Journal des débats 1984-mai-08 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to express on behalf of all members of the House, in a very personal sense, my profound regret over the shooting incident that took place in the Quebec National Assembly earlier today. Most unfortunate of all, of course, is the fact that several people lost their lives as a result of this tragic act and others were injured.

It is also a matter of deep concern to all of us that such an event could and indeed did take place in one of Canada's legislatures. Such an occurrence is almost beyond comprehension, particularly in view of the fact that such an act of violence is so totally inconsistent with the values and beliefs associated with any parliament and with the free and open society in which we are all privileged to live.

Elected representatives must be able to perform their important public duties free from acts of violence, threats or other forms of intimidation. I think it is well understood by all members that an appropriate balance must be sought between the desire we all have to carry on the public business in an open and accessible manner and the need for certain security measures designed to preserve order and stability.

I do not think the facts are at all clear. Certainly I am in no position to make any judgement on whether any additional or alternative security measures would have in any way prevented the incident in the Quebec assembly. Mr. Speaker, I did meet with you, a deputy from the Ontario Provincial Police and the superintendent, and I understand you will be convening a meeting of the Board of Internal Economy later today. I have requested the senior officials of the OPP to make themselves available to offer to the board whatever advice may be required.

It is my hope that none of us will dwell on the question of security here at this moment and that under your leadership, Mr. Speaker, the Board of Internal Economy will review this matter. I want to finalize these very sad comments by expressing my sincere regret about this shocking and tragic incident and by extending on behalf of the government and people of our province our sympathies to the families of those who lost their lives and our prayers for the speedy recovery of those who were injured.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I rise to join with the Premier (Mr. Davis) in his sensitive remarks, and on behalf of my colleagues, to express our most sincere and heartfelt sympathies to the families of those who were killed today and to those who were injured.

It reminds us of the thin filament in our society on which civility rests. Indeed, it makes us mindful that violence is a part of our everyday lives, even in this great country of ours. The fact that it would happen, as the Premier said, in the centre of democracy, in a legislature, makes that threat far more personal not just to members of the Legislature but indeed to all the staff who work here and to our guests in the gallery, children particularly, and shows us the threats to the system that exist at all times.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you for reviewing the security precautions here in the Legislature. I know you will not overreact; I know you will do it in a balanced and thoughtful way. I know that you, like the rest of us, do not want to turn the Legislature into an armed fortress of any type. But we want to maintain this as the centre of democracy; we want to make it open and accessible and to protect those basic and essential freedoms that we all value so very highly in this Legislature and in this province.

I think it may be appropriate, and I recommend to the Premier, that perhaps a joint resolution should go forward from this House, perhaps even today, expressing our sympathy to the families of the people who were killed and injured as well our heartfelt best wishes to our colleagues in the Quebec National Assembly, who I am sure will be at this moment extremely concerned about the situation as well.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the members of my party I would like first of all to express our heartfelt sympathy to the families of those people who were victims of this extraordinary attack in the Quebec National Assembly.

J'aimerais exprimer de la part de notre parti notre sympathie profonde aux familles des victimes de cette attaque extraordinaire, une sympathie qui ne peut jamais vraiment compenser les familles pour cette perte extraordinaire mais, tout de même, qui sort, je crois, d'un sentiment profond de notre part et, je veux dire, de la part de toute la population de notre province.

We live in very difficult and extraordinary times. It is very difficult for us to contemplate what could possibly seize the mind of an individual and lead to this tragic event.

It seems to me that it reminds us not only of the vulnerability of all of us -- indeed, those who appear to have been the victims were simply people working in the assembly and in the chamber in various ways -- but also of the importance of our awareness that these things can happen.

Mr. Speaker, our party obviously discussed this event this morning in our caucus as soon as we heard of it, and we would certainly be willing and eager to participate in any review you would like to undertake of security measures. I remind everyone that no security measure is infallible and is going to be perfect, but we do have to take measures that will provide some protection for everyone, not just for politicians but for everyone who works and depends for his or her living on the work of this place.

Again, Mr. Speaker, we express our profound sympathy to the families, we hope for a speedy resolution of this event and we look forward to participating in whatever review you may initiate of proceedings here.

ORAL QUESTIONS

CROWN TIMBER FEES

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Natural Resources. Can the minister confirm his intentions, and I presume those of the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman), to increase both the crown stumpage fees and the acreage charge to the forest industry by 25 per cent, along with the inflation indexing of the stumpage system, effective as of April 1, 1984, with a similar increase in 1985?

How can the minister justify this exorbitant 60 per cent rate increase over the next year, a revenue grab of $13 million from the forestry industry, at a time when the industry is just beginning to recover from the recession?

2:10 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Pope: Mr. Speaker, since 1981 this government has been reviewing with the industry in an open fashion the need for some change in the direct timber revenues and the crown dues aspects of its operations. Therefore, it is no surprise. There has not been an increase since 1980.

Last week, I did begin discussions with the forest products industry with respect to this matter. I did indicate we were looking at a two-phased increase. This was the proposal we put on the table.

I should remind the honourable member that one of the effects of double-indexing in some circumstances in current market conditions is to reduce the crown dues chargeable to hardwoods and to restrict the increase in softwood lumber products to 12.5 per cent. Thus a double indexing system does have the impact of lessening what appears to be a 25 per cent increase in revenue.

We have just initiated a discussion with the forest products industry with respect to the total program in the coming years. We have laid out a number of options for it to consider. Before we finalize the entire program, including the second 25 per cent proposed increase in fees, we would listen to the advice of the forest products industry.

I would also add that we get information on a regular basis from the forest products industry and our ministry staff with respect to the profitability of operations and market trends in the industry. We are aware of the points of view about the timing and the degree of this increase.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Can the minister indicate whether this is going to be a budget measure? Does he intend to continue this as an order in council or under regulation?

I cannot understand how the minister can possibly be suggesting what amounts to an increased tax on an industry that was battered more than most by the recession in 1980, 1981 and 1982. It is an industry just now coming out of the recession, which had massive layoffs and whose prices are still down.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, if you will permit, there are two quick things.

Newsprint prices are still what they were in the spring of 1981. Studs are $2.49 per thousand; they were $3.11 per thousand one year ago. Lumber is 40 per cent below the price of one year ago. How can the minister even consider at this time raising these prices and costs to an industry whose profit margins are just starting to come up and its workers starting to go back after having had its problems with the recession?

Hon. Mr. Pope: I am aware of the cyclical nature of the forest products industry. I am every bit as aware of it as is the member. The same argument can be used every fourth year in the industry to justify no action being taken.

As I indicated to the member earlier, this is part of an ongoing review that we initiated with the forest products companies to discuss potential changes in crown dues and direct timber revenues. We are looking at a whole range of options, including the credit system for reforestation work and utilization practices.

We are looking at the double-indexing, whether or not it should proceed and what the impact will be on different products depending on price, because the price would reflect whether they would pay more or fewer crown dues under this system. This is part of our ongoing discussion with the forest products industry. There is nothing unusual. I remind the member --

Mr. T. P. Reid: Are they not going to pay more under this?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Pope: Not necessarily. This is precisely what I tried to indicate. Double-indexing --

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Pope: No, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Supplementary; the member for York South.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I am amazed the Minister of Natural Resources would be answering two questions from the member of the Liberal Party which have to do with budget information. He has not denied the validity of that information. He has not challenged the validity of that information.

Is the Minister of Natural Resources aware that he is now participating in a budget discussion a week before the release of the budget? Is he aware that he is participating in that kind of discussion and that he is breaching the general security that is supposed to surround budget measures?

Hon. Mr. Pope: Mr. Speaker, as I was going to say to the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid), he is aware that the American jurisdictions consider our product to be too price-competitive for the American industries competing in the United States and have taken actions in the American jurisdictions to try to keep our product out because it is so cost-competitive. The member should not say that crown dues or crown charges would have the effect of not making us competitive any more and putting these industries under, because it would not happen.

The leader of the third party knows full well that no budget decisions have been finalized or announced. It will be up to the Treasurer if he wishes to announce any changes in his budget. All I have indicated to the member for Rainy River is that I have discussed a new system of direct crown revenues for our forest products industries with the industry.

Mr. T. P. Reid: All of this aside, how can the minister justify these increases -- and there are going to be increases at some point or other -- in an industry that has had its problems in the past and into which this government, along with the federal government, was pouring money a few years ago to make it competitive? Now it comes along and increases the taxes.

How does the minister justify this, given his government's six and five program? The administered prices in Ontario are not supposed to go over five per cent.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: We never had a six and five program.

Mr. T. P. Reid: You never had such a program?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Question, please.

Mr. T. P. Reid: A five percent increase. How does the minister justify increasing these things by up to 60 per cent, if he follows through on them, in 11 months? How does he justify his five per cent administered price program and a 60 per cent increase in crown dues and stumpage?

Hon. Mr. Pope: No decision has been made by cabinet or by the Minister of Natural Resources to increase crown dues to the forest products industry. As I said the first time, we have initiated discussions with the forest products industry on a new revenue package that ties in with a lot of issues the member himself was dealing with in this Legislature two or three weeks ago during private members' hour and a number of the issues his spokesmen were addressing during that same private members' hour.

CURRICULUM GUIDELINES

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Education. She will no doubt recall our discussion in the House a few days ago with respect to the antiquated guidelines for curriculum in the province and the fact that many of her science guidelines were 20 years old. She is mindful, I know, of the document of her colleague the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman), called Economic Transformation: Technological Innovation and Diffusion in Ontario, and of the need for young people trained in science and technology, as well as the condemnation in the Science Council of Canada report with respect to her ministry.

How does the minister feel she or our young people in the province can participate in the economic transformation and can develop the new kinds of technological skills that are necessary when her course guidelines are so far out of date? I refer specifically to the elements of computer technology, senior division, which were created in 1970. They are 14 years old. No one at that time had even heard of fifth-generation computers or artificial intelligence.

How can the minister move this province forward when she is running it with such antiquated course curricula?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member obviously does not recognize the fact that those guidelines are in the process of being redefined right now; and I will give him a timetable for all of them, as a matter of fact, in the very near future.

Mr. Peterson: Why does it always take the minister so long to respond to this matter?

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

2:20 p.m.

Mr. Peterson: I want to get another assurance from the minister. What kind of monitoring situation does the ministry have to make sure the guidelines she has are being implemented? I refer to an Ontario Institute for Studies in Education researcher who said her efforts to ascertain which schools had implemented guidelines resulted in the conclusion that a majority of schools did not use the guidelines and they were sitting on a shelf.

Once the minister creates modern guidelines -- which presumably she may do some time, even if she is going to blame the federal government for her inaction -- how is she going to implement them? How is she going to monitor them to make sure they are being used in this province?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: It seemed to be entirely reasonable to begin the process of implementation of new guidelines once the response to the secondary education review project was completed. Certainly it seemed to be appropriate to ensure that the content of those guidelines would be as current and as relevant as it possibly could be. We have, therefore, enlisted the aid of not only teachers within the province who have been responsible for the development of guidelines in the past --

Mr. Bradley: Do not blame the teachers. Blame your ministry for not showing leadership.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am not blaming anyone.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to answer the question, if the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) would just restrain himself from time to time.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed, please.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: The teachers have been actively involved in that process because we have believed firmly it was absolutely necessary to ensure that those who were responsible for delivering the program should also play a part in the development of the guidelines. That process is being augmented this year with the assistance of representatives of faculties from universities and representatives of faculties from colleges of applied arts and technology.

The process of redevelopment is ongoing. It began more than 18 months ago. The first phase will be completed totally by the spring of 1985 for all subjects, as far as I am aware, and by then we will have developed a plan for constant renewal.

In addition, the role of the supervisory officer in the school system in Ontario includes the obligation to ensure that the guidelines are being followed in each of the courses within the secondary school program of Ontario. On top of that, we do have provincial reviews in a number of subjects annually. That, too, is a part of the activity to ensure that the guidelines are being pursued.

If the member has a statement from a member of the staff of OISE, I would be very pleased to see it. Not even his good friend Mark Holmes, who is a strong Liberal, has said that.

Mr. Allen: Mr. Speaker, has the minister noticed that while the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson) talks about utilizing the insights and resources of the Science Council of Canada, that party itself is rather wary of adopting a technological change program that has issued from that source because of its concern that it might not be approved by the chamber of commerce?

I want to ask the minister about the review of technical education her ministry is undertaking, which I believe has been in process for six years now.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Allen: Could she please tell us where that review of technological education is that has been in the works for six years? Is it about to be produced? After six years, will it meet the current circumstances that technological education faces in a rapidly moving technological world?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, because there has been ongoing currency within that review, there is no doubt it will meet the requirements that are present today. It is my understanding it has been completed or is almost completed. It should be available either this spring or in September 1984.

If the member wants me to answer the first question, no, I was not aware of the situation suggested by him.

Mr. Peterson: The minister is not aware of very much, very obviously. Let me ask her a final supplementary.

lnterjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Peterson: I congratulate the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen) on his attempt at humour. No one understood it, but it was a good try. It shows progress.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: Let me ask the minister another question on the same subject. We still have not heard an adequate explanation of why so many science courses and technical courses are so far out of date. I am not talking about years; I am talking about decades, The ministry has been working on them for at least five years, yet there have been no results.

Why has the minister been reluctant to share the course curriculum guidelines with Dr. Orpwood, the author of Science Education in Canadian Schools? As I understand it, this was the only province that was too embarrassed to share the information so it could not be published. For Ontario it says, "No senior years guidelines available." Is that because the minister was embarrassed?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is because they were in the process of development at the time they finally got around to asking us.

EXPOSURE TO ASBESTOS

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Labour. It concerns the report tabled yesterday of the Royal Commission on Matters of Health and Safety Arising from the Use of Asbestos in Ontario. The commission revealed the following startling information in volume 3 of its report. According to what I may say is a very conservative methodology, it estimated that 75 to 145 deaths per year from all cancers could be attributable to occupational exposure to asbestos in Ontario.

At the same time as that information is put out in the report, the Ontario Workers' Compensation Board has reported that it allowed only 20 asbestos-related cancer claims in 1980. The document goes on to describe the board's response to this discrepancy as sophistry and it calls on outreach and other measures to be taken by the board in order to remedy this obvious undercompensation of asbestos sickness throughout the province.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: What is the minister going to do to improve the outreach of the Workers' Compensation Board? Specifically, will he sit down with the board and get it to take off the air that ridiculous ad put out by the Construction Safety Association of Ontario which simply blames the victim instead of really compensating the victims of exposure to asbestos?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could refer first to the advertisement that has been described as ridiculous. That television commercial was endorsed by the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario. There were two very distinguished senior labour leaders who served on the labour-management committee which approved that commercial.

The message of the commercial is that it is unfortunate that management and labour were unaware of the hazards in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The purpose of the commercial is to raise awareness of the hazards on construction sites and indicate that there is a proper way to handle the procedures.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I find that answer troubling in that we have known for many decades about the hazards of asbestos.

I would like to ask the minister a specific question about one of the recommendations, because I have a friend who is an ironworker and who was diagnosed as having mesothelioma a couple of months ago. He has worked on five different projects, one of them being the Johns-Manville plant, and many other construction sites.

One of the new, very helpful recommendations of this commission would be that this man, because he has mesothelioma, would automatically be compensable and that the onus to rebut this would be on the part of the company. We have now taken two months in his case trying to search back through the various corporations to see in which one he might have contracted it, even though there was asbestos in many of them. It is a terrible waste of time.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: How quickly will the minister move the board to accept that recommendation and make it possible for this person to get automatic assistance instead of having to wait months and months and possibly even have to go through appeals before he receives justification and compensation?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, first, if the member will share the information with me, I will commit myself to personally following up on it with the board.

I would also like to point out that in the very few short days we have had this report we have already set up a mini-secretariat within our ministry to deal expeditiously with the various recommendations and points that have been raised.

2:30 p.m.

I have here in my hand a document I have just received from the Workers' Compensation Board that takes each of the recommendations made by the royal commission report and indicates just what the current situation is. This is the starting point for discussions I will be having with the Workers' Compensation Board, as the member suggests.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, we have known about the problem for more than 40 years. A royal commission looked into the problem for more than four years and has made very specific recommendations on what the Workers' Compensation Board should do to give better and fairer treatment to the unfortunate workers who have suffered from asbestosis.

Can we get a commitment from the minister that he will not let this process drag on in the same way he has allowed the Weiler report process to drag on and on? Even in this session of the House, we have had no action concerning the report done by the committee this winter.

Can we have the minister's assurance he will not allow the same type of foot-dragging to take place with this report that he has allowed with other recommendations concerning vital changes needed to the Workers' Compensation Act?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, let us refer to the Weiler report for a moment. There is no foot-dragging there.

Mr. Mancini: There is a lot of foot-dragging. You promised us we would have legislation. That was your promise.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) will please sit down. The minister will address himself specifically to the question on workers' compensation asked by the member.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, if I follow your instructions -- Mr. Speaker, are you listening to me, sir?

Mr. Speaker: Always.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: If I follow your instructions to the letter, I will have to answer with one word. Is that what you are looking for, or can I elaborate a bit?

The short answer to my friend opposite is yes, he has my commitment there will be speedy action. However, I think it is unfair to leave the impression that Ontario has done nothing for 40 years. That has not been the case at all. Ontario has been in the forefront of jurisdictions around the world that have acted on protection for workers with respect to asbestos.

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, is the minister aware that as a result of the commission's conclusion that exposure to asbestos in friction materials results in only marginal health risks, the widows of Hank Bednarick, Ed Rogers and Nelson Masse, Bendix workers who died of laryngeal cancer, will probably not obtain compensation and justice?

Are those men some of the workers who are depicted in that despicable ad?

Is the minister aware that the Finkelstein and Kusiak study cited in the commission's report, volume 1, has been judged by Dr. Philip Landrigan, director of hazard evaluations for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the United States, to be so flawed as to be uninterpretable and to have so little information that no generalizations can be made from it? If that is the case, why is this commission accepting that kind of report and using it as a justification of its position?

Will the minister ensure that the compensation board acts to get rid of that terrible ad which blames workers like Ed Rogers and Nelson Masse, and that it uses the money being spent on that ad to compensate the widows of the workers who have died from this terrible disease?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday the ad was placed by the Construction Safety Association. It was not placed by the Workers' Compensation Board.

Mr. Wildman: You are helping to fund it.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Granted it is receiving its funding from the Workers' Compensation Board, which in turn receives its funding from employers.

I understand the chagrin of the honourable member. I will certainly commit myself to having a further discussion about that advertisement. I have not seen it, so I do not know whether I would agree with the use of the word "despicable," but in fairness to the member opposite I will take a look at it and I will follow up on that particular case.

The rest of the question was whether I was aware of a portion of the report which referred to the use of asbestos in the production of brakes, the effect this apparently has had on certain members, and would I follow up with the Workers' Compensation Board on that issue. The answer in all cases is yes.

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Provincial Secretary for Social Development. It concerns an extraordinary publication from his ministry which came to my attention just the other day. It is called, And Finally I Did Get A Job. I initially assumed it might be the minister's autobiography, but it turns out it is not. It is a publication allegedly produced for young people who are looking for work in Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: The first page has a cartoon which says, "Not having a job can make you feel sad and lonely, but if you really work at it, you will get one."

Is the minister really saying the 180,000 young people who do not have work simply have not tried hard enough to find a job and that is the reason they are unemployed?

Hon. Mr. Dean: Mr. Speaker, the simple answer to the question is no. The purpose of the brochure was to encourage young people who had been having difficulty to try again and to follow some of the suggestions in the brochure on how they might be better able to acquire job-seeking skills.

Mr. Rae: It is a very long book; it is not just a brochure. It is a very lengthy pamphlet and it is accompanied by another little handy card which has a number of useful interview tips. One of them, about which I would like to ask the minister, is tip number 9 for young people looking for a job. It says, "Do not ask about wages, hours or benefits."

I know the government is committed to mid-Victorian values; the Premier (Mr. Davis) has said so.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: Is the minister really serious in saying that a young person who is asking for a job should not know how much he or she is being paid, how long he or she is expected to work, or whether or not he or she is going to qualify for a pension? Is that really what he is arguing?

Hon. Mr. Dean: The little pocket folder the leader of the third party refers to was an optional aid in case people in the client group to which this brochure was directed found it was desirable to have a little helpful reminder in their pockets when they went for an interview.

The specific question he has asked was obviously addressed to say that a person who is going to engage an employee is probably most interested in knowing how keenly the person wants a job. Probably the first question a prospective employee asks should not be about all those details listed there.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, what we are seeing is that justice slowly trickles down in action right here. Would the minister not agree that this kind of superficial little advertising campaign which he has does very little to address the real problem?

When we have 183,000 young people out of work on one hand, yet we want thousands of skilled workers on the other hand -- 48,000, according to the Ontario Manpower Commission -- one of the essential failures is the failure of the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) and her officials to educate and train our young people for the jobs that are available. Is that not one of the roots of the issue? Would the minister not agree this is the issue that has to be attacked and he should be doing it in concert with his colleagues, rather than putting out these silly little brochures?

2:40 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Dean: Mr. Speaker, I would not agree that the issue of job training and skills training has not been properly addressed by the Minister of Education and Colleges and Universities. If the Leader of the Opposition were to address a subsequent question to the minister, I think she could give him a great deal of detail about the extensive programs of job training for young people and people of other ages.

As to the question that was raised about the purpose of the brochure, it was addressed to young people who perhaps have been disadvantaged in one way or another and who actually appreciate very much the kind of help that comes to them where they are, speaks to them in a language they can understand and is successful mainly through the efforts of the youth employment counselling centres in providing employment and an incentive for retraining to thousands of young people in Ontario,

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, this Mickey Mouse publication is an insult to every young person in Ontario looking for a job who cannot find one, and there are nearly 200,000 of them. Under the description of interviews, it says, "They are pretty scary at first, but you will get better with experience."

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: That is damned right because there are no jobs. It adds, "And after a while you may even enjoy them."

Why does the minister put out a document saying to people who are looking for jobs that they are going to start enjoying interviews when he should really be providing jobs? How much did this Mickey Mouse publication cost?

Hon. Mr. Dean: I really do not know whether the leader of the third party is living in the real world or not. The real world is that many people of all ages, whether they be Rhodes scholars or people who dropped out of the educational system, do have difficulty in attaining and holding a job. Many of the people --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Dean: I was not including the honourable member as one of those who have difficulty in getting a job; it was in retaining it.

Every member of this House knows people who have had to ask more than once to get secure employment. The brochure was being realistic in telling them that likely they will not be successful the first time.

VETERINARY DIAGNOSTIC SERVICES

Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of Agriculture and Food confirm reports that a recent ministry policy change has been adopted that will phase out diagnostic services to farmers from the government veterinary services branch? Is the minister aware of a recently reported case near Chatham involving some $32,000 worth of swine? About $12,000 of that was directly attributable to the fact the government diagnostic laboratory would not pass on the sample after it had made the diagnosis. Can he tell us when he is answering why the government is cutting back on these services?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, the short answer is I would like to take it as notice because, if I remember correctly, the case in question has to do with a particularly sophisticated kind of serum. There was a change in the procedures to obtain the serum. It was not cut off. Because it is so complicated and because I cannot recall all the facts at this moment, I will take it as notice and give the member a report in the House on Thursday.

Mr. McGuigan: I am aware of some of the original changes that were made in submitting the sample, but this has to do with after the sample has been received and diagnosed. I would like to point out that Dr. Andrew Manson at Charing Cross says the Centralia laboratory is one of the best in the world, and because it has this special art it cannot readily be transferred to some private company. It would take years to develop the expertise these people have.

Will the minister reverse this policy because it has an impact on human health? I am sure the minister is aware health authorities are very concerned about the use of antibiotics, getting the antibiotics to the point where they will not carry out their job, thereby endangering human health.

When the minister brings that answer back to us, will he look at the human health aspects of it and also at the fact that we are playing into the hands of all those who are against the confinement rearing of livestock? As the minister knows, there is a group of people opposed to this and he is giving them all sorts of ammunition when he suggests that antibiotics be used in place of the serum.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: As I said, I will take it as notice. I am pleased to note the member's comments about our Centralia lab. In fact, we are proud of the whole of the lab system in the province. We have recently broken ground to enlarge significantly the veterinary lab at Brighton so that we can better serve eastern Ontario. I will report back to the House and answer the member on Thursday.

ALLOCATION OF CHILD WELFARE

Mr. Wildman: Mr. Speaker, it is with some trepidation that I pose a question to the Provincial Secretary for Social Development.

Could he explain why the families and children of Algoma are at such a tremendous disadvantage with respect to the distribution of government funds for child welfare compared to the rest of northern Ontario? They are so much so that it would take an increase of 40 per cent per capita for Algoma to reach the regional average allocation.

What is the reason for that? What is the provincial government prepared to do to adjust Algoma's allocation at least up to the regional average within a reasonable period of time?

Hon. Mr. Dean: Mr. Speaker, if the member will give me the particulars, I will take it up with my colleague the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea), who has the direct operation of that program.

Mr. Wildman: In response to that, I should point out that the figures released by the Ministry of Community and Social Services indicate that for mental health services the per capita in Algoma is $17.74; for the children's aid society it is $69.76; and for juvenile corrections it is $36.42. The total per capita allocation is $124 compared to Sudbury-Manitoulin where it is $192 and Thunder Bay where it is $173.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Wildman: What on earth is the reason for the discrepancy between the allocation we receive in Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma and those for Sudbury, Thunder Bay and the other districts of northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Dean: I can only repeat my answer to the first question.

DRUG PRESCRIPTION

Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health. He is no doubt aware of the controversy at Ryerson health clinic regarding the prescribing of the morning-after pill, diethylstilbestrol, commonly known as DES, by Dr. Donald Barr despite overwhelming evidence dating back 13 years that DES babies often develop cancer of the vagina in young adulthood.

Can the minister advise the House what action he has taken on this issue considering the doctor in question has currently agreed only to stop prescribing the drug while he conducts his own review of the literature?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, I am not intimately familiar with the controversy to which the honourable member refers. I would be pleased to take it as notice and get the information for her on it.

Ms. Copps: The minister will no doubt be aware that there has been extensive press coverage on the issue. I would have thought he would have been aware of it.

Basically, the facts are that a doctor at the Ryerson health clinic is continuing to prescribe DES or is stopping prescribing it only during a literature review, even though there is clear evidence that DES can result in cancer of the vagina for the babies of DES mothers, which the minister will no doubt be aware of.

Is the minister aware that a complaint is being filed with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario on this issue? I wonder if he might meet with the college in view, not only of the doctors refusal to stop prescribing DES permanently but also his own punitive habits with respect to medical practice.

I quote from the doctor in question who gives this as the reason he likes to prescribe DES: "I have another little quirk. Most women who take it are quite nauseated on it. In fact, some go on to vomiting. That, to me, helps to drive home the lesson that responsible contraception is preferable to an easy morning-after."

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Ms. Copps: Does the minister agree with the doctor's view of DES? If he does not, will he meet immediately with the college to consider the imposition of a ban on DES as a post-coital contraceptive?

2:50 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Norton: In response to the second question, I think the member ought to realize that she is directing her request to the wrong minister and the wrong level of government. I do not have any authority over the approval of pharmaceutical products for the market. That is clearly the responsibility of her federal colleague the Honourable Monique Bégin. I should think she would be receptive to whatever suggestions that minister might have to make in that regard. I do not have any control over the authorization of pharmaceutical products for the market.

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I wrote to this minister about this matter in an open letter about four weeks ago when the matter first broke in the press. I am surprised he or his staff has not taken this issue and proceeded with it. He is the Minister of Health, and a lot of people are really upset about how this doctor was using DES.

Rather than suggesting an opposition critic talk to Monique Bégin, perhaps the minister would take on some responsibility. Rather than trying to deflect it to the federal government, he should do it himself and make sure the women of this province are protected.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, I think the member ought at least to acknowledge that ministers of health at the provincial level have had very little success in attempting to talk about anything with Mme Bégin for the last two years. This is a very serious matter, and I was not in any way being facetious in my suggestion that Mme Bégin, who refuses to talk to provincial ministers of health, might listen to the member.

HOSPITAL BEDS

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health and I hope he will not try to deflect this one.

Our party continues to do surveys of hospitals across the province. One survey included hospitals in my home town of Windsor. We found the Metropolitan General Hospital is regularly using eight corridor beds and 14 beds in the emergency ward for holding people overnight. The Salvation Army Grace Hospital is regularly using the emergency holding area and often five people are occupying ward rooms designed for four. Hotel Dieu of St. Joseph Hospital is often experiencing difficulties in emergency and must call other hospitals. Windsor Western Hospital Centre has a holding area of three to five and is also putting people in its coronary care and intensive care units when it does not have enough room in its ordinary ward beds.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Cooke: These hospitals are not telling us that these are isolated incidents. They are telling us that they are regular occurrences at the hospitals in Windsor. What is the minister prepared to do to solve the problem in Windsor if he is not going to do anything else anywhere else in the province?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, I would be quite pleased to have my staff review the procedures at the hospitals that the member mentions. I think it might be of some educative value for him as well as for me in this particular instance. For example, one factor that very much influences the utilization rate of hospitals beds is the management control procedures that are commonly practised in those hospitals.

Before jumping to any conclusion with respect to the number of beds available per capita and whether that is adequate, it is important, first of all, to look and see whether those beds that are available are being properly utilized in terms of procedures that could be imposed.

There are certainly hospitals within Metropolitan Toronto that never experience a shortage of beds and do not have to do the kinds of things the member is referring to. What distinguishes them from the other hospitals that from time to time experience difficulty are the kinds of admissions and predischarge procedures they have in place, not to create any hardship to the patients, but rather to ensure there is appropriate monitoring of the condition of patients. When the time comes for their discharge, they are discharged, so the beds are freed up for other people.

Mr. Cooke: The only thing I would say to the minister is that these are the only four hospitals in Windsor. Perhaps the minister is suggesting we start transporting people from Windsor to Toronto where there seem to be an excess number of beds, according to him.

Does the minister not realize it is about time he did something about inappropriately placed patients? There are nearly 100 chronic care patients in Windsor in active treatment beds. We have a day hospital program at Riverview Hospital in Windsor that cannot even advertise the program and is not even coming anywhere near to meeting the need because its facility is so antiquated that it cannot fully operate a day hospital program. At the same time as it does not have enough capital, Riverview Hospital is spending $1 million to upgrade this old facility while it waits for the new facility to be approved by the Ministry of Health.

There is $1 million being spent when what we need is a brand new hospital. We are waiting for the ministry to get off its duff and finally approve something that has been in the plans for 15 years.

When is the minister going to approve the Riverview chronic care hospital and when is he going adequately to fund day hospital programs so that we can meet the need and discharge people early, as the minister himself has said?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I was not suggesting there ought to be any transfer of patients from Windsor to Metropolitan Toronto. If they do not already have in place the kinds of procedures to which I was referring, I am confident the staff and administration in the hospitals in Windsor are quite capable of doing this without having to admit failure and asking another community to take on that responsibility.

With respect to the timing of the approval of the projects to which the honourable member refers, those projects will be approved at an appropriate time, as resources become available and as they reach an appropriate priority within the context of the overall priorities across this province that have to be met within the available resources at the present time.

Mr. Speaker: New question.

Mr. Roy: I have a question for the Solicitor General (Mr. G. W. Taylor). I see he has stepped out; he must have been expecting a question from the member for Lanark (Mr. Wiseman). Perhaps we could ask him to come back.

Mr. Speaker: If he is not here, you cannot very well ask him a question.

Mr. Roy: Then perhaps my colleague the member for Grey (Mr. McKessock) has a question.

Mr. Speaker: A new question, the member for Grey.

RURAL PROGRAMS

Mr. McKessock: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. In the new publication, Women in Rural Life, which was presented in the House on Thursday, in the time constraints and heavy work load section, it states, "Since time is a limited commodity on the farm, it may be more difficult to obtain, develop and retain volunteer leaders for adult and youth programs."

Having determined this by his own studies, why did the minister ask 4-H leaders to take on more responsibility this year for things the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food had previously been doing? A recent OMAF Grey county newsletter stated, "The 4-H leaders will now be expected to evaluate members' work, including project books, and farm visits will no longer be conducted by the OMAF office."

After determining that volunteers are going to be hard to get and that they are already burdened, will the minister now instruct his offices to continue the way they did in other years? Will he see that his staff evaluates these 4-H books and makes the farm visits as in the past?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, unless I am mistaken, I believe the honourable member is alluding to a misunderstanding that occurred in Bruce county, of which the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Elston) is well aware. I believe this misunderstanding has been cleared up.

As far as visits are concerned, the staff of the rural organizations and services branch will visit at least all first-year members and will continue to support the efforts of the volunteer leaders, whose contribution cannot be overstated. They really do make a very significant contribution.

Mr. McKessock: I am pleased the minister is reversing that part. On page 31 of his publication, one of his recommendations mentioned, "The ministry is going to continue to provide sound farm business management programs in order that farm women acquire greater skills, which will help them raise their confidence and self-assurance levels."

I believe the minister has missed the point again. They have the skills and they have been producing. What they want is to get paid for those skills. Is there going to be a payout in the upcoming budget to the red meat producers for their shipments in 1983 to bring them up to the level of other farmers producing in other provinces?

3 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The member is really grasping there. First of all, the words in the report are not my words; they are the words of the lady who authored the report. I think she did an extremely good job of it. It would seem the reaction to the report since its release last week supports that assessment.

Second, what the report is saying is that we should continue the emphasis of recent years on farm financial management programs; for example, the management-for-profit seminars conducted over the recent winter which were extraordinarily successful and very well attended. About a third of the persons attending the management-for-profit seminars were farm women.

To go on to the next point, we have discussed the question of retroactivity in a subsidy for the red meat industry on many occasions. My answer has not changed.

ACCREDITING OF TEACHERS

Mr. Allen: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Education. In mandating the Bovey commission, the minister referred to a zero-base review of current programs and wondered about maintaining 10 faculties of education at a time when there is a declining demand for teachers in the province.

How can those remarks be taken seriously when the ministry has accredited Niagara University and two other universities from offshore to offer master of education programs, programs that are substandard and make demands upon our educational system and resources without giving substantial return to our educational quality in the province?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of a significant number of teachers in the province who are already involved in postgraduate programs with Niagara University, they have received provisional approval. It is provisional upon two sets of approvals which must be received and it is for a specified, short period of time.

Mr. Allen: Is the minister aware that fully one quarter of the teachers in the public education system who received an master of education degree in recent years secured it from an American institution? Is she aware that those institutions, and Niagara in particular, do not require the same standards of graduation from a bachelor of education program as do our own bachelor of education programs?

Is the minister aware that the students of those programs are using not only our library resources but also our faculty and counselling services? Is she aware that even her own ministry does not know how many students are involved in those programs and that the accrediting process she refers to relies purely and simply upon the institution to tell her and her ministry whether it has happened and that it will not know much more than that in the process?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: No, we do not rely only upon that institution but upon the accrediting agency in the United States, which has the responsibility for accrediting such programs. It is my understanding that a significant number of teachers in the Niagara Peninsula have used that institution for the purposes of advancing their degrees, although, present company excepted, one might suggest they are very well trained at that level.

I would think the member might recognize that there is some necessity to provide some grandfathering, if you like, of those who are currently involved. One would not like to cut them off in midstream in the educational process in which they are currently participating.

We have made a limited, provisional support for that program at this time, based upon the requirement that accreditation be forthcoming from the accrediting agency in the United States.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, so that I have the minister's last answer absolutely correct, is she saying she is prepared to support and encourage a grandmothering and grandfathering clause? Is she assuring the House that those who are currently in the master of education program at Niagara University, for instance, will be allowed to complete that program there and that if she takes any further action, it will apply only to new people entering a master of education program?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is correct as long as those currently enrolled can complete their courses within the next 18 months and provided the college has received the certificate of accreditation by June 1985, fully, by the accrediting body in the United States.

ACTIVITIES OF POLICE

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Solicitor General. Can the minister advise as to why it was that he or one of his officials decided to comment publicly on a statement that was ruled inadmissible in a trial of a juvenile in Ottawa who is charged with manslaughter? Why did he not follow the advice of the senior crown attorney in Ottawa, Mr. Andrew Berzins? When he was asked to comment, he said it was improper for counsel to discuss the case during the course of the trial because it might influence the course of justice.

As one of the officials in the administration of justice, will the Solicitor General advise why he decided to say he was going to have an investigation of the conduct of the police pertaining to the obtaining of the statement from this juvenile, making that comment during the course of the trial?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, the matter was that I would be asking for a report, not an investigation. There were questions on the matter and the reply was that a report would be asked for as to information in preparation for many of the questions being asked by the media at the time.

Mr. Roy: The minister may not be aware of the local press in Ottawa, but a major headline on the front page of a paper read, "Probe Ordered into Coercion of Nepean Boy." It goes on to state that the minister has ordered an investigation into the conduct of the police.

Having decided to comment at that time, can the Solicitor General, who is in charge of all the police in this province, advise as to his reluctance or what the delay is on the part of his ministry to give directives to the police across Ontario to start videotaping all interrogations by the police?

That has been suggested by the Ontario Law Reform Commission and has been suggested recently by the public complaints commissioner, Sidney Linden. Some police forces, including the Ottawa police force, are currently experimenting in that field. Does he not feel as Solicitor General that this would be a useful tool in shortening trials and preventing allegations against the police of coercion or otherwise in the taking of statements from accused people?

Hon. G. W. Taylor: As the honourable member knows with his education and background in the law, some changes are necessary in regard to the federal Criminal Code and the Evidence Act before that method of obtaining and using statements, videotaping, would be permissible. I would suspect there would be some challenges under the new Constitution and the Charter of Rights, to use an example, as to whether somebody was incriminating himself when the material was videotaped. That is being discussed with our federal counterparts as to changes in the legislation.

As to instructing all the police forces of Ontario to use that process, it is new and is being experimented with in other areas. Naturally, in the judicial system and our state of the law we would like to arrive at this with some experimentation, have some pilot project and see how it works before instructing all police forces in Ontario to conduct the obtaining of confessions or evidence in that way. One might also say in this regard --

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Pardon, Mr. Speaker? I did not hear you.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you; new question.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Are you cutting off the answer?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Etobicoke.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I see.

PROOF OF INSPECTION

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who has responsibility for the Land Titles Act and the Registry Act.

Is the minister aware of the report passed by the city of Toronto which asks that the provincial government give powers to the municipality to have the right to require proof of inspection by a licensed termite inspector for termite infestation as a precondition for registration in the transfer of ownership of any property which the municipality may decide falls within a heavily termite-infested area?

Would the minister consider recommending to his colleagues the passing of that kind of legislation?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, all I can say is that I am aware of the issue but that no decision has been reached on it.

3:10 p.m.

TELEVISION IN LEGISLATURE

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege or a point of order or a point of view: The matter of television in the Legislature has come up repeatedly. Two minutes after question period started today, the television cameras picked up their bongo balls and went outside.

I can understand that; they had a story they wanted to get based on the Premier (Mr. Davis). But what it did in here was to make sure that the proceedings going on were not being recorded at all. I think it cries out for this place to be televised so that schools and so on in Ontario can find out what goes on.

The present practice and procedure are totally inadequate, and I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that you would use your good offices to try to talk the government into some kind of common sense that the people of Ontario have a right to see what is going on in here. It does not matter whether the Premier gets highlight billing out there -- they can do that for him -- but the procedures that go on in here are what is relevant with respect to conveying the knowledge of what goes on to the people of Ontario.

I resent what happened, and I hope something will be done shortly.

Mr. Speaker: If I may make an observation, that was hardly a point of whatever. The honourable member knows full well how to bring these matters to public attention through the proper channels, and I suggest that he bring this up at the next board meeting.

PETITIONS

SALE OF BEER AND WINE

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition:

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, petition the government and the Legislative Assembly to support the private members' bills of Don Boudria, MPP, to permit the sale of beer and Ontario wine in small, independent grocery stores.

"Pétition adressée au Lieutenant-gouverneur en Conseil et à l'Assemblée législative de l'Ontario:

"Nous, soussignés, par la présente pétition demandons à l'Assemblée législative et au gouvernement d'appuyer les projets de loi du député Don Boudria qui permettraient aux petites épiceries indépendantes de vendre de la bière et du vin ontarien."

Mr. Speaker, I draw to your attention that these petitions are signed by 1,445 people, bringing the total to more than 6,000.

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

Mr. Kolyn: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the members representing the constituencies of Durham West, Armourdale, St. George, Don Mills and York West, I table the following petition:

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas women in Ontario still earn only 60 percent of the wages of men; whereas women are still concentrated in a very small number of occupations; and whereas unanimous approval of the concept of equal pay for work of equal value was expressed in the Ontario Legislature in October 1983,

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to amend Bill 141 to include equal pay for work of equal value and to introduce mandatory affirmative action."

Mr. Eakins: Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition:

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas women in Ontario still earn only 60 per cent of the wages of men; whereas women are still concentrated in a very small number of occupations; and whereas unanimous approval of the concept of equal pay for work of equal value was expressed in the Ontario Legislature in October, 1983,

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to amend Bill 141 to include equal pay for work of equal value and to introduce mandatory affirmative action."

This is signed by representatives of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario from Victoria county.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, I have a similar petition from residents of the riding of Etobicoke.

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to amend Bill 141 to include equal pay for work of equal value and to introduce mandatory affirmative action."

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a similar petition signed by a number of people from the Rainy River district, which reads as follows:

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to amend Bill 141 to include equal pay for work of equal value and to introduce mandatory affirmative action."

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

MUNICIPAL PAYMENTS IN LIEU OF TAXES STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Bennett moved, seconded by Hon. Mr. Eaton, first reading of Bill 58, An Act to amend certain Acts related to Payments in Lieu of Taxes to Municipalities.

Motion agreed to.

ONTARIO UNCONDITIONAL GRANTS AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Bennett moved, seconded by Hon. Mr. Eaton, first reading of Bill 59, An Act to amend the Ontario Unconditional Grants Act.

Motion agreed to.

MUNICIPAL AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Bennett moved, seconded by Hon. Mr. Eaton, first reading of Bill 60, An Act to amend the Municipal Act.

Motion agreed to.

MUNICIPALITY OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Bennett moved, seconded by Hon. Mr. Eaton, first reading of Bill 61, An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act.

Motion agreed to.

3:20 p.m.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

CITY OF KITCHENER ACT

Mr. Breithaupt moved second reading of Bill Pr6, An Act respecting the City of Kitchener.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

OAKVILLE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION-YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION ACT

Mr. Kerr moved second reading of Bill Pr17, An Act respecting the Oakville Young Men's Christian Association-Young Women's Christian Association.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

TOWNSHIP OF FAUQUIER-STRICKLAND ACT

Mr. Piché moved second reading of Bill Pr20, An Act to continue the Corporation of the Townships of Shackleton and Machin under the name of the Corporation of the Township of Fauquier-Strickland.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

CITY OF TORONTO ACT

Mr. Robinson moved, on behalf of Mr. Shymko, second reading of Bill Pr3, An Act respecting the City of Toronto.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity to speak to this bill during this reading, if I may. As members know, the bill deals with demolition control. More accurately, it should reflect the fact that it deals with demolition postponement. For some time, our party has looked for leadership from the government to bring in a bill that would apply to all municipalities across the province with respect to demolition control. The city of Toronto has urged the government to take some action on this matter.

The city was looking for the government to bring in at least a two-year postponement where buildings were going to be destroyed by a developer in order to build different units in that location. Because of the very low vacancy rate in the province, particularly in the city of Toronto -- aside from Metropolitan Toronto, which is below one per cent -- it is important that these units be kept on the market.

What has been happening is that some developers, with the very tacit support of the government in the sense that it has not done anything to try to curtail them, have gone ahead and tried to get a demolition permit and then remove the tenants. Some tenants have lived in these locations for anywhere from 10 to 20 to 30 and more years. They have gone into apartments in their own neighbourhood where they had homes. All of a sudden, a developer comes along and says, "I want to destroy those apartments and construct new apartments, because there is greater monetary gain in the new apartments."

The tenants have been paying $300, $400 or $500 a month in rent. All of a sudden, the builders find they can either build condominiums in those areas or, alternatively, they can build luxury apartments and try to collect $1,000 to $1,500 a month in rent.

As I indicated, the city of Toronto and my colleagues and I have been urging the government for some time to put a stop to this useless destruction of very well-constructed buildings. There is nothing wrong with them. The only thing wrong is that the developer thinks he can get a greater gain from constructing new buildings and collecting higher rents.

Unfortunately, the government has delayed and delayed and delayed and then finally brought in this bill -- the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Shymko) brought it in -- known as Pr3, which is for the city of Toronto and which puts a postponement of only one year on the destruction of these buildings. There is some urgency, particularly at this point, because there is at least one case before the courts.

I do not want to say anything that would jeopardize that case, but as the members know, the city lost its case yesterday. As a result, it has to issue a building permit to the developer for some units on Eglinton Avenue in Toronto. If the city does not appeal it -- and it has a number of days to appeal it -- if it has to issue the building permit in the final analysis, it means the contractor or developer is going to be able to get a demolition permit.

We hope this bill will give that case, as well as other cases -- it does not apply to only one -- at least a one-year postponement. We feel there should be at least two years because one year is not sufficient. The city of Toronto wanted very strongly to have two years but was not able to convince the government of that. As a result, the government has brought in a one-year postponement.

Again, we brought in an amendment, which was supported by the third party, that would give the city at least another chance after one year to reassess the situation and if it found the situation warranted, it could postpone the destruction of a building for at least another year. Unfortunately, the government defeated that amendment and there will be a one-year postponement only, rather than a two-year postponement, with no real control over demolition.

My colleague the member for Yorkview (Mr. Spensieri) has introduced a private member's bill that will give the government, if it adopts it, some kind of control over the situation for Ontario. That is going to come up some time in the near future. We hope all members of the House will support that bill.

I want to reiterate that we will support this bill, Pr3, reluctantly. We do not feel it goes far enough. We hope members will support private member's Bill 53 when it comes before the House. We also feel legislation should be brought in that would apply equally and fairly to all municipalities across the province.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, I want to have a few minutes to speak on the debate on second reading of Bill Pr3 because of the importance of the issue for tenants across the province and the real inadequacy of Bill Pr3 itself. As my colleague the member for Waterloo North (Mr Epp) has said, this is not a bill that gives a municipality the power to control demolition. It simply gives the city of Toronto the power to delay the issuance of a building permit for 12 months. At the end of the 12-month period, the city of Toronto must then exercise its option under subsection 1(12) of the bill to expropriate the property in question. If it fails to so expropriate the property, then a demolition permit has to be issued.

3:30 p.m.

The problem with that notion, which may look all right on paper, is that neither the city of Toronto nor any other municipality has the resources to expropriate all the buildings on whose behalf owners are applying for demolition permits.

To take the example mentioned by my colleague the member for Waterloo North, we were told in committee that the value of the buildings at 790, 800 and 840 Eglinton Avenue West, which are owned by Mr. Axelrod, is in the vicinity of $5 million. In order to prevent those buildings from being demolished and the tenants being thrown out of their homes, the city of Toronto would have to find $5 million.

In committee we heard that the one-year period, the 12-month delay, is not sufficient time for the city of Toronto or any other municipality to make application under the current social housing programs for funding. The 12-month period is not sufficient to permit a municipality to apply for funding under subsection 56(1) housing programs. In fact, the municipality would need at least two years of lead time in order to do that.

Second, the parliamentary assistant indicated that the province had absolutely no plans to make additional resources available to municipalities to help them expropriate buildings which were threatened with demolition so that they could be retained as affordable housing stock.

In fact, subsection 1(12) is totally fraudulent. There is no possible way for the city to exercise its option under subsection 1(12) because the city does not have the resources to do it.

I have to point out that according to the city of Toronto there are applications for the demolition of 50 buildings in the city alone and there is a total of 1,448 apartment units currently on the list to be demolished. It is ironic that this is up from the last time we dealt with the demolition bill in the fall, when there were 42 buildings on the waiting list for demolition permits in the city of Toronto with a total of 1,228 apartment units.

The irony is that the difference between 1,448 and 1,228, about 200 units, is approximately the same number of units the city of Toronto has obtained this year through the housing allocation process. We are going to get 223 units of affordable housing in the city of Toronto under subsection 56(1), and since October 200 units have been added to the list to be demolished. The net loss for the current year could be something in the vicinity of 1,200 units. This is absolutely stupid.

Does the government realize the vacancy rate in the city of Toronto at the present time is 0.7 per cent? Does it realize it is virtually impossible to obtain affordable housing on the market in the city of Toronto in 1984? Does it realize the private sector, when it was before the committee dealing with the demolition bill in the fall, told us very candidly it could not build affordable housing in the city of Toronto? The representatives from the Canadian Institute of Public Real Estate Companies testified in October 1983 that the cheapest unit they could put on stream in the city of Toronto for a modest, no-frills, two-bedroom apartment would demand a market rent of $800 a month.

I am not making this up. This is what officials of the real estate industry told us. They said the cheapest they could bring modest, nonluxury, no-frills market accommodation on stream in 1984 would be $800 a month.

If the government does not understand what a housing crisis looks like, a crisis of affordability, this is what it looks like. The private sector cannot bring anything on stream for less than $700 to $800 a month. I assume they could bring a one-bedroom apartment on stream for something like $700 a month. Is that supposed to be affordable housing?

We have a vacancy rate of 0.7 per cent. We have 223 social housing units for the entire city as our allocation for 1984 for affordable housing, and this government stands here with a waiting list for apartment demolitions of 1,448 units. The best it can come up with is a 12-month delay.

Our concern is what the representatives of the development industry said very clearly in front of the committee, and I quote Mr. Bryan, who was with the Toronto Redevelopment Advisory Council, a very candid and frank spokesman for the industry. I asked him, "Of the 1,448 apartments, or the 50 buildings, that are in the demolition process at the present time, how many do you think will not be able to proceed to demolition permit by virtue of a one-year delay?"

Mr. Bryan replied, "I think all of them will eventually proceed to a demolition permit."

What could be plainer than that? The development industry understands very clearly. It was repeated by other witnesses that this bill is not going to save a single apartment currently on the demolition waiting list in the city of Toronto; not one. Mr. Bryan is confident, as he said later, that "in the fullness of time" each and every one of those apartments would be torn down. He, of course, was quite pleased at this wonderfully useful prospect.

The government has simply ignored that reality. We are going to support the bill because it gives a stay of execution to a number of apartments for another 12 months and principally because, as my colleague the member for Waterloo North says, it gives a stay of execution to the buildings owned by Mr. Axelrod at 790, 800 and 840 Eglinton Avenue West, all of which are good quality, affordable apartment units.

It would be a criminal act for them to be torn down in the middle of a housing crisis, when there is no place to which the present tenants of those buildings can relocate. It gives a 12-month grace period.

When is this government going to confront the basic issues? A 12-month delay simply postpones the decision by 12 months. In my cynical moments I assume the government intends to get past the next provincial election with something in place -- the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) is nodding in the affirmative -- the government is trying to get past the next provincial election with a piece of paper in place, a law in place which it can say is demolition control.

Mr. Piché: I heard all that in committee; now you are repeating yourself.

Mr. McClellan: Right, that is true. I confess my weakness. I have succumbed to cynicism when I say the government is trying to get through the next provincial election without having any demolitions taking place in our large urban areas.

We know the problem is not confined to Toronto. The government is going to be getting a call from the city of Ottawa in the very near future because there is a 500-unit building, the Alvin Heights development, facing demolition. The 500 low-income units will he torn down and replaced by luxury conversions, probably condominiums. This is at a time when Ottawa is getting an equally ridiculous small number of social housing units under section 56.1 programs.

The problem is widespread. The government understands how embarrassing it would be to have these buildings torn down in the middle of a provincial election so this is what we get, a very cynical piece of legislation to simply postpone the decision by 12 months.

I put the government on notice that it cannot keep its head in the sand. The reality of the housing crisis is becoming overwhelming. It cannot permit 1,448 units to be torn down in the city of Toronto; it cannot permit 500 low-income apartment units to be torn down in the city of Ottawa or in any other community and have all these people thrown out on the street.

These are people who have their rights as tenants to security of tenure. Sooner or later this government is going to have to face up to the fact that tenants have the right to protection against economic eviction, as surely as they have other kinds of protection that have already been recognized and enshrined in our Landlord and Tenant Act.

The government has not caught up to the reality of the 20th century. The tenants have a basic right to security of tenure, including the right to be protected against the kind of economic eviction these demolitions and conversions represent. The sooner the government wakes up to that reality the better, but it has not yet woken up to the reality. The government still does not understand that vestiges of feudal law are not acceptable in the governance of landlord and tenant relationships. Until it understands that fact, it is going to he confronted with these regularly recurring crises.

3:40 p.m.

I have no doubt at all that in 12 months' time or sooner we are going to be back in the standing committee on administration of justice or in the standing committee for regulations and other statutory instruments looking at exactly the same issue and trying to find exactly the same solution.

I would suggest the solution has already been presented to the government. In essence, it is enshrined in Bill Pr13, which the government torpedoed and refused to accept. Sooner or later this government is going to have to wake up and accept that principle. In the meantime, however, we are prepared to give passage to this bill and to have it proceed to third reading and passage into law in order to protect a number of apartment units that, because of this government's abject negligence and irresponsibility, will be torn down, and torn down very quickly, unless this bill passes.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): I thank the honourable member. The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere.

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: No, I am sorry. We are not ready for you.

Mr. Robinson: I want to speak to the bill. Do you want me to speak to it now or later?

The Acting Speaker: No, you will speak to it later. I am sorry.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, my words will be brief and, I hope, to the point. They will be brief because the member for Waterloo North, who is the critic for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and also the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) have spoken very eloquently on the theme of the need for affordable housing and the theme of security of tenure.

I do not think there is any question that we as the representatives of the official opposition, and also the third party, support the themes of affordable housing and security of tenure. That goes without saying.

I would like to add that our support is reluctant. We see this, as my colleague has mentioned, simply as a delaying tactic. But at this point I think we would all agree that half a loaf has to be better than nothing.

When I say this, I would like to reflect just for a moment or two on the long history of this bill with its various numbers. It has been in front of a variety of committees of this Legislature for something in the neighbourhood of three years. The member who first brought the bill in, a former city councillor and member for St. George, was the original proponent of the bill. At that time we were not looking at a bill that would accommodate a 12-month period.

As a matter of fact, as late as the fall of 1983, when I was sitting on the standing committee on regulations and other statutory instruments -- and, by the way, that is the committee that ended up with the bill, as it seems to be ending up with most, if not all, private bills now -- that committee felt it was heading into a resolution of the issue. Then, at the 11th hour, the government came along and suggested it would not allow the bill to pass in its form at that time.

On the day that became known -- I am afraid to admit this, but I guess there is no hiding the point -- I blew my top, because it struck me that this was the government's intention from the beginning; and if this was the intention, why put the committee through the exercise of endless hours of debate and witnesses? I think we did a disservice to the city council here in Toronto and to the citizens who came to visit us in large numbers by creating the illusion of reason prevailing. It certainly came as a shock and a surprise to many of the concerned citizens, tenants and the members of council that this government would take this view.

Again, while we fall in line as members of the opposition by reluctantly supporting the bill, I think we have a duty and obligation to remind those who might be listening to this debate or those who might read this debate at some later time that there were considerable wrong impressions created over the long period this bill was in front of the legislative committee. I do not think that is right. If the government is going to be involved at all, it has a duty and an obligation to be up front with those people who come to it for some kind of consideration. In this instance I do not believe it was totally up front.

I would also like to point out that private member's Bill Pr53, presented by my colleague the member for Yorkview would bring about a better resolution to this issue of demolition. When I say that, I want to make members of the Legislature mindful of the fact that this particular problem of demolition is not being resolved and dispensed with through this bill. It will come back from time to time, as witness the last day of the committee meeting when we had representation from the city of Ottawa.

Ottawa sent one of its alderpersons to sit in on our meeting and to present the concerns of the Ottawa council to our committee. They did so because they too will be going through the same kind of legislative process some time within the next year or two. It is very possible that other communities such as Ottawa will have the same need and come to us again.

I think we have to be mindful of these communities, of their needs and of their need to express through their actions, through their bylaws and through the actions of council what is their will. When we have the government stepping in and imposing itself, as it did in this instance, simply to allow a delaying tactic -- and I say this because of the 12-month limitation in this bill -- then I think we have a government that is not recognizing local autonomy totally but is interfering with it. I say these words as a caution to all who may sit in on future meetings dealing with this same theme.

Finally, I would again point out that we support this bill very reluctantly. As the member of our party who sat on this committee for the longest period of time, I submit that there is a need for the government, when it has bills like this, to be right up front with people who come to it for advice and support.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, there is a principle this government seems to live by, which is to backpedal and look as though it is going forward. That is what is happening on this bill, which the government has agreed to with reluctance and in a watered-down version of demolition controls that would be effective in protecting residential accommodation in the city of Toronto.

As my friend the member for Bellwoods pointed out, more than 1,000 units are on the block right now universally. The units that are going down, the units that are threatened with demolition by speculators and by developers, are units that provided solid, low-cost accommodation for people on modest incomes -- perhaps not all of them, but that has universally been the case both in this city and also in the city of Ottawa where I come from.

What has been happening is that people have looked at properties and they have looked at what is called the highest and the best use. The highest and the best use in many cases consists of tearing down apartments that house pensioners, working families and people on modest incomes and putting up condominiums that are worth $100,000 to $250,000. They cater to an entirely different market, a market of people who presumably are pretty well capable of looking after their own needs.

There are condominiums standing empty by the hundreds in the city of Toronto right now, and yet these zealots of capitalism continue to seek to demolish whole buildings in the hope of making profits for themselves at the expense of ordinary people.

3:50 p.m.

The tragedy of this bill is that even the limited protection it provides is concentrated only in the city of Toronto. My colleague the member for London North (Mr. Van Horne) referred to Alderman Diane Holmes from the city of Ottawa, who represents a portion of my riding of Ottawa Centre.

As she pointed out to the standing committee on regulations and other statutory instruments, Ottawa has the same problems. We need the same kind of legislation as well, but because of the actions of this government, Ottawa is going to be compelled to fight this battle all over again; then London, Windsor, Hamilton and Peterborough. Slowly, over time, it may be possible to get this limited protection. Then Toronto or some other municipality will try to get a bit more. The government will once again drag its feet and come up with all kinds of reasons why it should not happen and tell the local municipalities why the bureaucrats and the politicians at Queen's Park know better than the people who are actually on the scene.

I recall speeches that have been made from time to time by the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg), the member for Ottawa South (Mr. Bennett) and the Premier (Mr. Davis) about the virtues of local autonomy. It seems, however, local autonomy is something the Conservatives believe in when it happens to be local autonomy for something they favour.

When the Conservative government does not favour something that people who are close to the housing situation, for example, are aware of locally, then it is no longer in favour of local autonomy. Instead, it is in favour of the rights of speculators and of the rights of profiteering developers over the rights of ordinary people to have decent shelter at a decent price and to continue to enjoy the rights to security of tenure it was intended they be given back in the 1970s in legislation passed in 1975.

As my colleagues have said, this legislation is better than nothing; nothing existed before. People in North York are currently experiencing, as people may have seen in the John Sewell columns this week, what it is like to have no protection at all. One can be turfed out of one's apartment in North York without even a demolition permit having been applied for. With no plan for redevelopment of a particular site, a developer can plan to put a parking lot on a piece of land where people are living right now. That will be entirely legal, and it is happening right now. That on its own will not happen in the city of Toronto. The demolition permit will have to be sought and some small measure of delay will be achieved.

I point out to the parliamentary assistant and to the minister, if he ever gets around to reading this, which I doubt he will, the power to delay here is excruciatingly limited. First, it applies only to residential properties. Second, there must be more than six units on the property; so fourplexes, duplexes and houses are not protected from demolition by this legislation. Third, the coverage must exceed 50 per cent of the zoning for the delay to apply. If the coverage is less than 50 per cent of the allowable maximum in the zoning, then the developer has the same freedom that the developer has in the city of Toronto today.

That is a very limited set of reforms. As I said earlier, the tragedy is that this government allows that kind of thing to go forward at a snail's pace in an effort to contain, to fight fires, to keep things from getting too hot out there in terms of public anguish and public outcry over the situations we in this Legislature are permitting to occur, thanks to provincial legislation.

Rather than that, I wish we had some real leadership coming from the government; that there was a commitment, to begin with, that legislation made available to the city of Toronto would be made available to any other municipality in the province that sought it without the need for a private bill, without the need for $10,000 in legal expenditures and without the need for a year of delay while the government weighs the pros and cons of giving to Ottawa or North Bay what in its wisdom it was prepared to give to Toronto.

I would like to see this coupled with a commitment to protect the affordable housing that exists right now. As my colleague pointed out, we are losing far more affordable housing by demolition and conversion these days than is being created by social housing policies, particularly the social housing policies coming from this government.

I would like the government to have a commitment to ensuring security of tenure is not just a slogan but a reality for tenants, as it was for a few years after 1975. Perhaps it is time -- I believe it is time -- we looked at security of tenure and rent control applying to buildings that have been built since 1975. In some cases those buildings are almost a decade old. It seems to me the people in those buildings should have the protections we sought to bring into this Legislature nine or 10 years ago.

My colleagues have determined that we will support this bill. I do so reluctantly. I would ask, however, that what is good enough for Toronto should be extended to Ottawa. I would like the government to undertake today to bring in legislation in this Legislature that will ensure that, where a municipality such as Toronto has gained a few crumbs off the table from the Conservatives, at least those crumbs will be made available across the rest of the province rather than being denied.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I sat on the legislative committee that studied the new Planning Act for two or three years to get a revised Planning Act. The question of demolition control was certainly before us. In fact, the New Democratic Party members of that committee moved amendments that would have given demolition control to local governments.

That would have made Bill Pr3 or its predecessor Bill Pr17 unnecessary, but we could not move the government to recognize that local autonomy in that area is extremely important because only the local municipality is closely in touch with the housing situation and can see what is happening regarding the protection and maintenance of affordable housing, as opposed to the demands or requests of developers to redevelop land for higher-priced accommodation. Unfortunately, in those hearings, we were not able to move the government to the need for that kind of local autonomy.

I also sat on the committee that dealt with the various versions of Bill Pr3 over a period of two years. We saw before that committee a strong case made by the city of Toronto as to why it had to have demolition control if it was to prevent exacerbation of a very serious housing crisis.

We saw the city of Toronto make a strong case for the need to protect affordable housing from demolition. We saw great numbers of tenants come from buildings that were threatened with the possibility of being demolished to be replaced by much higher-priced accommodation. Those tenants were mainly senior citizens or people of modest incomes who had occupied apartments for many years. It was their homes that were about to he demolished if demolition control was not given to the city of Toronto.

I think those people convinced all committee members that there was a serious housing crisis in the city of Toronto. They convinced them they had a right to be allowed to continue with security of tenure as long as they were obeying the rules under the Landlord and Tenant Act to maintain their apartments properly.

Those people would have been dehoused if the demolitions went through, particularly the people in the Eglinton-Bathurst area who came before us because they simply could not afford what would replace their housing; and with a vacancy rate of less than one per cent in the city of Toronto, where could they go? They were being dehoused and asked to double up with other people or perhaps to move out of the city to remote suburbs. Many of them did not have cars. Many were too old to learn to drive cars.

Those people were in danger of being dehoused. We saw their situation and the government members saw their situation. I think we felt a consensus was developing that they needed protection, but when it came time to vote for an amendment that would have allowed the city of Toronto to have demolition control, the parliamentary assistant to the minister came in and said the government was not prepared to go for what many committee members were asking, particularly on the NDP and the Liberal side.

4 p.m.

We have Bill Pr3 before us today in its second reading form. We do not think it answers the problem at all. Three hundred and sixty-five days of buying time to see whether either the tenants or the city can find the money to buy a unit is not adequate, particularly in view of the very straitened resources that municipalities are left with these days under the provincial government's reductions in municipal aid.

We feel that the government, which poses to care about people, is showing by this bill that it is completely uncaring of anybody but developers. Those people who came before us have a serious housing problem, and we are not giving them the protection they deserve.

The fact that the number of applications for demolition has gone up in the period while the bill has been under consideration indicates the worst fears of the city are being realized. There will be a great spate of applications for demolition permits, which will affect more affordable housing than the 1,448 units now standing in line for demolition permits.

I think this legislation is going to come back to haunt the government as an example of how the government does not care about housing for people of modest means, senior citizens or people who have lived in their homes for many years and expect some sort of protection.

Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Speaker, as the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) has indicated, this policy was fully debated two years ago when we discussed the new Planning Act and the pros and cons of demolition control.

As everyone knows, the Planning Act does give full power to any municipality to refuse a demolition permit unless and until a building permit is issued for a replacement building. All municipalities now have the power to refuse a demolition permit if its purpose is to demolish a building and leave it as vacant land or a parking lot.

The government made it very plain during those debates, as it has during this debate, that it does not favour open-ended demolition control when a permit has been issued for a new building. I say that in reply to the member for London North. The government has never been reluctant to indicate that was the policy.

This bill is not a government bill. This bill is not necessarily government policy. This bill is not the government's answer to any of the housing problems. This is a private act requested by the city Toronto. It is their bill, and not the government's bill.

Mr. McClellan: It is what you are prepared to --

Mr. Rotenberg: This is a bill requested by the city of Toronto. The government indicated quite openly it would not support the original bill requested by Toronto because it was felt, again as was stated in the debate on the Planning Act, that it did not conform to the policies.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: No one said it was a government bill, but the government supports it. In fact, the government put forth an amendment. To disassociate itself from this bill now is just lunacy. Why does the government not make the best of it, support the bill and get it through rather than making asinine statements that it is not government policy?

The Acting Speaker: That is not a point of privilege.

Mr. Epp: I made my point anyway.

Mr. Rotenberg: There is no question the member for Waterloo North got his point in. However, it is still a fact that this is the city of Toronto's bill and not the government's bill.

The amendment put forward in the committee was put forward at the request of the city of Toronto, after a discussion with the government and as a compromise, knowing that was how they would get their bill through.

The bill in its present form is one the government finds not unreasonable; therefore, as indicated, the government will not be opposing this bill.

Mr. Robinson: Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me say on behalf of my colleague the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Shymko) that if he were here, I am sure he would be pleased to have the support, albeit reluctant, of the parties opposite and their agreement to vote in favour of Bill Pr3.

What is in debate here is not the matter of affordable housing; it is the expected proficiency of this bill and whether it will have a meaningful effect in overcoming the problem the city of Toronto brought before us and identified for us and the extent to which it will be effective.

The solicitor for the city came before us with instructions to support the bill. He was not as pessimistic about its impact as some of the members opposite. Time will tell, as it will in all things.

I look forward to engaging in the debate in a couple of weeks' time when, as my friend the member for Waterloo North points out, there will be a private member's resolution before us on the same matter. We will have an opportunity when the bill comes before us for debate during private members' hour.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

House in committee of the whole.

EXTRA-PROVINCIAL CORPORATIONS ACT

Consideration of Bill 5, An Act in respect of Extra-Provincial Corporations.

Mr. Williams: Mr. Chairman, in the absence of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), I understand from the House leaders for the two opposition parties and their critics that there is no further comment with regard to Bill 5 and that, accordingly, the bill can be reported at this time.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Chairman, the bill was returned to the committee of the whole stage in case there were any comments to be made. It is my understanding there are no further items to be discussed and, in so far as we are concerned, the bill may be carried in committee in its entirety.

Mr. Williams: As a matter of information, I would advise the critics for the two opposition parties, and the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt) in particular, that letters have gone forward from the ministry as of yesterday to Deerhurst Investment Ltd., instructing it to conform with the provisions of the act or further proceedings will have to be taken under the act.

Mr. Breithaupt: That was the corporation with the ownership of the property at 100 Wellesley Street. It was the example that caused the general interest in this bill by certain of us in the Legislature.

It would be appreciated if the parliamentary assistant might advise at least the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) and myself, who were particularly interested in these themes, of the result in due course. He might choose to do that privately or otherwise, or to send both the correspondence sent by the ministry and the reply, or whatever a brief report on a page might be, so we would know how the matter is concluded. If he could accommodate us in that regard in the next several weeks, it would be appreciated.

Mr. Williams: The comments are taken as noted.

Sections 1 to 28, inclusive, agreed to.

Bill ordered to be reported.

4:10 p.m.

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

Resuming the adjourned consideration of Bill 141, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act.

On section 1:

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Robinson): The member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) had the floor on his amendment to part IX, subsection 33(1).

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Chairman, I want to continue speaking to the amendment, but before I do, I would like to clear the record. On Tuesday evening, May 1, in a rather heated debate on Bill 141, I outlined the excellent two-hour reporting back or debriefing done by the lobbyists from the Ontario Federation of Labour on Bill 141. I also said they taped some of the debriefing. This comment about the taping was not accurate and I regret any inconvenience it has caused the OFL or any members of this House.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order. Since the member for Hamilton East has clarified, I want to make absolutely sure the clarification regarding taping is extended to the period of time when some of us were interviewed. The member has clarified taping in so far as the debriefing is concerned, but there was also concern about taping at another part of the day. I would ask your indulgence, Mr. Chairman, for the member for Hamilton East to add that clarification.

Mr. Mackenzie: Although unfortunately the comment about the debriefing was taken to be broader than that, there never was any suggestion that any members were taped. To the best of my knowledge, they were not. If they were, I certainly did not know it.

Let me turn to the amendment we have moved, which really gives some substance to the equal pay for work of equal value principle we are trying to establish; it is not only long overdue, as I have reported before in comments I made in this House, but also an issue whose time has come. I want to do two or three things in the few minutes remaining to me in this debate.

First, I want to go over some of the background information that was used in the lobby by members of the various women's groups and the Ontario Federation of Labour, because it outlines rather clearly why we need this change in this legislation the government has before the House.

While we are dealing with equal pay for work of equal value, in the background paper that is tied in almost totally with affirmative action, and there are a number of comments.

One comment relates to the fact that there are some 53,000 companies in Ontario. Since 1979, the affirmative action division of the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission has contacted more than 1,200 employees. To date, only 64 have agreed to utilize the services of the CEIC to develop an affirmative action program. In Ontario, the government has contacted 727 employers, and 244, excluding six crown agencies, have developed affirmative action strategies. I do not intend to go into them, but we have been raising questions in this House on many of those companies.

The strategies amount to nothing more than that a program is supposed to be in place, and many of the management people know nothing more about it than that. Because there are no legislated guidelines, as pointed out in the 1982 statement by the OFL on women and affirmative action, the activity entailed by a program can range from consciousness-raising seminars for managers to a comprehensive plan with goals and timetables. The majority of companies fall into the former category of consciousness-raising seminars.

CEIC comes closer than its Ontario counterpart. In respect to this government as an employer in the Ontario public sector -- and the source here is the 1982-83 report on the status of women crown employees -- as of March 31, 1983, the total number of employees was 69,099, of whom 40,204 were men and 28,895 were women. Of these women, 20,453 were paid less than $20,999, while 10,155 of the men were paid less than $20,999; and 1,497 women were paid more than $32,000, while 9,473 men were paid more than $32,000.

The $19,000 to $20,999 range was the highest salary area in which women comprised more than 50 per cent of the work force; and $32,000-plus was the highest category in which women were included.

The highest percentages of women by job category was 95.5 per cent in office services, 80.7 per cent in clerical services and 78.5 per cent in the clerical modules. The numbers of women in these categories were 6,485, 8,151 and 409.

In their report they look at the labour force by level of schooling in Ontario in 1982. It showed that at the zero to eight years of schooling level, 15.4 per cent of the men were in that category and 10.3 per cent of the women. At the high school level, 50.8 per cent were men and 55.7 per cent were women. Certainly, they had the educational standards.

With some post-secondary education, 9.6 per cent were men and 9.8 per cent were women; post-secondary or diploma, 10.5 per cent were men and 13.6 per cent were women. With university degrees, 13.8 per cent were men and 10.6 per cent were women. Only here do we get a lower percentage.

In the regulated apprenticeship programs, 1982-83 -- once again the source is the Ontario women's directorate, Women in the Labour Force, "Education," 1983 -- total enrolment was 7,182, including 417 women.

In 1982-83, 90.2 per cent of the women in apprenticeship training were in the service category, which includes traditionally female programs such as hairdresser and hairstyling. Although women represented 5.8 per cent of apprenticeship registrations from April 1982 to March 1983, if the low-wage service category is excluded, only 0.6 per cent of apprenticeships were female.

For women in Canada, the Earnings Canada 1980 report -- also taken from statistics of the Ontario women's directorate -- showed that women working full-time earned an average of 64.3 per cent of what men earned working full-time. The average annual work earnings were $13,788 for a woman working full-time and $21,441 for a man.

For full-year workers -- people who work 50 to 52 weeks of the year, whether full- or part-time -- women earned 52.2 per cent of what men earned. The average annual earnings were $8,863 for a woman working a full year and $16,988 for a man.

The average annual income was $13,910 for a female-headed family and $25,397 for a male-headed family. Therefore, 36 per cent of all female-headed families were classified as low-income as compared to 10.4 per cent of all Canadian families.

I think these figures clearly indicate, and there is ample documentation of this and other problems, the fact that we have a long way to go. The progress has been exceedingly slow in terms of changing the standards and the levels and changing the differences that exist between male and female employees in Ontario. It seems to me there is a lesson to be learned by members of this House from the battle that has gone on over a lot of years.

4:20 p.m.

Starting with the coalition that got involved back in 1982, we had a brief from the Equal Pay Coalition to this government at the time we were holding hearings on equal pay legislation. They made the point in that brief that they opposed the government's consideration of a mandatory wage control program. That is now water under the dam, but it is an issue that has added to the inequitable differences between men and women.

In point B in their direct approach to the minister, they said the government's proposed composite test amendment to the present equal pay legislation in the Employment Standards Act is something that disturbs their members and they do not support it.

I do not want to cover the entire brief but I picked out a page or two that I thought was apropos. It simply says:

"If some of the committee members question the impatience of our demand for equal value legislation, you cannot know how long and hard we have fought for this legislation. The lobbying in Ontario started in earnest in the early 1970s. Since that time many organizations have met with a succession of Ontario Labour ministers, the Honourable Mr. Guindon, Miss Stephenson, Mr. Elgie and now Mr. Ramsay, but to no avail.

"In 1974 this same lobby appeared before a legislative committee debating amendments to the Employment Standards Act, the same act before you today, and urged an amendment to allow equal pay for work of equal value. Instead, an amendment was passed which provided for comparisons of 'substantially' the same work and resulted in 'substantially' no effect.

"However, despite the fact it only confirmed a prior court interpretation of the equal pay section, it put Ontario into the forefront of equal pay legislation, a position it held until the passage of Quebec and federal equal pay legislation in 1975 and 1977, respectively.

"In 1976 our present coalition was formed within the context of increased discussion and pending federal legislative change. The coalition was formed in order to seek equal value legislation provincially and particularly in Ontario. Our coalition brought together diverse groups that are now united behind this issue as never before. Professional businesswomen joined union groups that joined community groups and legal organizations, all of which saw the importance of this issue to their members.

"Men were now joining women to seek this legislative change. In response to the Ontario governments discussion paper entitled 'Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value,' which was issued in the fall of 1976, our coalition organized a large public meeting in Toronto to question the provincial parties on their stand. More than 300 people vigorously challenged the government spokesperson, who felt Ontario was not yet quite ready for this change.

"Mounting public interest in the issue resulted in scores of requests from organizations throughout Ontario for coalition speakers on the subject. The coalition became involved in the production of several films, TV and radio programs and newspaper and magazine articles on the issue."

We can see a long campaign here and the buildup of that campaign.

"In 1977 the coalition held a seminar to discuss the implementation of equal value through legislation and collective bargaining. The papers which were given to this seminar were collected into a booklet entitled 'Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value,'..." -- copies of which were passed on to the members back in those hearings.

"The widespread distribution of this booklet would be the envy of any Canadian publisher. The book has now gone through three printings and more than 2,500 copies have been distributed."

In 1977 the coalition picketed the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the then Minister of Labour, now the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson), at the Royal York Hotel during the provincial election campaign. Obviously, they did not get anywhere in that campaign. They held a press conference and lobbied the Canadian Human Rights Commission to protest the discriminatory effect of the Anti-Inflation Board on women's wages.

"In answer to these efforts, the government staged an equal pay/equal opportunity conference in January 1978 to again discuss the issues. This conference was attended by members of the coalition and other groups to drive home to the government our determination to accept nothing less than effective equal value legislation.

"Further, in 1978 we participated at the invitation of the Canadian Human Rights Commission in a session that explored what guidelines should be used by the commission in the interpretation of its 'equal pay for work of equal value' section.

"After meeting with Liberal and NDP caucuses in 1978 to discuss and obtain their support for 'equal pay for work of equal value,' we presented a brief to the Minister of Labour in December 1978 that again challenged the inequities of the present legislation and urged action. We were told by the Honourable Dr. Elgie that he was a new minister and would have to study the principle. Despite the positive and pragmatic approach of the federal government to the implementation of the legislation, the Ontario government continued to ignore the federal initiatives and research." And the lobbying that was done.

"On March 8, 1979, at our invitation, the leaders of the New Democratic Party and Liberal Party, along with the Minister of Labour, met on the steps of the Legislature to address an International Women's Day rally on their equal value policies. The government continued to stall."

I want to leave their summary, which goes on from there. Shortly after that, we first brought in Bill 3, which my colleague Ted Bounsall brought into this House.

I was going to cover a lot more territory, but I will not. I want to indicate that we have seen the maturing of this coalition. We know that 52 per cent of the voters in Ontario are women. We know, because I have been participating in a number of union schools and seminars in the last month and a half where this has been one of the issues discussed, there is a breaking down of some of the traditional resistance that was there even in some sectors of the trade union movement. We know it is no longer just a coalition of women's groups; an awful lot of other interested parties have started to come on side with this particular issue.

We know, for example, referring to a piece in the Toronto Star just the other day, the Catholic bishops in their latest statement are urging job equality for women; and if all members of the House have not read it, I would advise them to take a look at that article, which I use simply to underline the growing understanding and acceptance of the need for equal pay for work of equal value.

I would point out to the members of this House that some of them, like me, may have come in for a few minutes during the student parliament here the other day. While I did not ask for the figures, I am quoting now strictly from a newspaper report, which said 58 of 125 members were women.

It would seem to me, and I would appeal to government members that this must give them some cause for thought, it is not just the growing strength of the coalition, nor is it the understanding of a large number of people beyond the coalition, but the fact that some of our young people, whatever the selection process was for members of this House for that student parliament, certainly came up with numbers that are beginning to approach equality between men and women in this province of ours.

Why our amendment, once again? As I say, I had intended to put on the record again some of the comments or opposition raised to Bill 3 in what was probably one of the better debates in this House on the equal pay issue back in May 1979, but I am not going to do that. I am going to put on the record only two paragraphs. There are more damning paragraphs I could put on the record, but I am referring now to the then Minister of Labour, on page 2024 of the Hansard of May 17, 1979, in an exchange he was having with my colleague the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan). The final paragraph in that little exchange has the minister saying:

"As I attempted to indicate, we are still looking for satisfactory answers. This is not to say that answers do not exist. The ministry discussion paper dealt with the experience of other jurisdictions, including the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, France and the Netherlands." There is a comment, which I will not put into the record, by the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel).

4:30 p.m.

On the next page, in the final paragraph the minister is referring to the member for Bellwoods -- I think the member for Sudbury East had interjected -- when he says:

"I assure him and other interested parties that the concept is not dead in this minister's mind, and I reiterate that. Let me assure him there is no more vocal spokesman about the issue of inequities facing women in the work place than this minister."

I do not doubt that there is a commitment on the part of most members across the way, eventually or somewhere down the road. The point I am making is that the answers we were getting in May 1979 clearly indicated we had not yet found the answers; we had to look at it; our minds were not closed. Yet we have before us once again a bill that totally skirts the issue. It is a little more discouraging than that; it deliberately throws in a couple of small goodies, which if they were separated all of us could support with no difficulty whatsoever, in an effort to get members of this House to support, perhaps unanimously, what the government has done.

What the government has done does not deal with that issue of equal pay for work of equal value. It is an end run, an attempt to once again stall and not deal with the issue.

It seems to me that all the nice, good or kind words in the world do not mean a darned thing if they are not backed up with some positive action. For that reason we have moved this amendment. For that reason we are telling the government we cannot support the bill as it stands. For that reason we are hoping some of the members in this House will have second thoughts about the bill or maybe even withdraw it until they have had a chance to see what can be done.

I do not know whether that is a possibility. I suspect the pressure and the heat in terms of equal pay for work of equal value are going to accelerate over the next year or two, and the government probably will not want it on the agenda any closer to an election. Maybe they will wait until after another election if they do not decide to go through with it now. I feel strongly that the issue should be resolved now. Members of this House should stand and be counted.

Although it seems to be part of the way this government does things, I resent being offered a bill that has a couple of nice little things in it to try to get us to swallow a bitter pill. It makes me wonder what will happen when we are dealing with whatever comes out in terms of workers' compensation before this session ends, and I suspect it will not be very much. If there is going to be another little five per cent increase in pensions for injured workers, who certainly need a heck of a lot more than that, I wonder whether we will not find that little five per cent increase in pensions tied into some regressive move in terms of Workers' Compensation Act amendments.

Pardon my cynicism, but I would not be surprised if that were the kind of approach we got from this government. It is exactly what we have in terms of Bill 141.

I urge members of the House to support the amendment we have moved. We could probably make a deal with the government and support most of the amendments very quickly if it would support the amendment we have moved in this House.

Mr. Gillies: Mr. Chairman, in replying to the honourable member, I would like to reflect very briefly on a few of the points we made last week.

I know the member was here for the debate, but I want to repeat at the outset the commitment of our ministry and our government to achieving equality for women in the work place and our belief that what we are doing in Bill 141 will contribute towards that goal and towards the closing of the wage gap.

The New Democratic Party amendment proposes a slightly different approach from the one we contemplate. I want to be honest and up front with the member at the outset by telling him it is not the intention of the government to support the amendment.

I would like to speak for a few moments about the role and the record of the government in terms of dealing with its own employees within the public service, some of the strides we have made, and then to make a few comments on the amendment we have before us.

The member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) made reference to the continuing wage gap in the public sector with the provincial employees. That is a situation we recognize and, while I am going to speak briefly about some of the improvements that have been made in that situation, I want to assure the member, and I know this has been said by my minister in the House and by the Minister responsible for Women's Issues (Mr. Welch), we are not yet satisfied with that situation and we will be continuing to strive for an improvement and a closing of the wage gap as it exists in our public service.

However, I think it well to point out and to reflect that in 1980 Ontario became the first Canadian jurisdiction to introduce numerical planning targets for the hiring and promotion of qualified women to areas where they are underrepresented.

The results of this program have been very encouraging. Women's salaries in the provincial public sector now average 76 per cent of those of their male counterparts. As we reflect on the overall situation in the work force, that compares with 63 percent in the work force as a whole. We are doing much better than seems to be the case with many other sectors of the economy.

We are not yet satisfied with that; I want to repeat that again. We are going to continue to strive for improvement.

The number of women in the government's administrative module has risen. That is the group in management positions and being fed into management positions. In 1978, about 17.9 per cent of the candidates in those categories were women. That is now up to 30 per cent, which was the target set for the year 2000 back in 1980. In that area we feel we are well ahead of the stage where we thought we would be in 1984.

The women's directorate is working in cooperation with many companies, schools, universities and municipalities, urging them to establish their own affirmative action programs. To date, 244 major employers have worked with the women's directorate under the ministry and under the direction of the Minister responsible for Women's Issues to implement a variety of affirmative action programs. That is an effort we want to see increased and we will be working towards that. We are very encouraged.

I hope some members saw in the January 13 edition of Topical, which I know we all get in our offices, an article by Signe Ball talking about the record in the last year. I was encouraged to see that in fiscal year 1982-83 we saw the greatest decrease yet in the wage gap for women public servants. In that fiscal year the wage gap closed by 2.2 per cent. As of March 31, 1983, the average salary of a woman in the civil service was $20,422 or, as I said earlier, about 75.8 per cent of the average salary of a man. That was an improvement of 2.2 per cent over the previous year.

We feel the goal we are striving towards is being achieved, especially when we reflect on Professor Gunderson's study suggesting that equal value legislation overall would not account for more than seven or eight per cent. We have closed that gap under our existing legislation quite convincingly.

I want to make another point because reference was made by the honourable member to the federal legislation and the direction in which the federal government moved in the last couple of years. We feel a lot of the success of the various programs, whether it be equal value, modified equal value, equal work or what have you, is dependent on the enforcement and the mechanics that are applied. All the data we have in the ministry indicate that our existing program is much more successful than the federal program, as implemented, in dealing with equal work and equal value types of complaints.

We see this improving substantially with the introduction of Bill 141, especially when, I remind the member, there will be quite an increase in complement in the employment standards branch of the ministry to deal with these complaints: five more officers and the support staff required to pursue the various complaints.

4:40 p.m.

I thought the member might be interested in hearing some of the figures in this area. Between March 1980 and March 1984, our ministry received 502 complaints; 443 of these files were completed during that period, which left 21 that were cancelled and 38 that remain outstanding as we speak. Another 244 files were opened by routine audit -- in other words, our people went out on a routine basis checking in on companies and other employers, even in the absence of a complaint -- and 234 of these were completed during that same four-year period.

Of the total 150 violations that were found, nearly 2,000 employees benefited from arrears assessed, and 2,000 employees benefited from annual pay increases. About 60 per cent of these violations are estimated to have occurred in private sector establishments.

This, I think, is very telling. Compared to the federal equal value legislation, Ontario's current equal pay legislation has been almost 10 times as successful in reviewing complaints. We have reviewed 10 times as many complaints in four years and we have established 16 times as many violations as has the federal legislation in place in that same period.

Mr. Wrye: You cover a few more employees too, don't you.

The Acting Chairman: Order.

Mr. Gillies: Regardless of the approaches the various governments have opted for, it would appear that the enforcement of our legislation is much more vigorous and much more effective than the federal legislation has been.

Mr. Wrye: Selective facts.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Gillies: Speaking to the New Democratic Party amendment itself, there are several points in the amendment that I am sure the honourable member knows are in our legislation in other clauses. For instance, subsection 33(5) of the member's amendment is found in clause 33(2)(d) of our bill. There are several things in there that I can hardly criticize because they are in our bill, but I would like to highlight a few problem areas we see and to explain to honourable members why it is not the intention of the ministry or the government to support this amendment.

First, subsection 33(3) troubles us somewhat, as this subsection specifies the criteria for determining equal pay for work of equal value and does not, as far as we can see, require substantial equivalence between similar jobs with respect to the four relevant criteria. It is a one-stage process in terms of looking at the composite test, as opposed to the two-stage process we contemplate in our legislation.

Any complaint going to the employment standards branch under our version of Bill 141 will be reviewed first on the basis of a one-on-one comparison of the four criteria -- the working conditions, responsibility, skill and effort -- as is done now under our existing equal pay legislation. Then, if it is required for a proper adjudication of the case, it will be reviewed under the composite test. Employees being reviewed under our legislation have two cracks at it and, of course, then there is the opportunity for appeal --

Mr. Wrye: We would just like to give them a third.

The Acting Chairman: Order.

Mr. Gillies: The opportunity for appeal, quite right. They have two cracks under our legislation, to be adjudicated either under the four individual criteria or under the composite test. We feel this provides some backup, some ability to manoeuvre that may not be found under subsection 33(3) of the amendment before us.

Subsection 33(4), talking about the definition of an establishment for the purpose of the act, bothers us somewhat in that we feel it is somewhat inflexible. I would like to talk about this just for a few minutes because it is very important. I want to explain what our employment standards branch is doing now and will be doing under the legislation.

The provision in the amendment deems separate establishments that have been established solely or principally for the purpose of paying different wages to male and female employees to be a single establishment in order that the requirement to pay equal pay for work of equal value will apply.

This subsection appears to be based on the misapprehension that the employment standards branch currently treats different physical locations as different establishments, making the equal pay provisions inapplicable. I think this is a very serious misapprehension. It is not the case in our view.

The employment standards branch has developed administrative guidelines for use in determining the identity of the employer's establishment in cases where the employer carries on business at two or more facilities. They look at this very carefully. They look at seniority, bumping provisions, the interchangeability of staff, the distance between the two establishments and all these things.

In his comments on January 11, the minister indicated to members of the committee that the approach taken under the Canadian Human Rights Act, whereby all the facilities of an employer's business which are located within a single municipality constitute a single establishment, suffers from the disadvantage of being inflexible.

We feel the work being done within the employment standards branch, enhanced as it will be by the increased complement and the increased capacity to investigate these complaints, is superior, more flexible and gives the employment standards officer more of an opportunity to work out something that will benefit the affected employees.

I have no criticism of subsections 33(5) and 33(6) as they are found elsewhere in Bill 141. In passing our legislation unamended, members are supporting the intent of subsections 33(5) and 33(6) found in the member's amendment. Subsections 33(7) and 33(8) relate to the filing and handling of complaints. We feel it is inappropriate that these provisions should be found here because members will find many of the same provisions in part IX of our bill. They are dealt with very appropriately there.

Briefly, on the question of bringing a class action, as contemplated under the amendment, members are aware of the review being done by the Ministry of the Attorney General which follows the release of the report of the Ontario Law Reform Commission in this area. So there is work being done in determining the applicability of class actions in this type of complaint.

In any event, I would want the honourable member to know that under our legislation the employment standards branch will accept a complaint by a union on behalf of certain employees and it will also perform audits at the request of a union. If the branch is notified now or under Bill 141 of a potential equal pay violation, it may do an audit and resolve any contraventions that may arise. The workers' representatives in the organized sector of the economy can vigorously pursue a complaint on behalf of those employees. I suppose in some respects we might almost call it a class action.

Provisions under these subsections also appear to provide for a full right of employee appeal. At present the act provides for an appeal of an order of the employment standards officer, whereas the employee is only entitled to a review by a second officer unless the director of the employment standards branch is convinced a hearing before a referee is required.

The minister has stated -- and I will repeat it here -- that the issue of the employee's right of appeal is under review at the present time. It is certainly our intent, now stated twice, to have a full and proper review procedure under our legislation. Indeed, we do not see how the legislation could be very effective without it. We know it is part and parcel of what we are doing.

As I said earlier, where we disagree with the amendment with regard to subsections 33(1) and 33(2) is in the comparison of dissimilar work as opposed to similar work. We talked about that at some length last week, so I do not propose to repeat those arguments here.

Again, I would remind members that subsection 33(5) is contained in our bill. The provision that the employer shall not reduce pay as a result of complying is in our bill.

Three or four of the clauses in the New Democratic Party amendment are contained in our legislation. We cannot agree with several others. On balance, we have found it necessary to oppose the amendment.

4:50 p.m.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, you will recall that last Tuesday we debated an amendment put forward by myself on behalf of the Ontario Liberal caucus which transformed Bill 141 -- significantly, I should say -- into a bill that would provide equal pay for work of equal value. We had many hours of debate. As I recall, the debate started shortly before four o'clock and ended at 10:30 that evening.

At that time, we were not quite sure whether or not we would be receiving support from the New Democratic Party. However, after they consulted among themselves, the NDP members decided they would support our amendment to change significantly the government bill before us. What we have heard today from the mover of this new amendment put forward by the NDP is somewhat similar to what we heard last Tuesday.

I do not intend to try to play politics with this particular amendment, as the NDP did last Tuesday. I agree entirely with what the parliamentary assistant has had to say, that is, some parts of the amendment put forward by the NDP are already contained in the government bill. It really does not bring anything forward that is considered new or different in those particular areas.

The basic difference we have here today is the same basic difference we had last Tuesday. We have asked the government to live up to its promise and to stand behind the vote that took place on the resolution put forward by the member for Hamilton Centre (Ms. Copps). We have asked the government to live by what it said it would do, namely, to enshrine equal pay for work of equal value.

The government has decided, unfortunately, to vote one way only when the galleries are full and there is a great deal of media attention on a particular issue. At present it has decided not to carry forward the commitment it made on that particular Thursday during private members' hour.

As I recall it, a vast majority of the Conservative caucus was here on that particular Thursday. The members were in favour of the resolution put forward by the member for Hamilton Centre. They cannot say at this time that a cabinet decision is preventing them from moving forward because the cabinet was in favour of the resolution also.

We find ourselves in a position of accepting again and watching again -- and this is not something new -- the government saying one thing, promising the people one thing when there is media attention on a particular issue --

Mr. Cassidy: Like the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies).

Mr. Mancini: Yes. I have to agree with the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) -- like the member for Brantford. He was here on that particular Thursday. He rose and supported the resolution put forward by the member for Hamilton Centre; yet today he makes statements about why we do not need what he supported some months ago. He tried to make a comparison -- a very unfair comparison I may say -- between what is happening in Ottawa and in Ontario.

It never ceases to amaze me why -- and it does not matter what the issue is -- this particular government feels it is always necessary to bring the Ottawa government into the debate. As far as I am concerned, the government of Canada in many respects has done a far better job of governing the country than this government has done of governing the province.

Mr. Kerrio: Right on.

Mr. Gillies: I did not bring up Ottawa.

Mr. Kerrio: Except for the few months you guys were in power down there.

Mr. Wrye: It has taken four years to recover from the mess you created.

Mr. Mancini: Joe Clark was in office for nine months and it has taken us four years to recover.

Mr. Kerrio: We have not recovered from that yet.

Mr. Mancini: We are still trying to recover.

I say to the parliamentary assistant that I hope he does not take my criticism personally, even though I did personally mention him. It is somewhat frustrating and offensive to have the government stand up en masse and give an indication to all the people of Ontario that it truly believes in a principle and then come forward --

Mr. Breaugh: Watch it, Remo. Put some substance into your speech.

Mr. Mancini: I always enjoy interjections from my friend the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh). We have always got along well.

The government has a chance to enshrine the principle of equal pay for work of equal value with support from all members of the House. It is not an issue that would be divisive. It is an issue on which the government could count on support from all parties and from all members of the House. It is rather sad and unfortunate that we are not taking the initiative. The parliamentary system is slow. It gives few opportunities to make changes to present laws because of the complexity of government and the number of issues that always face the government and the Legislature. It is sad to have an opportunity and not use it.

I will conclude by saying that we support the amendment put forward by the New Democratic Party. Some of these amendments are already contained in the government bill. The amendments that are not contained in the government bill refer directly to enshrining the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in this legislation, which is exactly what the amendment I put forward last week did on behalf of the Ontario Liberal Party. We see no problem in supporting the amendment.

At the same time, I see no hope of the government changing its position. When we were debating the resolution put forward by the member for Hamilton Centre, the government should have given more thought to the situation before it stood up and voted en masse for something it is now apparent it truly does not believe in.

Mr. Charlton: Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the amendment put forward by my colleague the member for Hamilton East. I will not be quite as generous to the parliamentary assistant as the former speaker was with regard to whether he should take things personally because I am absolutely appalled at the lack of information the parliamentary assistant has displayed here in this House during the course of the debate.

5 p.m.

I sat and listened with great disgust last Tuesday to his comments during the course of the debate on the Liberal amendment. I would like to point out to the parliamentary assistant that we had a piece of legislation in 1979, Bill 3, which a number of speakers have referred to. That bill passed second reading and went to committee for hearings that were much more extensive than the recent hearings on this bill.

I would like to point out to the parliamentary assistant that during the course of those hearings we heard from dozens of groups: women's groups, labour groups, students' groups, industry associations and specific individual industries. We had a very wide range of public input into that very extensive set of hearings.

It irked me greatly to hear the parliamentary assistant stand up here last Tuesday and throw out the scare tactics by implying that equal value legislation may cause some economic disruption out there and, perhaps, even throw some women in this province out of work.

If the parliamentary assistant is going to handle legislation like this, he should take the time to find out what industry people in this province said in that committee in January 1980 in response to those very same questions. The reality is that 75 per cent or 80 per cent of the industry people told us that although it may cause them some hardship, they did not see the prospect of layoffs as a result of equal value legislation.

We even heard from a couple of companies that happened to be crown corporations. They, because of the federal legislation, have already gone into the process of job evaluation to reach the goal of equal value. They discussed with us the very limited economic impact on them, while at the same time there were some very substantial gains for employees.

I would like to make that the second issue I will speak to.

The parliamentary assistant also raised the issue of the lack of results from both the federal and the Quebec legislation. He seems to be of the belief that the only results that come from that legislation happen at the federal commission as a result of complaints. He does not seem to understand that a large sector of the federal public service -- the union representing the employees, the ministry, the crown corporations, or whatever the situation happens to be -- sat down and negotiated a job evaluation system which they both agreed to. Then they set into the process of doing evaluations on their own. There have been a substantial number of successes.

I relate, not only for the parliamentary assistant but also for the information of the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye), the impact in terms of the debate on five per cent or 10 per cent. There is the impact at de Havilland, where women received increases ranging from seven per cent to about 12 per cent. The majority of women received increases in the higher end of that range. In the experiences we have to look at in the Canadian context, five per cent is definitely a low experience.

During the course of those hearings on Bill 3, we heard from a number of specific industry groups in the province as well as, in most cases, the trade unions. In a few cases, there were groups of unorganized employees who represented those industries as well.

In every instance where we had both a trade union or group of employees as well as employers from an industry where the employers initially made claims of financial hardship and job loss, when the employers were put on the spot in the presence of their employees who questioned around the number of dollars they talked about and the overall impact in terms of layoffs, inevitably they backed right off the argument altogether.

As I suggested earlier, I wish the parliamentary assistant would take the time to inform himself in a factual way of what employers said and the positions they ended up taking in their final analysis of the potential for economic hardship and for job loss. He should stop throwing out innuendoes such as those in the course of this debate both now and in the future, They are cop-out arguments. They are the same arguments this government used in the 1950s for minimum wages in this province.

The last time we in this House debated a move for an increase in the minimum wage, one of the members -- I cannot recall who it was -- read from Hansard some government comments on the very same issue of a proposed increase of the minimum wage in the mid-1960s. Surprisingly, the comments around the updating of that piece of legislation sounded virtually identical to the comments we get on the question of equal value.

The reality is that the government's arguments were wrong when it came to the minimum wage; they did not prove to be valid at all. The same is true when it comes to the question of equal value. The government likes to use innuendo as a scare tactic in terms of the potential for economic chaos, but it has nothing on which it can substantiate that potential claim.

We have had so many discussions on this issue here that have said basically the same things that it becomes very frustrating. There is our amendment here today, the Liberal amendment last week, the bill last fall, the resolution last fall, my bill in November 1980, Mr. Bounsall's bill in 1979 and God knows how many bills on other occasions.

The member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) said it in the wrapup to his comments a few minutes ago: "The government may profess to support the principle of equal value, but its demonstrations do not substantiate that."

The government has basically talked in terms of supporting the principle that we are aware of here in the Legislature since 1979 when its members stood up to support Bill 3 on second reading. It has done absolutely nothing to fulfil the promises it made in 1979 and 1980 during the committee portion of Bill 3. It has done absolutely nothing in terms of research or studies to answer the questions it continually raises or poses as potential roadblocks to implementation of equal value in Ontario. We sit here in Ontario while the rest of the industrialized world, albeit slowly, moves past us and ahead of us in this area.

I should point out as well to the parliamentary assistant that virtually everybody who came before our committee in January 1979 was of the opinion that even if we passed equal value legislation, it would take a good eight, 10 or 12 years before the full extent of the impact of that kind of legislation would be seen.

5:10 p.m.

I would assume from that and from the things the parliamentary assistant has said that means this government is not going to be prepared to move until the full impact and the full extent of equal value legislation in other jurisdictions is available in extensive studies for their perusal.

I just cannot accept this approach in this area of our endeavours in this Legislature on the Employment Standards Act. Again, I do not want to take the time of this House to go through the great piles of evidence I have here before me which were presented to the committee in January 1979. We had literally thousands of cases of discrimination described and detailed to us. They are all there for the perusal of the parliamentary assistant, the minister, the Premier and others in the government.

However, as the member for Essex South has said, it has become very clear that there is no commitment to the principle of equal value. If there were any commitment to the principle of equal value, this government would not spend all its time responding only to opposition initiatives; it would spend some of its time looking for ways to make an equal value system work in Ontario in combination with affirmative action programs.

They cannot even get their act together in terms of making an honest commitment to affirmative action. They keep talking about nonexistent voluntary programs that are supposed to be in place all across the province. As well, it is very clear that not only does the government not have any real commitment to equal value in this province but also that the people of this province are going to continue to be faced with the comment from this government: "Do not give us your self-righteous response. We are just as concerned as you are."

This government can go on sounding off its concerns for as long as it wants. Ultimately this government will be judged, not by the concerns it claims to express and feel but by the actions they take. Women in this province will judge this government, not by the comments they make but by their successes in reducing the discrimination and the wage gap differentials that exist in this province. Their successes have been dismal.

Again, I do not want to take up the time of the House to detail all the evidence we received in the committee in 1980. However, just for a moment or two, I would like to talk about the kinds of groups that made presentations to us, so the parliamentary assistant perhaps can begin to understand the extent of the research that has been done on this topic in the real world with real industries and real working people.

Including all the women's groups, we had such groups in front of our committee as the Business and Professional Women's Clubs of Ontario. We even had an old favourite of the government doing research for the committee, an old favourite company the government uses quite frequently in its studies of other things, Touche Ross and Co. We found some very interesting things, and it might do for the parliamentary assistant to read their report to the committee as well, because there are some interesting facts in that one.

We had presentations from the Retail Council of Canada, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, universities and university staff associations. We had a couple of analytical studies, which the parliamentary assistant might want to take the time to look through, on the progress of equal value in some European jurisdictions. Although these studies are a little dated now. they are particularly useful and interesting. The Europeans were much further ahead in 1976-77 than we are now in dealing with the sorts of problems that confront us and, I might add, without any resulting economic catastrophe.

We had presentations from student groups. In most cases the students are not working full time yet, but even in their summer employment they have to suffer through very serious wage discrimination -- a double discrimination because the student aid programs in Ontario do not take into account the differential between women's wages and men's wages.

The student aid programs all make an assumption about how much these students are going to earn on average. Unfortunately, as happens to their counterparts in the full-time work force, the female students get left out in the cold because they do not achieve the assumed goals of summer income. Therefore they come substantially short of their target in savings and hence short in their ability with respect to returning to school the next year.

Discrimination is rather broad. It finds its way into almost every avenue of life. Another study the committee looked at was a paper prepared for a conference held in 1978 on equal pay and equal opportunity policy for women in Europe, Canada and the United States. It looked at equal pay and equal opportunity in Sweden and Germany. There are some interesting facts for the parliamentary assistant there as well, facts that generally dispute and quite effectively shoot down some of the comments he has made.

We also had the Ontario Trucking Association, the textile industry and the auto industry before our committee. I am talking about employers now, not unions, because I think members are aware that virtually all the major unions in Ontario came in. In every case, under questioning those companies were hard pressed to say equal value legislation in Ontario would push them into a position of having to lay people off.

I recall specifically when we had General Motors before us, one of the representatives was off on a tangent about supply and demand in the labour market and how equal value would disrupt the general supply and demand levelling that happens in the marketplace. He went on to describe how we had a very severe shortage of certain skilled trades people in Ontario and how industry had to be in a position to offer substantially higher wages to attract the people it requires in the trade in which there is a dramatic shortage. His comments were very interesting.

5:20 p.m.

When we asked him why, after 10 full years of a severe shortage of tool and die makers in the province, the relative wage for tool and die makers at General Motors had not changed in relation to the other trades where there were no shortages, he said, "l am not sure why that has happened." The company was trying to make a case, saying it was not making the comment based on sex, that it had to be in a position to offer substantially higher wages in some cases in order to attract people, yet the reality showed that in its master contract with the United Auto Workers it does not do that at all.

They may do it with a couple of senior management positions when they are in trouble and they have to bring in a Lee Iaccoca to fix the bucket, but a labour market in terms of supply and demand has not and does not work. It has not done so for a long time. All the statistics we looked at in committee substantiated that. We looked at supply and demand statistics in about 10 categories of employment during the committee hearings. In no instance was there any substantial difference as a result of shortages of supplies of skilled workers in a particular field.

Because government members continue to use arguments that have long since been debunked, it is clear to all of us that in spite of their words they have no intention of taking any serious action that will in any way substantially reduce wage differentials between men and women in this province. They are not prepared even to sit down in an honest way and evaluate the federal and Quebec legislation by looking at all the results that have been achieved through that legislation.

For example, the parliamentary assistant may want to look at the results at de Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd. as a result of the negotiations that went on there freely. They did not take place through the complaint process, but were carried out freely between the union and the company. Wage adjustments were made in that company as a result of the federal legislation. I do not have all the up-to-date facts and figures here. I have the figures from the committee that are now five years old.

Government members should have a look at those figures. They should do an honest evaluation of the successes of the federal legislation. They should not come in here and tell us about how many complaints have been made and the few that have been resolved through a complaint process. They should come in here and give us an honest evaluation of all that has occurred as a result of the federal legislation and the net overall gains women have made as a result.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Chairman, I would like to speak in favour of the amendment for equal pay for work of equal value. I think it deserves serious consideration. It is an amendment which would not work against anyone, because no employer is allowed to reduce the rate of pay for an employee in order to comply with it.

In January 1980 when the Ontario Status of Women Council, supported by the Progressive Conservative Women of Ontario, appeared before the standing committee on general government studying Bill 3, an equal pay for work of equal value amendment to the Employment Standards Act, the council president Lynne Gordon made a number of significant comments on the position of women in the Ontario work place and on the equal pay for work of equal value bill in particular.

The council was the first witness to appear before the committee and Ms. Gordon began by saying:

"As we enter the decade of the 1980s, we believe that employment-related issues such as equal pay for work of equal value, day care and pensions will be among the most critical for women. For as women's work provides them with income during their working years, so that same work provides them with a pension which is tied to their lifetime earnings.

"To the extent that we penalize women by undervaluing their work, we must not forget that the penalty continues throughout their pensioned life."

On Friday I had an opportunity, as I often do in my riding, to meet with the seniors' club at one of the socials, and I was struck by how many women and how few men there were in that group. One cannot ignore the demographic realities. You see, when you talk to these people, how many of them are scraping by on so little income, and yet part of the reason they are in that position is the discrimination that has gone on not just in retirement but throughout their lives and is carried over into the retirement years as a result of this kind of discrimination.

Ms. Gordon went on to cite many of the updated statistics, and of these data she had this to say:

"The situation described by the statistics has persisted and worsened despite enforcement of Ontario's existing legislation on equal pay for substantially the same work; enforcement of sex discrimination provisions of the Human Rights Code; in spite of various nonlegislative actions of government agencies, including voluntary affirmative action, advertising and information dissemination aimed at changing attitudes that foster discrimination.... None the less, these policies have not been effective in reducing wage disparities. The limitation we believe is in the policies themselves, not in the way they have been implemented."

In March 1980 the then Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie) also appeared before that committee. When asked about the enforcement of the current provisions for equal pay for substantially the same kind of work, he said, "I started looking into the question of equal pay because the amounts that had been recovered and the number of claims seemed inordinately small and it was apparent that enforcement was a problem."

Indeed there was a problem. In 1979-80, only 37 women received compensation under the province's equal pay legislation. In 1980-81 this number went up to 391 out of almost two million working women in Ontario.

On the same occasion the Minister of Labour also stated that whereas he was in support of the concept in principle, he had a number of concerns about its workability. He said: "Equal value, I have said quite openly, as a principle of equity is appealing" -- I do not know anybody it would not appeal to. It is a sound concept -- "but the problem is in applying it."

On the other hand, a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada has taken exactly the opposite position. The Honourable Madam Justice Bertha Wilson of the Supreme Court of Canada, writing recently in the Manitoba Journal of Law, stated:

"The concept of 'equal work' proved too hard to administer. It was easy to get around it by adding some distinctive task to the male employees. It was also unworkable in large areas of the work force serviced exclusively by women." In which there were no male counterparts. "None the less, the concept permits a broader comparison of functions and seems to be more efficient."

In other words, the concept of equal pay for work of equal value permits a broader comparison of job functions and seems to be more efficient. So here we have a direct contradiction to the bogyman this government sees in this concept.

Questioned further regarding the federal and Quebec experience, the then Minister of Labour said he would be prepared to review it and he would be prepared to keep an open mind to the fact that there seems to be evidence coming out of Quebec that equal pay for work of equal value is working.

5:30 p.m.

Major developments have taken place since that commitment. In December 1980, 470 Canadian government librarians, 66 per cent of them women, won $2.3 million in an equal pay for work of equal value settlement. The Canadian Human Rights Commission found that the librarians did work that was of equal value to that done by historical researchers, most of whom were male. The Treasury Board agreed to provide equalization adjustments ranging from $500 to $2,500 annually, together with back pay up to $5,900. The decision was retroactive to March 1, 1978, and also benefited librarians who had retired or resigned since that date.

In March 1982, the Treasury Board again awarded 3,300 low-paid public servants a settlement of $17 million after the Canadian Human Rights Commission ruled workers, mostly female, involved in food, laundry and miscellaneous services did work of equal value to that done by warehouse workers who were mostly male. The pay was made retroactive to November 1978, a year prior to the official complaint.

As the sums of money indicate, these are decisions of great importance to both the people involved and to other jurisdictions addressing this thorny problem. It shows we can evaluate and make rational and reasonable decisions about what appears to be a great injustice in the system and a discrimination against women. If the federal government in federal jurisdictions can make those decisions, far be it from me or any of us to say the provincial government cannot act in a similar way or that our people cannot make similar rational and reasonable decisions.

We are talking about a historical process, particularly when we are talking about human rights legislation, and I see this as human rights legislation. As a social evolutionist, I believe we constantly have to push forward the progress mankind is making.

When we look at the Ontario economy in a historical process, we can see there is a gradual evolution of the role of women in the Ontario economy. When the Ontario economy was primarily an agricultural one during the early years of the 19th century, women toiled on the farms as their farmer husbands did. They looked after livestock and gardens and worked in the fields. They picked and preserved the produce of the farm. They spun the yarn and made cloth and clothing. They made the meals.

In addition, the care of the family's children was substantially the responsibility of the wife. Indeed, the bearing of children was a significant activity since children were needed to work in the complex of the farm and the agricommunity.

Adult women who were not married fitted into the social and economic patterns of early Ontario with difficulty. Some found employment as teachers, but for the vast majority of women marriage was an economic necessity. The women who did not labour on farms and who did not belong to the aristocratic or capitalist class, worked as servants for the aristocrats and capitalists. Their hours were long and their pay low. If fired from their position, they found themselves in a dire situation in the slum areas of the city.

Gradually, we evolved labour laws that remedied at least some of those situations. During the mid-19th century the province began to adopt the changes wrought by the industrial revolution. More women began to move into the working class that was being created to meet the needs of production. They were married to urban labourers and worked as washerwomen, menials and piece workers in the worst sweat shops of the industrial capitalist work place. In addition, they were responsible for running the household and for the bearing and rearing of children.

The industrial revolution also gave women an opportunity to move into a new work place. It is that new work place we are dealing with in this amendment. With their new role, they encountered great antagonism from male workers and also from male industrialists who objected to the hiring of women and the paying of equal salaries. The solution that was arrived at is still in existence today. It is job ghettos and we still have job ghettos in Ontario. Although the appeals against the employment of women failed, they managed to pay women less by separating their functions and by paying for those jobs at a lesser salary than those of their male counterparts.

During the 20th century, changes other than the transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy affected the lives of working women. Despite the attempts of Ryerson in the mid-1860s to prevent female students from attending grammar schools, women were getting better educated. Most important, progress in the health care available freed them to enter in an equal way in an attempt for equality in the work place. Yet, when we look at the statistics, we see that we still have the kind of segregation which discriminates against them.

Industrial economies have been built on a myth that has constantly undervalued the work of women and it seems our society moves slowly against that kind of injustice. Even the ferment of a decade that offered women the promise of something better has receded now into the pallid gains and the political trench-digging and sloganeering of a government that says it somehow has to use persuasion instead of legislation.

Seventy-two per cent of the women in Ontario are counted among the official labour force. That is what we are talking about. Women in this province are paid 63 cents for every dollar men earn, an average of $8,623 a year less than men. Women work for the same reasons men do. Yet in 1981 the average income of a female-headed family in Ontario was $14,000 less than that of a male-headed family. Over two thirds of working women are trapped in clerical, sales and service sector job ghettos where opportunities for advancement and promotion are often scarce, or nonexistent.

The arguments against equal value are familiar. They talk about government tinkering with the relative wage rates, but they fail to deal with the essential historical problem which is one of civil liberties, human rights and discrimination against a group of people. All the slogans and all the advertising that this government does will do nothing to remedy this situation. They will do nothing to remedy a situation where even with the same educational background, women are still paid less than men.

In managerial and administrative jobs, women with doctorates earn one third less than men. Last year more than 67 per cent of public elementary teachers in Ontario were women, yet they managed to be paid considerably less because they held only 13 per cent of all positions of added responsibility. A 1980 study undertaken by two professors from the University of Windsor indicated that even after practising for five years, women lawyers in this province earned $3,000 a year less than their male counterparts.

5:40 p.m.

When I started to speak this afternoon, I talked about the effect the present discrimination has on retirement incomes. I will end with only one figure. Nearly two thirds of women who live alone in this country are living on incomes below the poverty line. Many Canadian women live that constant and incomplete cycle of poverty and this government, with all its slogans and advertising, has done absolutely nothing to remedy that problem. The National Council of Welfare estimates that one in seven Canadians living below the poverty line is a minimum earner, welfare recipient or a single elderly person, and the majority of these are women.

I have talked about the evolution of a process we have been going through during the past two centuries. This amendment is one more stage, a stage that has been recognized by other jurisdictions. It is clearly practical and can be interpreted, as has been shown by numerous learned judges. It is a stage we must now arrive at and a step this government must adopt. I urge all members of the House to vote for this amendment.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Chairman, I will be fairly brief. I want to join my colleague the member for Essex South in indicating our party will support this amendment. It is an amendment that is probably not without flaws. There are some details within some of the sections of the amendment that appear to be rather redundant with regard to what is already in place, although I may say particularly that anything that can further the enforcement procedure of our new equal pay laws would be most welcome. Obviously, I hope this amendment will be carried by the House.

I want to say through my friend the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour that I was pleased to note we will be getting five new employment standards officers in Ontario who will do nothing but enforce the equal pay law. Frankly, given the impact of the amendment as it changes the present equal pay law, there is not much new to enforce. I would remind him that five equal pay officers to handle the problem in the whole province is hardly what I would deem to be a very exciting breakthrough; perhaps five to handle Metropolitan Toronto would be useful.

I believe he gave us the figure of five for the whole province. I do not really think that is going to be adequate, although it may well he so if we are stuck in the same kind of equal pay ghetto. That is really what we have in Ontario, an equal pay ghetto. We have had this for such a long time. I just do not believe in the composite test.

I note again and repeat the ministers own comments with regard to the brief survey that was conducted about a year ago. If I remember it, and I do not have my notes with me, it indicated that the vast majority of the cases that came in were probably cases where the individuals believed there was an equal pay for equal work situation. Only 10 per cent of those cases that were thrown out as being unjustified because of the present equal pay for equal work law would today be adjudicated in favour of the worker.

I want to remind the member for Brantford of the statistics that sometimes seem so simple when we say that women earn 63 per cent of what men earn. One can say 63 per cent of what? This is just a number, but I remind him that the figures he heard earlier this afternoon put some real meat to that number.

We are talking about $8,000 a year on average. We are talking about thousands of dollars. The parliamentary assistant -- and I do not mean this in any mean kind of way -- can think of the impact on his own present remuneration, should that $8,000 he makes over and above his basic salary be removed. He staffs with a very substantial basic salary. He should perhaps run that figure down to $14,000, $15,000 or $16,000 and see what the impact of earning that much lower a salary would be in terms of the differential between women and men.

The points that have been made this afternoon by the member for Essex South and by others bear some repetition. We are not talking about women who are doing second jobs. We are not talking about women who are going out to earn a few extras for the family. In many cases we are talking about single women, divorced women and widows. We are talking about sole-support mothers.

There are thousands of sole-support mothers. We are talking about women who are working because if they do not work the family income will be so hard pressed they would not be able to buy a house, afford to live in a decent apartment or to put nourishing food on the table. Those are the realities in 1984 in Ontario. I think the parliamentary assistant and the members of this government know that.

I want to come back to the very point I thought was made last fall. I want to remind the parliamentary assistant and his government colleagues about what we are voting on tonight. What happened on October 20 last year was that the members from all three parties of this House stood in their places on a roll call and voted to enshrine the concept of equal pay for work of equal value in the act. That is what this amendment proposes to do.

If the members wish to make the amendment less proactive, then I suggest they remove subsection 33(2) of the amendment. The guts of the amendment are in subsections 33(1) and 33(3), as I understand it. They place and enshrine, as our amendment did, the concept of equal pay for work of equal value in the Employment Standards Act.

I took the opportunity to note who voted in favour of this resolution from the member for Hamilton Centre last fall. I am so pleased that so many of them are in the House this afternoon because they might remind themselves of it. Of all members, there was a total of 16 cabinet ministers in the present cabinet who voted for the resolution sponsored by the member for Hamilton Centre.

I want to pick out a couple of those who stand out as being most notable. There was the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), formerly Minister of Labour, the present Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay), the Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet (Mr. McCague), the Deputy Premier and Minister responsible for Women's Issues (Mr. Welch) and the Minister of Education and Minister of Colleges and Universities (Miss Stephenson). I am sure she will remember she voted for the enshrining of the concept in the Employment Standards Act.

I see my friend the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mr. Dean). He will remember he was in his place that day and he voted for the amendment.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I supported the concept.

Mr. Wrye: I am quite willing to defer to the Minister of Education, if she would like to explain to me why she voted to enshrine it. When she is now given the chance to enshrine it, apparently, based on the vote last Tuesday night, she is not prepared to vote in favour of it. I do not understand what has happened. I do not really understand what has changed.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: The member was not listening to what I just said.

5:50 p.m.

Mr. Wrye: She voted for it. I know there were a large number of government back-benchers, aspirants to front-row seats, who voted in favour of it. I suppose we should name, first, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour, who is carrying this bill. I would like to know from him what is different on this day in May 1984 from that day in October 1983 when he stood in his place and voted to enshrine the concept of equal pay for work of equal value in the Employment Standards Act.

I would not insult his intelligence by suggesting he did not understand what he was voting for. I think he knows what enshrining a concept means; I think he knows what the words "equal pay for work of equal value" mean. I just wonder why he did not vote against it. Since he voted in favour of it, why will he not stand in his place and support the NDP amendment?

Quite frankly -- and we are all reasonable people on this side of the House -- he should bring in his own. He should sit down with the Minister of Labour at dinner and bring in his own amendment.

Mr. Mancini: Who else was there?

Mr. Wrye: The member for Essex South goads me on. He wants to know who else was there.

Mr. Mancini: I want to know them all.

Mr. Wrye: The member for Oxford (Mr. Treleaven) was in his place and he voted for it. I see the member for Armourdale (Mr. McCaffrey) just standing to his left. He was in his place. I am sure the newly elected member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve) would have voted for this and I hope he will vote tonight. I would tell the member for Essex South that the vast majority of the government members here right now were in their places. The member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane) and the member for Northumberland (Mr. Sheppard) were here.

Mr. Chairman, you will remember that day. It was a grand day; it was a day of great unanimity in this place. I would remind the member for Essex South, but I need not remind you, Mr. Chairman, that you too stood in your place in support of enshrining the concept.

Since we on this side and in this party voted to enshrine the concept, we have looked at the NDP amendment and we find nothing terribly objectionable about it. It may be redundant in places. It may say some things that did not need to be said, but what does need to be said is in that amendment. It is equal pay for work of equal value and that is what this party favours. That is what this party voted to enshrine in October 1983 and that is what we will vote to enshrine tonight on May 8, 1984. I hope the parliamentary assistant will tell me why times have changed.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the amendment and to reiterate what the mover, the member for Hamilton East, said. If this amendment is not adopted to replace the present equal pay section in Bill 141, we will vote against the bill. We feel it is not implementation or enshrining of the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in the Employment Standards Act. Anybody who claims it is is simply playing games with words and is not aware of what the principle of equal pay for work of equal value stands for.

I would like to draw attention to the fact that in this House for the last month members of all parties have been standing up in their place and reading petitions to the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislature of Ontario pleading that equal pay for work of equal value be included in the Employment Standards Amendment Act. They have also pleaded for the inclusion of a policy of affirmative action since most people agree affirmative action is an essential part of implementation of equal pay for work of equal value.

These petitions have come from all parts of the province. They have been signed by a great many people and they have been read into the record by members of all parties. I would have hoped the government would be listening to those petitions. However, in its official reply tabled in the House to the petitions, it is still sticking by its opinion that the present amendments, in effect, provide what those petitions ask for. It is a question of semantics and burying one's head in the sand when there is an amendment that purports to provide equal pay but does not enshrine the principle.

As some of the previous speakers have done, I would also like to draw attention to the voting patterns on the previous occasions the House has had to express an opinion on this principle. On October 20, when we voted on the motion by the Liberal Party to enshrine the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in the Employment Standards Act, 43 Conservatives were in the House when the vote came. All voted for that motion.

That included the Minister of Labour and the Minister responsible for Women's Issues. However, I note that neither the Minister of Labour nor the Minister responsible for Women's Issues has attended a single sitting at which this amendment to Bill 141, the Employment Standards Act, has been debated.

The Minister of Labour has passed it on to his parliamentary assistant to pilot the bill through the House, which seems to indicate he does not consider it a very important bill. With all due respect for the parliamentary assistant, we had hoped the minister would be here, particularly in view of the fact that he voted for enshrinement of the principle.

On October 20, when the principle was being voted on, 25 Liberals and 14 New Democrats voted. On private members' day, not all members are able to be in the House. The subsequent history shows that some people voted for that amendment who have not voted for implementing the principle.

On November 17, when the bill of the member for York South (Mr. Rae) was before the House -- and it would have implemented both equal pay for work of equal value and affirmative action -- there were 47 Conservatives who voted against implementation, even though 43 had voted for the principle.

The Deputy Chairman: May I suggest to the honourable member that we break as it is so close to six o'clock.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Chairman, I will just finish the bit about November 17, if I may.

The Minister responsible for Women's Issues ducked out of the House before the vote on November 17. Only 20 of the 33 Liberals in the Legislature voted for it, while 20 of the 22 New Democrats voted for it. All we needed to pass that bill were seven more votes. It was defeated 47 to 40. In effect, the absentee Liberals defeated the bill.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.

8 mai 1984