thinking that allows this government to move in this arbitrary way when there is nothing there as a counter to provide jobs? There is nothing in this bill that tells us this will turn the economy around. It is destroying basic, hard-won fundamental rights of working people.
If nothing else was brought into the picture, how do they justify tearing up a legal contract that has been negotiated through the process that is allowed under the Labour Relations Act in Ontario? Honestly, how do they justify it? I would like any Tory member to tell me whether they would go in and tear up a contract of one of their business friends. Do we see any effort -- and we are not suggesting it -- to tear up the contract they have, unofficially I guess, with the doctors? We sure as blazes do not see it there.
It is interesting, and I think worth putting on record, that the percentage may be out one or two percentage points, but one of the suggestions that has been made as an alternative and has been put down by the members across the floor of the House is that if the Treasurer needs the money that badly, we should have a two per cent surcharge on $40,000 incomes. A two per cent surcharge on higher incomes would bring in, based on last year's taxes, about $290 million in Ontario.
For an $18,000-a-year hospital worker to lose $1,040 out of his negotiated contract is the equivalent of something like a 33 per cent tax increase on that family. How in blazes does the government justify that as well? It does not make any sense to me, no sense at all. I cannot understand the thinking of the people across the way.
When we have a phoney motion, such as we had in the committee on Wednesday, to report this bill back in without having dealt with it clause by clause -- because we had only got to clause 1(c) and, sure, we had been fighting it hard and we intend to keep on fighting it hard -- I have to ask, is there something that says that because the government has a majority we should make our case -- make it tough as I think I heard my colleague from the Liberal Party say in his few brief remarks -- make the point because we felt it very strongly about this particular legislation and then somehow roll over and play dead?
That is really what happened, when I think about the beginning of the end of democracy before the last war in Europe. Some people just were not willing to take a stand on issues that to begin with were not anywhere near as serious as they ended up being three or four years down the road. But here, the government is doing a fundamental disservice to workers. Here, it is ripping up legal contracts and that cannot be allowed to happen. I am not the least bit naive, but I did not think I would ever see that happen in this House.
For a brief period of time we dealt with the descriptive first subsections of the bill, but we have not dealt with substantive amendments that we want to place. And no, we are not going to amend the wage control side of it; it is not worth it.
Mr. Jones: You had a chance to bring in some substantive ones and you didn't.
Mr. Mackenzie: Well, if the member wants his say, he should have it. He keeps interjecting; he did it all the way through the committee hearings. He probably extended them by 10 or 15 per cent. He should go ahead.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: It's true.
Mr. Mackenzie: It's exactly true.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: He responded to me for 20 minutes the other night to what he thought was an irrelevant motion.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. Mackenzie: We simply have a number of substantive amendments on the price side. We have tried with the wage control side of it before, so if, for once in Ontario, we took a serious run at the price side of the issue for a few months, we might not be in some of the trouble we are in. We might be able to cope a little better with the economic circumstances in the province.
So we are going to move substantive amendments in that particular sector. We know that the Liberal Party has a number of amendments. All through the hearings they have hung their hat on the fact that they were going to try to improve this bill with amendments. It cannot be done in terms of the basic rights of workers; it might be done on the price side of the bill.
We also know that the bill was poorly enough drafted and prepared that the Tories have a number of amendments they want to move. Without them, it is a flawed bill in a number of ways. There is nothing very substantive in those amendments, I can tell the members, but the bill is really a bit of a mess without some of the amendments, after we take a look at them, in terms of the kind of bill that has been presented to the House.
We have not dealt with one of those amend- ments from the Liberals or Tories. We have dealt with one from our side, which dealt with changing a name, because it was dishonest, it was a misnomer to begin with: Inflation Restraint Board. "Arbitrary powers board" would have been a heck of a lot more valid.
It seems to me that, although we have not dealt with those key arguments or with any of those key clauses, we have had the argument put to us that it was simply because of time; and because we had stirred up all of this opposition and done the job we have to date in trying to hold up this bill and in trying to convince the government that this bill should be withdrawn, we are now somehow supposed to be nice boys and sit down and quit the arguments.
The one message that has to get through to this government is simply this: What they are doing is so mean, so vindictive and so dangerous and is going to have such an effect on collective bargaining right across the province that it must not be allowed to continue. It is for that reason we feel so strongly about it. We do not intend to sit down or lie down or rejoin the clubby atmosphere around here. This is an issue that clearly will divide the members of this House, let us make no mistake about that.
The Acting Speaker: Are we ready for the question?
Mr. Martel: Go ahead.
10:25 p.m.
The House divided on Mr. Eves's motion for adoption of the report of the standing committee on administration of justice on Bill 179, which was agreed to on the following vote:
Ayes
Andrewes, Ashe, Baetz, Barlow, Bennett, Bernier, Birch, Brandt, Cousens, Cureatz, Davis, Dean, Eaton, Elgie, Eves, Fish, Gillies, Gordon, Gregory, Grossman, Henderson, Hennessy, Johnson, J. M., Jones, Kells, Kennedy, Kerr, Kolyn;
Lane, Leluk, MacQuarrie, McCaffrey, McCague, McLean, McNeil, Miller, F. S., Mitchell, Norton, Ramsay, Robinson, Rotenberg, Runciman, Sheppard, Shymko, Scrivener, Stephenson, B. M., Sterling, Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, G. W., Timbrell, Walker, Watson, Wells, Williams, Wiseman.
Nays
Allen, Breaugh, Breithaupt, Bryden, Charlton, Conway, Cooke, Cunningham, Eakins, Foulds, Grande, Haggerty, Laughren, Lupusella, Mackenzie, Martel, McClellan, McGuigan, McKessock, Miller, G. I., Newman, Nixon, Philip, Rae, Reid, T. P., Renwick, Riddell, Ruston, Samis, Stokes, Swart, Sweeney, Wildman.
Ayes 55; nays 33.
Ordered for committee of the whole House.
MOTION
STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND OTHER STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
Hon. Mr. Wells moved that estimates of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications be transferred to the standing committee on regulations and other statutory instruments, and that the committee have authority to sit on Monday evenings.
Motion agreed to.
The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.