ONTARIO UNCONDITIONAL GRANTS AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)
ONTARIO UNCONDITIONAL GRANTS AMENDMENT ACT
EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
ONTARIO UNCONDITIONAL GRANTS AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)
Resuming the debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 59, An Act to amend the Ontario Unconditional Grants Act.
Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, when we recessed for the dinner hour, I was attempting to bring to the attention of the House, and particularly to the attention of the parliamentary assistant, the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg), the inequities of the existing tax system and the fact that this unconditional grants bill does little or nothing to address the very serious problems faced by one-industry towns based on nonrenewable resources in northern Ontario.
Not only is the grant system inequitable, unfair, unpredictable and unreliable, we also have many communities in the north -- I used Manitouwadge as an example, but there are others -- where the work force is bedroomed or domiciled but is employed elsewhere, beyond the boundaries of those municipalities. The bedroom municipalities are charged with the responsibility of providing education, water, sewers, streets, lighting, police protection, garbage collection, snow removal -- all the services that are the responsibility of local government.
One might ask: "What is so unusual about that? That happens all over Ontario." The Minister of Revenue (Mr. Gregory), who is mumbling over there, will know that in his responsibility for assessment right across the province, municipalities do not have the right or the privilege to tax plants, whether they be pulp and paper mills, mines or any other industrial endeavour, outside the recognized confines of those municipalities.
I raised this with our colleague the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) during his estimates last fall and suggested smoothing the system out and making it more equitable. One has a brand new resource representing new wealth of the magnitude of $10 billion to $12 billion and counting, and the level of government that is forced to pay and provide those services is the one level of government that lacks the opportunity to tax that new wealth. That new wealth goes to the two senior levels of government -- the federal government and the provincial government.
When I raised this with the Minister of Northern Affairs, I suggested that we set up a heritage fund, a tomorrow fund or a resources fund to assist these bedroom communities over the rough parts until they get established and can pay for the services that are required by a work force that is located elsewhere.
The minister's response was, "We do not need a heritage fund, a tomorrow fund or a resources fund as long as we have the Ministry of Northern Affairs." I found that curious because, when we were discussing it, his budget was reduced by something in the order of $20 million at a time when these communities were being faced with the prospect of spending literally tens of millions of dollars to provide those services. He said, "We did it for Detour Lake, we did it for Minaki Lodge and, if need be, we can do it for Hemlo."
I had occasion to write to the minister on March 29 as follows:
"You indicate that the only form of help for such purposes is through generous unconditional and conditional grants from the province. I am sure you will appreciate the additional pressure that dormitory communities like Manitouwadge and Marathon are subjected to in their responsibility for providing infrastructure and self-services for the work force of Noranda Mines, Lac Minerals and Teck Corona at Hemlo. Since these communities are being forced to provide serviced lots for residential, commercial and light industrial development, they will be hard pressed to recover costs for water, sewer and streets and all other infrastructure services on a user-pay principle.
"These projects will require interim or bridge financing until the municipalities are able to recover costs for these services as well as borrowing for debenture costs. These charges will be borne by existing taxpayers until the new arrivals are in a position to make their contribution.
"The part of this whole equation that I find most worrisome is the fact that this new mining venture has identified a gold-bearing ore body in excess of $10 billion and the communities of Marathon and Manitouwadge have no taxing authority beyond their own boundaries. You will be aware that this deposit is roughly 30 miles from these communities, and the federal and provincial governments will be the major beneficiaries of the creation of this new wealth, while the municipal governments are charged with the responsibility for providing the services.
"Prior to the introduction of the resource equalization grant, we had in place what were called mining revenue payments, which were paid by the province to municipalities that were bedrooms for a work force employed elsewhere, beyond their boundaries. The Honourable Darcy McKeough, I believe, or his predecessor, the Honourable Charles MacNaughton, was responsible for wiping out those mining revenue payments, which identified a particular stress on individual municipalities that were forced to provide accommodation for a work force employed in an industry that was located elsewhere. The mining revenue payments were replaced by the resource equalization grant."
8:10 p.m.
Before dinner, I quoted figures, and I am not going to regurgitate them, to show the effect of the resource equalization grant on municipal financing, particularly in the case of Manitouwadge. The grant went from something like $199,000 last year to something like $37,000 this year, and the government has supplemented it with a very nebulous, unassured supply of funding from this level of government, which has the ability to tax the resource that the municipality does not have.
I am not going to bore the House with all the other things I said to our colleague the Minister of Northern Affairs, but I will quote briefly from my letter:
"The value of Ontario's metallic mineral production in 1983 is estimated to have a value of $2.67 billion. On a regional basis the value of all minerals produced in 1982 was as follows: for Algoma riding, $623.7 million; for Cochrane, $679.3 million; Kenora, $185.7 million; Nipissing, $49.7 million; Thunder Bay, $172.8 million; Timiskaming, $136.2 million, and Sudbury, $723.8 million. Ontario's projected mining profits tax for fiscal year 1983-84 was in the order of $35 million."
I went on to quote to him what benefits there were to the economy of Ontario and Canada as a result of the exploitation -- I hope the orderly exploitation -- of our forestry wealth. Those figures too are quite impressive: for logging, $717.9 million; wood industries, $1.42 billion; paper and allied products, $5.12 billion. That gives the members some idea of the number of dollars we are talking about in the resource sector that we in northern Ontario collectively produce for the economy and for the coffers of this province and of the federal government, without any direct ability to tax the resources or the new wealth at the local level.
In the case of bedroom communities -- and there is more than Manitouwadge around; Geraldton, Nipigon and Atikokan are other examples -- a number of them domicile a work force that is located elsewhere. One would have hoped that when the government was drafting Bill 59, An Act to amend the Ontario Unconditional Grants Act, it would have taken that into consideration.
The member for Fort William (Mr. Hennessy) will know of all the new wealth that is created for the pulp and paper mills and sawmills in the city of Thunder Bay by a work force and resource located elsewhere. We do not deny that to the city of Thunder Bay. That is the way the system works. Bully for Thunder Bay, the capital of northwestern Ontario. We fail to realize, however, that the people who create that new wealth are domiciled somewhere other than where the taxes are levied. That creates the imbalance in reverse about which I am complaining. That is not addressed in this bill.
I had some discussion in the hall last Thursday with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett). He agreed it was an inequitable situation and perhaps it would be worth while for us to sit down and talk about it.
While flying to Thunder Bay on Friday morning, I had the pleasure of discussing it with a chap by the name of Ken Bauman in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. He did his teething in that ministry up in Thunder Bay, and he knows very well what the problems are because we had the same difficulties in Ignace, which happens to be the bedroom community for a good deal of the work force for Great Lakes Forest Products and for Mattabi Mines, which is some 47 miles away to the north on Highway 599, up on the shores of Sturgeon Lake. There were some adjustments, but not enough to make the difference.
To go back again to when we had the mining revenue payments, which were supplanted by the resource equalization grants -- which really are not that at all when one considers the formula that I read out to the members before the dinner hour as it affects a bedroom community like Manitouwadge -- this bill, or the annual bill that comes in, does not address those very basic and fundamental problems of assisting us, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, who are responsible for creating all this new wealth.
That is the geography, that is the nature of this province. We do not begrudge the fact that we create all this new wealth. What we are asking the people down here who bring in legislation such as this is how often we have to come complaining on behalf of northern municipalities, which are the only level of government that can provide all these essential services, services that people take for granted down here in the south.
We create all this new wealth, and we are forced to provide all the services in these small, one-industry towns in the north, but the federal and provincial governments get the benefit. One would hope that those inequities and injustices would be redressed as a result of a bill such as Bill 59. The government has played around the periphery of the problem, but it has never come to grips with the real, basic and fundamental inequities within the tax system. One can talk about resource equalization grants, general support grants, northern special support grants, per household general grants or revenue guarantee grants; the bottom line is still the same.
In the case of the community I use for purposes of making my argument, over the past several years the increase in all the grants I have just mentioned has been something in the order of 39 per cent, whereas the cost in the municipality for education and all other services has gone up by 400 per cent. In Manitouwadge, each home owner pays $652 in education taxes alone: 55 per cent of the total levy in that municipality goes for education, and we wonder why they are under supervision, albeit voluntary supervision, by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
8:20 p.m.
This injustice has gone on far too long. Bill 59 does not address it, and I hope the parliamentary assistant will help me in getting his minister, the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson), the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the Minister of Northern Affairs together. On behalf of the Manitouwadges of the north, we should bring in a tax system that reflects the high cost of taxation for the residential taxpayer and the industrial taxpayer while others get off scot-free.
I can visualize a battle right now by Kimberly-Clark of Canada Ltd., a very heavy taxpayer in Terrace Bay, and by James River Corp. which just bought a mill in Marathon. They are paying their way and more, as are most of the residential taxpayers. However, we get three of the richest mining companies in Canada -- Noranda Mines Ltd., Lac Minerals Ltd. and Teck Corp -- getting a free ride while we provide the services for their work force. That is just not good enough.
We are going to propose an amendment to this bill. The amendment to be proposed by my colleague the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) will not redress this thing because it is far too complicated. However, it will be better than the government bringing in this kind of bill, playing around the periphery. That is not going to solve the basic and fundamental problem of the sharing of tax wealth in Ontario.
I am very disappointed the government would have brought in a bill like this. There is still time for the minister to sit down with his colleagues to come up with an amendment which would address this very urgent need facing dormitory and bedroom communities in northern Ontario.
Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I mean no disrespect to the member for Wilson Heights when I say I regret that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing is not carrying this legislation. The member has heard this on more than one occasion. However, I really fail to understand how the minister can propose these various bills and then not show up in the Legislature to defend them. It has never happened before; it really does not make any sense.
If the Premier cannot bring himself to take the member for Wilson Heights into the cabinet, then I really do not see why he should leave him way down at the end of the row -- way out in Coventry or whatever the proper name is. He is just one shot ahead of the member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. McEwen). By the way, where is the member for Frontenac-Addington?
For the paltry few pennies extra which the member gets above the poor, long-suffering back-benchers, it does not seem right that he should have to carry this pusillanimous legislation month after month. That is really indefensible.
The first time we even heard of the principle of this bill was in the famous by-election of -- what was that place?
An hon. member: Stormont?
Mr. Rotenberg: It was the one the Liberals lost, remember?
Mr. Nixon: Yes, I know. Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. Through diligent and careful research, we were able to determine that this legislation was caught in the cobwebs of the minister's brain. In fact, it was going to come forward in this Legislature and would seriously change the grants payable to a number of municipalities, particularly in eastern Ontario.
We felt it was our duty to bring this heinous plot to the attention of the electors in eastern Ontario. The Premier got so worried, so exercised, that he went down there, practically door-to-door, putting his reputation on the line, saying the Liberals were lying--
Mr. Rotenberg: The Premier was right.
Mr. Nixon: I did not say this; I am simply quoting what was said down in eastern Ontario. He said the Liberals did not know anything about these changes in the grants and that all they had to do was trust the good old member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve), and through him, the Premier and all would be well.
The Clerk is advising the Speaker about the word "pusillanimous" and I may be in trouble. The point is it really makes my faith in democracy and my faith in the good sense of the fine electorate down in that part of eastern Ontario with the three-handled name waver, because it turns out that we were entirely right and were not misleading the electorate. It turns out it was the Premier who was dead wrong. All the money he pumped into the ads in the weeklies in all those great towns and villages down there had a good effect from his point of view.
I have no objection to the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. He is here, he won and God help us, he may win again. Who knows? I am not predicting that.
I felt we ought to bring to the attention of the whole world listening to this debate that this bill had its origins back in that by-election. The fact the Tories won a seat they had not lost since the great religious wars of 1892, or something like that, does not mean the people of eastern Ontario have passed judgement and given their approval to this sort of legislation, because it is going to cost them money.
One of the things that deeply concerns me, and why I regret the minister is not here, is that he and his parliamentary assistant preside over the worst mishmash of regulations and statutes. Talk about a dog's breakfast -- it is a mess.
This has grown up over 40 long years, since the last time there was any sort of coherent approach to encouraging the municipalities to bring forward the sorts of programs they could fund with the moneys available to them under the whole concept of local autonomy. Since that tragic day in August 1943, with what was then a partnership with the municipalities recognizing their autonomy under the Municipal Act of this province and its related acts, we have got into a most complex tangle of bureaucratic red tape that nobody, except a very select group of university students, can possibly wade through. This is changing it even more.
Speaking of a university tangle, I thought I should point out to the drafters that in their explanatory notes, three lines from the bottom, they have a split infinitive. That is going to be very offensive to the clerks of the various municipalities who have to try to understand this mumbo-jumbo. Imagine them saying, "...The Regional Municipality of Peel to instead credit its constituent area municipalities..." The whole thing is practically incomprehensible anyway. One has to resort to a grammatical parsing to make it even comprehensible for this debate.
We look at the various grants that have grown up over the years. My friend from northern Ontario listed a few of them; the revenue guarantee, the density grants, the grants that used to be per capita and now are per household, the divisions in the payments to upper tier, regional municipalities and counties as opposed to lower tier municipalities and improvement districts.
The complexity is really unbelievable. When one adds the requirement that at the local level, we must apply an apportionment formula or an equalization factor, we come to the crux of one of the more serious inequities that has established itself over the last decade in many of the municipalities in southwestern Ontario. All we have to do is lard on top of that market value reassessment under the special section 63, formerly section 86.
The whole problem of trying to assist in the financing of municipalities has gone beyond the complexities of too much government and has practically got to the point of a joke.
8:30 p.m.
Many of the members opposite and on this side have had valuable experience at the municipal level. Many of those people know how difficult it is to explain to themselves, to their colleagues on municipal councils and to their ratepayers, to what extent Ontario has evolved this elaborate procedure for granting assistance to the municipalities.
If there was ever a reason for changing the government in Ontario, this bill and all its predecessors -- this is just a small part of the mélange -- is a good reason. Ministers have simply added to this complexity, year after year over these 40 years, as they have moved through the Municipal Affairs' chair on their way up or down. The Minister of Revenue knows full well that with the responsibility for assessment, his people have simply added to the confusion.
It is very difficult to vote for legislation like this. The only saving grace is that the bottom line is that more assistance is provided in many municipalities. It is very difficult to vote against the generous hand of the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) as he finally decides to dole out a few more dollars to selected municipalities and to take it away from others.
It is really a shame that we, as members of this House with substantial municipal backgrounds, cannot get ourselves together and come up with a system of municipal grants that recognizes the need for a new partnership with the municipalities based on local autonomy. It should be based on a commitment over a five-year period so the municipalities know what they are going to get from the government of the province. They should not have to depend upon the Treasurer's whim or the political activists who are holding a wet finger to the wind to wonder when the next provincial election is coming along. I have come to the point where I do not believe the Premier gives a darn about it.
I suppose the municipalities look to the future and trim their sails, depending on this famous Progressive Conservative wind. I feel the time for a new partnership is long since past. I regret this bill just adds a few more patches to an already terribly confused grant system in the province.
Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I did not want to disturb the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) but I noticed you checking the list of prescribed names and terms in the book. Is "pusillanimous" in that list?
Mr. Speaker: If I may, with the indulgence of the House, I was interested, not in its propriety, but rather in its meaning. I have here the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. "Pusillanimous" means lacking in courage and strength of mind, faint-hearted, mean-spirited and cowardly. I do not think there is anything unparliamentary in that.
Mr. Breaugh: Sounds accurate to me.
Mr. Speaker: Maybe that is going too far. I am not sure.
Mr. Breaugh: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I am sure members would like to join me in welcoming the Minister of Energy (Mr. Andrewes) who has taken his rightful place in the public gallery this evening, proving there is hope for the member for Frontenac-Addington yet.
Mr. Villeneuve: Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to address Bill 59. It is interesting to note the members on the other side remember December 15. It was a memorable day for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. Regardless of what is being said by the members for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria), Waterloo North (Mr. Epp) or Brant-Oxford-Norfolk, the truth of the matter is the by-election was called and I became a candidate, along with several other people from other parties.
It was a rather humdrum situation until all of a sudden the candidate representing the Liberal Party decided to throw a little bit of excitement into the situation and the words "unconditional grants" came up. Unconditional grants--
Mr. Harris: He spoke with a forked tongue.
Mr. Villeneuve: No, I believe the candidate running against me did not speak with a forked tongue. I think he was being fed some information which may have sounded that way. However, I do not believe the man himself spoke with a forked tongue.
The truth of the matter was the member for Prescott-Russell referred to many newspaper clippings which he read very well. However, as it turns out, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing was down on several occasions. He made a statement to the effect there would indeed be no losers. There would indeed be no losers, I repeat. As it turns out, some of the literature that came in the newspapers -- I notice members from the Liberal side neglected to mention their correspondence and information -- stated a number of losing municipalities would have 20 per cent and 30 per cent less funding from the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing than had been the case in the past. That, as we all know, did not occur.
A number of municipalities in my riding got a 2.5 per cent increase. A number got more. No one talks about those that got more, but they got at least 2.5 per cent. There were no losers. Indeed, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing was acting on and at the request of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. The AMO had suggested that the per capita grant was not good.
The city of Cornwall is a prime example. To this day we do not know how many souls live in the city of Cornwall. It was a real kettle of fish. Therefore, the number of residential units is really the logical course to follow. Some municipalities do that and are recognized to a greater degree than others.
However, that is the truth of the matter and I guess I can understand why the members from the opposite side of the House neglected to mention those figures when they said how many losers there would be. There were no losers. There were small increases. There were no losers.
Mr. Speaker: Are there any other members wishing to participate? If not, the member for Wilson Heights.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Speaker, in some ways it was a good thing we went out to dinner before this bill was completed, because the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk was not here this afternoon. As usual--
Mr. Nixon: Oh yes I was and what is more, Vernon Singer will get you.
Mr. Rotenberg: We got him first. As usual, the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk can pick up any bill and give what sounds like a credible speech. Whether his facts are correct or not does not really matter.
Mr. Nixon: What do you mean "sounds like"?
Mr. Breaugh: Which is more than can be said for the member for Wilson Heights.
Mr. Rotenberg: It is kind of funny that whenever we have a municipal bill, the people across the aisle wonder why I am carrying the bill and not the minister. I really appreciate the fact the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk and others are very complimentary towards me, but they somehow or other do not give credit to the minister who far more than I, is the author of these bills. He has the prime responsibility.
The members opposite, especially the Liberals, cannot seem to grasp or understand--because of the way they operate -- that we operate as a team over here. Over here we share responsibilities and work together. I have a job to do, which I do happily. I have my share of responsibilities within the ministry and I accept those responsibilities happily. The minister has many other responsibilities and many other duties which he does very well. In my job and my role as parliamentary assistant, I am very pleased to assume some of the ministerial responsibilities.
8:40 p.m.
The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk makes little jokes about where I sit, one seat over from where I might be. It is his jealousy oozing out because he is never going to make it to this side of the House. The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk almost made in 1975. He scared the living you-know-what out of us in the 1975 election, and the great reward he got for coming so close to being the government was that his party dumped him as leader and it has never had one since who could hold a candle to him.
I deem it an honour to be able to carry legislation for the government. Something the members opposite cannot understand is that here we work together, we trust each other and we happily share our responsibilities and our duties. As such, I do my job and I am proud and happy to do it.
The member for Waterloo North said, and I think I am quoting him accurately, "The municipalities did not get the grants they were promised." In order to be totally parliamentary, I will say simply that the statement by the member for Waterloo North is just not in accordance with the facts. I am sure that is parliamentary.
The minister and the Treasurer said the total amount of the grants, not the amount for each municipality but the total to municipalities in 1984, would increase by approximately five per cent. Not only have we fulfilled that promise, we have gone beyond it. The increase this year was 5.4 per cent in total.
Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, otherwise known as a point of truth: I wish the member for Wilson Heights, the parliamentary assistant, would indicate when the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing indicated to about 400 or 500 municipalities they would get no more than 2.5 per cent in excess of their unconditional grants of 1983.
Mr. Speaker: Having listened very attentively to the member for Waterloo North, I must tell him what he must already know. That is not a point of order, and I respectfully suggest that the member for Wilson Heights carry on with the bill.
Mr. Rotenberg: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is what I am trying to do. but obviously the members opposite are a little afraid of what I am going to say since they keep interrupting me.
Interjections.
Mr. Rotenberg: At no time did the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing or the Treasurer indicate that every municipality in the province would get an increase of five per cent in grants. He did say very clearly the average would be five per cent, and the average turned out to be 5.4 per cent.
He also said--
Mr. Speaker: I am not sure what the minister said has anything to do with the bill.
Mr. Rotenberg: I am responding to some of the comments that were made when one of your deputies was in the chair this afternoon.
Mr. Speaker: If you are, then those comments had nothing to do with the bill.
Mr. Rotenberg: In outlining what would be in this bill in previous months, the minister said no municipality would suffer, no municipality would get smaller grants in 1984 than it got in 1983. The minister has gone beyond that in his announcement in February in this bill by making sure every municipality would get not only as much as last year but at least 2.5 per cent more than last year.
Some reference was made by several members opposite to the by-election in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. My colleague the member for that riding certainly set the record straight on that. Some candidates in that election did try to imply to the public in the riding that certain things would happen. They are not going to happen. The member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry is correct in that the candidate there did not speak with forked tongue. That is correct. Unfortunately, the candidate in that riding--
Mr. Boudria: Whose quotes are these?
Mr. Rotenberg: --was given information which was not correct. He took it in good faith from some other people and used information which was not correct.
Mr. Boudria: Is the parliamentary assistant saying the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing did not tell the truth or that the Premier did not tell the truth?
The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Wilson Heights has the floor and is responding.
Mr. Rotenberg: I would conclude this part of my remarks by simply indicating that the minister, the Premier and our candidate in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry laid it out as it was then and as it is now and they have been totally consistent.
Interjections.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Speaker, if I may
continue--
The Deputy Speaker: Order. With all due respect to all honourable members, earlier in the debate we listened to references to ridings, by-elections and all that, but let us for once remember what we are here to do. Time is precious. There is nothing corny about it. It should make sense to all honourable members that we should return to the principle of second reading of the bill.
Would the parliamentary assistant proceed and would all other honourable members refrain from the silly interjections.
Mr. Rotenberg: The member for Waterloo North asked about the principle of section 8a of the act as set forth in section 7 of the bill, about the annual guarantees. That is in the bill. It says, in effect, as I think we all understand, that each year the government and the ministry will give to each municipality, no matter what the formula says, a guarantee of the floor amount it will receive for 1984. It is a minimum 2.5 per cent increase and it may vary from time to time as years go by, depending on the overall budget of this province.
A number of the members opposite have complained about the timing of the schedule coming out, which was announced to the municipalities in February. It is difficult for our ministry to do it any earlier because it is not until about February that we know exactly how much money the Treasurer has allotted to the ministry and how much we can allocate. We do that as soon as we can in consultation with the 850-odd municipalities in the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.
Contrast that with the way the federal government deals with the grants it gives to the provinces under the established programs financing. It does it totally without consultation; it changes the rules of the game in the middle; and it gives us less every year, which is something we do not do to the municipalities. Yet the people who support the federal government in this House criticize us for doing a much better job than their cousins do in Ottawa.
The member for Waterloo North also asked about the special grants and wanted to know if the special grants would be included in the guarantees. Special grants are special grants to deal with special and specific situations. They are usually one-time or maybe two-time grants and they are given over and above the guarantees and all the other formulae in case a special situation arises from time to time.
The member for Prescott-Russell brought up Hawkesbury and told us all about its problems. The member did not tell the House that Hawkesbury has received some very special consideration. Under section 8a., or the clause of the previous bill, Hawkesbury received a special $21,000 grant for high unemployment, which a number of municipalities received. In 1983, because of the plant closing, Hawkesbury also received a very special grant of $251,000, only half of which could be spent in 1983 and half in 1984.
8:50 p.m.
The mayor of Hawkesbury has come to the ministry and said, "That was great, but there seems to have been some underestimation of the amount that Hawkesbury has suffered." The mayor of Hawkesbury will be in to see the minister within the next several weeks. Although I cannot at this stage make any announcement or give any promises, it is my understanding that the mayor of Hawkesbury will be very well treated by the minister, the ministry and the Treasurer. Hawkesbury, because it had a severe economic problem owing to the plant closing, has been and will be well looked after by this government.
Mr. Boudria: It is about time, but thanks anyway.
Mr. Rotenberg: The member for Oshawa, who certainly does not have a forked tongue but does from time to time put his tongue in his cheek, is talking about long-term guarantees. He has an amendment before us that we will consider later. It just is not possible for this government, or any government, to give long-term guarantees. The government cannot give them to municipalities and it does not give long-term guarantees to any of its ministries. It depends from year to year on how much revenue we raise, the economic situation and the overall priorities of the people of Ontario.
I understand the situation at least as well as the member for Oshawa and the others who have criticized us.
Mr. Breaugh: I won't stand for that kind of slander.
Mr. Rotenberg: I actually understand it better than the member, but I was not going to slander him.
I spent three years as what was called the budget chief of the largest municipality in this province doing the budget of the city of Toronto. I negotiated with the then Treasurer of Ontario and found the province to be very fair and very understanding. I say this as much from my municipal responsibilities as my provincial responsibilities; the government has been fair to all municipalities.
With regard to this business of having to have the announcements six or eight months before preparing the budget, the amount of total grants does not and will not vary that much. It is very predictable within one or two percentage points how much they are going to get each year. Every municipality knows even now within a couple of percentage points what they are going to get next year. It is only that slight variable which the later announcement is about. The government's track record is excellent in this.
The member for Oshawa said if he could find out that the government had a good track record, he would support this bill. The unconditional grants have been increased every year for the past 10 years. The year 1974-75 was the highest with 44 per cent -- 14-10, 16-10, 5-11, 10-9. In 1983-84, the preliminary announcement was 4.3 per cent and we came across with 4.6 per cent. This year the preliminary announcement was five per cent and we have come up with 5.2 per cent.
I think the municipalities and the assessment committee of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario are quite satisfied with the way we negotiate. I could not say they are totally happy; everybody wants more. They have the utmost confidence in this minister, in this ministry and in this government that they will be treated fairly each year because they have been in the past.
The member for Oshawa mentioned the changes in the system. As my colleague the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry indicated, these changes were made not only in consultation with AMO, but also at the request of AMO and with a long series of happy consultations with them. We work with them and we work well with them. As the member for Oshawa says, any change in the system brings us some winners and some losers. That is correct, except the winners get what the formula gives them and we shield the losers by guaranteeing them no loss whatsoever and at least a 2.5-per cent increase.
Lastly, the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) very parochially talked about a problem as if it only happened in the north. With respect, the same problem happens in every dormitory suburb of every industrial town. It happens around Metropolitan Toronto, it happens to the towns around Oshawa and it happens to towns around Hamilton where industry is concentrated in one location and where dormitory suburbs are built in other municipalities. That is the problem the member for Lake Nipigon has as well.
The solution we had previously was -- dare I mention the word? -- regional government. I do not think the member for Lake Nipigon would like a regional government in his area.
We brought in resource equalization grants to replace the mining grants and that worked very well. Also, as the member knows, as we did for Hawkesbury, where a municipality has a specific problem, the government does come across with extra money.
The member mentioned, and I wanted to send him over a crying towel, that the poor people in his riding have to spend $652 a year for education taxes. The majority of people in Metropolitan Toronto would be delighted to pay that little in education taxes. Many of us here pay a lot more than $600 a year in education taxes.
Having taken about three per cent of the time the opposition took in their criticism of the bill, I would conclude by indicating that this bill makes progress in unconditional grants. I can remember over the past several years the opposition members, and even some of the members on this side, indicating that the uneven police grants were now obsolete and should be changed.
We responded to those requests, both from the municipalities and from members of the House. Nobody opposite gives us credit for doing the right thing; they just do not do that over there.
This bill is agreed upon by the vast majority of municipalities in this province and will help put their financial house in order. I commend the bill to the House.
The Deputy Speaker: All those in favour please say "aye."
All those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion the ayes have it.
Motion agreed to.
Bill ordered for committee of the whole House.
ROYAL ASSENT
The Deputy Speaker: I beg to inform the House in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor has been pleased to assent to certain bills in his chambers.
Assistant Clerk: The following are the titles of the bills to which His Honour has assented:
Bill 5, An Act in respect of Extra-Provincial Corporations;
Bill 36, An Act to amend the Ministry of Energy Act;
Bill 37, An Act to amend the Ontario Pensioners Property Tax Assistance Act;
Bill 57, An Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Retirement Allowances Act;
Bill 61, An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act;
Bill Pr9, An Act respecting the Association of the Chemical Profession of Ontario;
Bill Pr15, An Act to incorporate Baptist Bible College Canada and Theological Seminary;
Bill Pr37, An Act respecting the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.
House in committee of the whole.
ONTARIO UNCONDITIONAL GRANTS AMENDMENT ACT
Consideration of Bill 59, An Act to amend the Ontario Unconditional Grants Act.
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Treleaven): Are there any members who wish to speak to various sections?
Mr. Rotenberg: Section 6, if there is nothing before that.
Mr. Chairman: Can we deal with any comment or amendments to sections 1 to 5 inclusive?
Sections 1 to 5, inclusive, agreed to.
On section 6:
Mr. Chairman: Mr. Rotenberg moves that the bill be amended by adding thereto the following section:
"6. Clause 7(1)(e) of the said Act is amended by striking out 'subclauses 1(1)(c)(i) and (iii)' in the fourth line and inserting in lieu thereof 'subclauses 1(1)(b)(i) and (iii).'"
"And that the present sections 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of the bill be renumbered as sections 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, respectively."
9 p.m.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Chairman, when the Revised Statutes of Ontario were done in 1980, there should have been a renumbering; clause 1(1)(c) should have been changed to 1(1)(b) and was not. This just corrects the reference in the bill and is done at the request of legislative counsel.
Mr. Chairman: Are there any further comments from the members?
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, we are quite happy to support this correction of the incompetence of the ministry.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Chairman, it was not incompetence of the ministry; it was in the redrafting by the legislative staff in 1980.
Mr. Epp: Mr. Chairman, the ministry has been working on this bill for sometime, and even at the 11th hour we have to have amendments to the amendments. It is very interesting that it was not ready for the changes.
Section 6, as amended, agreed to.
On section 7:
Mr. Chairman: Mr. Breaugh moves that section 8a of the act, as set out in section 7 of the bill, be struck out and the following substituted therefor:
"8a(1) In this section, "grants' means payments made under this act but does not include payments made under section 5 or 9a.
"(2) Where the total amount of grants that would otherwise be paid to an upper- or lower-tier municipality in any of the years 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987 or 1988 is less that 105 percent of the total amount of grants paid to that municipality in the immediately preceding year, a revenue guarantee grant shall be paid to that municipality so as to raise the total amount of grants paid to it in that year to at least 105 per cent of the grants paid to it in the immediately preceding year."
With all due respect, we had this discussion not terribly long ago in committee. The member will recall that it is only the government that may move a motion that would make an amendment that could involve the expenditure of money. As the member knows, that has to come from the government side. That causes me to believe the member's amendment is out of order.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, I wish to speak on it briefly. I do understand that the chair has some difficulty with amendments such as this. This does not call for an expenditure of money in this year's budget, but rather provides to the municipalities a guarantee of government policy in future years.
It seems to me an argument can be made, and I am about to make it, that it is in order for the government to make such commitments. It is in order for members of the Legislature at least to put the argument this evening that for a long time municipalities have asked for some mechanism such as this that would provide them with an opportunity to fulfil the requirements made by the Ontario Municipal Board and others to engage in five-year forecasts to provide for long-range planning.
The government has repeatedly said it is not opposed to that idea. However, it was said this evening, by the parliamentary assistant, that it was not prepared to do it. I thought it was important that the members of the Legislature have an opportunity at least to address themselves to that issue.
If the chair is ruling the amendment out of order, I do not have much recourse to that, but I do think it is a shame that we cannot at least deal with that concept. That was the purpose of moving the amendment.
I believe it to be an important concept, and one that has been sought by municipalities in this province for a long time. I thought a commitment had been given on several occasions in my political career on the part of the government, in Edmonton and at several conferences I attended, that it would be prepared to accept a principle such as this.
I believed the government thought that was an important thing for the purposes of stabilizing municipal finances, and that was its intention. The unfortunate part is the government has never fulfilled that stated intention.
Mr. Chairman: With all due respect to the member, as I read standing order 15, I have to rule the motion out of order. If there is any other comment or brief, I will certainly be happy to entertain it. If not, I have to rule the motion out of order.
Section 7 agreed to.
Sections 8 to 11, inclusive, agreed to.
Bill 59, as amended, ordered to be reported.
EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)
Resuming the adjourned consideration of Bill 141, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act.
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Chairman, when we last debated Bill 141 in committee on May 8, we were debating the proposed amendment by the New Democratic Party to subsection 33(1). We had a number of speakers from the opposition parties and considerable debate over two evenings, I believe, on this amendment.
Mr. Breaugh: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: There are still some further speakers on the amendment.
Mr. Chairman: Since we are in committee, we can go back and forth among the members.
Mr. Breaugh: If the member wants to participate now, I would be happy, but I would like to speak to the amendment.
Mr. Chairman: So noted.
Mr. Gillies: If there are further speakers, I have nothing to add at this point. I would like to hear the member's comments.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, I did want to participate in the debate around this amendment. Of all the things that have been brought before this House while I have been a member, there is not one that comes close to this as a measure of importance. It is substantial and the arguments about it ought to be substantial. It is important to an incredibly large number of people. I believe it is important to the economy of this province. Of all of the things one might be able to do in legislative terms to bring forward equal rights for women, this would be my choice as the one that comes first,
When I think of the women to whom I have talked, although I feel they have many legitimate concerns, such as the provision of day care services, educational opportunities, opportunities for advancement, career opportunities in general, provision of services for children and that whole new catch-phrase of issues involving single-parent families these days, the issue that comes foremost as the one members have to address first is something that addresses an old wrong.
It is wrong that people, and women in particular, are not paid equal amounts of money for doing essentially the same job. It is a thorny issue for many of us, because there are one or two valid arguments in opposition to doing it. There are arguments some of us find obnoxious and difficult to accept. There are arguments that have been put forward in the course of this debate and, in the broader sense, in the debate around equal pay provisions in other forums.
People say it is not possible to come up with a quick and easy mechanism; it is not possible to resolve this problem with legislation; it is not possible to change attitudes or to change social mores by legislation. They say there will be an economic impact on certain segments of our industrial order that will be extremely negative.
9:10 p.m.
One or two of the arguments I have listened to over the years have some validity; others do not. It seems to me we have arrived at a stage in the debate on this matter where a good argument that talks about leaving it as it is for social purposes cannot be mounted. At one time it might have been possible to do that with some validity; I do not know. However, I do not think we can look at an amendment such as this and say we now want to perpetuate something as blatantly unfair as the economic exploitation of one sex by another.
That was an argument that was made for a long time. I suppose it was centred on what some people would call a stereotyped woman's role in life, that they have a supportive role to play. The tragedy, and in some senses it is a very real tragedy, is that much of what many of those here would fantasize about being a woman's role in life is so far from reality as to be unrecognizable any more.
There are those who might say a woman's place is in the kitchen, or supporting the breadwinner in the family, or helping to run a family farm, or helping to run a family business or any of those quaint ideas. We still see them in many television series, in many movie productions -- in what would be the experience of our grandfathers -- but those things do not exist any more. They produce problems in many ways because there has been a change in family structure. It is really noticeable in my community. It has effects on schooling, in attempting to raise children and in attempting to transfer values. All these things are disruptive.
It is even more disruptive when one gets to something like equal pay provisions. A woman may have encountered that situation and said: "At least I can go back to work now. I can resume my interrupted career and will be able to support my family or myself. I will be able to reach some aspirations that I once set aside, or go back to school. I will be able to get a decent job and support myself." That is not exactly the way it is for some women. Theoretically, that might be the way it is, but I continue to look in a very pragmatic way at the increasing number of women who are disappointed in this hope. They have a right to expect they will hold down a decent job and receive the same money for doing that job as a man, but for practical purposes right now they cannot. They are becoming more and more aware of that.
Some women in my riding are successful in getting the same pay. They are mostly those in something like the United Auto Workers, where the trade union movement has decided to move in and provide on a contractual basis that a company cannot pay somebody less for doing substantially the same job. If I were to find examples of women who do get equal pay for work of equal value in my community, that would be about the only segment I could look at. I could pick one or two others perhaps, like educators, who might come close to that mark, except there are severe limitations on their opportunities for advancement.
The difficulty falls to this one amendment. In terms of economic advancement, women are still facing the kinds of problems they faced many years ago. The opportunities for some redress, other than earning their own way, are fewer and fewer in our society. in other words, the support systems that were once in place are not there any more.
More and more young women I meet in my constituency office are faced with very severe problems, such as, "Where do I live tonight?" They are not all young women with children. Many of them are older women who have had an unfortunate set of circumstances such as a marriage breakup. They are 35, 40 or 45 years of age and are now having to go back out into the work place and attempt to deal with the reality of life.
The reality is that there may be some part-time work available for them. More and more women are having to settle for that. Even when they get a full-time job, they are going to be exploited in the work place in financial terms; they are not going to be paid the same amount for doing the same job as a man.
As I said at the beginning, I went through in my own mind as to what might we do. For many years I nurtured the faint hope that society somehow would address itself to this issue and, on a voluntary basis, would organize itself and go into affirmative action programs. Employers would say, "This is a very old-fashioned idea that we can exploit women economically, and we should not do that any more." More and more women would assert themselves in a bargaining unit.
Many women do not have the advantages of belonging to a trade union and do not have the advantages of a bargaining unit to work for them in a contractual, legal sense. They are on their own. Unfortunately, they are in a position where they are vulnerable. If they create a splash about how much money they are being paid, particularly in current economic climates, they will be paid nothing because they will lose their jobs. That is the unfortunate circumstance.
Some days I like to retain the romantic notion that we do not have to do these things in law; that people will recognize something is wrong here and gradually we will educate a population. Gradually we will get into voluntary programs and it will just happen. It might take some time, but more and more people will realize it should be done. Eventually, over the course of a few years, a real wrong will be recognized as a real wrong and it will be corrected.
I changed my mind about equal pay on a legislative basis a few years ago. I sat down with a friend of mine who is a businessman and we talked about this. He struck me as being a very fair person and someone who was not normally exploitive of his work force.
I asked him whether he really believed women should be paid less for doing the same job. He said: "No. I do not. At some point I suppose I will have to pay the women who work for me the same amount of money the men get, but there comes a time when one has to retain some business sense to it all. I cannot go into the work place and pay more than the going rate. The going rate for women is substantially less than it is for men."
He gave me a long rigmarole, and the gist of his argument was: "The reason women have these jobs is so we can pay them less money than if we had men in the jobs. It cuts my overhead and makes for a larger profit. A business person of either sex would be absolutely insane to provide equal pay for work of equal value unless it was really the law of the land and all the competitors out there had to do the same thing."
I believe he was sincere when he said: "At least then it would be fair: everyone would have to do that; so the competitive edge would not be present. We would all be living with a law that perhaps no one liked, but at least everyone would have to do it."
It started me thinking that the one valid argument against equal pay for work of equal value is the economic argument. It is a valid argument that must be addressed. A business person can say we cannot afford to do the right thing in economic terms; we cannot afford to cease exploiting women. Although it would do society a lot of good to have women paid the same amount of money as men, while it would certainly help some businesses, it would put an economic red mark against others.
What I find offensive about that is it is the same argument that has been used historically over any group that was exploited in economic terms. When there were slaves in North America the reasons were very simple and straightforward. There were crops that had to be harvested and slaves were an economic way to harvest them. One could not put a rational argument in economic terms which said we could do away with slavery. That argument was not an economic one; in fact, it was a moral and social one.
When the child labour laws came into effect in Britain, the arguments by the mine owners were: "We need to use children in the mines. The oldies are dying off too quickly. We need a cheap labour force to get down into the mines. They will last a bit longer than older people and they will take less money. The reason for all this is that we need to make more money; we need to ensure that our profits are stable."
9:20 p.m.
As we go through history and all those arguments, I am reminded that we still face these arguments; they have not gone away. We are still dealing in this Legislature in economic terms with plants that close here to go somewhere else in the world to exploit the cheaper work force.
However, I think at some time a civilized society puts a halt to all of this. It says that on the economic side there is a plus part and a minus part. We are prepared to address ourselves to that. We are prepared to say that when women in the work place are paid equal amounts of money, we will have an economic bonus, so to speak. There will be women who will be able to afford better housing, for example; so there will be some small improvement in the housing stock. There will be women who can afford to buy new cars, which one would hope would be General Motors products made in Oshawa; but they will have the economic wherewithal to do that, and so in some indirect way my auto workers will prosper by this kind of legislation.
Wherever they live and work, women will have an economic ability they do not now have. Whenever we are able to rectify in legislative terms the disparity in moneys paid to women for doing essentially the same amount or the same type of work as men do, there will be an economic plus factor.
There is a downside, and I for one would not want to deny that for a moment, but I think it is grossly overplayed. For example, in the United States, when the slaves were put out of existence by law, the plantations in the south all dealt with a common set of circumstances; some struggled, some had some problems, but most survived. When the mine owners in England had to do without child labour, they too survived. It seems to me that there are pluses and minuses in the economic arguments around equal pay for work of equal value. We should consider those carefully, but on balance they kind of even out.
What we are left with is, are we prepared to accept this kind of blatant discrimination any longer? For me, the answer to that is no. I cannot find a valid argument put forward by anybody that says we should any longer accept that women are paid less money than men. I do not believe that argument exists.
I came out of the teaching profession, as many members know, and at least at certain levels in that profession there is no discrimination in the amounts of money paid for work. It is not that difficult to sort out the equal value part of it either; there are great grid systems in place and all of that. However, there continues to be some difficulty in the teaching profession with affirmative action in a slightly different sense, and that is getting women into positions other than classroom teachers.
When we really get down to whether we can take any other approach, which is something else I would like to explore just a bit, I believe we now have sufficient information from this jurisdiction and from other jurisdictions to say there really is no other way to do this.
One can quibble that the mechanics of the amendment that is before us are not perfect. One can quibble, for example, that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission as a regulatory agency is not perfect, or that somebody setting hydro rates in Ontario is not perfect, or that the Ontario Municipal Board is not perfect, because the truth is that any regulatory mechanism we might set in play is imperfect; it will not flow smoothly. I think the important criterion is to attempt to establish whether it is functional. I believe this mechanism is.
I believe it is possible in a work place to determine work of equal value. That has been done by and large in several of our professions. It has been done in most of our organized work places. I am not pretending for a moment that in big auto or steel plants the unions have worked out perfect mechanisms. What I am arguing is they have worked out mechanisms that function and serve the purpose, that can be refined and have the rough edges taken off.
The whole Ontario Labour Relations Board exercise is an example of a process that is not perfect, but it is a process that carries forward with its initial task and makes it a functional thing. It works.
I believe the amendment before us now does the same thing. It does not give us perfection or nirvana, but it provides us with a vehicle that will sort out what I believe most members in this House understand -- I would hope all, but I know better than that -- is an issue that is of prime importance and whose time has come. The time is now to address ourselves to an issue like this.
The time is here now because our society is changing rapidly. More women are aware that this is a very real problem for them. More are aware that there is discrimination in terms of their economic opportunity in the places where they work. Some of them have a vehicle at their disposal, such as a union, where they can begin to rectify the situation. Unfortunately, most of them do not.
I say this with some reluctance, but I know it is true. Even for many of those in an organized work place the truth is their association, their organization, their union may not have the wherewithal to address itself to something like this. I am reminded of many women I know who work in nursing homes where the union has been in for a short period of time. They do not have many experienced trade unionists and they are struggling like mad to hold on to their jobs, let alone rectify something like this.
We see the phenomenon of contracting out, that is, going into an organized work place, again mostly employing women, and simply exploiting the fear among the workers to make sure they fire half the people and then hire them back at half the wages. I have no illusion that, even if they were organized work places, the union would be able to do a great deal for those workers.
Part of the major problem is this Legislature has not yet resolved the issue of whether it is prepared to put in legislation so women in this province can no longer be exploited in economic terms. In all fairness and justice and as a rational way to proceed, there must be an equal pay provision in law in Ontario.
I have no illusions that it will cause an overnight sensation or that we will do it as smoothly as many people would like. There will be people who resist it as they resist safety or environmental laws or anything else we care to pass a law about. I do know that in the absence of legislation, women stand no chance of rectifying the problem, which gets larger and larger in my community and in every other member's community. The economic and social ramifications are severe.
The government needs to be tricked from time to time into using its free enterprise background. If they really are free enterprisers, they should be saying: "We do not want to subsidize women in the work place. We do not want to subsidize their housing or day care in the work place. We think free enterprisers ought to pay everybody the same amount of money. Let them pay."
In a free enterprise government there ought to be some advocates saying: "Let industry carry its own load. We in this Legislature are saying that kind of discrimination must stop. We are saying to women in the work place they do not have to be subservient to anybody in the work place any more. If they do the same kind of work and we can find the mechanisms which make that consideration, they should get paid the same amount of money."
Government members would do something with their free enterprise background if they said to people in the industrial sector who might not be exactly advocates of this idea: "We are not here as a government to subsidize you or your work force. If you have men and women who work for you and do essentially the same job, you should pay them the same amount of money."
I have not heard that argument lately from even the most serious advocates of the free enterprise system on that side of the House. It bothers me somewhat that there is no one with the guts to stand up and say: "We are not going to subsidize these folks any more. We are telling them if they want to run a business, that is fine, but they should not look to the government to subsidize their work force or the places where these employees are supposed to live."
Looking at the recently published statistics on day care facilities, I see the very rich can afford them -- it is not a problem for them: the very poor can afford them, because there are some subsidized spots for them, but the working-class people in the middle have nothing. What do they do? Who helps them? I think in large measure it will turn out to be government at some point or other. I am not sure why that should always be the case. Is there not a role in a free enterprise system, as some of the members opposite so proudly proclaim, to say: "Let people work for a living. Let them get paid equal amounts of money for doing the same job"? They will have the capacity to do certain things a government is reluctant to do.
9:30 p.m.
From my perspective on this side of the House, this amendment is overdue from a social point of view. It would provide an impetus to women to make several social changes in their lives, and it would give them the wherewithal to make that possible.
Among the many women I see in my constituency office, the overwhelming needs are around things having to do with economics, not the big-deal economics but simple economics: "How do I live someplace? How do I feed a family? How do I clothe children who are now my responsibility when I am on my own? How do I get back to school? How do I save up enough money to get into a career again?" These are very practical problems, and they are very sad ones.
I recall a woman who was in to see me just before Christmas who had gone through some economic difficulties. The local housing authority had seen fit to harass her and throw her out; in fact, it went to court. She said: "They were right; I was not paying the rent on time. I was paying rent to the Oshawa Housing Authority, but I was not paying it on time." It is a little difficult to believe that a housing authority would go to court to evict a tenant, a female, a single-parent mother.
It knew she had been having all kinds of problems in that year. It knew why she was having those problems. It knows more about its tenants in Oshawa than Sam Spade does about his clients. It spies on them. It studies them. It knows their social habits. It knows their economic patterns. It knows whether they are going to school or to work. It knows how many kids they have. It knows how much money they have in the bank. It knows how many visitors they have. It knows everything about its tenants.
The authority knew this woman's circumstances very well, yet it went to a court, got a court order and evicted her.
What she was trying to do was to stay alive, and it seems to me that of all the noble things any of us has a chance to do, just to survive is on the top of the list.
It seems to me that this amendment addresses itself to the first problem of survival: economic survival. If we want to go on after this and talk about other matters -- and there is a wide range of them concerning discrimination in many other ways -- it seems to me we should do that. On several occasions in this Legislature I have heard ministers talk about other aspects of discrimination -- for example, sexual discrimination -- but they are talking about a different matter, not economics.
It seems to me that the worst form of discrimination is economic. That is what this amendment addresses itself to, and that is why I think it is of such prime importance. I believe this amendment put forward by the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) goes straight to the heart of the most serious economic and social problem we have in this country today. It is one that is shared by much of the world.
It is difficult to come up with much of a pattern that says women can find a place somewhere in this world where they will be paid the same money for doing the same job. It is not easy to stumble on all the arguments that say, 'We cannot afford to do this." I have not heard all this debate, but I do not recall hearing one member stand up in this House and say, "Giving women equal pay for work of equal value is not a nice or proper thing to do."
At least we have brought the argument to the stage where it is probably worth your life as a politician to be exactly that stupid in public. This is not to say that politicians would not be that stupid in private, but at least most of those who do get elected would not be dumb enough to say it in public any more. I would hope not. It may be true that several would say it in private, but not in public.
The argument has centred on the economic part of it and on whether this is a practical way to proceed. I think now is the time to say that, whatever technique might cause this to be implemented, we have to try it. Whatever economic problems might be caused by this kind of amendment, there are economic pluses as well and, in my view, they would at least balance out. To be quite frank about it, I believe the economic benefits from providing, in legislative terms, equal pay for work of equal value far outweigh any economic problems anyone might have in any sector of the economy.
I understand the business person's attitude that says: "I would like to do this affirmative action stuff; it is nice. I would like to set up a committee to do that; that is fine." But it would be stupid for a business person to do something that none of his or her competitors is doing now. If we make it law, then at least all of them deal with the same set of factors and all of them deal with the same situation.
General Motors makes automobiles under a wide array of circumstances all over the world. When one talks to people in management at General Motors about economic factors or laws or political stability or any of those things, they will say the bottom line is that as long as everybody faces the same set of laws, in that set of circumstances nobody has a right to complain. If there are heavy environmental laws in one country and everybody has to live up to them, that is fine, they will all do that. If there are heavy laws about notification of plant closures in a country and everybody has to face up to these laws, they all accept them.
I think the time has come to recognize that for equal pay legislation the same thing applies. If tomorrow morning in Ontario we had legislated equal pay, there would be some hue and cry for sure. But the truth is, the bottom line in economic terms is that as long as all employers had to look at the same law and had to make the same adjustments, there would be no economic advantage or disadvantage to anyone. They would all deal with the same law. They would do as most employers do these days and complain about government intervention and all that. They would fire off letters to the editor. One or two might actually appear before a legislative committee and within three months they would have accepted it.
They would say: "Well, I do not like it. I would rather not." But most employers say that about their employees anyway. They say that about employees when they get organized in a trade union. They say: "We cannot afford to have a union in here. They will bump the wages up sky high. These people will be asking for benefits. They will get genuinely uppity."
Oddly enough, when the union is in and the first strike is over and a first agreement has been put together, labour and management accept a new set of conditions. In my community and in many others, the trade union movement is not considered to be a great, wild threat to anybody who runs an industry. It is a normal part of Canadian life and a normal part of Ontario life.
I recall one of the things I like about living in Oshawa is that, from time to time, I get a chance to sit down and talk to people who were members of the original trade union movement there and hear the arguments they faced when they put a trade union movement into the General Motors plant in the late 1930s. It is exactly the same argument facing women around equal pay provisions now. The company said:
"It cannot be done. You cannot have a union in here. We cannot afford to pay those kinds of wages. We cannot afford to allow you to have grievance procedures and all that stuff; that will muck up management's rights."
After much bitterness and several strikes, the trade union movement in my town, and in communities around Canada, has become part of the scenery. It is an accepted part of the process. It is a part of the process that can be dealt with calmly and rationally, or not so calmly and irrationally, if one will, but it is there. It is in place and it works. It has an economic impact on employers. There is no question about that. But it is one they can live with.
We do not see Ford, Chrysler and GM saying, "Well, we are three groups of corporate entities here that cannot afford to pay our workers decent wages." We get some drift of that in the next few months as they settle down in negotiations, but the truth is they can. As long as they are dealing with the same kind of legislation, they can bargain with their employees. That is not a problem with them. They can make record profits, as General Motors has made in the first quarter of this year and as Chrysler has demonstrated from its comeback; all with an organized work force and all looking at the same kind of laws.
The exact same principle applies to this kind of an amendment. There is no rational thought process which leads one to discard legislated equal pay for work of equal value, save and except the economic one. When members look at that argument from a balanced perspective, I think they will see that argument was put on the streets of Oshawa in 1937 and discarded. It was put on the plantations in the southern United States a long time ago and was discarded. It was talked about in the mines of Great Britain a long time ago and was discarded. Because the argument that says, "We must be able to discriminate against somebody for economic reasons," is not a valid argument, in a civilized society it should not even be considered as a valid argument.
9:40 p.m.
This is the one I think many members have focused on and it is one I want to talk about a bit tonight because of all the arguments that are put up against this, some specious and some valid. The trick is to throw out the specious arguments, because they are not dealt with seriously by anybody any more, and to look at the valid arguments to see how true they are. Would this really cause a massive disruption in the work force? The answer to that is no, it would not.
For other people and other businesses, it would provide new clients, new customers, new people with an economic buying power that has not been around before. It would relieve this government of some of its social responsibilities because women would not need its help. They would be able to stand on their own two feet. They would be able to do what great free enterprisers want to do, be independent, or at least more so.
I want to participate in this debate this evening because this is a very male-dominated Legislature, as most parliaments are, and that poses a bit of a problem from time to time. I must admit I have this experience on occasion with feminist groups. Feminists use a language men do not understand. They talk about problems men have never experienced. They talk a language men do not use.
They often arrive at one's doorstep very angry, not for what happened to them yesterday and not for one single event, but for a lifetime of frustration and wrongs. They will often arrive at a legislator's doorstep and just unload that lifetime of wrongdoings on somebody who does not even really understand the language they are using.
That is a problem; but the problem is not for women, the problem is for us. People in this chamber say they are elected people. In my terms, being members of the Legislature means we are the pros in this situation. It is our job to understand our constituents. If they use a language we do not understand, the obligation is on us to learn that language, to understand what those words are all about, to understand what that frustration is all about, not to get caught up on little catchwords heard at a service club or business meeting, but to understand both sides of an issue and to balance it out.
Any member of this Legislature who looks at this amendment and attempts to balance it out sees the argument gets down to some very clear problems. It addresses itself to a basic problem in our society today, one that has a lot of positive ramifications to it.
Every time some poor exploited worker gets an extra $1 an hour there are those who say all these businesses are going to become defunct overnight. That has never happened in the experience of mankind. I do not believe that argument to be a valid one. It is one that deserves some consideration. One needs to look at it. If looked at for even a short period of time, I think one sees that does not happen.
The argument has been made that we ought first to go to some voluntary program. I have heard it in the Legislature on previous occasions. I would be an advocate of a voluntary program if I had any track record in front of me showing it really worked. From my examination in this and other jurisdictions, I have to say that voluntary programs do not work in this regard. They may work in many respects in other areas of attempting to end discrimination, but they do not work with equal pay provisions.
They do not work because of a simple argument put to me several years ago by a business person that a businessman is nuts to pay more money than he has to to get an employee to do a day's work. It is another matter entirely if the law says one has to pay them all the same amount of money for doing the same kind of work. Then all the competitors out there are dealing with the same set of circumstances. Under those circumstances, all of them will make their profits, and that is fair. From an employer's point of view, that is a fair way to proceed.
I want to conclude by saying this is an incredibly important amendment for this Legislature to try to deal with. I have heard only portions of the debate, but I have heard a good debate on this amendment. It may go on for a while longer, but it is worth it because this amendment deals with the single largest problem women face in our society.
It has to do with their economic survival. For many people, it may take on intonations of an entirely different character than the economic one. For many women, a provision such as this amendment in this law would be the breakthrough. If they are able to make this breakthrough, a lot of other breakthroughs would follow, a lot of other social patterns would change, a lot of other housing requirements would change, the opportunity to raise the children that are their responsibility would change, their opportunity for career development would change.
I think it is a complicated set of issues, but it is a matter we must address. Its time is long past due. I believe the member for Hamilton East has done a great service to the Legislature in putting forward this amendment.
I support the amendment. I believe it is necessary and I believe it is practical. I believe it has ramifications that are extremely positive in nature. Women, young and old, who visit me and talk in my constituency office about their problems begin with the economic problems. They see that as being the one thing they want to do.
I have not met a woman in my office encountering difficulties who really wanted a handout from anybody. The women who come to me are mostly working-class women. Some are young and some are old. What they want is a chance to fend for themselves in this world. They do not want a handout from anybody. They do not want a gift. They want a chance to get a job that pays decent money.
Most of all, I think it galls them on a day-to-day basis to go into a work place where they do exactly the same job as the men and get paid 60 per cent of the money. They do not understand that and I do not understand it. It is an unfairness and inequity in Canadian law, in Ontario law, that has to be rectified.
The member for Hamilton East has put before us an amendment which does just exactly that. It may not be perfect, but the time has come when the members of this Legislature have to look at an amendment such as this. I believe the amendment we have before us now is one where we have to say: "Yes. There is something wrong here. Here is an amendment which will at least move us toward correcting that wrong, and we must do it."
That was a difficult decision, I am sure, in the southern United States for plantation owners who had been exploiting slaves for years. Some of the plantation owners, I am sure, were kindly Christian people, but looked on that as a business proposition. I am sure that was a problem for mine owners in Great Britain who had exploited children. I am sure some of the mine owners were kindly Christians as well, but they looked on this as an economic business proposition. I am not sure employers in Canada would get quite that carried away on that matter, but I think most of them would say yes.
If there was a law that said we had to pay women equal pay for work of equal value, there would be a hiccup or two in the system, but we would overcome that. At the same time, we would address what I think is the most grievous kind of discrimination that still exists in Ontario today. There is not a member here who can defend the concept that in Ontario at this day and age women should do the same kind of jobs as men for about 60 per cent of the money.
That is unfair. That is socially wrong and morally wrong. I believe it is also economically wrong. I support this amendment. I would encourage other members, even those who might not consider it to be quite their number one problem, even those who are busy gossiping around in the back benches late on a Tuesday evening, to change their minds on the matter, if they have not already, and reconsider. I believe the amendment to be an important one and one which deserves to be supported by all members of this Legislature. It is practical, it can be done and it must be done.
Mr. Sweeney: I wish to speak to it, Mr. Chairman, but if the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) has a comment to make at this time I am quite willing to let him.
Mr. Gillies: Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, in reply to the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh), I want to thank him for a very thoughtful contribution to the debate. I want to point out to him that what he just said is a very thoughtful, very positive and very supportive series of comments about Bill 141. They were very wide-ranging and philosophical remarks, as were those by the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston), whom we heard from when we adjourned the debate on May 8.
9:50 p.m.
I do not want particularly to get into the philosophical things about which the member spoke. I am sure there would be very little disagreement among members of this House about the historical evolution of our society away from a situation where things such as slavery, child labour and so on were tolerated to a situation where it is our wish to bring women into a position of complete equality in the marketplace and our desire to reduce the 37 per cent wage gap between men and women that we in the government believe is unconscionable.
Having said all that, I would remind the member that twice during his speech he used the phrase, "If we, men and women, do the same kind of work, then we should be paid the same wage." I completely agree with that and the government agrees with that. I would say to the member that is what Bill 141 is all about. That is what we are about. He may have noticed that during the three or four days of debate on this bill, I have not been overly critical of the NDP amendment. There is much in it that is already in our draft of Bill 141, so I can hardly be very critical of it.
Let us be very clear about this. We all know we are talking about the first clause of the bill. We are talking about how far the government should go in the adjudication of cases where the work is dissimilar. To use his own phraseology again, the government accepts that the time has come to adjudicate in cases where a meaningful comparison of the types of work can be made.
The member voiced concern about the situation of women who may even be in the organized part of the work force. There are things in our bill that will assist them as members of a union local in presenting their cases before the employment standards officer in a quasi-class action. We will have more employment standards officers to assist them, to adjudicate and prosecute these cases. I agree with that too.
Where we run into a problem and where we part company with the amendment is in the comparison of dissimilar work. The government has a concern about how far in that direction we can go, but we fully accept that legislation has to be part of the mix of responses in order to bring about that equality in the work place that we seek.
In reply to the member, I agree with him entirely that where people are doing the same kind of work -- and we go further than that in the bill -- where they are doing similar work or where a meaningful comparison can be made, we feel that legislation has to be part of the arsenal of weapons to redress this wage gap. I ask the member to reflect on the difference between our bill and the amendment in the comparison of work that is utterly dissimilar.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, I would like to respond briefly. The member has pointed out some areas where we may share some common ground. I want to point out to him that the United Auto Workers does not need his help. The UAW is a large and reasonably responsible trade union that has the capacity to look after its own members. It does not need the member at its bargaining table. It has an economic power that not every union has. It has expertise in terms of organization that not every union has.
There are a number of trade unions around that have that ability now. They have generated in their work places most -- not all, but most -- of what I think would be necessary for equal pay. I do not think teachers, to pick another trade union, although I am not so sure they will appreciate the comparison, need the member's help either; nor does the Ontario Medical Association, one of the most powerful trade unions in Ontario, nor the Law Society of Upper Canada, perhaps the most powerful trade union in Ontario in many respects.
None of those big trade unions, the law society, the OMA, the UAW, whoever, needs the member's help. Thanks a lot, but they do not need him at their side to handle grievances for them. They do not need him at the bargaining table; they can handle that act quite nicely. The people who do need his help are working in smaller plants. They need a more direct legislative response than he is prepared to give them.
I think the member for Brantford recognizes there are many people, men and women in our society, who do not need the government's help at all. Thanks a lot, they appreciate his moral support and all that. They are on the side of the legislation, but no problem exists there. The problem exists in other work places where the determination of what is equal work is a little more difficult, and this is precisely what our amendment addresses. It defines the mechanism that makes that determination. I am afraid that what the government has done in this bill--
The Acting Chairman (Mr. Piché): With all due respect to the member for Oshawa, I think he is repeating himself.
Mr. Breaugh: You should be so fortunate as to be able to repeat yourself.
Mr. Mitchell: That is unparliamentary.
Mr. Roy: That is disrespectful towards the chair.
Mr. Breaugh: You got it, Albert. You are a little smarter than you look. I do apologize to the chair.
The Acting Chairman: I accept the apology from the member for Oshawa.
Mr. Breaugh: Thank you.
With all due respect to the member for Brantford, I think what one has to took at in this amendment is the need for a mechanism to help those in a work place where this is not happening now. Quite frankly, this is why I support the amendment put forward by the member for Hamilton East.
It takes the government's bill, which sometimes resolves problems that do not exist, and points it in a slightly different direction. It makes it address itself to how one resolves these problems in a work place where there is not a good resolution now.
That is why I think this amendment is particularly important and that is why I commend it to all members for their support.
The Acting Chairman: I now recognize the member for Kitchener-Wilmot, who has promised to be very brief.
Mr. Sweeney: Very brief, Mr. Chairman. Actually, I am here for the next piece of legislation, but I could not let this pass after hearing the eloquent contributions from the member for Oshawa and the member for Brantford.
Let me begin by saying the member for Brantford has just missed the point. Obviously, that is a personal interpretation, but he has just missed the point. As a matter of fact, this legislation has just missed the point.
I am very pleased to participate in a debate whereby the government of the day has realized that its previous legislation, which talked of equal work, is not working. It just does not work at all.
I remember very clearly the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) and the former Minister of Labour getting up in this House and trying quite desperately to argue that the necessary legislation was in place, that we had legislation that called for equal pay for equal work and that it would do the job. Yet it has been brought to the attention of the government and to the attention of two Ministers of Labour that it is not working. Many examples were brought to their attention.
This legislation goes one step further; I will accept that. As a matter of fact, I am pleased the government has moved one step further. Really, all I want to say at this time in support of this amendment is, let us go the rest of the way. Let us accept the fact that work of equal value is the only way that working women in Ontario are going to get the kind of recompense and remuneration they have a right to get. It is a right in simple justice. It has nothing to do with philosophy; it has nothing to do with partisanship; it has nothing to do with politics. It is a question of simple justice.
I can remember very clearly that when we were debating this point in committee about four years ago we had a number of women appear before the committee to indicate to us the kinds of conditions under which they were working. They asked us as members of the committee: "Could you support that? Could you agree with that kind of discrimination? Do you think that is fair? Do you think that in a free, open, democratic society such as we have this is just?"
I want to say to the member for Brantford -- and I cannot recall offhand whether he was present at that point -- the general consensus was that no, this had to change.
10 p.m.
There have been two or three private members' bills, as I am sure the member for Brantford is well aware, but this is the first time we have had a government bill that comes close to meeting this objective. I guess what I am really trying to argue to the parliamentary assistant is, let us go the next step and let us agree that the only way working women are going to get a fair deal in the economic, social and industrial society of the province is if we incorporate a clause dealing with equal pay for work of equal value.
I suspect there is a certain level of support for this on the part of the member's national leader. I know there is from the Premier (Mr. Davis). Just a few short days ago, right in this city, in a meeting with a large number of women, the national leader pledged himself publicly, clearly, without any hesitation -- from what I could see watching on television -- to the principle of equal pay for work of equal value.
The Premier has said over and over again that he supports the federal leader, that he supports the principles for which the federal leader stands and that he will give his full support to any government the federal leader might lead. That is not quite the language he uses, but it is the language I will use. If he means that, then I have to ask how the parliamentary assistant cannot support the same principle. If it can be supported federally, why not provincially?
Ontario has taken the lead in many cases. Let it take the lead once again. Let us show the other provinces that we can give some leadership in this most important economic and social goal.
I want to pick up a theme the member for Oshawa spoke of quite well. He said that as we go back through the ages we find arguments against slavery and against child labour. I would like to quote a couple of short sentences from a book called The Story of Ontario. It refers to the first Legislative Assembly in this province:
"The first parliament of Upper Canada met in a log building called Navy Hall in Newark on September 17, 1792." The member probably realizes that Newark is now called Niagara-on-the-Lake. Coincidentally, it is represented today by the member for Brock (Mr. Welch), who is the Minister responsible for Women's Issues. What could be more appropriate?
The book goes on to indicate some of the legislation that was passed at that very first legislative assembly: "One of the most important laws passed at this first session was the one that put an end to slavery in Upper Canada." We should all be proud of the fact that our province was the first British colony to do away with slavery. It was said in many other North American jurisdictions that economically we could not do away with slavery. Yet in 1792 the first Legislative Assembly in Ontario, the first British colony, did away with it.
Why can we not set an example today? In 1984, in this Ontario Legislature, in this bicentennial year, why can we not do away with a form of economic slavery that the working women of this province face? I am not trying to exaggerate the matter. Surely there is not a member of this Legislature who would not agree that working women in Ontario deserve, as a matter of simple justice, to get the same kind of economic remuneration that men get for doing work of equal value.
I say to the government, particularly to the member for Brantford -- and I am sure there are a considerable number of working women in his riding as there are in my mine and as there probably are in every other riding in this province -- this is an opportunity to take this legislation, which admittedly does go a certain distance, the rest of the way. That is all I am arguing for: take it the rest of the way.
I want to make one final point to the parliamentary assistant. We know from other situations that industry and business in this province, as in most jurisdictions, will often do only what they are required to do. The member for Brantford might remember that when I was speaking to the Minister of Labour a few days ago on another piece of legislation with respect to skills training, I pointed out to the minister that the very same corporations that operate in Ontario and do not train their workers also operate in many European jurisdictions and do train their workers.
The only difference is that in the European jurisdictions it is a legislative requirement; in Ontario it is not. It is not a matter of corporate decision-making. It is simply a matter of the legislative requirements of the jurisdictions in which they happen to operate. The same thing would be true of this situation if we in this House tonight were to take the step to make it a legislative requirement. Business and industry in Ontario would obey it. They would follow it.
As my colleague the member for Oshawa has pointed out, there may be some objections and criticisms, but within a relatively short period of time, if everyone were under the same mandate, if everyone had to pay the same kind of wages for the same kind of work of equal value, they would do it. It would not take very long until we could find ways economically to be competitive with other jurisdictions. That would be done. I say to the parliamentary assistant, we are so close, let us just go one step further. Let us take it to the point where it will meet the real needs of the working women of this province.
I close by reminding the parliamentary assistant that when we had hearings three or four years ago, we had corporate executives appear before us. I remember in particular representatives from de Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd. They said that within their corporate structure they did have a policy of equal pay for work of equal value. They admitted that when they first started, it was difficult to make comparisons and to draw up charts and all the other things they needed to make comparisons for dissimilar work. I use that term because that is the term the member used. They said initially they had some difficulty doing that, but they also told us that they had done it. They admitted to us that once it was in place, it really was not difficult to administer.
In other words, I am saying to my honourable colleague it can be done, it is being done and it should be done. The member for Brantford is well aware of the fact that in the federal domain this is the law. He knows his own federal leader supports it. He knows the candidates for the federal leadership of my party support it. Now is the time for the representatives and members of the Ontario governing party to support it.
10:10 p.m.
Mr. Allen: Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak to the amendment to the bill that has been advanced by my colleague the member for Hamilton East. I do not want to make a very lengthy contribution to the debate, but like the past two speakers what concerns me most is that we seem to be getting closer by significant degrees to an objective that has been sought for so long, and yet we seem to be reluctant to take the final step.
When one looks back at the history of the movement towards women's equality in this province, much of which has been played out one time or another within the confines of this Legislature, one looks back on a very long, drawn-out process indeed. One thinks back to 100 years ago when Dr. Emily Stowe founded her literary society in Toronto as a kind of cover for a suffrage movement for women in the province.
One thinks back 90 years to the years when that great educator of this province, James Hughes, a member of this Legislature, began annually introducing his motions for women's suffrage in this province.
One thinks back 80 years to the founding of the Dominion Women's Enfranchisement League by the daughter of Emily Stowe, a second generation in the process, about women like Flora MacDonald, and back 70 years ago when finally women's suffrage was established.
It took 30 years to reach that stage.
Mr. Charlton: All progress had to be wrenched from this government.
Mr. Allen: From the government in power. One would have to say to my colleague the member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Charlton) that the first stage of that battle was undertaken against the Liberal regime. After 1905, it was undertaken against the Tory regime. One would have to say it was not the basis of principle, the natural right of women or the dignity that is inherent in their person, but simply the basis of their practical contribution to a war effort that finally won the suffrage for them. But it took more than a generation.
It was not until the 1930s that we began in this province and this country in general what was called the formal classification of work in work places so that work could be compared in some style. It was not until 1951 that we in this country adopted a much-weakened version of the International Labour Organization's pioneering proposal put forth to the international community, that compensation be on the basis of equal pay for work of equal value, which has since that day been the benchmark against which we have attempted to reach and press for on behalf of women in our economy and society.
At that time the country was not willing to move that far. It was prepared only to take that first small step and to begin attaching a term of equality to pay that women received but not to define in any particular way exactly what that applied to other than to leave the clear impression that it was to apply only to exactly the same work.
More than 30 years later, why should we be again at a point where we are trying to equivocate, where we are trying to forestall moving finally into that last stage which has been opened up for us for so long as an option, of equal pay for work of equal value? To begin talking another kind of language, speaking of "substantially the same," etc., as though that were a kind of substitute for the classical language of the debate, is something I find rather astonishing.
It is not that the problem is not still great. As we look across this province, women's wages in general run to about 64 per cent of those of men. In the government, in the public service, they tend to be somewhat higher, but when we look at comparisons of the compensation women receive, even in apparently enlightened institutions such as universities, we discover that very well-trained clerk typists and stenographers earn considerably less -- not just 73 per cent but considerably less than that -- than relatively untrained truckers.
Those comparisons can be made time and time again. Surely it is time for us to recognize something about the old argument that, since women generally are not as well educated as men, one could expect that even though they might be performing work of a similar character, they should not be equally compensated. We now know the women in our population are on average at least as well educated as men. We know they may even be edging beyond men on average across the board in educational qualifications.
There is certainly a prima facie case to be made with regard to the objective facts of the matter, quite apart from getting into the human rights and human needs considerations of women involved at those lesser levels of compensation.
The argument that seems to be given to us is not that there is no natural right or that there is not some substantial need, either in theory or in practice; the argument seems to be a problem of implementation, that it would entail such an extensive bureaucratic operation that it is entirely too confusing, too encumbering and too complicated for us to be able to get our minds or our business and office systems around it.
It is interesting that when one turns to the consultants who advise major corporations with respect to these matters, they seem to be significantly impressed by the ease with which it can be done.
For example, I read of an American economist, David Thompson, who is the vice-president of William M. Mercer Ltd., a multinational conglomerate that is in turn a consultant to corporations and governments on employee benefits, compensation and human rights programs. Mr. Thompson has no trouble with the idea. In fact, he is busy advising the corporations to which he is a consultant to move as rapidly as they can to equal pay for work of equal value, partly because he recognizes it is a fairly straightforward operation.
I would like to read from a passage of a report on his and similar consultants' activities: "According to consultants, it can be assimilated into job evaluation schemes which exist in most companies where jobs of different sorts are routinely rated and compared. A corporation decides which values it wants to reward and consultants can design a system, breaking down every job into four broad groups: skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions. Each category is further split into factors such as supervisory responsibility, financial accountability, contacts, human relations skills. Statistical techniques are then used to weigh each factor. Points are assigned and added up and, in this fashion, equal value can be determined in relation to different sorts of work."
It is a straightforward process. With the kind of computing skills we have at our disposal in virtually every corporation these days, it can be done quite readily without a great deal of difficulty.
The other reason consultants are busy advising major corporations in particular to get on with it is the simple fact that if they do not, it will turn out to be rather costly and embarrassing to them when they come before the courts and have to confess they have been standing in the way of a relatively easily applied proposition, one that is so justified on moral and human grounds.
10:20 p.m.
If there is no problem in implementation, and the experts who are advising the corporations are pushing the corporate sector in that direction, I fail to understand why this government, if it is concerned about this question, is not equally putting pressure on the corporate sector. Why is it not acting as an advocate instead of simply measuring its step by the distance it thinks the average corporation is prepared to go, listening to all its objections and then lying back and saying: "Oh well, we cannot take those last steps. Too bad. We will just have to wait another 10 or 20 years because, after all, we know it takes generations of change, shifts of major cultural attitudes and all the rest of it." We will do all that same runaround of argument that has impeded so many reforms in the past when they might have been accomplished much earlier than they were
There simply is no need in the circumstances in which we find ourselves in Ontario -- in view of the state of mind, it seems to me, of most of our public and in view of the readiness and capacity of our corporate sector to embrace, embody and establish a measure like this -- for us to hold back any longer.
The argument that is so frequently used, of course, has to do with cost. When I look at that and when I look at reform after reform in the past that has finally come into play, cost has been one of the arguments that has been used over and over again. It was not going to be possible to implement the nine-hour day in the 1870s because it would drive employers out of business; it was not going to be possible a generation and a half later to establish an eight-hour day because it would drive employers out of business.
But when we got around to shortening those days, when we got around to introducing new work weeks, the businesses did not disappear; they stayed in place, they coped, they went on and they prospered. There really is no significant reason, it seems to me, for us to delay any further. After all, the implementation of this, if we move to a full implementation, will of course be a step-by-step operation. It will not suddenly be an overnight operation in every single plant in the province; it will be phased in, we will gain experience with it and it will grow. But it must grow from the presupposition that we are in fact going to establish equal pay for work of equal value in Ontario in the middle of this decade of this century. The time is long past. The time is now, and it is time for us to act.
So I rise to support this amendment in the hope that my fellow members also will deem it worth while to support it and to let us get on with the job of giving women that final base of economic security and economic equality that this amendment portends for them.
Mr. Grande: Mr. Chairman, I, like the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen), am going to involve myself in this debate briefly. I do so because I think a tremendous amount has been said that, I hope, has not escaped the members who perhaps will not be supporting this amendment.
I want to read from the Human Rights Code, which, as members will recall, the Premier of this province unveiled here in front of the Legislature with fanfare in March of this year. It basically talks about human rights and about the rights and the dignity that people have. I just want to read the preamble and then only one particular section of the Human Rights Code. The preamble states:
"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world and is in accord with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as proclaimed by the United Nations;
"And whereas it is public policy in Ontario to recognize the dignity and worth of every person and to provide for equal rights and opportunities without discrimination that is contrary to law, and having as its aim the creation of a climate of understanding and mutual respect for the dignity and worth of each person so that each person feels a part of a community and able to contribute fully to the development and wellbeing of the community and the province;
"And whereas these principles have been confirmed in Ontario by a number of enactments of the Legislature and it is desirable to revise and extend the protection of human rights in
Ontario...."
This was signed by the Premier, the Minister of Labour and the chairman of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
I want to quote section 4(1), which says: "Every person has a right to equal treatment with respect to employment without discrimination because of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, age, record of offences, marital status, family status or handicap." That quotation says everyone has a right to equal treatment with respect to employment. I would assume the benefits that flow out of that employment are part and parcel of that clause.
For the last month and a half, we in the Legislature have stood in our places during the orders of the day and each one of us has presented a petition which says:
"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."
All of us have heard that petition being read many times in this Legislature, but it seems to me not a lot of the members hear what it is all about and what it means. It says women in Ontario earn only 60 per cent of the wages of men.
The Human Rights Code says discrimination in employment is not allowed in Ontario. Neither is discrimination in wages. How could that be true when we hear that women get paid 60 per cent -- or 64 per cent I hear it is now -- of the wages of men? It is a basic injustice that has to be rectified.
Whether we as parliamentarians in this place are going to take the bull by the horns and do it now, or whether it is going to be done in a year from now or 10 years from now, we can rest assured that this discrimination is going to end. It must end. There is no way, in a society such as ours, these kinds of injustices are going to be tolerated for a long period of time. We no longer will return to the 1800s in this province; we are in 1984.
A lot of women and a lot of men are beginning to open their eyes and see those injustices that occur in Ontario in 1984. Therefore, the pressure comes upon this government, upon this parliament, to bring in basic changes to get rid of those injustices.
The Deputy Chairman: This is the moment for the member to break.
On motion by Hon. Mr. Gregory, the committee of the whole House reported one bill with a certain amendment and progress on another bill.
The House adjourned at 10:31 p.m.