Journal des débats 1984-nov-20 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I am sure that you and my colleagues in the House will want to join me in congratulating the member for York South (Mr. Rae) on the arrival of his third child, Eleanor Grace, some time yesterday afternoon.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, we are very much in favour of that kind of activity. I would like to add our note of congratulations, and as much as we dislike seeing another socialist born, we are very happy in this particular instance for the leader of the New Democratic Party. I know what a great joy she will add to the already happy household.

If he needs any advice on how to raise his offspring, I will be happy to volunteer at any time. I hope that this new child will follow the political leadership of her uncle John as opposed to that of her father and that she will find the true way.

Mr. Speaker: Is the member for York South going to distribute cigars?

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, baby Eleanor was born at precisely two o'clock yesterday afternoon, just as the House was convening. I thought that was an appropriate omen of some kind. Mother and daughter are doing well, and father is surviving well too. I thank the members for their good wishes.

I do have some cigars. In fact, I will give one to the Speaker as long as he promises to recognize me today. I have one for the leader of the Liberal Party. I was going to provide one for every member of his caucus, but I was not sure how many there would be; so I just have the one here.

I have a very nice letter from the Premier (Mr. Davis). I might say that even in congratulations he is convoluted, but I do want to thank him very kindly for the congratulations. I know he is unable to be here today for reasons that I am sure he will explain at some point. He says, "Please tell Arlene how happy we both were to hear the good news, and I will, of course, look forward to receiving a cigar in due course."

I want the Premier to know that I have his cigar here, and perhaps I could give it to one of his illustrious would-be successors. I was going to say I would give it to him the next time he comes into the House, but the problem with that is that it will be too dry to smoke if we wait that long. So I will give it to the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. F. S. Miller). I know he sees the Premier regularly, obviously consulting on matters of policy. I hope he will pass it along to the Premier and not smoke it himself.

[Later]

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the leader of the New Democratic Party for a cigar made in number one factory, or is it factory number one grade? I have never had a first cigar before; I have always had to buy seconds, so I appreciate the quality of this one.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: It smells good. The Premier will never see it; I will admit it now that I have it.

VISITOR

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio) is complaining about not getting a cigar, but before I give him one, I wonder if I could introduce to the House, with the permission of all members, a very distinguished former member of this Legislature who is now a member of the House of Commons. I am referring, of course, to Mr. Iain Angus, the member of Parliament for Thunder Bay-Atikokan.

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, on a point of personal privilege: The leader of the New Democratic Party offered one cigar to our caucus and, in true socialist form, decided we would all take a puff from it.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, before beginning my statement I would like to add my congratulations to the leader of the third party on his third child. I hope he will convey to his wife our best wishes from this side of the House.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

CONDOMINIUM CO-OPERATIVE ASSESSMENTS

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, today I would like to make an announcement regarding the assessment of condominium and co-operative housing units.

As honourable members know, the subject of condominium and co-operative property assessment has been a contentious issue. This could not have been effectively resolved until clarification was received from a comprehensive judicial review. That review has culminated in a decision of the Divisional Court in Peel Condominium Number 57 et al versus the regional assessment commissioner for Halton-Peel.

In response to this decision of the Divisional Court, property assessors throughout Ontario are now making adjustments to the assessments of condominium and co-operative units. These adjusted assessments will ensure that condominiums and co-operatives are assessed at the same general level of assessment to 1984 market value as that of owner-occupied residential properties.

These adjusted condominium and co-operative assessments will be reflected in all 1984 assessment rolls. In this regard, every condominium and co-operative unit owner will receive a notice of assessment even though some assessments may remain unchanged as a result of the adjustment process. Accompanying each mailed notice will be an information insert that describes the reasons for the assessment adjustment together with the location, dates and times of open-house information sessions held to answer any assessment-related questions.

In this way my ministry will have fully complied with the instructions of the Divisional Court and will have brought the assessments of condominium and co-operative units in line with those of owner-occupied residential properties.

2:10 p.m.

ENTERPRISE GROWTH FUND

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, in his budget of May 15 my colleague the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) announced the creation of the $10-million, three-year enterprise growth fund under the auspices of the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development. This fund was established to support three initiatives: (1) enterprise centres, (2) innovation centres and (3) corporate spinoffs.

On behalf of BILD, I am pleased to announce today the implementation of all three programs. BILD has approved three specific enterprise centre sites proposed by two very distinct groups. A private sector firm, The Innovation and Entrepreneurial Management Corp., known as TIEM, intends to establish two centres, one in Scarborough and one in St. Catharines. These will provide management advice and pre-startup services critical to the success of a new business.

The third enterprise centre will be established under the auspices of Confederation College in Thunder Bay. This centre will work on an extension basis and will deliver expert advice and counsel to small businesses in the communities of northwestern Ontario.

BILD is prepared to support up to seven enterprise centres on a cost-shared basis over three years. We expect these centres will demonstrate immediate and substantial benefit to small businesses, a commitment to professional management, a responsiveness to local conditions and active community involvement.

We are now examining a number of other proposals and understand several municipalities in Ontario are considering the sponsorship of additional centres.

We have completed the research and consultative process on our second initiative, which will lead us to the launching of as many as 10 innovation centres across Ontario. The innovation centre concept has become a popular tool in assisting universities and colleges to link the marketplace with the academic community.

It is our intent that the focus of such centres in Ontario will be on the commercialization of products, processes and services, while allowing the maximum flexibility for post-secondary institutions and the private sector to develop projects that are commercially successful and meet the long-term strategic needs of industry.

The innovation centres will provide business counselling to students and faculty using such techniques as business planning, prospectus preparation, brokerage between the client and private sector and marketing assistance. Innovation centres will be established on a cost-shared basis, with my ministry providing up to $300,000 per centre for three years.

The third initiative under the enterprise growth fund concerns corporate spinoffs. The increasing competitiveness of the world economy in recent years has had a heavy impact on Ontario's traditional large and middle-sized employers. In their efforts to adapt, many of these firms have undertaken significant plant and product rationalizations, including divestitures. Fortunately, at the same time, an increasing number of individuals are showing an interest in entrepreneurship as a career option. This growth is reflected in the rising number of small business registrations, up to 45,000 in Ontario alone this year.

These twin trends present us with an opportunity to help ease the transition for larger firms while simultaneously encouraging creative entrepreneurial activity. Our initiative will provide up to 50 per cent of the cost, to a maximum of $15,000, of preparing business proposals for viable corporate spinoffs.

In a typical case, an evaluation would be made of the potential for spinning off some in-house activity from a large firm to a new business operated by current employees or to another local firm. The plan would address the proposed venture's prospects for success and the negotiation and securing of financing from the private sector. The divesting firm will be expected to provide support, which might include direct investment, a mortgage, plant space, equipment, technical know-how, support services or sales guarantees.

This program is intended to run for three years with an estimated budget annually of $500,000 from the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development. It will be administered by my ministry, whose 18 field offices throughout the province will be the primary point of contact for assistance.

Clearly, these new programs will help serve the pressing needs of three distinct classes of business: the entrepreneur seeking to organize a new business; the commercialization of post-secondary research and development; and the establishment of new business by employees interested in corporate spinoffs. Since most employment growth in the province is occurring in the small business sector, I expect the end result of these new programs will be more jobs in the province.

AGREEMENT FOR TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

Hon. Mr. Baetz: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that earlier today I took part in the signing of the new Canada-Ontario subsidiary agreement for tourism development. Also signing the agreement were my colleagues the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman), the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) and the Honourable Tom McMillan, federal Minister of State for Tourism.

The new, $44-million program will be split 50:50 by the provincial and the federal governments and will apply to all regions of Ontario except Metro Toronto. This is the first federal-provincial development agreement drafted exclusively for tourism in Ontario. Through this agreement, substantial assistance will flow to the provincial tourism industry over the next five years.

This agreement is an important step in solidifying federal-provincial relations in the tourism sector. As a result of this co-operation, the tourism industry in Ontario stands to benefit substantially.

The major priority of the new program will be the establishment of new and the development of existing major year-round destination resorts and attractions. Projects that attract Americans and other visitors will receive particular attention. This segment of the program will account for $38 million of the $44 million available. The remaining $6 million will be allocated for planning and feasibility studies, marketing and visitor services. The funds will be made available through repayable and nonrepayable assistance.

People today take trips to see and do things, to enjoy new experiences and to be entertained. It is the resort and the attraction sectors that increasingly motivate travel, and this fact has been recognized in today's announcement.

As I have stated, this agreement will have a positive effect on larger tourist operations. It is therefore relevant and timely to note some of the provincially funded assistance programs available to the smaller operators who are not beneficiaries of today's signing. For example, in the next few weeks I will be discussing with the Treasurer an extension to the tourist redevelopment incentive program, commonly known by the acronym TRIP, as well as the grading assistance program. The tourism term loan program will also remain in place.

In addition to and in conjunction with the Ontario Development Corp., we are developing a means whereby incentive loans will be made available to help smaller operators meet the recent changes in provincial fire safety regulations. This money will be available for the purchase of fire safety equipment to ensure operators will be able to meet the new requirements.

While today's notice focuses on the larger tourism establishments, I would like our partners from the industry to realize we are aware of the needs of smaller operators who comprise such a large and important sector of Ontario's tourism industry. Key representatives of Ontario's tourism industry were also present at the signing this morning. I felt the following announcement would be of interest to the accommodation sector, especially hotel and motel operators.

ACCOMMODATION TAX REBATE

Hon. Mr. Baetz: Mr. Speaker, as a result of representations by the industry and after extensive consultation with my cabinet colleagues, particularly the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) and the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Gregory), I am pleased to announce that the accommodation sales tax rebate program scheduled to end in December 1984 will be extended to the end of 1985. Through this program, out-of-province visitors may apply for a refund of the five per cent retail sales tax paid on accommodation while in Ontario.

The accommodation sales tax rebate was introduced in the last budget. Although not every out-of-province visitor takes advantage of the rebate on every visit, it has proved beneficial to a substantial number of tourist organizations and especially in attracting conventions and meetings to this province.

The tourism subagreement, the extension of the tax rebate and other initiatives of my ministry, both current and planned, will generate significant new income and employment opportunities in the tourism industry in Ontario. Further, and also important, they are a major step in forging new partnerships between federal and provincial governments and between the private and public sectors.

ORAL QUESTIONS

ADHERENCE TO MANUAL OF ADMINISTRATION

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Chairman of Management Board. I note he released a letter yesterday, dated November 6, from McCarthy and McCarthy under the hand of one John J. Robinette with respect to the Public Service Act concerning Mr. Parsons.

Why did the minister choose to release only the one letter and not his earlier letter? He is aware that Mr. Robinette's letter to Archie Campbell, the Deputy Attorney General, quotes Mr. Justice Labrosse as saying, "Public confidence in the civil service requires its political neutrality and impartial service to whatever political party is in power." Why did the minister choose not to release both letters?

2:20 p.m.

Hon. Mr. McCague: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson) is right. I was not aware of that letter.

Mr. Peterson: How could the minister not be aware of that letter when it was addressed to his colleague? A great deal of public funds have been expended obtaining these legal opinions. The two letters differ a little bit in tone. In the first, there is a very strong condemnation of any lack of impartiality in the public service. Does the minister feel he was misled by his colleague who did not give him all the facts in that instance?

Hon. Mr. McCague: No, I am sorry to report to the Leader of the Opposition that I do not get copies of all the correspondence my colleagues on this side get.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about the double standard that is going on here. There are literally thousands of part-time employees in the government who for years have been working under the assumption that political activity was being denied to them, the same way it was denied to every member who is covered by legislation for full-time public servants.

There is real resentment at the double standard existing in Ontario today. There is one standard for senior employees of the crown who happen to be Tories. In the case of Mr. Parsons, he happens to be the membership secretary of the Mississauga South riding association in addition to his other activities.

Does the minister not realize this places every other employee at a significant and systematic disadvantage in his or her political choice? Why does the minister not free up the standards as they apply to everybody? Why does he do so only in the case of a select few who happen to be Tories, senior employees or part-timers who are involved in this leadership campaign?

Hon. Mr. McCague: Mr. Speaker, while the member did conveniently work a bit of a question in there, I would say that was more of a statement. I do not say the rule should not be reviewed from time to time. That can be done. I will take the statement the member has just made under consideration.

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, did I hear the minister who is responsible for the public service say moments ago he has not yet seen this three-page letter from Js. J. Robinette, dated October 19? That letter deals at length with a very critical and timely question under his ministerial responsibility. In it, Mr. Robinette points out strongly that it would be specious and unreasonable for anyone in government to argue that a crown employee or a public servant could actively involve himself or herself in partisan politics while continuing in the public service.

Mr. Speaker: Question please.

Mr. Conway: Surely the minister responsible for the public service has seen this three-page letter in which Mr. Robinette argues that very strong and compelling case?

Hon. Mr. McCague: Mr. Speaker, as I recall, I have not seen that letter. I said I would ask the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) to obtain for me an opinion on the matter at hand. That was regarding Mr. Parsons. I have a copy of that letter and I will be glad to look at the one the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) has and study it.

HYDRO REVIEW

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Energy. The minister will be aware that three of the contenders for the throne have now become Hydro-bashers. They are very critical of the way Ontario Hydro is being run at the moment.

The Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) has said Ontario Hydro needs a review. The Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) has said Ontario Hydro is not truly accountable, and I gather he favours the select committee on Ontario Hydro affairs now following a policy we have talked about for some years. The Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) is talking about giving more teeth to the Ontario Energy Board to bring Hydro under control.

Which route is the Minister of Energy going to choose to bring Hydro under control?

Hon. Mr. Andrewes: Mr. Speaker, the policies of the government as they relate to Hydro will be discussed by my colleagues in cabinet and I will act at their direction.

I suggest to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson) that if he wants opinions, perhaps he should ask the relevant members.

Mr. Peterson: Is it not clear to the minister that these gentlemen out travelling the province, listening with their ears close to the ground, are now very much aware that the public feeling is there are tremendous problems at Ontario Hydro, that Hydro is out of control and people are searching for new methods of accountability for that institution? Surely the minister is aware of that. He has heard their remarks on the subject. They have finally come around. They finally had their conversions on the way to Exhibition Place.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: Is the minister not persuaded now, as the minister responsible for Ontario Hydro, that indeed we do have to look at new ways to bring Hydro into some form of accountability? Is he persuaded that is necessary or is he going to go along blithely defending the past? Is he, as the minister, going to do something now?

He has been berated by the opposition for a long time, for years. Now his own colleagues are critical of the same things we have been critical of. What is he going to do, as the appropriate minister, to bring Ontario Hydro under control? Is he going to do it now or is he going to let whoever wins the leadership do it?

Hon. Mr. Andrewes: I am not here to defend the past. I have never in this House suggested that we are not prepared to take approaches towards offering information and offering opportunities for the members of the opposition to review the activities of Ontario Hydro.

I have been in my place in this House every day since October, unlike many other members. I am prepared to be accountable on behalf of the government for the activities of Ontario Hydro. I am prepared to be accountable through the estimates process, which we have just completed. I am prepared to be accountable through the public accounts committee, which spent four days this summer considering the activities of Ontario Hydro. It was scheduled for seven days but had to adjourn after four days because it ran out of material to work with.

I am prepared to be accountable through the various means by which the government has established, and will review and continue to establish, the activities of Ontario Hydro. I am not prepared to be accountable for statements made by my colleagues outside this Legislature.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, does the minister realize that the statements made by his colleagues who are running for the leadership of the Conservative Party reflect a reality in Ontario? As he knows, Ontario Hydro, from now until the year 2000, will be needing $60 billion, but at this time there is no mechanism to control the decisions that are made by Hydro and for which this government is theoretically responsible.

Here are the questions I want to ask the minister, and I want him to answer directly and not try to fudge the issue: (1) Is he in agreement with resuming the select committee on Ontario Hydro affairs? (2) Is he in agreement with his colleagues that the rate setting now is a sham and there should be more responsibility on the part of the Ontario Energy Board? (3) Can he tell the House how the government can pursue its goals of encouraging alternative sources and renewable energy when, in his budget for the current year, these are the two items he has cut dramatically in the last few weeks?

Hon. Mr. Andrewes: Mr. Speaker, I think the member clearly understands we had a reasonable discussion on these points in the estimates process. The rate-setting procedures, as they are in place today, require the Ontario Hydro board, which is responsible for the financial integrity of that organization and responsible for the future borrowings --

2:30 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will those people who are holding private meetings please resume their seats. They are the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow), the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Brandt), the government House leader (Mr. Wells), and the member for Lambton (Mr. Henderson).

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Andrewes: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the issue has not attracted the full attention of my colleagues. I apologize on their behalf.

To complete my answer, I would only remind the honourable member that the Ontario Energy Board does review the rate proposals of Ontario Hydro and does make recommendations. If he will check the track record during the past decade, on two occasions Ontario Hydro did not accept the recommendations of the energy board and set a rate somewhat higher. On eight occasions it set a rate at least equal to the recommendations of the energy board, except in two cases where it set a rate lower than that recommended by the Ontario Energy Board.

Mr. Peterson: The minister and the energy board have no control over rates, which is increasingly a major issue in this province.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: His colleagues are now joining the chorus of criticism that is coming from across this province that there is no effective control on Ontario Hydro. Bill Wilder said Hydro's borrowing could add to the reduction of the province's triple-A credit rating or the moderating down of that credit rating; the Treasurer has found that out, much to his chagrin. The president of Kidd Creek Mines said the rates would have disastrous long-term effects. The Association of Major Power Consumers in Ontario is predicting job losses. The list goes on, of people screaming for some kind of accountability and efficient management.

Is it now the minister's position that it is all efficiently managed, that the system is quite fine as it is in place now and that he does not need any further accountability? Is the minister standing up and saying his colleagues are wrong and that he is going to resist any kind of method to bring more accountability? Is that his position?

Hon. Mr. Andrewes: I think the Leader of the Opposition is at some peril in quoting Mr. Wilder. Mr. Wilder, of course, is the president of Hiram Walker Resources, which has some vested interest in selling natural gas in this province in opposition to Ontario Hydro, so I think he might perhaps want to be a bit careful.

As I said at the outset, I am prepared to be here and to be accountable for the activities of Ontario Hydro on a daily basis. Concerning the opinion of the government and how we approach accountability, the member knows what the system is, how we utilize it and how we approach changing it. I am quite open to having that kind of discussion and I will act at the direction of the government when that decision is made.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Premier about a question in which I personally have an ever increasing stake. That, of course, is the question of affirmative action.

I am sure the Deputy Premier is aware that recent investigations, both by our party and by the Toronto Star, have shown that the affirmative action program he described, I think in his estimates, as the flagship of his directorate is nothing short of a hoax in what it has produced and who is involved.

Can the Deputy Premier confirm that, of the 39 companies that have declared they are part of this great program of the government, only nine are private employers that come under provincial jurisdiction? Is he aware of that fact, and can he tell us why the government continues to refuse to release the names of the companies that are involved in this program overall? Why does he refuse to tell us exactly what these companies are doing? Why does he refuse to make those two points of policy perfectly clear and a matter for public debate?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, in apologizing for being late for the opening exercises, may I add my congratulations to others that have been extended to the leader of the third party on the birth of his daughter. I can understand his particular interest in affirmative action; as a recent grandfather of a granddaughter, I would join with him to make sure we do make some progress in this matter.

In view of this personal matter, it is understandable the leader of the third party was not here yesterday to hear every word I was saying in the estimates. The place was really jammed. As I recall, there were only one or two vacancies yesterday afternoon.

As we talked about affirmative action, I pointed out it was far from being a hoax. In all fairness, I do not suggest for a moment our records are necessarily up to date with respect to what is going on in the so-called private sector. Yesterday in my estimates I said I felt Jackie Smith's article in yesterday's Toronto Star provided a great service by giving some focus for this.

We have reason to believe that some time this afternoon Judge Abella's report on this subject will be made public as we have the results of those public hearings with respect to affirmative action in federal crown agencies and federally incorporated companies.

If the member for York South (Mr. Rae) had had the opportunity to review it, he would have heard that as far as our records are concerned we are talking about 258 major employers in this province outside the Ontario public service. If memory serves me correctly, of that list there were 218 that were what we call truly private sector employers.

I pointed out to the member some time ago that in order to gain that information there were certain undertakings made with respect to confidentiality. About 30 of the 218 -- although members should not hold me to that number -- allowed us to indicate they had used the consultative service of government and were on our list.

The employers that happen to be on our public disclosure list have really simply indicated they were prepared to share specific measures they had undertaken to improve the status of women. That is how they got on the list. I point out again, as I did yesterday, that the directorate has never made claims that all had rigidly defined programs with numerical goals and timetables.

After an entire summer of meeting with presidents and chief executive officers, I am quite satisfied our records are quite incomplete. There is far more going on out in the community than that of which we have knowledge. We want to do something about that through trade organizations. I am not here to be an apologist for these companies. I think it is for them to defend themselves.

Mr. Rae: The problem is not that there is more going on; the problem is that there is less going on than the government is claiming.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: I have heard the minister. He has stood here in this House time and again and said this is his flagship program. I can tell the minister the flagship is sinking fast.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the honourable member please place his question.

Mr. Rae: How is it possible the city of Cornwall would be on this list when it says it is only exploring the possibility of having a program? How is it possible that Xerox would be on his list when it says: "We have only a bit of a program. We do not want to talk about it publicly"?

How would it be possible that IBM would be on his list when it admits it does not have a formal equal opportunity program because it already promotes on merit and that is what counts? It says, "The government probably put IBM on its list because it felt the company's practices constitute a program." What is this program? Why is it such a state secret?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I completely understand, and most reasonable people understand, what positive affirmative action is. In its interpretation or implementation, it may vary from company to company. I would remind the member and bring him back to the fact that for 10 years the Ontario government as an employer has set the example in this province with respect to affirmative action.

I invite the member to show me any other political jurisdiction on this continent that can match the Ontario government's record now. Against that background we have been dealing with the private sector through our consultative service.

I would repeat that the employers on our public disclosure list have indicated they were prepared to share some specific measures dealing with the equality of women. The people who were in to see me were not necessarily satisfied with their own progress.

I think our program of affirmative action is something of which we should be proud and I would hope the member would join with other members of the Legislature in giving credit to the progress we have made in the Ontario public service.

2:40 p.m.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, as estimates proceeded yesterday I became more and more aware -- and I think my colleagues who jammed this Legislature did as well -- that what we are playing here is some kind of numerical shell game. I want to ask the minister two specific questions about the famous 258.

How many of the 258 firms that he claims have some kind of affirmative action program have an ongoing affirmative program today? Second, how can he claim that 11 school boards that have not yet committed themselves to an affirmative action program are on the list of 258? He gave us that number yesterday. Is that not just so much exaggeration to puff up the numbers?

Hon. Mr. Welch: No. I think in all fairness we are not attempting to puff up anything. I am quite in agreement with the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) and the member for York South that there is a lot of work yet to be done.

I stand here accountable for the work of the Ontario public service and I am very proud, and I hope the member is proud, of the progress we have made in this area. We say to other public agencies in this province: "Match us. Let us get busy because the public expects you, spending public money, to translate and implement public policy in this regard." We say to the private sector, "Let us get busy showing some evidence of this as well."

We have these particular numbers. I am satisfied they do not reflect the true picture of what is going on at all.

Mr. Rae: We have finally had an admission from the government that its flagship program is not describing the situation that exists. If this is their flagship, then the rest of the fleet must be the Titanic, because this program is nothing short of a complete and utter hoax.

Mr. Speaker: Question please.

Mr. Rae: We do not know who the companies are or what they are doing. When we ask them, they say they are not doing what the minister says they are doing.

Is it not true that only nine private companies are now prepared to say they are involved in the program? Of those nine, the ones that have been cross-examined, the ones we have challenged, a great many of them, are admitting they do not have an affirmative action program or anything approaching it by name, they are on the list simply because somebody from the minister's office may have phoned them once and they continued to talk to them and did not hang up.

Is that not in fact the definition of the so-called program?

Hon. Mr. Welch: The answer to that question is no. To be fair, the member has to have a clear definition of what he is talking about as far as affirmative action is concerned.

I told him three times already how people get on our list and the number who have allowed public disclosure. Indeed, I have made it quite clear to the private sector when they are coming in. I do not stand here as their apologist. They have to stand on their own feet and respond to the questions the member has directed to them. That is the service Jackie Smith and others provide by naming them.

I can give reasons to the member of how the city of Cornwall or how IBM or others got on the list. It is quite clear how they got on the list. Indeed, there is a lot more to be done. It is obvious we do not have complete information with respect to the private sector. We should also take some encouragement from the fact that as employers we are setting a very positive example of affirmative action and we have to make sure that is translated in some meaningful way as far as other major employers are concerned.

MEDICAL TRANSPORTATION

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, this is another question in the series inspired by those leadership candidates who have suddenly got religion. I have a question of the Minister of Health, who has not suddenly got religion at all from what I can determine, certainly not of the leadership kind.

The minister's colleague the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) has been all over northern Ontario preaching the gospel about northern health care and the need to subsidize northern transportation costs. The candidate for whom the minister is one of the leading acolytes, his colleague the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell), has even gone on record as saying he is now prepared to look at the costs, has gone out on a limb in the city of Thunder Bay and has said it is certainly something that should be studied, which, in the case of that minister, is practically a revolutionary declaration.

As the minister responsible for delivering on all the promises these gentlemen are making across the province, is the position of the Minister of Health still the same as he declared in the famous interview with Sam Bornstein on May 23, 1984, where he said, "I think if one looks at the priorities across the health care system, there are much higher priorities than that"?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, the short answer is yes, that is still my position. However, I think if the member's colleague from Thunder Bay had briefed him on the discussion we had in estimates, he might have understood a little more fully what my position was on this issue.

I stand, as I did before, opposed to the expenditure of $50 million or $70 million of health dollars on transportation costs at the expense of an expansion of services to communities and residents of northern Ontario. I do not subscribe to the colonial mentality that is reflected in the policy of the member's party. The people of northern Ontario are entitled to services provided in their communities. I have indicated in discussions with the member's colleague that I am not opposed to looking at ways to address that where there may be evidence of a barrier to access as a result of the cost of transportation.

I am not going to allow my position vis-ä-vis any leadership candidate in this party to colour my views on that subject. I have confidence in my colleague the Treasurer. I am sure he would not make statements such as he apparently is reported to have made. I do not know the details of his position. I have confidence that he would not make such statements without having --

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Mr. Rae: Let me ask the minister this question. Half of his cabinet colleagues voted for the resolution that came from my colleague from Thunder Bay. The Treasurer was in the north last week and was quoted thus: "While campaigning for the Progressive Conservative leadership yesterday, Grossman said northerners should not have to shoulder the burden of expensive travel and accommodation costs when getting medical treatment in Toronto." Is the minister saying his colleague the Treasurer suffers from a colonial mentality?

Hon. Mr. Norton: In many instances, the citizens of northern Ontario do not have to bear the costs of expensive travel. As members know, we already have in place probably the most extensive air ambulance service of any jurisdiction in this country and perhaps the world. There are precedents for provision of some subsidies for other transportation costs as well.

My position is the correct one, and it is not entirely inconsistent with that of my colleague. The resolution of the member's colleague is not necessarily what may be proposed by my colleagues on this side. His colleague's resolution was very specific in relating to travel of over 200 miles under a universal program. That would be entirely too costly; that is my position. It is quite possible there could be something less than a universal subsidized program for all travel over 200 miles, which would have to apply to southern Ontario as well and which would meet the concerns that have been expressed.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, in his response the minister referred to the recent estimates debates. I would remind him that during those debates his own director of emergency services made it very clear to us that the sparsity of the population in northern Ontario and the wide distances that have to be traversed made it absolutely mandatory that there be transportation services that simply would not be necessary in the south.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Sweeney: Would the minister not agree that using the term "colonial mentality" when referring to the opposition benches is inappropriate? We need to recognize that the provision of health services in northern Ontario has to be done in an essentially different way from the way it is done in the south.

2:50 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, I recognize there are distinctions to be made for geographic reasons and for reasons relating to concentrations of population. If the member recalls the context of the discussion he referred to, it related to specific areas of expertise that could only be provided on a regional basis -- bone marrow transplants are just one example of a number of things -- wherever one lives in the province. In some instances, those services could only be provided in one place because of the high degree of specialization in the training of the personnel required. I do not suggest anything to the contrary.

In terms of recognizing the differences geographically and the need for specialized transportation, this government has already done that in that the air ambulance services from the north are not available in all parts of the south.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, in regard to this great and wonderful system he talks about, is the minister not aware that when people need to have transportation to the south, ordered by a doctor, they have to pay their own fare down here? They can submit an appeal, which is automatically rejected, and then they have to take it to a health board appeal. People who need the money do without the service because they cannot wait for the government to determine whether they are going to have coverage to come down here. What are they supposed to do -- die first?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, a balanced review of the facts would point out that what the member says is not universally the case. There might be some specific cases of which the member is aware, in which case I ask him to bring them to my attention somewhere other than on the floor of the House. He knows he has ready access to my office. He uses it all the time through correspondence and otherwise. I will be glad to look into any case of hardship he raises.

The point is, if it is a matter of life and death, it is presumably an emergency situation and the person will be eligible for transportation on the air ambulance system. If it is a matter of continual need for transportation for treatment of cancer, for example, we do cover that cost through the subsidies we provide through the cancer foundation. There may be some other specific cases of hardship of which the member is aware which are not simply a matter of choice on the part of the patient. If the member brings those matters forward, we will try to address them.

CAMPSITE DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Reed: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Natural Resources. It is a question of growing concern over the direction the ministry's policy concerning campsites in provincial parks is taking.

For the minister's information, I would like to quote from a speech made by his deputy minister in which he says, "and in future we intend to de-emphasize campsite development not only in future parks but also in parks now in the system." Considering that campsite development at present is at about the 1975 level, are we witnessing the end of campsites in provincial parks?

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

Mr. Reed: I wonder if the minister would then explain that statement made by his deputy minister and confirm to us there is no hidden agenda to reduce these and that the minister will go on and develop additional campsites in new provincial parks as they are created.

Hon. Mr. Pope: I think the member is aware of the land use planning process over the past two and a half years that resulted in the commitment by the ministry and this government to create new provincial parks in our system. He is aware of the classification system of the provincial parks. Some are of low-intensity utilization related to wilderness and natural reserves. Others have a higher degree of use by our fellow citizens and visitors; they are recreational class and historical class parks. In each one, in each area of the province, we analyse the needs for overnight camping facilities and day use facilities. There are two different markets we are attempting to reach.

With regard to overnight facilities, we determine whether campsites are needed in the park, based on private campgrounds located in surrounding areas immediately adjacent to the parks and the state of those businesses. We look at any other park facilities that already have campgrounds in the same area that are underutilized.

Based on those decisions, we make an assessment of whether we need to spend the kind of money that must be spent on these overnight camping facilities, including hookups for trailers, pavement of parking areas and pavement of access roads. In making all those decisions, we want to balance the outdoor recreation experience we are trying to promote among Ontario residents and visitors with the need to protect and preserve the quality of the natural environment that is represented within the confines of those park boundaries.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I wonder why, during the entire land use planning process, the whole question of the privatization of parks was never put forth as an option. Is it because the ministry had done its polls, which showed there was no support and that, as a matter of fact, there was antagonism towards the whole idea of the privatization of parks?

When the minister does conduct an open process, as he calls it, why does he not lay before the people in an honest way the kinds of options he is really considering? Why does this bunker mentality persist within the Ministry of Natural Resources, particularly when it involves an issue he knows the public does not support? Why did he not lay before the Ontario public what he was really considering on the whole question of the privatization of parks?

Hon. Mr. Pope: If we had followed public opinion in the poll, to which the member has access, then he would have accused us of being led by public opinion polls. Those guys over there want to have it both ways on these issues. That is typical.

This decision, as he knows, was made in 1978. It was well known. It was controversial when we started with Craigleith and, as he knows, since 1979 it has been the subject of public discussion. So enough of this nonsense about secrecy. He does not know what he is talking about over there.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: Surely it is unparliamentary for a minister of the crown to accuse a New Democrat of not knowing what he is talking about.

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, just on that point, if I may?

Mr. Speaker: What point was that?

Mr. Conway: On the point made by my friend the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren). I think this parliament would be well served if the Minister of Natural Resources would not attack the member for Nickel Belt as though he were the member for Kenora and the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier).

ONTARIO LOTTERY CORP

Mr. Swan: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Tourism and Recreation and it concerns the Ontario Lottery Corp.

Is the minister aware of an unincorporated company based in Streetsville by the name of Financial Freedom Group, which markets Lotto 6/49 tickets in the United States as far away as Denver, Colorado? If so, will he confirm they sell those tickets for US$2, or about C$2.65, without ever mentioning in their direct mail literature that the price here is $1?

Will the minister also tell the House how the postal law in the United States is circumvented, a law that bans the transmission by mail of tickets or orders for tickets on any foreign lotteries?

Is the minister part of that scam? Will he tell us if the company is an agent or vendor for the Ontario Lottery Corp.? If not, where does it get its tickets? Does the minister not think this kind of operation brings into question his integrity and that of the Ontario Lottery Corp.?

Mr. Speaker: I think that was a four-part question. You may take any one of the four parts.

3 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Baetz: Mr. Speaker, to begin with, I would like to say the member for Welland-Thorold could get those answers from the Ontario Lottery Corp. directly and fully if he did not disguise his voice. Every time he phones the lottery corporation, he is talking through a hat.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Baetz: He does, he does. He talks through his hat or through his sock. Why does he not tell them who he is?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: When I phone the Ontario Lottery Corp., I identify myself. I am not ashamed of my questions.

I did not receive an answer to my first question. Perhaps the minister does not have any. I hope he will look into this matter. While he is doing that, will he also note that the Financial Freedom Group sells Wintario tickets in the United States for US$1.50; that is C$2. I guess that company has found out how to get more bucks for a bang.

Does the minister know the company's promotional material -- which I will send to him now so he will know something about it -- indicates winners in the United States do not have to pay taxes on their winnings? Such winnings in the United States are taxable when they come from outside the country.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Swart: Will the minister consult with the federal authorities on whether this is misleading advertising? Second, will he introduce legislation to make it illegal for provincial or interprovincial tickets to be resold above the original price?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Baetz: A simple answer is that the Ontario Lottery Corp. does not condone this kind of activity of sales in the United States. The Ontario Lottery Corp. does a fine business right in this province and does not have to stimulate sales of tickets in the United States.

Furthermore, the Ontario Lottery Corp. is aware this has been going on. It is trying to get to the bottom of it. The board of directors is trying to see what it can do to stop it. The member for Welland-Thorold knows it is not a very simple thing to try to stop this practice; but the lottery corporation (a) does not condone the practice and (b) certainly will take every step it can to stop it. We do not believe in breaking American law. This is not breaking the Canadian law, it is breaking American law; but we do not condone it and we will try to do what we can about it.

Mr. Eakins: Mr. Speaker, since the question under discussion is about lotteries, how does the minister view the statement by his friend in Ottawa, Mr. Jelinek, that the sale of lottery tickets is really immoral and a tax on the poor? How does he see that?

Mr. Speaker: That is hardly a supplementary.

Mr. Conway: Otto Jelinek has accused the minister of indulging in an immoral act.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Since when does the Speaker have the right to censor the value of questions?

Mr. Speaker: I have a lot of discretion in this House that you may not even be aware of.

Mr. Sargent: That was a hell of a good question. Why did the Speaker not let him answer?

Mr. Speaker: Will the member please sit down?

RONDEAU PARK

Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Natural Resources.

On October 23, when I asked the minister about the Rondeau Provincial Park leaseholders and his intentions of fair compensation, he said he had no knowledge of any cottages being bought by the ministry. Is he aware there is a suit in the process of being brought by Rev. Donald Suter? The transcript of the cross-examination of John Robert Morton, supervisor of the public land section, has him testifying that the Ministry of Natural Resources bought one cottage each in 1981, 1982 and 1983. Is the minister aware of that?

Hon. Mr. Pope: Mr. Speaker, I am aware that in 1962 the then Department of Lands and Forests announced an initiative for a land acquisition program focusing on parks and indicated the government had some intention of acquiring outstanding leasehold interests situated within the parks, that the average cost per leasehold interest acquired was $10,000 while the leases were outstanding, that 141 cottage leases were acquired between 1964 and 1982, and only two cottage leases have been acquired since 1977. I am aware of those facts.

Mr. McGuigan: I do not see how that changes the case of the people who are facing the loss of their leases today. In view of these recent three purchases, does the minister not think it would be sensible and fair for the government to announce a reasonable cash settlement for these people, balancing all the pluses and minuses, such as the facts that they have enjoyed cheap leases over the time, that they have made a positive contribution to the economy of the park and the negative impact of the forced move?

Given the poor legal advice the minister seems to be receiving in recent days, does he not think it would be reasonable to make an equitable settlement with these people and not face this series of lawsuits?

Hon. Mr. Pope: The fact of the matter is that of course I am sensitive to their point of view with respect to this. They were aware of the terms of the lease document when they signed it. They were aware of the terms when they renewed it. They were aware of the government offer in 1977, which they rejected. They are aware of fellow leaseholders, not only in this park but also in many other parks across the province, who did not get the kind of offer the honourable member is asking me to give now. What about all those people who might have some retroactive rights? What about the people who have land use permits on a year-to-year basis? Every time one of those is cancelled, would we give compensation for the value of anything they may have placed upon the land, knowing it is a one-year right?

These are all basic issues that involve a lot of money for the government to consider before it changes its basic policy.

CAMPING FEE

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Why, at a meeting that was held on Tuesday, October 30, did he leave the Ontario Private Campground Association with the impression that he will bring into effect by January 1, 1985, a fee or a tax on campers of $10 a month? How did they get that impression?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I met with the Ontario Private Campground Association, along with some of their associate members, to discuss the potential of bringing legislation into this House that would relate to taxation or fees against trailers that are stationary on a park for a period longer than 30 days.

The House is fully aware that this comes as a result of municipality after municipality asking the government to look at the possibilities of putting into place some revenue-producing opportunities for them as far as trailers are concerned. It comes as a result of requests from not only municipalities but also cottage owners who believe there is an unfair advantage being taken by people whose trailers are stationary on a piece of property for a longer period than 30 days.

I told them we were looking at some potential legislation. I reviewed with them some opportunities, and I want to underline that phrase "some opportunities." They expressed to me some views that they thought might be included in legislation if we were to produce some in this House during this session. I am looking at that. I have not offered them or my caucus colleagues any guarantee that we will be introducing legislation in this session.

Mr. Breaugh: I must say the campground owners and campers are under the impression the minister will introduce legislation which will be in effect in January. Let me put it to him a little more succinctly. Will he or will he not be taxing campers an additional $10 a month come January 1, 1985?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: As far as the date of 1985 is concerned, there will be no fee implemented in relation to the campers. I indicated that thinking to the camp owners' association because of the time factors that are involved in producing a legislative piece of business. I clearly indicated that to them at the time, and I emphasize it again here today. It will not come into effect on January 1, 1985.

3:10 p.m.

As the minister, I still take the privilege of reviewing the situation in relation to the comments that were made by the camp owners and of discussing with the members of the caucus of this government party which direction we might want to take, whether to produce a bill or whether to get into a white paper and to try to flush out more comments from municipal associations, the camp owners' association and private citizens. That is a privilege I will retain, and I will make that decision as we go along.

Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Speaker, if it is as the minister says, there are a lot of these people who are very upset. The minister is saying the municipalities want additional income. Can the minister tell us whether it is actually the municipalities' intention to do this, have they asked for it, or is it something the minister has suggested?

We have also been told the minister is going to phase it in, with $3 in 1985 and increasing it over two or three years. Is there legislation that has been presented to cabinet on this? Where does it stand? Is the minister saying it is not going to be coming in next year? Is it coming in the following year? What is happening? Let us clarify it.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the second question of the member of the New Democratic Party I indicated very clearly the options I retain are whether I introduce a bill into this House or go by a white paper, which will draw out more comments from the municipalities.

The municipalities have asked for this type of procedure. More than 300 municipalities have written directly to us in the ministry to do something to allow them to secure some degree of revenue from those trailers that are stationary in a park for a longer period than 30 days.

It is an attempt to respond to the municipalities that believe they are entitled to some additional revenues, the same as they get revenue from a cottage owner whose property is there and used only for a time in the summer. They think they are entitled to some additional revenue from the trailer owners, not the camp owners, and we are looking at that.

COMMERCIAL FISHING QUOTAS

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Natural Resources. The members of the House know full well that the minister and some members of the commercial fishing industry have been at loggerheads and have been trying to resolve their problems in court. We are all aware that the minister has now lost in court six consecutive times. At one time he was even threatened by a justice that he might be found in contempt of court.

A significant period of time has now passed and the fishermen who have taken the minister to court have stated publicly they are willing to sit down and negotiate new quotas with the minister. Will he accept that suggestion? Instead of prolonging the chaos in this industry caused by the ministry, will he sit down in a rational way to meet with the industry to resolve the problems that have been caused?

Hon. Mr. Pope: Mr. Speaker, I have met with the associations. I have met with the Eastern Lake Erie Trawlers' Association and the association of eastern Lake Erie commercial fishermen four times in the past year with respect to the modernization program. I have met in Wheatley with the representatives of commercial fishermen from western Lake Erie on two occasions; they have been in my office on two occasions with respect to outstanding matters on the modernization program.

This program has not been developed in isolation from the objections and concerns of the commercial fishing organizations of Ontario. As the honourable member is aware, they themselves support the need for some type of individual quota system. As is usual with such a system in its first couple of years, the argument is between individuals on their allocations and between catch basins on the allocations between the basins, particularly in Lake Erie. These discussions and arguments will continue. I will continue to be a part of them in trying to make sure every commercial fisherman on Lake Erie has a say and has some explanation of the quotas.

The member is aware we have international obligations. We also have obligations to other user groups on the lake and we have an obligation to the commercial fishing industry itself to have a stable, sustained-yield supply of commercial species now and for the future, and by doing so to protect their very livelihoods and ensure the survival of a very important export market they depend upon. It is not this minister who is throwing that market and their livelihoods into jeopardy; it is a small minority that does not want any limits on its commercial fishing activity.

Mr. Mancini: If the minister does have any biological reports that would indicate the size of the resource in our Great Lakes, which we have asked him for in the past, we would be willing to accept these reports and go over them; but, as usual, he feigns that he has these reports and then we do not see anything.

After being given an opportunity by me today to state clearly that he understands the problems and that he knows the quotas for a good number of people --

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Mancini: -- have to be increased to prevent many bankruptcies and a severe financial loss by many people in the industry, why does the minister continue to put up the red herring that they are fishing out the lake instead of saying, "Yes, I will meet with the fishermen; yes, I will go over the allocation of quotas; and yes, if there are fish there we will allow the fishermen to have access to these particular resources"?

Hon. Mr. Pope: In my response to the initial question I indicated to the member I have met with the commercial fishermen and with their organizations and I will continue to do so.

The member is aware of one of the issues that arose during the summer months with respect to the allocation of yellow pickerel in Lake Erie. The commercial fishermen came to us and indicated additional supplies of yellow pickerel were available that should be harvested. Our biologists, in concert with them, arrived at an estimate of a total increase in harvest in eastern Lake Erie. We allocated more than 50 per cent of that additional resource to the commercial fishermen over the objections of the sports fishermen on the basis of a biological assessment they knew of, we knew of and the public knew of.

That is the approach we have taken with respect to yellow pickerel in Lake Erie, that is the approach we took with respect to whitefish in Lake Ontario and that is the approach we will continue to take with respect to all these species.

The member knows that I did not say that all commercial fishermen were ignoring their resource and were fishing it out. I said there were three or four individuals, a minority, who had no --

Mr. Mancini: It is not three or four fishermen.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

CONDOMINIUM CO-OPERATIVE ASSESSMENTS

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Revenue stemming from his very welcome statement that he finally recognizes the unfair assessment on condominiums and cooperatives and will change the assessment system to correct this injustice.

Has he calculated what the shortfall will be to each municipality as a result of this reassessment? Has he met with the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett)? Will there be a system of rebates to the municipalities to cover the shortfall they will be experiencing as a result of the mistakes of the provincial government's assessment program?

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, I am certainly happy to answer this question. I wish the honourable member had been here at the time I read my statement. Of course, he has had a chance to examine it now.

We are responding to the decision of the courts as opposed to admitting that there is anything wrong or that a mistake has been made in the assessment practices of this province.

Concerning the amounts and being able to recognize any shortfall, that is impossible to determine because, as I am sure the member will be aware, not only will some assessments go down but a certain percentage of them will also go up.

Mr. Philip: Does the minister not recognize in the case of Mississauga alone that Mississauga will have a shortfall of some $5 million and similar shortfalls will occur in other cities? Indeed, the research I tabled in this Legislature, which the minister admits stands up to his staff's examination, shows that assessments as a whole will go down because condominiums have been overassessed.

Is he prepared to say that since it is his fault this unjust assessment has gone on over the years, the municipalities will now have some kind of reimbursement from the provincial government by way of unconditional grants or another such scheme to make up for the shortfall of millions of dollars they are going to experience?

Hon. Mr. Gregory: It is nice to know the member across the House has such foresight that he can determine fault before it has been dealt with.

As he well knows, there are many thousands --

Mr. Philip: They admitted it.

3:20 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Does the member want to hear the answer or not?

Many thousands of these condominium appeals will be held before the Ontario Municipal Board, a fact the member happened to omit. He is not even aware that is going to happen. These appeals will still go to the municipal board and only then can we determine whether there is going to be a shortfall and, if so, how much.

The member's question is a little premature and I think he should check his facts before he asks a question such as that.

REPORT

STANDING COMMITIEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Kolyn, on behalf of Mr. Kerr, from the standing committee on social development reported the following resolution:

That supply in the following amounts and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1985:

Ministry administration program, $8,008,500; heritage conservation program, $26,073,900; arts support program, $72,185,500; citizenship and multicultural support program, $10,888,000; libraries and community information program, $30,218,300; capital support and regional services program, $23,957,800.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

TOWN OF COBOURG ACT

Mr. Sheppard moved, seconded by Mr. Villeneuve, first reading of Bill Pr44, An act respecting the Town of Cobourg.

Motion agreed to.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Kolyn moved, seconded by Mr. MacQuarrie, first reading of Bill 150, An Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Act.

Motion agreed to.

MOTION TO SET ASIDE ORDINARY BUSINESS

Mr. Mackenzie moved, pursuant to standing order 34(a), that the ordinary business of the House be set aside in order to debate a matter of urgent public importance, namely, the closure by Black and Decker Canada Inc. of its manufacturing plant in Barrie, with the attendant loss of more than 600 jobs in that community; the fact that the government has totally failed to respond to protect the jobs of the workers and the community economic base they represent, and the fact that there is no process of public accountability in such instances that would ensure every possible alternative is explored to prevent the closure of the plant.

Mr. Speaker: I would like to advise all honourable members that the motion for emergency debate was received in my office within the time frame prescribed by the standing orders. I will listen for up to five minutes to why the honourable member would like the ordinary business of the House set aside.

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I am asking that this House and the members of all parties in this House agree to approve an emergency debate on the Black and Decker closure. This closure is a continuation of the rather sickening pattern of branch plant closures we have seen in Canada in the last several years, a practice that seems to have totally handcuffed this government.

In the case of the Black and Decker plant in Barrie, it is a move that has serious implications for a small city of some 40,000 people. The closure of Black and Decker in Barrie means 600 jobs lost in the primary plant closure. It is the second largest employer in that city. It could mean as many as 900 additional jobs lost due to the spinoff effects. It is a cost to the community of almost $30 million in lost wages.

The people in the city of Barrie are going to pay a horrible price for a government that seems to be tucked into the hip pocket of the international corporations and owners of the offshore operations.

This plant closure mirrors hundreds of others and underlines the inability on the part of this government to protect people when business whistles and says it is going to shut down a small plant. When I say it mirrors many others, in this case the plant is modern, made a pre-tax profit of $6.6 million, an after-tax profit of more than $4 million last year and a return on investment of 15 per cent.

The company in Barrie has developed some real sales winners such as the electric skillet. Production is up from 30,000 to 250,000 in only five years, with an expected production of 500,000 in the next two years.

The sale by Canadian General Electric to Black and Decker was supposed to protect the jobs of the workers in Barrie. In the period immediately preceding that -- one sometimes wonders if there is not a little milking going on -- we had seen the product lines of this company, that previously numbered 27, shrink to seven as production has shifted offshore and imports increase. We saw some of this in the SKF operation as well.

Seventy per cent of our housewares market is now controlled by imports from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, Singapore, Mexico and the United States. This is part of the pattern with which every member in this House should be concerned.

This government has refused an all-party resolution to declare support for the effort of the workers at Black and Decker. We tried to get an all-party resolution that would say, "We, in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, declare our support for the efforts of the workers at Black and Decker in Barrie to save their jobs and we urge Black and Decker Manufacturing Co. to reverse its decision to close the Barrie facility." We were not successful.

However, as soon as we saw or heard of the closure of the Griffith mine, we had the spectacle of the Premier (Mr. Davis) -- and I do not disagree with it -- sending a letter to Stelco asking the company to reconsider. We had the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) commenting that Stelco should take another look at its move to close the Griffith mine operation.

What kind of a double standard are we operating in this province? When are we going to move as quickly on an American-owned plant as we seem to be willing to do on a Canadian-owned plant in this province of ours? When are we going to start doing something about the loss of jobs to Canadian workers? When are we going to deal with the never-ending litany of runaway plants in this province?

Mr. Martel: When are we going to reintroduce the select committee?

Mr. Mackenzie: When are we going to see the select committee reintroduced, as my colleague asks? When are we going to see some move on the part of this government to deal with this never-ending loss of jobs to Canadian and Ontario workers?

If this government is not prepared to deal now with something as serious as this matter and to have a debate on what we might do and what we should be doing with this kind of loss of jobs, if we are going to continue to take no action and continue to be tucked into the hip pocket of these corporations, if we are going to continue to be afraid to move when it means protecting workers, and if we are going to allow these double standards, then this government has no more morals than a mongrel.

Mr. Speaker: Before proceeding, we did not get the name of the seconder to the member's motion. Did he have one?

Mr. Mackenzie: The member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel).

3:30 p.m.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I want to join in support of the motion put forward by the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie). The member has asked for an emergency debate to discuss the announced closure of the Black and Decker plant in Barrie. We are aware this closure will affect 600 individuals. We will be losing 600 jobs in Ontario.

On November 14, my colleague the member for Quinte (Mr. O'Neil) issued a press statement. It said:

"Like all observers of the industrial scene in Ontario I am deeply disturbed by the circumstances surrounding the planned closure of the Black and Decker housewares plant in Barrie. While there is much dispute about the exact figures, of one thing there can be no doubt: hundreds of jobs will be lost.

"The employees and thousands of citizens of Barrie have requested the Ontario Legislature to act as part of a campaign of conscience directed at the company by giving unanimous all-party approval to a resolution that Black and Decker reverse its decision.

"I support this goal, as does the Ontario Liberal Party, and I am pleased to table the attached resolution for the consideration and, we hope, approval of all members." My colleague the member for Quinte did table such a resolution on November 14.

Again we are seeing the trend to mass layoffs and plant closures. It was announced only recently at the Burns plant in Kitchener that 600 hourly-paid and salaried workers would be laid off. The Black and Decker Co. of Barrie announced 600 layoffs and a plant closure. Alcan Ltd. will shut down its Kingston plant. A lot of plant closures are occurring in areas represented by government members.

Where are these members when their citizens need them? They always campaign on the premise that people should vote for a member on the government side. Yet here we have 600 jobs being taken away from an area represented by the Solicitor General (Mr. G. W. Taylor) and another 500 jobs being lost in an area represented by the Minister of Health (Mr. Norton). Where are these people when the general public needs them?

Several contradictions in the policies of the management teams of Canadian General Electric and now Black and Decker have appeared. In 1983 we were told through published reports in Corporate magazine that Black and Decker in Barrie had a rosy future. In fact, $5 million had been spent over the past five years to help upgrade the plant. The skillets made at the Black and Decker plant, which are famous, had sales increases of more than 700 per cent. We were told that once the sale was made it would assure the future of the Black and Decker plant in Barrie. Instead, five and a half months later, we had exactly the opposite. We had a full closure of the plant.

The new Conservative government in Ottawa must review immediately the Foreign Investment Review Agency agreements made with Black and Decker and CGE to make sure they lived up to every obligation they promised. We were promised by the Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, that immediately after he was elected hundreds of thousands of new jobs would be created. What we see instead, through having Conservatives in Ottawa and in Ontario, is that we lose jobs. No jobs are being created.

While all of this turmoil was going on in Barrie, while these closures were announced, where was the Solicitor General? He was in Los Angeles at some convention. It was also stated in a news article dated October 17, 1984, "Taylor ponders leadership bid."

Mr. Speaker: Your time has expired. Order.

Mr. Mancini: His future --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, the government does not intend to oppose the motion by the member for Hamilton East. In making the decision not to vote against the motion, we have considered the importance of the closure of the Barrie plant of Black and Decker Canada Ltd. to the employees affected and to the community of Barrie. In addition, I believe the debate provides an opportunity for the government to describe the programs and activities that are available to address difficult matters of this sort.

In rising to indicate the government's position, I do not wish to be taken in any way to be concurring with the suggestion contained in the motion that there has been a failure on the part of the government to take appropriate action to do everything within its power to protect the jobs of the workers and the community's economic base.

As I indicated in the House last week, I was frankly not satisfied with the information and explanation originally provided to me by the Black and Decker officials and, thanks to the assistance of my colleague the member for Simcoe Centre (Mr. G. W. Taylor), I have been able to arrange a further meeting with representatives from the international corporation in the United States as well as the Canadian president.

In attendance at that meeting will be representatives of the union. I also extended an invitation to representatives of the two opposition caucuses, and that invitation still stands. Also in attendance, I trust and hope, will be the federal member and the mayor of Barrie. That meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m., Friday, November 30, in my office and will go on as long as is necessary. At that time a full presentation will be made on the reasons for the closure of this facility, and everyone in attendance will have the opportunity to question those reasons.

To say, as the resolution does, that there is not a process of public accountability in these matters is to ignore the facts. As I said in the House the other day, I rarely encounter difficulty in obtaining full disclosure by company officials concerning the reasons that lead to decisions of this sort.

This is not to say that I am always totally satisfied with the explanations given, at least in the first instance. In a case where the reasons are incomplete or unsatisfactory, they are rigorously pursued by my officials and me and, as I said, almost invariably full economic and financial explanations are forthcoming. When received, they are then assessed not only by my officials and me but also by my colleague the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. F. S. Miller) and his officials.

These assessments include the examination of alternatives, such as maintaining the operation, the feasibility of the sale of the operation as a going concern with a view to maintaining employment and, where all else fails, the implementation of appropriate adjustment measures.

In short, while we are not opposing the debate of this motion, we will be taking the position that Ontario takes second place to no other North American jurisdiction in the adequacy of its laws and administrative arrangements in dealing with plant closures.

One of the difficulties faced by any of us in dealing with decisions of this sort is that no matter how adequate the arrangements, closures necessarily result in loss and hardship for those directly affected and, indeed, for others whose jobs depend on the activities of the enterprise in question. No laws or policies can totally eliminate this hardship, and often the most that can be done is to soften the effect.

As I will contend during the course of the debate that will follow, I believe the steps we have taken, both administratively and legislatively in this area generally and in the case of Black and Decker particularly, represent an active and thorough response to an extremely unfortunate situation.

Finally, without wishing to hold out any false hopes, I would like to say that I have not given up on this situation and I hope that, as a result of my meeting on November 30, more can be done to protect the interests of the affected workers.

Mr. Speaker: Before putting the question to the House, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the form of the motion itself. In my opinion it would have been proper for the motion to stop at the end of the word "community." The rest of the motion actually deals with the argument, which would better be heard, perhaps, at a later period.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: The debate will proceed.

3:40 p.m.

PLANT SHUTDOWN

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to speak today and I thank my colleague the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) for allowing me to speak first. I have some urgent and pressing personal business to attend to at a hospital and I appreciate being allowed to speak in the debate before that happens.

I want to say a very few words in this debate because it is one of real importance to the people in Ontario and what is happening here

When I asked the minister a question about this, I made a comparison I want to make again in opening my remarks. If a management employee, or indeed any employee, was to be fired individually, that employee would have rights either at common law or under a collective agreement. Those rights for just cause would require the employer to produce evidence as to why that individual employee should be fired. Under a collective agreement, it would go to arbitration. In the case of common law, there would be a suit. Ultimately, there would have to be compensation from the employer if it was found that individual had been dismissed without cause.

With the number of plant closures in the province, what I find contradictory, very unfair and completely inappropriate is that when a whole plant is closed down -- not just one individual being fired -- the people working in that plant have very little legal protection in this province or indeed anywhere else.

I know the minister is going to say we are doing more than all the other jurisdictions. Just because the Reaganites in the United States are not prepared to deal with the problem of the runaway plant does not mean we should be putting our heads in the sand in Canada and failing to deal with the same problem.

We have a special problem here. Our industrial base is being eroded, and the minister knows it. With the announcement made last week, he knows perfectly well there are many communities in the north that are afraid because of the continuing decline in metal prices and because there is no corporate accountability by these multinational corporations. There is a real problem.

In the south we have a great many firms, of which Canadian General Electric and Black and Decker are just two, that have been here for 50 years or 100 years and are deciding to close because they have failed to respond to changing world conditions and markets. This poses an enormous threat to the very basic rights workers have to be informed fully, to be told what is going on and to have a measure of protection for the most important investment they have, their jobs.

Our legal system does less to protect job security than to protect any other property right that exists. If a government wants to put a highway through a person's house, it has to provide compensation under the Expropriations Act for that house. If somebody's job is expropriated, however, apparently there are no requirements in the legal system to respond. That amounts to expropriation without compensation. Even more serious, not only is it without compensation it is without any kind of justification.

We have now reached a stage at which it is no longer acceptable in Ontario that a group of workers have fewer rights than one worker has. If it is good enough for one worker, whether an executive or an employee making $4 an hour at a nonunion, unorganized plant, to be able to take his employer to court and get compensation and a justification, even if it is only to small claims court or a county court in some instances, that same right ought to apply to each and every worker in a group that is being fired as a group. It seems to me a worker should have just as many rights if he is being fired as part of a group as he would if he is being fired individually. That does not happen.

The minister himself has indicated he is not satisfied with the information he has received from the company. I am not satisfied with the information I have received from the company. The facts are very disturbing. I am sure the minister is aware of them.

I remember the first time I was involved with this plant. That was when it sent out steam irons to Singapore. I see the Solicitor General (Mr. G. W. Taylor) is here. He will remember that time. He will remember the CGE plant in Barrie used to make a whole range of household items and each one was sent offshore. The last one sent offshore that I can recall was the steam iron.

When they got rid of the steam iron line, I went and talked to the company and the workers. We were told, "This is the last time we are going to do this because we really want to focus on what we can do well. We are going to get the world product mandate for skillets and we are going to continue to focus on the lawn mower line. If we focus on those two lines in the Barrie plant" -- I can remember this conversation as if it were yesterday -- "and get the world product mandate, then everything is going to be okay."

The global product mandate -- this was the line. We have had that line from the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. F. S. Miller). I can remember it from when I was in Ottawa. The Tories and Liberals up there were saying, "The answer to the problem of the multinational is to get the world product mandate."

They got the world product mandate for skillets and they still have it, but apparently it did not work the wonders it was supposed to. They had a 700 per cent increase in international sales of skillets. It went from 30,000 units in 1978 to about 250,000 in 1983. According to the company itself, when it was CGE, "In the next two or three years, we intend to push that figure beyond the 500,000-mark."

Going on to talk about its business, CGE said in one of its annual reports: "By having access to a world market, CGE could justify the multi-million-dollar investment required to redesign and relaunch the skillet. We had to gear up and automate for long production runs, and securing the mandate was the first step. Part of the capital investment was financed by a $1-million interest-free loan provided by the Ontario Development Corp."

This is a company, in this great free enterprise system the Tories keep crowing about, which managed to get an interest-free loan. Boy, a lot of small business people out there would like to get that kind of a loan. A lot of my constituents would like to get that kind of loan, but they did not. In return for that loan, CGE sells its business to Black and Decker, a sale approved by the Foreign Investment Review Agency.

The provincial government would have been involved in that approval because FIRA would have asked its opinion -- it is in the FIRA legislation -- and the government would have given it. We can only assume, because we have not heard otherwise, it approved the sale of CGE to Black and Decker.

Then Black and Decker turns around and says it is closing. Not only does it say it is closing in Barrie, it says the plant had not been profitable for years. It said it had been losing money for several years. However, according to the form GE had to file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for 1983 when it was still CGE, the Canadian housewares division was reported as having a pre-tax profit of $6.6 million.

There is a question here of government protection and also of corporate honesty. How does the government expect any worker to have any faith in what a company tells him? If one reads through the history of this plant in Barrie, one will see plant manager after company executive telling the workers: "You are doing a great job. This thing is going but the next thing is going to be great." As recently as only a few months before announcing the closure, they were saying: "Everything is just fine. It is all hunky-dory."

I think this raises basic questions. As I said at the beginning, there is a basic question about the protection ordinary workers have in this province against these kinds of decisions and measures taken by companies. We should be taking legal measures to give workers some kind of stake and some kind of right they do not have today.

It should not be a question of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) going on his hands and knees to Black and Decker and saying, "Let us have an open session on this," and Black and Decker replying, "These are all the reasons we are moving." We have no way of challenging or getting at that information. The minister cannot subpoena documents. He has no power to get into the records. He cannot go back two and three years. He cannot go after the intercorporate memos. He cannot do any of the things that would be available to people in legal proceedings.

3:50 p.m.

It also raises the question, and I think this is fundamental, of what it means to be a corporate citizen. Clearly, it does not mean an awful lot to Black and Decker or CGE when it made its decision to sell this, knowing what the implications might be. It is not acceptable any more for workers to be left as vulnerable and defenseless as they are in the face of these kinds of corporate decisions. We need a government to protect those people.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I rise to join the debate on this issue, about which I am probably more concerned than any other member in this Legislature. I know their words express concern and I know the member for York South (Mr. Rae) has visited the riding. I find, however, that honourable members from time to time visit all ridings and express their concern, but I see no greater concern from them than that which the members on this side offer, the local member and the Minister of Labour. He sees these closures all too frequently, as he has said, and he is trying to resolve the problem in such a way as to prevent them in the future and prevent all those things we know are attendant on these matters.

I served for a brief period on the select committee on plant shutdowns and employee adjustment, along with my friend the member for Armourdale (Mr. McCaffrey), who was the chairman. We did learn a great deal about that problem. When that committee was working we came out with an interim report. I am not so sure, had it continued, whether we would be any more knowledgeable, except about the hardships closures bring. Whether there would have been any solutions that would have been palatable to the government or to the community is not known. I do not know whether, having read all the available literature on it --

Mr. Laughren: If the minister is concerned, he should do something about it.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order.

Hon. 6. W. Taylor: I say to the member, who speaks platitudes such as we are told we are always speaking over here, my Minister of Labour has worked on this problem. The member has heard the minister say we are having a meeting, as we did with the other ones. Possibly nothing may come from it, but the workers know we are endeavouring as best we can to solve the matter.

We are not doing it the way the members opposite would, which would be the death knell for many industries in this province. They would set themselves up as the jurors to decide whether a company would continue or not continue in a particular place. They have no greater wisdom as to whether the company could or could not stay in business.

One has to know what these people are suffering and contemplate their suffering. The members opposite do not know. These are people who work in all areas of the community. When I hear the honourable members --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Would the honourable members who are interrupting please refrain from doing so. There is a time allotment and each member is allowed 10 minutes. You are interrupting and dispersing thoughts.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: They always do. I remember one very vivid instance, and the people of Barrie remember how helpful the members in the New Democratic Party happened to be at Christmas time when CGE has its biggest sales. Who made the official announcement that one package happened to come from offshore? They certainly were not concerned at that time about all the workers in Barrie and jobs in Barrie when sales dropped. I think when they are talking about altruism and concern, they ought to reflect on what they have done over periods of time, particularly to the workers in that plant.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, on a point of personal privilege: The minister -- I am waiting for him to take his seat -- has implied we had something to do with the sales of a product made in Barrie. What we did at that time was show there was misrepresentation on the part of the company about where the product was made. The minister is doing nothing less than misleading the members of this House with that kind of stupid statement.

Mr. Mackenzie: He knows, or should know better, or he does not give a damn.

Mr. Laughren: I am getting tired of this.

The Acting Speaker: Order. I am getting tired of the interruptions.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: The facts speak for themselves. The workers know what they did at that particular time. They know what the New Democratic Party stood for at that time in loss of sales and jobs.

Mr. Laughren: We stand for honesty. You wanted to let them --

The Acting Speaker: Order. I have given the honourable member many warnings. Please refrain from interrupting.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I would appeal to the fairness of the members opposite to hear the member for Simcoe Centre (Mr. G. W. Taylor) out for two reasons. One is that he is the member for that area, and this is a very depressing circumstance for him. The second is that he got out of his sickbed today in order to come here. He has laryngitis and is having great difficulty in speaking as it is; so at least give him the opportunity.

Mr. Martel: Tell him to be factual.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: When I get back up, heckle me all you want, but please let him finish.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I thank my colleague very much for intervening on my behalf. However, I am sure all the interjections and comments they make will not be reviewed in any greater light by the people of Barrie than they are by my colleagues here. I do not want to be provocative. However, the honourable members do provoke, and that is consistent with their style.

Let us look at what this particular matter means and what we are looking forward to in this forthcoming meeting. I am sure that wild words and accusations will not assist the forthcoming meeting the Minister of Labour has planned. The members of the executive of the union and the members belonging to that union want to approach and have approached this matter from the very beginning in a very concerned and very intelligent way in trying to do the best both for the workers and for their community.

The executive there are people of the community. I know these people from their other activities. My family plays sports with them. I have known them. I know what this means to a community. We are trying to resolve a problem. We have had other pluses in that community with the Volkswagen plant coming there, the Honda plant and the Hayes-Dana plant. These are matters that this government has tried to look at in a positive way, just as we will try to look at this in a positive way.

Like the Minister of Labour, I am not satisfied with all the information that is currently there. There does appear to be some conflicting material in what is being put forward, but we have to look at the matter in a very intelligent, reasoned way. I do not think that accusations will in any way enable this plant to continue there. I think we have to approach it in a very responsible manner.

I heard the Liberal member get up and immediately start attacking me personally. I remember how we bailed out the member's area, with no help from that particular member. I remember the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) and the Premier (Mr. Davis) going to help out Chrysler and saving that particular matter. When I hear the comments by the member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini), how quick he is to challenge and attack personally the members on this side, I do not think that helps the problem in Barrie at all. It is possible the members opposite may even have some good ideas to help assist this matter; I am not so sure. So far I have not heard any conversation from them that would in any way assist the problem in Barrie and those workers in Barrie.

4 p.m.

I hope when management arrives at this meeting it can explain further. Maybe they will change their minds. I hope they will. Perhaps the workers can put forward their case in a little more precise manner about how this is affecting them. I have heard the Treasurer say he is not satisfied with the way the current legislation is or the notice. Maybe we all are not. Maybe this is an opportunity to improve on that legislation without just making derogatory remarks about the individual member who represents a riding or about the present legislation of the government. Besides the cackling they seem to do on all these occasions, they put forward no ideas that are beneficial to the individual workers of that community.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, let me say immediately that in no way did I personally attack the member for Simcoe Centre during my opening five minutes of remarks. All I said was that during the three provincial campaigns I have run, not only in my riding but also in ridings all over Ontario, the favourite slogan of that party was: "Elect a Conservative member. Elect a member on the government side of the House."

I am pinpointing today the fact that we have not only a Conservative member but also a cabinet member who is seeing his community being stabbed in the heart because the second largest employer is closing. I pointed out also that the Minister of Health (Mr. Norton) had a large plant closure in his community.

I say the slogan the Conservatives have used in the past, and will use in the future, "Elect a Conservative member, a member on the government side of the House, and everything will be wonderful," is not true. We should expose it for exactly what it is: nothing but political dogma.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Mancini: I did not interrupt the member for Simcoe Centre.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: The member did what?

Mr. Mancini: I did not interrupt the minister.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I think the rules allow for an interruption on a point of privilege. I did say in my text that the member personally attacked me. Indeed, he did. In fact, he has just again attributed words to me as a government member that I have never used in an election. Further on, he did say I had done nothing for the riding in this matter. Indeed, I have. To attack in that way is not in any way becoming of that member.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, why was the time not running out when the member was up on his feet on a purported point of personal privilege?

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): The clocks never stop.

Mr. Mancini: Those are exactly the facts as they are.

I know it is tough when one has large closures in one's own community. A couple of years ago Bob-Lo Island, which was the biggest summer employer not only in Essex county but also in Windsor, because it employs 600 people, went into receivership in the United States. I asked this government for assistance to find a buyer for Bob-Lo Island. I had to fly to Florida at my own expense to meet with certain officials to find a buyer for Bob-Lo Island.

I say to the member for Simcoe Centre, when we have these big closures they are tough and they hurt, but the facts have to be put on the record. It is nothing personal against the minister. They are the slogans that his party uses every election campaign. I will send him a slogan during the next election, which we expect within the next few months.

I want to respond to the Minister of Labour, who said a meeting is being convened on Friday with officials from the management team to discuss what can be done over this announced closure.

I want to read a statement from the Barrie Banner of October 10,s 1984, as follows: "There is no possibility that Black and Decker will reverse its decision to close down its Barrie plant, said general manager Ken Lyons... ."

I do not know whether the Minister of Labour has met with Mr. Lyons, but this is a public statement that has been recorded. I am sure he is aware of it, and the Solicitor General is also aware of it.

I am not sure exactly what the minister is going to discuss at his meeting on Friday, but the first thing he has to discuss is the $1-million, interest-free loan that was given to Canadian General Electric. He should see if we can recoup that money. The second thing he will have to discuss --

Hon. G. W. Taylor: The member should not be at the meeting. He is too negative. We do not want his lack of positivism.

Mr. Mancini: I am putting forward proposals. We have to get back the money we gave to this giant corporation because it was going to build in a part of this province, in a part of the minister's community. It reneged. We want the money back.

Second, we have to know what Foreign Investment Review Agency arrangements were made. In that regard, I have to say hypocrisy knows no bounds. The minister knows as well as every member in this House knows that when in opposition in Ottawa the Conservative Party talked about dismantling FIRA because FIRA got in the way of business.

Mr. Wrye: That is what they are still saying too.

Mr. Mancini: These people say the same thing, that is true, as my friend the member for Windsor-Sandwich says. FIRA stops business, creates all kinds of problems and so on. Hypocrisy knows no bounds.

I wish to quote from the same paper I quoted earlier. It is a statement that was made on November 7, 1984. I will quote the whole thing:

"The federal government's Foreign Investment Review Agency should have rejected Black and Decker's bid to take over Canadian General Electric's housewares division, says MP Ron Stewart (PC, Simcoe South)."

The same people who say we should not have a FIRA are now the same people who are saying it should be tougher. What hypocrisy. This Mr. Stewart goes on to say:

'"This is a case where FIRA could have been effective but was not and it is sad for Barrie. We may have lost some other company that would have been better for Canada.'"

How can the minister sit there and allow his federal colleague to say that when he himself knows and all members in this House know they would not have any kind of examination of funds being invested in this country?

What we have here is one giant multinational corporation buying out a portion of another giant multinational corporation; and yes, they are going to rationalize, absolutely. They are going to close a plant here in Ontario, in Barrie, which is represented by a Progressive Conservative cabinet minister.

The closure will cause the loss of 600 jobs and part of the operation, but by no stretch of the imagination will a lot of the operation be relocated to some other part of Ontario. The same things we now manufacture here will be manufactured outside Canada and will be brought in because there are no manufacturers of that product here in Canada. We will be importing something we could manufacture right here in Ontario.

I understand the sad feelings of the member for Simcoe Centre; I went through it myself. He can do a lot on a personal basis to try to resolve what has happened, because he has the support of the whole government of Ontario and its $24 billion budget. I did not.

It is not enough for us to sit here and listen from the other side to how concerned they are. We noticed their concern on March 19, 1981, when it was repeated to us by the Premier (Mr. Davis) after he abolished the select committee on plant shutdowns and employee adjustment. He told the members of the opposition, "That is one of the realities of March 19."

I say to the member for Simcoe Centre, this is one of the realities of March 19. We could have worked on that committee. We would not have resolved all the problems, we would not have had all the answers, that is true, but we would have written a report. The report would have been tabled, it would have been offered to the government for assistance and it might have been used in this particular case, who knows? Yet we were blocked from doing our legislative duty by a majority Conservative government that reminded us it was a reality of the last election campaign.

I again reject the criticism of the member for Simcoe Centre that I am attacking him personally, because I am not. If he rereads the record, it will show I am not.

4:10 p.m.

I am a bit concerned. I went through just about every news article from the Barrie Examiner and the Barrie Banner, and I do not think I found more than one area in which the member was quoted. I believe I saw one statement he made from Los Angeles in which he said, "We are going to try to retrain these people through Georgian College." I did see two or three articles about the intentions of the member for Simcoe Centre to run for the leadership. I saw an article on November 7 which had a nice picture of the member planting a bicentennial tree.

The Acting Speaker: I thank the member, whose time has expired.

Mr. Mancini: I am sorry my time has run out, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for your patience.

Interjection.

Mr. Mancini: I went through it. I did not have any help like the minister had.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Do not resort to personal attacks.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, it is difficult not to attack people personally, although I understand we should not. We try not to, but I have a little bit of a --

Mr. Harris: We expect it from the member opposite.

Mr. Mackenzie: We do not expect action from the government side and it is obvious we are not getting it.

The member for Simcoe Centre is really feeling his neck when he has to resort to an appeal such as, "Do not attack me personally" and a question such as, "What are you people doing?" The example he used was garbage. As the minister well knows, what we did in this House was point out a dishonest misrepresentation that was and is going on in plants all over Ontario where they bring in materials and indicate the products are manufactured here.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: The members opposite were not concerned about those workers. They are never concerned about the workers.

Mr. Mackenzie: This is one of the things that is wrong with what is happening in Ontario. The member for Simcoe Centre has not got the guts to stand up and say so.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: The member for Hamilton East has not got the guts himself. As a union leader, he has never been concerned about the workers.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Mackenzie: He would rather cry: "Oh, do not attack me. You are hurting me." He will not do a damned thing about the workers in his riding.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: The member for Hamilton East is never concerned about the workers.

The Acting Speaker: I ask the member for Simcoe Centre to be quiet.

Mr. Mackenzie: The member for Simcoe Centre is not worth talking to any further.

I will say something else that comes back to the Minister of Labour. I acknowledge, as I have done publicly at a meeting where I followed him recently when we were speaking to one of the conventions in Ontario, that he means well, that he tries hard, that he is in his office at seven in the mornings and all the rest of it, but I have to say that is not good enough.

We now have a meeting scheduled for November 30. I do not disagree with it, but forgive my cynicism -- I will ask forgiveness for that -- we did the same thing with Consolidated-Bathurst and the company would not begin to give the workers even a chance to put together a package if they had wanted to.

I sat in at that meeting, as the mayor and officials of Hamilton did, and as the Minister of Labour did. What did the president of Consolidated-Bathurst, Mr. Stangeland, say to us? He was asked why he would not consider selling the plant to some of the workers if they could put together a package. I want to remind the members in this House of his answer: "Imperial Oil would not sell a good choice corner lot to Texaco. Why should we have the competition?" That is what the minister is defending. That is his private enterprise system. The company would not even consider the workers putting in an offer on that plant.

Incidentally, those particular questions came from me, from one of the Liberal members who was sitting in at that meeting and from the mayor of Hamilton and the regional chairman of Hamilton-Wentworth. We found out only at that meeting who they were selling the plant to. Apparently, even the minister did not know before the meeting to whom they were selling the property and plant.

Mr. Stangeland made it very clear. He was asked if he would consider as part of the terms of selling that operation an appeal that the firm buying the plant take care of some of the workers, all of whom had more than 21 years of service in the plant. What did we get from the president of the container division of Consolidated-Bathurst? We got the observation that his company would not appreciate anybody telling it whom to hire, so it did not intend to tell anybody else whom to hire. Incidentally, the company would not even have the unions sit in at that meeting, as the minister well knows.

We did not get a heck of a lot more, although we did not have such outstanding and hypocritical comments from management as we got in that case, when we dealt with Allen and some of the other firms. So forgive my cynicism. What are they going to tell the minister this time? How tough is he going to be on the company in his questions? The tough questions were not coming from the Minister of Labour at that meeting.

I say to the Minister of Labour and to the cabinet minister who says they are doing what they can and we are attacking him and this is wrong, they have to understand that both of them are cabinet ministers in this government and that if they are cabinet ministers they are supposed -- as I understand it; maybe I am totally wrong -- they are supposed to represent policy and have some input into policy. Some of that policy surely should be to protect workers when they are losing their jobs right, left, and centre in Ontario. It is not good enough to say, "We are going to call them to another meeting and say, 'Please, boys.'" We have corporate milking going on here.

In the SKF case, from the evidence before our select committee on plant closures, it became clear that over a five-year period they transferred things out. First, it was the small bearing assembly section, the big money-maker in the plant in Scarborough. Then they started to replace that with the less profitable large ball bearing assembly operation in which they were not manufacturing. Then they got into nothing but the repair assemblies, which were less profitable still, and set the stage all along the way for saying, "We are finally going to close this plant." We lost 250 or 270 workers in SKF.

In this Black and Decker plant it is pretty obvious. There were 27 product lines a short 10 years ago. Now there are only seven product lines left, including the successful skillet line. All of them were shuffled offshore. Now those same products and 70 per cent of the housewares purchased in this country are coming in from Singapore, Mexico, the United States, Taiwan and Brazil.

In the case of Allen Industries we pointed it out. That company lied to us about what they were doing with the machinery and what would happen when they moved to the Mexican plant. They shipped the production there at about $1 an hour, down from $10 a hour. The only thing this government seems to approve is the few jobs going from Barrie to Brockville. I guess that is because they are going to be paying $2.50 an hour less because that is not an organized plant. Is that part of it? Is that part of the policy we are now into in this province -- deliberately downgrading the wages? It sure as blazes looks like it.

We cannot let them mislead people by saying stuff is being manufactured here when it is not. We have to look at the fact that branch plant after branch plant is closing and the production is going out of this province and out of this country, and this government is not doing a darned thing about it.

When we do meet with them the tough questions do not come from the minister. If we are invited to the meetings, and I understand we have been invited again this time, as we certainly were in the Consolidated-Bathurst case, the tough questions do not come from the minister and his staff but from some of the rest of us who are at that meeting.

The answers we got in the Consolidated-Bathurst case were sickening. What was the best response in this House? That really tells the tale, and it tells why I am such a cynic and getting so damned mad about what is happening to workers. I think the then Minister of Industry and Trade was the current Provincial Secretary for Justice (Mr. Walker), who is in the House; he can tell me if I am wrong.

The very day after that meeting, when we asked what the government thought of the kinds of answers we got from Mr. Stangeland, the president of Consolidated-Bathurst, what response did we get? He said, "They are not the best corporate citizens." I think that is what can be found in Hansard and what I heard him say. But we did not see the minister who was at that meeting, or anybody else, do a darned thing about that case.

One begins to wonder what is the use of talking? They are so bloody committed to private enterprise, to the rights of these offshore corporations and to the branch plant philosophy. They are down on their knees begging so often and so hard for their money. They are being played for such complete suckers, but it does not seem to matter. The losers in every single case, and there have been so many over the past few weeks that it should hurt every member in this House, are the workers and their communities.

While we are increasing our imports, I am wondering, what happens to our balance of trade in consequence of this kind of situation? How long can we continue either downgrading wages or bringing in the imports and losing the plants here? When is it going to get through to people on that side of the House that just maybe they have some responsibility? They are building up a case for which we will pay one terrible price in this province and country. We are already paying it but it is going to get worse, and it continues.

4:20 p.m.

Very shortly in this House, I hope, we will be talking about the Griffith mine closure. We shut down Marmoraton in 1978; Steep Rock in 1978-79; National Steel Corp. at Capreol, 1979; Inco's iron ore recovery plant at Capreol, 1980; the termination of the Steep Rock Resources Bending Lake development project in 1983. Now in 1984 there is the shutdown of Griffith mine by Stelco Inc., with the number of mine workers declining from 3,772 to 1,716, a decline of 55 per cent.

Our production has dropped from 10.3 million to 3.7 million tons, but our imports are up to 4,448,352 tons. We are replacing our entire productive capacity here with imports and we are losing the jobs along the way. Yet these two ministers tell us that somehow or other we are attacking them personally. Are they or are they not cabinet ministers and part of it? Is this government going to come up with some policy that starts to protect workers in Ontario? They are not doing it now.

Mr. McLean: Mr. Speaker, the closing of any plant or place of business anywhere in Ontario is of importance to the employees who are mostly involved in such a sad event. When the closure involves one of the largest employers in a town or city, then the impact is so much greater. Not only are the employees and their families affected, but the entire local and regional economies are affected as well.

According to some reports, the Barrie area stands to lose some $30 million in wages. As members here over the last few years, a number of us have faced situations in our constituencies where partial closures or outright shutdowns have taken place. We all have to ask ourselves:

"Is there any more we could do to stop it? Can the provincial government help? Could employers or unions have done something to prevent such an occurrence or to make it easier?"

Having gone through such a process in Simcoe East myself, I can state there is no easy way to close or partially close a plant. It is a very sensitive matter that deeply affects employees, particularly those who have worked in a plant for many years. I do not believe anyone in management is the ogre the New Democratic Party would like to portray. It is a difficult decision at the management level as well, and in my experience a decision that is required by market and business forces.

The opposition and others can, and should at times, question whether a decision is in fact based on valid business reasons. They are perfectly within their right to do so and make the public aware of any factual information that is revealed. They have had that opportunity in the past and do today. If the public feels the employer has acted improperly, it can make its weight felt.

I am not an expert on the issue, as others think they are, but I have kept up with it and know what is taking place at Barrie. It is not too far from my own riding and I believe my constituents will also suffer some of the economic fallout from the closing. I believe the Minister of Labour and the government have done a great deal to try to prevent the closure from occurring and to minimize its impact. If today's debate does not shed any new light on this topic -- and I do not think it will -- there will still be much more work for the government to do, long after the third party will have forgotten Black and Decker.

As I mentioned earlier, I have experienced a substantial closing in my riding, namely the RCA Inc. picture tube plant in Midland. When that occurred in July 1982, I set out to find a way to keep the plant open and to save the jobs of the workers there. We had meetings with the mayor, the chairman and president of RCA, and Ministry of Industry and Trade officers and consultants. We also had representatives of the federal government, the Ministry of Labour, the president of the Midland chamber of commerce and Midland's development commissioner.

As a result of that meeting, I learned what a challenge it would be to keep the RCA plant open. The picture tube market is highly competitive, with Japan being the major contender. Because the Canadian domestic market for picture tubes is so small, anyone who took over the RCA plant would have to rely on a reliable export market.

By the fall it was apparent that only two companies were interested in the RCA plant, Mitsubishi and Toshiba, both of Japan. The Ministry of Industry and Trade made it clear to both buyers that the Ontario government was not interested in helping anyone purchase the plant only to see it close in another five years because it was uncompetitive. Whoever was to buy the RCA plant had to respond to improve and expand production in Midland.

Only Mitsubishi was willing to live up to these demands. It was willing to reopen the Midland plant, improve its facilities and explore an expansion of operations. The announcement that Mitsubishi would reopen the plant took place in July 1983.

However, Mitsubishi was also going to be cautious about its new purchase, which explains why jobs for only 240 employees were initially offered in comparison to the 600 who were employed when the plant closed in December 1982. What Mitsubishi intended to do was to create 595 permanent jobs in Midland by 1988.

The company will be exporting picture tubes to its operations overseas to the tune of an expected $210 million over five years. In addition, it will explore expanding facilities in Midland to produce such diversified products as videocassette recorders, automobile radios, industrial electronic devices and perhaps compressors.

Today, Mitsubishi has hired ahead of its projected schedule and more than 500 employees are back at that plant. While these jobs will make only a modest dent in Midland's unemployment rate, they signal the beginning of the rejuvenation of Midland as a technological centre and have the potential of bringing more technology production to our area.

For the town of Midland, the reopening of the RCA plant will mean a boost to local tax revenue. City councillors will also have more money to plan projects to encourage new investment as well as to meet the needs of the jobless.

Finally, the new jobs will bring new money into the community that will have a good impact on service industries, stores and restaurants. People who have money will spend it, and this in turn will mean jobs for others.

Throughout the period of looking for a buyer for the RCA plant and the negotiations with Mitsubishi, I was continually impressed with the dedication and professionalism of the former Minister of Industry and Trade, now the Provincial Secretary for Justice, and his staff. I was in contact with the ministry continually on this question and was kept fully informed as the agreement with Mitsubishi progressed.

By starting prudently, Mitsubishi is assuring that it will keep its end of the bargain and maintain the picture tube plant in operation. As a world leader in electronics, Mitsubishi is a strong economic force. Its reputation for excellence should bring increased business to the Midland plant and eventually result in more jobs and investment.

I do not believe the Midland situation to be all that different from that of Black and Decker in Barrie. We can play a role in perhaps finding someone to take over the facilities in Barrie and rehire the workers. My own experience with the Ministry of Industry and Trade has led me to believe we can often succeed.

I would like to point out to my colleagues that I have submitted a resolution for debate during private members' hour on December 6. Barring any emergency debates that might arise on that day, I hope to discuss the positive efforts government can make as opposed to the so-called public justification and inquisition the New Democratic Party has called for. I do not believe any so-called public accountability hearings would do anything else other than prejudice any chance for good employer-employee relations during a stressful time.

4:30 p.m.

I would like to read my motion into the record:

"That this House urges the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development, in co-operation with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, to examine the creation of special initiatives to encourage the growth of manufacturing and industrial investment in municipalities with a population of less than 50,000 in order to diversify local economies; and that there be incentives for communities that have had recent or pending plant closings, such as Barrie (Black and Decker) and Midland (RCA)."

I believe that finding an employer who wants to be there is preferable by far to the justification measures proposed by the New Democratic Party, and I believe that my proposal is far better than theirs.

I have sat here this afternoon and listened to the speeches from the opposition members and yet I have not heard any constructive ideas on how Black and Decker will remain in Barrie.

Mr. O'Neil: Mr. Speaker, first of all might I say that last week we were approached by some of the people from Black and Decker about this closure. We met with Mr. Jim Hamilton, who represented the union. He met not only with me but also with members of our caucus and with our leader in regard to this very pressing problem Barrie is facing.

I, along with some of my colleagues, served on the plant closures committee a few years back. We heard at that time many of the experiences at some of these different factories and the hardships workers had experienced because of the closure of their plants. I am just sorry the committee was not allowed to go forward, have further hearings, listen to some other details and possibly come up with suggestions about how we could avert what has happened in Barrie.

I think the member for Simcoe East (Mr. McLean) made a good point in that today we have sort of been harassing each other back and forth and talking about things that have happened instead of coming up with concrete ideas and looking for details concerning how we can keep this plant open.

I have real doubts about the timing of this closure and I think the member from that area and the Minister of Labour, as well as perhaps all members of this Legislature, are also concerned. When we look at the fact that the company was purchased in April 1984 and that approximately five and half months later Black and Decker decided to close it and move some of its production to Brockville, there are likely to be a lot of doubts in the mind not only of the minister from that area but also in the mind of the Minister of Labour and of many of the other members in this House. It was purchased only five and a half months ago. Why has the company now decided to close that plant?

Many other points have been raised, such as moving its production to a nonunion plant and cutting its production lines. Are those production lines being moved to the United States? Have some of them already been moved? Are they phasing out Canadian and Ontario workers to give jobs back to the US? I think these are questions that have to be asked.

Speaking to the minister who is here representing the area, I wonder if it is a useless effort to have the meeting he has called for November 30 to take all the parties involved into a situation like that. I have been involved in closures in my riding and I wonder if we should not somehow say to the company before that meeting, "We want you to supply us with the facts of why you are closing, right down to the finest detail."

I do not mean what they have already supplied us, but answers to the questions that are being asked not only by people like the minister himself but also by members of the opposition, the people of the city and the union members. They should be required to give some of those answers before they go to that meeting so those answers can be checked out before the meeting.

Too many times when we attend a meeting the facts are thrown out, there are disagreements and there are no real answers except to say, "We are standing behind our decision to close that plant." I would ask the minister from that area to speak to the Minister of Labour, have a prior meeting with that company and maybe collect some of the details on the questions that have been asked by all parties. Demand to have some answers to questions such as: "Why did you buy the company five and a half months ago? What lines are you moving there? How many people are you going to be releasing? How many of these lines are you planning to move back to the States? How many have you already moved back there? What are your future plans?"

Everything seems very suspicious, with the moves and the timing of the Black and Decker purchase of that CGE plant in Barrie.

I would say again that rather than fighting among ourselves and placing blame in different areas, we may have to make a real, concerted effort to get some of this information and we have to get it right away. The announcement was made more than a month ago that the plant was going to be closed in early 1985. There are a lot of questions that have not been answered.

The minister from the area and the Minister of Labour are really in the hot seat on this because it is very important to that city and the surrounding area. I think some of these hard questions have to be posed to that company prior to this meeting; I think those answers have to be shared with a lot of other people so they will have additional questions from their own side before the general meeting.

I would ask for co-operation from all members on this because it is a concern to all of us. Our concern is not fighting or blaming one another, but trying to maintain those jobs in the city of Barrie.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid I am not going to be very conciliatory. I say to my friend the Minister of Labour that he sat on a select committee a number of years ago that did not finalize its report. Let me just indicate to him some of the companies we looked at: Outboard Marine, Essex International, SKF and Bendix in Windsor.

The minister knows full well that Outboard Marine in Peterborough systematically relocated the profit-making parts of its operation to the United States and reduced the number of workers in that plant from 2,000 in 1974 to 700 by 1981. It systematically sent offshore the snowmobile production, the chainsaw division, and more recently the machine shop operation. Those closures were systematic, one after the other.

The Minister of Labour sat on that select committee and watched Bendix Automotive and SKF do the same thing. I see him, the minister from the area, almost grovelling and saying, "We are going to meet with them." They are the government members, but they have not put anything positive forward. What have they done? They would not even allow the select committee to finish its report. We started to write that report the day the election was called in 1981 and once the election was completed, the minister let it die; he did not want answers.

Dealing with these unscrupulous companies, the workers at the time are the losers. As in Europe, we have to have some legislation in place that protects workers. The Minister of Labour knows precisely the type of legislation we are talking about. SKF in Sweden could not have got away with what SKF got away with in Ontario. The Minister of Labour knows it and I know it. The company would have had to give two years' notice.

Mr. Runciman: What about Renault? That is a real example.

Mr. Martel: The Premier (Mr. Davis) took Renault right into his riding with open arms, did he not? He ran almost all the way to France to get it to bring a few jobs here. The Minister of Labour knows what I am talking about when I say that in Europe a company has to give two years' notice. I would ask the Solicitor General to tell me what else they do in Europe to protect people's jobs? I will tell the minister: there is a fund established.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: The member's friends at SKF did not help him.

Mr. Martel: Let the minister just listen. He said he wanted to learn something.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: The workers did not even tell him.

Mr. Martel: Let me not be distracted. The minister wanted a positive thing. Does the minister know what they do in Europe? They have a community adjustment fund financed on an ongoing basis by a levy against employers so that when a plant is going to shut down there is a fund from which another plant is opened.

4:40 p.m.

Does the minister want a solution? We tried to get that in 1981. It is now 1984, and the minister weeps, gnashes his teeth and teasingly says: "What lovely fellows those guys in Barrie are. There is nothing unscrupulous about them." They just do what the hell they want.

The government had from then until now to put legislation in place that had teeth in it. It could have required full disclosure to determine whether the action is warranted or not. The government does not want that either. Every time we have raised that issue over the years, the ministers responsible for this sort of thing said: "No, you cannot do that. Nobody else does it in the United States." But all of Europe does.

Mr. Laughren: Alabama is the government's benchmark.

Mr. Martel: My colleague is right. Alabama is the government's benchmark.

I suggested to the Minister of Labour on more than one occasion another thing that as a society we should be doing; namely, determining what the costs of a plant shutdown are to the federal government, to the provincial government, to the municipality and to the individuals involved. The government would be so horrified at those costs it would never make them public. It would never deign to do it.

Tell me what it is going to cost to have 500 people thrown out on the streets. Then there is the spinoff -- one and a half to two jobs for every man laid off. What are the costs going to be in unemployment insurance? What are the costs going to be in people who ultimately go on welfare? What are the costs going to be to the municipality when tax revenues go down? What is it going to mean for people who lose their homes? What is it going to mean for people who end up in hospital? We know there is a correlation between that situation and people ending up in hospital.

The government does not want that. It says, "Give us some things to work with." It will not do any of them to find out what we should be doing because the costs would be so horrendous. It would have to say to those companies: "By God, you have to stay there. You are making six per cent or seven per cent profit." In the case of this company, I guess it is $4 million after taxes. The government would have to say to them: "We are not going to allow this turmoil to go on in a complex society. The costs are too great for the people."

When it all happens, it is we as taxpayers who ultimately pay for it. The corporation does not pay. It picks up its marbles and goes to the next town. Society picks up the costs for the people who are unemployed, on welfare or hospitalized, and for families who lose homes. I know this is happening in Sudbury and it is a disaster; but no company ever has to justify its action.

The Minister of Labour can call them in and they will come. Even the Premier jotted off a letter very quickly to Griffith Mines. But he did not do it when National Steel Corp. of Canada Ltd. closed its doors in Capreol. I guess perhaps Leo had a little input, did he?

The government wants some solutions. I will tell the Solicitor General some other solutions. We should be guaranteeing the pensions -- five years vested at the most -- so that those workers will not lose the contributions they have made. I remember the Premier saying in the 1981 election campaign he would introduce a select committee to look into pensions. We need pension reform. The greatest technological change in our history is occurring and the government has done nothing to protect those workers.

I can make another recommendation. When a person relocates to a plant that is nonunionized he should have the right to be unionized, to carry that right with him. Does the government want to protect them? The fastest thing that would happen is that if that company could not pay minimum wage because the union went down lock, stock and barrel, it would change its mind tomorrow. It would not leave Barrie. It is running to some of the Alabamas of Ontario and those other small towns that are desperate for jobs. They will take jobs. They need them because they have massive unemployment, so the company can play around.

Perhaps the Solicitor General can respond to those six or seven ideas I have just thrown out. No, he will sit there and apologize for them. For 17 years in this House I have seen this systematic erosion of a company, this systematic undercutting; and the workers and their families are the only people who pay the price. This government has the gall to sit there and say, "We will forget about it tomorrow."

I say to the Solicitor General that it was his Premier who would not reconstitute the select committee to finish making recommendations which might have given the Minister of Labour some power to do something to prevent those plant shutdowns. The government did not want it. It could not care less. The ministers will individually get up here and cry crocodile tears, but they will not change a thing.

I remember flying to Cleveland with the then Minister of Labour when National Steel Corp. closed its doors in my home town and 225 workers were out like that, overnight. What did the government say to us? It said the same as the mining companies say to us now: "We are tied into other markets. Canada, go pound salt, because in the final analysis you really do not count. It is the corporate bucks that count."

In the case of Capreol, we added three new schools. We put in a new subdivision, a new arena, a whole series of things. The company just picked up its marbles and went home. The people of Capreol are paying the price, while the government just sits there wringing its hands and gnashing its teeth. This government does not have the guts to do anything. That is the problem.

Mr. Runciman: Mr. Speaker, as members familiar with all the consequences of the decision by Black and Decker to close its manufacturing plant in Barrie will appreciate, I find myself in a somewhat peculiar position in this debate. On the one hand, the decision to close the Barrie plant and to consolidate operations in Brockville, which is situated in my riding of Leeds, will result in the creation of 240 production jobs in Brockville.

It is my understanding these positions will be filled in part by the 100 Brockville workers who have received layoff notices effective this month. The remaining 140 positions will be offered to production employees from the Barrie plant.

Naturally, I am pleased that the decision to consolidate the operations will generate new employment opportunities in my area. On the other hand, I sincerely regret the creation of new jobs in my riding comes at the cost of loss of employment in the riding represented by the member for Simcoe Centre. That is not the type of job creation any member in this House would want or find desirable. All members have a great deal of sympathy for the Barrie workers.

Certain allegations have been made to the effect that Black and Decker is closing its Barrie plant simply to shift production to a nonunion facility, that this consolidation is but the first step towards an eventual total pullout from Canada and Ontario. On the basis of what I have heard in this House, from reports in the press, from discussions I have had with officials from Black and Decker in Brockville and from my past experience with that firm, I would have to disagree with those charges.

I can honestly say, and I say it without fear of contradiction, in my experience Black and Decker has always been and continues to be an exemplary corporate citizen in Brockville. The company is deeply involved with and is tremendously supportive of a broad range of community activities and programs. It devotes considerable effort to its community relations programs.

I found the company has always dealt with me, its employees and the people of Brockville in good faith and in a very straightforward and above-board manner. The company's performance and record in my community predisposes me to accept that this decision to consolidate the plant was made on the basis of sound business reasons in an effort to improve its competitiveness and, consequently, maintain its market share and protect the jobs of its employees. The facts, as they are known to me, support this view.

First, both the Brockville and the Barrie plants were operating below capacity. As a result of this consolidation, the rate of capacity utilization at the Brockville plant will be significantly increased.

Second, the Brockville plant is a more modern production facility than the Barrie plant. It has the production technology needed to enhance productivity and the manufacture of products which would be competitive in the marketplace.

Third, the Brockville site offers the firm more room for future expansion.

Fourth, Black and Decker is currently in the process of rationalizing its corporate operations internationally, as evidenced by the fact that it only recently laid off 800 workers at its Allentown plant in the United States.

4:50 p.m.

This decision was made, not as part of some conspiracy to break the union, not as part of some strategy to withdraw from the Canadian market, but as part of an effort on the part of the company to maintain a viable presence in houseware manufacturing in Canada.

From discussions I have had with officials of the company, I know the decision to close the Barrie plant was not made lightly. I have been assured the management of the company is going to make every effort to assist employees affected by the closure to relocate and/or find new employment.

I would also want it on the record that this matter has been thoroughly reviewed by the Foreign Investment Review Agency. The agency is satisfied that everything is in order and that the company has met all its obligations.

I believe we must assess situations such as the Barrie plant closing and any legislative and regulatory response to such incidents in light of the forces affecting our manufacturing industries in this province.

As all members know, the newly industrialized countries have, by combining low-cost labour with reasonably modern machinery, emerged as major international producers and competitors in the traditional mass production industries. The rise of these producers, in conjunction with trade liberalization, has created an intensely competitive, wide-open international market in which manufacturers from high-wage economies such as ours must contend with new competitors who, because of the low wages they pay, enjoy certain comparative advantages.

We have seen the impact of these developments on a whole range of manufacturing industries, from television to autos to electronic goods. We also know these trends have had a profound impact on the household appliance market in this country. Ten years ago Canadian-made household appliances accounted for $206 million in sales in this country, while imports accounted for $117 million. Last year sales of Canadian-made goods totalled $356 million while import sales totalled $423 million.

The only way in which our manufacturers can expect to compete in this new environment is by making their operations as efficient and productive as possible. Only by doing so will our manufacturers be able to maintain or expand their share of the international and domestic markets. It is only by being competitive, by increasing productivity and efficiency, that we will be able to protect the jobs we have, generate new employment opportunities and improve our standard of living.

If we in this House are serious about helping workers and companies of this province come to terms with what we sometimes call industrial restructuring or the economic transformation, then we must put in place laws and regulations which encourage, not inhibit, adaptation.

We must be sensitive to the fact that, especially during periods of competitive realignment, business needs the flexibility to respond to changes in the competitive environment in a manner which will enable it to maximize its productive capacity and make the most efficient use of its available resources.

If we limit the ability of business to make that type of decision, then not only will we hobble the efforts of our existing industries to respond positively to change but we will also discourage new investment. The end result will be lost markets, lost jobs and a lower standard of living.

Members of all parties have often spoken in this House about the challenges of economic transformation. No one has ever said that meeting those challenges was going to be easy. No one has ever said that hard decisions and tough choices would not have to be made. The Black and Decker closing is one of those tough decisions.

We all regret the decision had to be made, but we should also recognize the reasons it was made. We should also recognize the possibility that, had the operations of the firm not been consolidated, the competitive position of the firm might have decayed to the point where sooner or later, and most probably sooner, we would have been in this House debating not one plant closure but two.

We must abandon the notion that our economy is immune to the effects of international developments. We simply cannot afford to maintain hothouse industries, nor is it possible or even desirable for us to shelter our manufacturers from change. We cannot ignore these things. We cannot simply wish they would go away and leave us alone. We have to devise a positive response to industrial restructuring and help the workers and industries of Ontario adapt and adjust to new realities.

If we do not create an environment in which our industries can remain competitive, if we attempt to legislate business decisions which will produce short-term social benefits but long-term economic disaster, then we will undermine our industrial base and drive more of our producers offshore.

We must always keep in mind that it is a productive private sector which generates jobs. Jobs are created by profitable business activity, not by government laws and regulations.

The Acting Speaker: I thank the honourable member. I was looking for someone from the opposition, but I look forward and I see the member for Nickel Belt.

Mr. Laughren: Thank you. I assume the Liberals do not want to speak. I did not want to jump in before they had a chance.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: The member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) is at a very important meeting. He will be here to take his place shortly.

The Acting Speaker: Okay. You will get your turn.

Mr. Laughren: It is with mixed feelings I rise again to debate the closure of Black and Decker of Barrie. I say "mixed feelings" because every now and again a debate comes before this Legislature which is so ideological in nature it cannot help but get my adrenalin pumping.

It was very good to hear the member for Leeds (Mr. Runciman) say it really was inevitable and it was probably necessary that the plant in Barrie close in order to prevent the eventual closure of the plant in Brockville too.

We are dealing with the question of whether or not the market forces out there will determine the economic destiny of this province, or whether the government of Ontario will have some say in the economic future of Ontario. This is really what it comes down to. Either we believe there should be intervention or we do not believe there should be intervention and the marketplace should dictate our economic policy.

What I hear very clearly from the government is, "Let the market forces determine our future." The member for Leeds is at least being straightforward and honest. There were no crocodile tears from the member for Leeds. For that, I give him credit.

Mr. Samis: What would happen if the shoe were on the other foot, if the company moved from Brockville to Barrie?

Mr. Laughren: If the company moved from Brockville to Barrie, I know the member for Leeds would say, "Sorry, those are the forces of the market at play." This is what he would have said. I give him credit because I believe he would have said that. This is why I get upset when the Solicitor General and the Minister of Labour get up, wring their hands and pretend this is not the way they want the world ordered.

The Solicitor Genera] does not like to see Black and Decker closing in his own riding. He does not want that. However, he still wants market forces to make those decisions. There is no question about it. I am sure the minister would not even deny it. The Minister of Labour would not deny it either. They want the marketplace to determine what happens out there in our industrial sector. There is no question about it.

I wish the Solicitor General and the Minister of Labour would be more honest, state that is their policy and stop pretending they wish they could intervene. Who are they kidding? They do not want to intervene. This is their system. They should not pretend to us they would like to see things ordered differently. If they wanted things ordered differently, they would order them differently.

No, this is their system. They relish it. They sometimes even wallow in it. They should not stand in their places and pretend they would wish it otherwise. That is a lot of nonsense. This is why over here we said, "We are sick and tired of the crocodile tears." If the government wants to do something about it, it can.

The Solicitor General said, "I have not heard any positive suggestions." Positive suggestions have been coming at him for a long time from over here about what to do about plant closings.

Mr. Harris: Name one.

Mr. Laughren: One example was the two-year notification. This party has never said plants must never close. We are saying that when a plant closes, it should be done in a civilized fashion.

The government members had the opportunity --

5 p.m.

Mr. Piché: The member is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Laughren: I do not recall ever interrupting any of those people over there. Why are they --

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I think the honourable member is totally misleading the House and should withdraw that statement.

The Acting Speaker: I have to ask the Solicitor General to withdraw that. He has used unparliamentary procedures and will withdraw those words.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: The member did indicate he had never made the statements he just made.

The Acting Speaker: No. You will withdraw the comment that the member is totally misleading the House.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Misleading the House partially.

The Acting Speaker: No. The Solicitor General will withdraw that statement.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I withdraw the parts he takes objection to. I still have my own beliefs.

The Acting Speaker: I am sorry. The Solicitor General will withdraw his statement that the honourable member was totally misleading the House or I will have to take action.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: I did withdraw the part he disagrees with.

Mr. Laughren: When it comes to misleading the House. the Solicitor General has no equal.

The Acting Speaker: Let us keep this on a high plane.

Mr. Laughren: I did not accuse him. I just said he had no equal.

The Acting Speaker: You will withdraw that. I do not want this going back and forth.

Mr. Laughren: All right; he has an equal.

The Acting Speaker: No. I ask you to withdraw the statement, if you will be so kind. Then you can continue with your three minutes.

Mr. Laughren: I withdraw the statement. I do not know whether he has an equal. That is leaving the House in a state of mixed emotions.

The Acting Speaker: Just deal with the subject.

Mr. Laughren: A senior official at CGE once stated, and I am sure the Solicitor General will support this, that the ideal corporation of the future would be located on a huge ship that would float around the world docking wherever the wage rates were the lowest. That is the marketplace at play; that is the way it works.

I wish for once we could have the government members standing up and having the courage of their convictions -- others less refined than I am would say the guts -- and saying exactly what they believe in. That is what they should be saying; but they do not do it, they stand up and pretend.

They say out of one side of their mouths they do not like the way the companies are shutting down and not giving adequate notice, and the next minute they are out there trumpeting the causes of the marketplace and free enterprise. I suppose they have learned they can have it both ways, but every now and again in a debate such as this they get caught in their own contradictions. That is what happens.

The people in Barrie must be scratching their heads and saying: "Wait a minute. Not only do we have a member on the government side, but we also have one who is in the cabinet. What is it doing for us?" They know one thing will happen. They know the Premier is going to write a letter to Black and Decker saying, "We want you to review your decision and we want a two-year notice before this happens."

Surely to goodness what is good enough for Ear Falls in northwestern Ontario is good enough for the people of Barrie; that is the least the people in Barrie can expect. If they get anything less than that, surely they must know the clout the Solicitor General has in cabinet and what the Premier thinks of the people in Barrie.

We have laid before this chamber on many occasions the solution, which includes the two-year notice and, most important of all, justification for closure. Therein lies the secret to having companies come before the people and say, "These are the reasons we must close."

This government will not make them do that. They will go into a meeting with them, come out still wringing their hands, still shedding crocodile tears and saying, "I guess it is inevitable." Mark my words, that is what will happen.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: Words are all the member has. Words are all we ever hear from him.

Mr. Martel: What has the Solicitor General done?

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Laughren: About five years ago, we laid before the chamber an economic plan for Ontario that would make import replacement the centre-piece for economic policy for this province. What did this government do? They put into place something called global product mandating, and what we are getting in Barrie is the result of global product mandating, which the present Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) said was the secret to the future success of Ontario. What we are getting now is what the present Treasurer, the man who would be Premier, put in place five years ago.

I will conclude my remarks by saying that the members --

Mr. Harris: The member should tell us which plants he would close. He has not told us yet.

Mr. Laughren: What?

Mr. Harris: He still has five seconds. Which plants does he think should close?

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Laughren: What we are looking for is justification for any closure. How can we support any closure we cannot justify?

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member's time has expired.

Mr. Barlow: Mr. Speaker, I certainly have great interest in this subject and I wish to speak on it. Unfortunately, plant closures are something I have a lot of familiarity with. We have had a number of them in Cambridge in recent years, and I am very concerned. My experience with layoffs and plant closures has made it abundantly clear that the best strategy is one of conciliation, not the heavy-handed approach that is typically recommended by the third party.

This government has undertaken in the past and continues to undertake all reasonable efforts to ensure that a company has explored all available options other than closure and that employees are brought into the picture just as soon as possible. In this particular instance the union has asked this House to review the information regarding the impending plant closure. The union president, Mr. Jim Hamilton, has publicly stated that the union will view the findings of the politicians as fair and unbiased even if it means a finding that supports the need for closure.

Last week each of our caucuses, and indeed most members of the House, were approached by the union. I know, speaking for our caucus, that we had a man-to-man discussion -- that is the wrong term to use, I realize; we had a very sincere discussion with the union executive.

When we came out we felt there were two alternatives we could explore. One was an approach of this nature today with an emergency debate, which really has no resolution to it; the other was that of a private member's resolution, in which we could come up with a possible solution.

We agreed, with the union primarily, that a private member's resolution would be a much better approach than what we are currently taking part in. However, the third party wished to jump the gun and get into matters other than --

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Long before my friend suggested this, the matter of an all-party resolution was raised at the last House leaders' meeting. He should not try to distort what is fact. Okay?

The Acting Speaker: That is not much of a point of order.

Mr. Barlow: I did not refer to an all-party resolution.

Mr. Harris: That is not what he said.

Mr. Martel: I know full well what he said.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Martel: I know what he said. What he said was not factual.

Mr. Barlow: I am sorry, I am talking about the meeting our caucus had with the union. The members of the third party were not present at that meeting. I said clearly what was discussed among us, and I have here a letter from the union, which arrived at my office today, to back that up.

Clearly, the motion before us does not reflect that fair and objective perspective. This government has concerned itself in the past and continues to concern itself with those affected by closures. In this case we know that the Minister of Labour currently has a meeting set up for November 30, a top-level meeting with members of the company along with members of government, at which this possibility will be discussed. That is what the union wanted; it wanted full discussion with management of the company, and this is what it is getting. The Minister of Labour has committed himself to that meeting, and a date has been set.

5:10 p.m.

The Ministry of Labour, through its plant closure review and employment adjustment branch, participates in a program designed to help terminated employees find alternative work. The same ministry's employee counselling program has been of significant assistance to employees affected by closures. At the same time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade attempts to secure an alternative use or buyer for the facility in question whenever possible.

In regard to the second point in the motion regarding public accountability, it must be recognized that discussion between government and company officials in instances such as this typically involves comprehensive analysis of the justification presented by the company. My experience leads me to believe that the public justification process, rather than altering closure decisions would only serve to intensify negative attitudes towards business without regard for the economic legitimacy of the particular decision.

In closing, let me state that unlike the third party, which attempts to use instances such as this as an opportunity to espouse a political doctrine, this government has specific and very successful programs to deal directly with those affected by these unfortunate decisions and at the same time pursues with great vigour alternative solutions to the problem at hand.

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Speaker, I want to add a few comments to the motion for the emergency debate this afternoon moved by my colleague the member for Hamilton East concerning the closure by Black and Decker Canada of its manufacturing plant in Barrie and the loss of more than 600 jobs.

Last week my colleague the member for Quinte (Mr. O'Neil) also suggested a special emergency debate. I thought I should put on the record just what his resolution said. It might have been more acceptable if that resolution had been carried a week or so ago.

The resolution of the member for Quinte said:

"That in the opinion of this House, recognizing the hardship which will be created in the city of Barrie due to the planned closure of the housewares manufacturing plant of Black and Decker Canada, the approximately 600 jobs that will be lost in the area and the possible export of jobs from the province which could result; and further recognizing the serious discrepancies in information concerning the financial justification for closing the plant, including contradictory information supplied to public officials; the government of Ontario should acknowledge this closing to be unique and unprecedented in Ontario and therefore urges Black and Decker Canada and its parent company, Black and Decker Manufacturing Corp. of Maryland, USA, to reverse their decision, and further the government of Ontario should take all possible and necessary actions to see that all of the threatened jobs resulting from the closure are preserved."

That was a reasonable resolution for this House to accept.

We have been debating plant closures in Ontario for a number of years in this House. I am concerned about them too. For example, a plant that did business in the town of Fort Erie for a number of years closed its facilities last July. I refer to Hart and Cooley Manufacturing Co. of Canada Ltd., which closed its facilities in the town of Fort Erie and moved much of its operation to a plant around Oakville or Mississauga. The company offered to transfer a number of employees to the new location. We are seeing the same situation here, which will cause hardship in the Barrie area; perhaps 190 will be offered jobs at their site in Brockville.

There is a summary of permanent and indefinite layoffs in Ontario as reported by the Ministry of Labour according to the size of the layoffs -- 50 or more or fewer than 50 employees affected. It is also reported by the type of cutbacks that have occurred between January 1, 1984, and July 31, 1984. Under "type of cutback," it says 50 reduced operations; there are headings for 50 or more employees affected, fewer than 50 employees affected and a subtotal. The number of establishments was 40 and the number of employees affected was 3,009. For partial closures, the number of employees affected was 1,761 in cases of 50 or more employees; and 186 in cases of fewer than 50 employees, for a total of 1,947.

Then it comes to complete closures. I think this is rather important. Complete closures where 50 or more employees were affected involved 27 establishments -- this is in Ontario -- and the number of employees affected was 2,831. For the month of July alone, there were five plant closures in Ontario and the number of employees affected was 396. For plants with fewer than 50 employees affected, the number of establishments was 23 and number of employees affected was 674. There were a total of 50 plant closings or partial closings, which amounted to 3,505 jobs. In the month of July alone, there were 10 complete closures and the loss of 490 jobs.

This spring we heard much about the government's program in the new budget and the jobs that were going to be created this term. But even with all the money it had budgeted to encourage industries to hire people in the province, I do not think that is going to come about. The cutbacks by the new Tory government in Ottawa in this area alone will have a drastic impact, causing more unemployment in Canada. I suppose Ontario will be the hardest hit.

It has even cut back on funding for advanced technology. Wilson says, "We are cutting back in these areas." I do not know how we are going to be competitive when we have both governments cutting back in this area. The two governments are kissing cousins now for sure. No more handouts will be given to encourage research and development in these areas.

When I look at that, I ask myself what the total impact upon Canadian society will be. The federal government is even talking about making it tougher to get unemployment insurance. That would be a hardship. If the government in Ottawa leans this way and if the trend is going this way, I can see the return of the Regina Manifesto.

Something must be done in this area to protect jobs in Ontario. In the past, this government encouraged the phasing out or the closing down of operations from one municipality to another by offering grants to relocate. I am thinking of a plant in Thorold. I think Hayes-Dana Inc. was given a substantial grant to relocate much of its plant facilities in Barrie. It moved in that direction, but what happened to the plant?

One can see this trend all the way across Canada, but particularly in Ontario and Quebec. Both the federal and provincial governments have come forward with grants. They say they are creating new jobs, but the jobs that are lost in Fort Erie or in Barrie are going to other municipalities. Of course, it looks great when the Brockville Chamber of Commerce can say in its monthly newsletter that it has created 600 new jobs. But the Chamber of Commerce in Barrie at the same time is saying, with not too much pride, "We have lost jobs here and they have been relocated some place else."

5:20 p.m.

This might be the game this government and the federal government are playing today, saying they are creating so many jobs in one place and not telling how many jobs have been lost somewhere else. It is difficult to believe the Treasurer when he stands up and says, "We are going to create 38,000 new jobs in Ontario," when one looks at the total numbers of plant shutdowns listed here.

A total of around 19,000 jobs have been lost in plant closures within the year, taking in 1983. Quite a few jobs have been lost today under our economic conditions which are supposed to be creating jobs.

I will go back to Hart and Cooley, which transferred its operations from Fort Erie to another location in Ontario. Five or six months later, a number of the employees there still do not know if they are going to get their pensions. They are having difficulty getting their pensions settled by that industry. I am sure the minister is aware of the practice taking place in the United States in regard to plant closures and layoffs. Companies and industries are raiding the employees' pension funds.

They are having difficulty on the American side because there is a certain loophole, and I am sure it exists here too, whereby a company can retrieve some of the pension fund money that has been set aside for employees. They can show it as an investment deal and say they are going to invest it back into the industry. The guy who is put out on the street through plant relocation or plant closure is having difficulty in --

The Acting Speaker: I thank the honourable member. His time has expired.

Mr. Haggerty: We still have about 40 minutes before the recess and I am sure we could go on. I suggest --

Mr. Mancini: Your 10 minutes are up. Look at the clock.

Mr. Haggerty: I do not bother about the clock over there. I have seen question period run over four minutes. I will make it short. I think any plant closure has to be justified.

The Acting Speaker: You have had your time.

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I want to participate in the debate this afternoon because I think it is an important debate, even though one would not know that in looking at the government benches opposite, which are pretty empty. The entire second row has not one government member in it this afternoon.

Mr. Rotenberg: There are four members of your party here right now too.

Mr. Breaugh: If the members opposite do not want to be the government, they should get out of here. It is as simple as that. If they want to make the rules of the game, if they want to maintain a quorum in the Legislature, if they want to run the province, they must accept a certain amount of responsibility. They can suck and blow all they want on that one, but that is their job, not ours.

I want to participate even though it makes me a little sad. This whole issue of plant closures has been around us for far too long and this government has known what to do for far too long. It is not because they have not been told by us, by communities, by unions, by individuals and by just about everybody the things they have to do to prevent this kind of tragedy from occurring. They know those things and they have known them, as a government, for a long time now, and they have chosen, as a government, not to act on them.

It saddens me somewhat that they have not. It saddens me a great deal that in almost all our communities around Ontario we have industrial development programs, industrial development officers, mayors and members of council who are very busy trying to see that this type of tragedy does not hit their community. None of that can work because there is no notice provision.

They have said to this government time and time again: "When plants close, we have to have some notice. You have to tell us or all this hardware in which we have invested, all that computer time, all the industrial development people, all the new promotional programs we have put in place cannot work, if no one will tell us about this until after the closure takes place."

They have told the government this for a long time and it has chosen not to do anything about it. Individuals have told the government they need some help with portable pensions, that if a plant closes in one place it would surely be a great help to be able to carry their pensions to another spot. The government has chosen not to do anything about that.

This afternoon I have listened to the debate and it seems to me that some members use it as an opportunity to get off on their ideology, and that is fair game. The member for Leeds pretends to be the total free enterpriser. He may be, but this government is not. This government is strongly interventionist in nature.

This government has the Innovation Development for Employment Advancement Corp., the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development, tax concessions and tax holidays, and it promotes businesses around the world. It intervenes in the free marketplace every single day of its life. In fact, intervention by the government in the free marketplace is big business in Ontario. There is probably more money spent by this government intervening in the marketplace than doing anything else I can think of.

I want to get back to a couple of other points that came up earlier in the debate. I remember sitting in committee room 2 when some friends of mine had their plant closed on them. I sat with the current Minister of Labour -- he was not minister at the time -- as my friends poured out their heart and soul to a committee of this Legislature about what happens to ordinary people when a plant closes.

At that time, it struck me the Minister of Labour was being very honest. I do not think he had ever heard that before in his life. I do not think he recognized the destruction of individual lives, family lives and the life of a community before. At that time, I thought he did not know that. This was a new experience for him. He was not aware of what that does to a working person who has spent 20 or 30 years in a plant and every day of his life has done what society says one is supposed to do, that is work hard, and now has the closure of that plant destroy his life from that point on.

Just as a sad update, I happen to know some people who came out of those plants that were closed down in my area and that is exactly what has happened to their lives. They have turned to booze and drugs. Their marriages have had problems and they have been destroyed. That is not new. That is not a revelation.

The minister was told all of those things by those people five, six or seven years ago. He has been told that repeatedly. He has played with select committees which made recommendations to him and he chose not to do anything about it.

Many members have said today exactly what is going to happen. The minister will have a meeting. Letters of concern will be sent. There will be a debate in the Legislature. There will probably be a meeting or two. The Solicitor General, who happens to be the local member, will say he is working very hard to do something; but consistently over the years the government has been told by us, by all-party committees of the Legislature, by industry, by unions, by individuals, exactly the kinds of things it needs to do.

The minister knows the litany of things that must be done. He cannot pretend ignorance any more. He cannot pretend he does not know what happens to those individuals any more. I believed the Minister of Labour five or six years ago when he sat in the committee room and said, "I never realized this happened to people." I believed him then, but I do not believe him any more.

He has known for that length of time what has to be done and he has done nothing about it. His concern is not appreciated any more. We want more than that. His baloney that he refuses to intervene in the free marketplace is just that. The minister intervenes in the free marketplace every day of his working life.

What people are begging the minister to do is to intervene in a constructive way so this kind of closure does not happen again. The tragedy is people have been asking the government to do that for the better part of a decade. An even greater tragedy is that the Treasurer, who has resisted all of that for the better part of a decade, is now, in the middle of a leadership campaign for his political party, beginning to see the light. He is beginning to say now what people on this side of the House have been saying for a long time. The government cannot let people close a plant like that with no notice. There has to be some provision to make them a little bit accountable.

This is the same corporate sector that accepts all of the government intervention. It accepts a range of things from complete tax holidays to lower loan rates, to all of the promotional things the government of Ontario does to keep the private sector in business. The government intervenes in a number of ways. It responds to their needs.

The plea we are making now is respond to somebody else's needs. Respond to those individuals who will not have a job. Respond to the communities that will lose their industrial tax base. For the life of me, I cannot understand why this government has not done that. If the minister is a little upset with members on this side who are perhaps a little more emotional than they normally are on issues such as this, he should understand the tragedies will be around for a long time.

5:30 p.m.

It is true that in crass political terms the government is probably doing the expedient thing. The minister will express some concern, and hold some meetings, and probably they will forget who caused all of this to happen.

But the truth is that the members opposite are the government in Ontario. They have known for a long time what had to be done and they have steadfastly and resolutely refused to do it.

I believe the government will do it. I think the problem is that the body count is not high enough yet, but it is getting there. Not enough communities have been hammered by this kind of layoff, but it is getting there. Not enough people have lost their livelihoods to have a political impact yet, but it is getting there. The government is simply sitting around watching the numbers mount, and when some pollster for the Conservative Party in Ontario decides it is politically expedient to do something, it will. Until that time is reached, no argument about fairness, no argument about equity will hold sway in its court. We know that.

The government is a little uncomfortable this afternoon that people are expecting it to do what a government ought to do, that we are no longer accepting little ideological discussions or lectures from it about who does what in society.

It can be as pragmatic as it wants; it has a wide choice of options to pick. But the truth is that it must pick some of them and, to date, it has refused to pick any of them. To date it has said, "It is good enough to sit around and hope that somebody in the private sector will pick up the pieces." The truth is that it knows it is laying on the taxpayers of Ontario all the social responsibility for all those costs, and it is wrong. It will take more people, more jobs and more disasters like this, but the government will eventually act on all those recommendations. It will eventually do all those things.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, I would say right at the outset that I am literally stunned that out of 71 Tory members only three of that caucus would view the closure of a facility in a city the size of Barrie and environs, throwing 600 people on to the street with Lord knows what kind of spinoff effect, as not being worthy of their joining the debate.

Mr. Piché: You are talking like a socialist now.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Wrye: My friend the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché), with his usual glib turn of phrase, talks about the kind of rhetoric we utter in terms of whether we are socialist or capitalist. You know, my friend, these are people --

The Acting Speaker: The member will speak to the issue.

Mr. Wrye: -- and they do not care one hoot whether it is socialism, capitalism, free enterprise or mixed economy. All they know is that somewhere down the road not very many weeks from now they are not going to have a job.

Interjection.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Wrye: I say to my friend the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris), as he will know, that I was here until about 4:30. Then I went to another meeting on another bill with which we are trying to persuade the Minister of Labour to help the women of Ontario.

Mr. Harris: Your time must be really important.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Wrye: But I am back in my place, I am prepared to discuss this matter and I am really rather surprised the government could not put up any more members.

Mr. Piché: I am going to listen to you, but try to be positive. This negative approach is taking time it should not take.

Mr. Wrye: There is nothing positive about a plant closure that is going to cost 600 people their jobs in the short term and that in the long term may cost anywhere from 400 to 900 more. Every time business creates a job, those who make the announcement talk about the spinoff effect and how this new plant with 200 people will create a total of 500 jobs.

I suggest to my friend the member for Cochrane North and to the minister it works the same way in reverse.

This company, this closure, this unacceptable action coming a few precious months after an approval by FIRA is literally going to tear the guts out of Barrie and its surrounding municipalities.

My friend the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) talked in his speech about why some of us are a little more emotional about this debate than about some of the other debates. That is because we have seen it happen. We have seen the government do absolutely nothing time after time, not only to prevent it in the first place but to deal with the wreckage after it occurs.

Back in June 1979 in the ridings of Windsor-Sandwich and Windsor-Walkerville, two plants owned by the Bendix Corp. --

Mr. Piché: I went through the Kimberly-Clark closure last year. I am aware of all that. He blames the government for everything.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker. could I perhaps have a little less noise?

The Acting Speaker: I would ask the honourable member to remember that the member for Windsor-Sandwich has the floor.

Mr. Wrye: Why does the member not listen? Maybe he will learn something.

Mr. Piché: I would like to listen if he talks positively. This is a serious matter. He should try to talk positively.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Piché: He should tell us what he would like to do.

Mr. Martel: What about the crying of the honourable member when the plant in his riding was closed down?

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Wrye: In June 1979 --

Mr. Piché: The member knows what happened.

Mr. Wrye: Maybe the member could shut up and I will give him a lesson.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Cochrane North will control himself.

Mr. Wrye: In June 1979, 591 workers woke up one morning to find both Bendix plants in Windsor were being closed that day. This government gave them absolutely no help whatever. The unions negotiated a good pension arrangement, a good deal on the pension and a reasonable deal on severance, but this government did not produce any ongoing jobs, job evaluation, job training or job search.

It did not work with these individuals, many of whom were quite unskilled in their labours, but many of whom equally had worked a great number of years of their lives, in some cases all their lives, at this one plant developing the skills necessary at Bendix.

They were tossed, as the people of Black and Decker will be tossed, on the scrap heap.

Mr. Runciman: Not true.

Mr. Wrye: Not true, my friend? My friend from Leeds suggests it is not true. I would suggest that he take off the blinkers and perhaps come to a riding such as mine to deal with the Bendix workers. Even to this day they still come to my office asking, "What can you do to try to get me full-time employment?" Since 1979 far too many of them have had a series of make-work jobs, virtually total lack of training and certainly a total lack of interest from this government.

What is terribly unnerving and terribly distressing about this is the fate of the select committee on plant shutdowns and employee adjustment. It is a committee the Minister of Labour sat on and I believe my friend the member for Simcoe Centre sat on. Before the election reality of March 19, it had been doing very good and commendable work in certain partisan circumstances.

As a journalist doing a program on plant closures before that election, I read a great deal of the testimony that came before that committee, testimony and questions from all three parties. What was the very first thing this government did? It shut down the committee. It said, "We do not need it any more."

I say to my friend the member for Simcoe Centre who sits at the cabinet table, "Boy, do we ever need it today." We certainly need it today because we have today, in this Black and Decker situation, not some small plant shutting its doors, we have the kind of plant that the committee was most particularly concerned about, a plant whose shutdown affects in a very real way the economic viability of a community.

5:40 p.m.

As I came back into the House I was listening to my friend the member for Erie (Mr. Haggerty), who was making a very good point. In these cases at least, surely some kind of justification must be the order of the day. In cases such as these, surely it is not unreasonable nor irresponsible to suggest large employers should be forced to go to the Minister of Labour before they make any announcement and say, "Here is what we contemplate." This would allow the minister and the ministry with all their expertise and manpower to begin to try to salvage something before the wreckage is total. Surely, this is not unreasonable.

Time and again for the last three and a half years, during my time as Labour critic and during my time in this parliament, we have asked the Minister of Labour to reconstitute that plant shutdown committee. Out of this tragedy, and it is a human tragedy, perhaps we will see that kind of committee reconstituted.

In a sense, I feel for the Minister of Labour and the Solicitor General today because the pressure back home must be enormous. There is no doubt about it. However, they sit at the cabinet table and they sit in this Legislature. Out of this tragedy, perhaps they will understand for the first time that the time has come to speak up, to pound the table a little bit and say, "This just cannot go on." The body count, as my friend the member for Oshawa suggested, is getting unacceptably high in my community and others.

Out of this tragedy, perhaps the Minister of Labour will call his friends or his cousins in Ottawa and say, "What we need with the Foreign Investment Review Agency is not the destruction and diminution of it, but the strengthening of it." Then when FIRA looks into what changes are going to be of economic benefit to this country, it can make sure the economic benefit lasts longer than just a few months before the human wreckage comes along.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, one of the things that strikes me about the closure of Black and Decker in Barrie, which we are discussing today, is that it is indicative of a kind of decline -- I am not quite sure how to describe it -- in the level of civility on the part of the business community in this country which is becoming more and more evident.

We used to hear people talking about capitalism with a human face. That was certainly a theme in the 1950s and the 1960s. Quite frankly, I think many of us thought we had arrived at a time in our society where the kind of thing we have been seeing happen systematically over the course of the last four or five years was not going to happen any more.

About a month ago we had a report from the Canadian Manufacturers' Association which raved and ranted about the need to do away with things such as child labour laws. I see this as part of an overall decline in, whatever we call it, corporate ethics or corporate citizenship, on the part of the business community in this country. I think this government is going to have to wake up to it, confront it, take it on, challenge it and stop it.

We are not going to sit around and backslide into the kind of savage, dog-eat-dog economy of the 19th century. Yet this is precisely what is happening. As my colleague said, I thought the member for Leeds made an honest contribution to the debate. He talked about the need, in the face of the kind of foreign competition we are experiencing from offshore, newly industrialized countries, to undergo some kind of economic transformation and to permit the private sector to be flexible in order to respond to that kind of challenge.

In the name of that kind of flexibility and under the rubric of some kind of economic transformation, we are seeing a new kind of corporate barbarism taking place across this province in community after community. It is all very well for the member to talk about the need for flexibility and consolidations that will permit companies like Black and Decker to survive. But what price is going to be paid by the 600 people in Barrie who are going to be sacrificial lambs in aid of this economic transformation?

One cannot simply say the free force of the market will be allowed to prevail and the 600 people will be allowed to fall into a social and economic gutter. That is the kind of dog-eat-dog capitalism we have escaped from and which many people in this country's business community would like to lead us back into.

This government is not dealing with plant layoffs and shutdowns as isolated phenomena. They are no longer that. They are epidemics which are part of the business community's response to tremendous international competitive pressures. We have to understand that we cannot simply allow people who are victims of these pressures to be dropped like so many obsolete pieces of machinery.

The government has said it refuses to deal with the issues of notice and justification because this somehow impedes the consolidation necessary for these guys to survive in the face of international competition. I will just set that aside for the moment. What happens to the victims?

The government refuses to bring in adequate severance pay legislation, so the people who are laid off are dependent on an unemployment insurance system which is not designed to deal with these situations. Our unemployment insurance plan is designed to deal with short-term unemployment which is not of an epidemic nature. What is happening in Barrie is the equivalent of an epidemic of unemployment. It will be a long time before these people get back to work. They will exhaust their unemployment insurance benefits and many of them will end up on welfare. They will lose all their investments in their homes. They will go right to the bottom of the economic ladder.

That is only the beginning of their problems. They will lose their pensions. In Ontario, we still have the most archaic, absurd pension legislation in the private sector. The 10-year service, age 55 rule is still in effect. I do not know the precise details of the vesting arrangements at Black and Decker, but they are probably not much better than that, if they are any better. That means many younger workers will lose everything because they will not have 10 years of service. Many older workers will discover what many others who have been laid off have discovered, namely, that their pensions are minuscule.

The CCM workers, for example, discovered that when the company ran into difficulties it stopped paying into the pension fund altogether. They discovered their pension fund was underfunded to such an extent they had no pension coverage at all.

This government refuses to bring in reforms to private sector pensions and, more important, it does not begin to touch on the need for pension cushions for older workers who will never get back to work. The reality for someone in his late fifties or sixties who has worked at a place like Black and Decker for all his life is that he is not going to go back to work. There will be people in that plant who will probably never work again in their lives. Yet this government refuses to bring in voluntary early retirement schemes which would at least prevent the complete economic catastrophe which will be inevitable for some of the workers at Black and Decker.

5:50 p.m.

Who is going to help the workers who are laid off in a mass unemployment situation to find alternative employment? Canada Manpower? Do not make me laugh. Are these people supposed to go to Canada Manpower in Barrie and look at the notice board for jobs? Is that how we are supposed to help these guys and women to get back to productive employment, by going down to the Canada Manpower centre?

We have argued over and over again the need to put special manpower adjustment programs into place when these kinds of plant shutdowns and mass layoffs take place, and nothing has happened. The people in Barrie have no alternative except to go to the Canada Manpower office and look at the notice board. It is pathetic.

The member for Leeds talked about some of the job opportunities for workers in Brockville. I gather there will be 200 jobs in Brockville, if I understood him correctly. One hundred of these will be taken up by workers in Brockville who have already been laid off. At most, for the 600 workers at Black and Decker there will possibly be 100 jobs in Brockville.

That leaves 500 people. Who is assuming the responsibility to help them find alternative employment? Not the Minister of Labour and not the local members. They cannot possibly find jobs for 500 people. Let us not be preposterous.

If the government is not going to deal with the fundamental problem of requiring companies to give adequate notice and to provide public justification if they are going to wreak this kind of economic havoc on a community, surely it has a responsibility to put measures and safety nets in place to prevent the people who are victimized by these kinds of events from being wiped out financially and completely destroyed; yet it does not deal with these issues either.

It is not as though these are new. This has been going on now, as I said, in a kind of epidemic for the last six or seven years. It is regrettably and obviously part of a trend within the Canadian business community, which obviously does not have the wit to respond to international pressures in any other way but to try to make its workers superfluous. I hope the government will eventually come to its senses.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, with respect, I would like to draw to your attention the fact that six members from the third party have spoken this afternoon, but only four members from the government side and only four members from the official opposition have spoken. Somewhere along the line the rotation was broken.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: We took our turn in rotation every time it came around. That explains the discrepancy.

Mr. Martel: No one got up.

Mr. Harris: The Liberal Party had nobody to speak once. That is what happened.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I did want to take the time to go through the details of the Black and Decker closure. There will not be time to do that in the detail I had hoped, but I do want to make just two or three comments.

The last speaker talked about the fact the government and the ministry would not do anything to help these workers who are severed, but that is not the case at all. Every possible step will be taken to ensure that employees are given the fullest assistance in seeking alternative employment and in obtaining career counselling and skills upgrading opportunities.

Members are aware of the way in which manpower adjustment committees operate. If it becomes necessary, I am sure that with union and company co-operation a manpower adjustment committee can be established. They have been established in each and every closure and they have had a measure of success.

Similarly, the counselling programs, which are initiated by my ministry and carried out in co-operation with the local community college, will certainly be made available for those wishing additional training opportunities. So there are those mechanisms in place and, as I say, they have had a measure of success despite an economy that has not been the best.

I hesitate to bring these facts up again, but I think they should be put on the record. The situation is grim; I am not debating that at all. As I have said in this House before, if there is just one closure involving one person, that is as traumatic to that one person as it is to anybody else.

However, there has been an improvement, and I would like to illustrate that. During the first eight months of 1984, the total number of employees affected by permanent and indefinite layoffs has shown a continual decline from the previous two years. For instance, during the period January through August 1984, 115 establishments reported permanent and indefinite layoffs affecting 9,179 employees compared with 136 establishments affecting 13,536 employees during the same period in 1983. With regard to the number of workers affected, this represents a decrease of approximately 32 per cent. The comparison is even more dramatic when one examines the same period in 1982 during which 27,717 employees were terminated in 253 establishments.

This picture is certainly an encouraging indication that the economy is in a stage of recovery. As I said earlier, I do not want to underestimate the seriousness of the current situation, but the trend does give some encouragement.

I had some other things to say, but I do not want to say them out of context. Perhaps I could close with a couple of comments that are not meant to be provocative. I have listened with interest to everyone this afternoon. I know how serious they are about the matter. My friend the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) has talked about what they do in Europe. My friend the member for Oshawa has discussed the options that have been put before this government time and time again.

What has a socialist government in Manitoba done in this respect? I can go a little further and ask what --

Mr. Martel: Their rate of unemployment has declined regularly under a socialist government.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: There are still sad, sad closures in Manitoba.

May I ask what a socialist government has done in Quebec? That province has --

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I would think in this debate this afternoon this minister would be a little bit caring and concerned about what is happening here in Barrie, Ontario --

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

Mr. Breaugh: -- and never mind the garbage about what is happening elsewhere.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Hon. G. W. Taylor: His remarks are no different. He and the other NDP member started right off by railing at me. They have no concern whatever for the workers, but just their platitudes and their philosophy.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: The important point I am attempting to make is that Ontario has been out in front as far as severance arrangements are concerned. We have been out in front of provinces such as Manitoba and Quebec and in front of British Columbia and Saskatchewan that did have socialist governments. We have led the way on the North American continent with regard to severance pay provisions and benefits for workers.

The House recessed at 5:58 p.m.

20 novembre 1984