Journal des débats 1986-nov-05 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I would like to remind the members of this Legislature that the government and the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) made the decision last year to phase out the Ontario Land Corp. and dispose of its land holdings by transferring ownership to the appropriate ministries or selling the land as market conditions permit.

The Ontario Land Corp. has until next August to dispose of 63,000 acres of land, much of it farm land. My concern is that if the government decides to sell the land, thousands of acres of farm land will be thrown on to the market, which will have the effect of further depressing the already low price of farm land.

This government and the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) have made a commitment to preserve Ontario's agricultural land. Why then would the government not set an example by holding the approximately 30,000 acres of farm land it now owns instead of releasing them for sale, thereby forcing our financially depressed farmers to maintain all the farm land in this province as well as having to suffer the effects of further decreases in land values? This agricultural land could be leased to farmers with long-term options to purchase when economic conditions improve.

EXTRA BILLING

Mr. D. S. Cooke: I rise to speak on the statement made yesterday by the Ontario Medical Association and the press release that was issued by the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston), to remind the members that this matter has been discussed in the Legislature and in public for several months.

The first meeting the Minister of Health had on this matter with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario was on July 2 -- I gather he has had one subsequent meeting as well as meetings with the OMA -- yet as of today, the matter remains unresolved.

In an article on July 23, after the meeting with the college, the Toronto Star reported: "Elston said later he expected the college would soon issue a `pretty plain statement' that there should not be charges deterring people from seeking doctors' care."

That statement never went out from the college, yet some of the charges that doctors, most obviously the obstetricians in the city of Toronto, were initiating with their patients were completely outrageous and were deterring people from accessing the health care system.

Yesterday, the Minister of Health stated, "While it is true that billing for uninsured services is not a new practice, I have some reservations about the Ontario Medical Association's guidelines as contained in its letters."

Are standby fees going to be allowed, are some of these other uninsured fees going to be allowed, or is the government going to put its legislation where its mouth is and end this practice, which deters people from using the health care system?

ROBERT P. BATEMAN AWARD

Mr. Offer: I rise to inform the House that the first Robert P. Bateman Award has been given to Grace Jull. Mrs. Jull has worked as a child care counsellor for emotionally disturbed children at the Mississauga Hospital's child and family clinic.

The Robert P. Bateman Award is given to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the physical and emotional welfare of children. It is through the contribution of people such as Grace Jull that the needs of our children are more fully met.

Mrs. Jull not only counsels at the clinic three days a week but also operates a hotline service for teachers, parents and public health nurses. In addition, she runs a drop-in centre in the Meadowvale area of Mississauga for parents to discuss child management problems.

Grace Jull has been working in this field for more than 20 years. She is 69 years old, a mother of four and a grandmother of nine. I wish publicly to congratulate Grace Jull for her effort, dedication and commitment in her work with our children for many years.

GUY FAWKES DAY

Mr. Andrewes: Remember, remember the fifth of November. Today is Guy Fawkes Day. It is an old English celebration of thanksgiving. The roots of the tradition stretch back nearly 400 years, to 1605, when Guy Fawkes and a number of conspirators attempted to blow up the British House of Commons.

Despite all the recent renovations to this chamber, I do not believe the construction crews uncovered any kegs of gunpowder in the cellar; yet we hear threats of another kind, related to the longevity of this parliament. Peter, son of the wolf, has been doing some huffing and puffing of late, and now we hear the government House leader may be planting a few bombs of his own to bring about what he refers to as the final solution.

I remind the government House leader that the Guy Fawkes plot was uncovered. Fawkes was tortured to reveal the names of his co-conspirators, and on January 31, 1606, they were duly executed in front of Westminster.

I caution the House leader to remember, remember the fifth of November.

SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT

Mr. Hayes: In 1971, the Ministry of the Environment issued a certificate of approval for the operation of a landfill site in the township of Maidstone; it then turned its back, walked away and ignored the operation of that site.

The dump in Maidstone has been operating illegally for a long time. The wells, the ground water and the streams are being polluted. The people are still waiting for the government to assure them that their health is not affected by the contaminants in this dump.

No doubt the workers in the Windsor sewage treatment plant have a good reason for refusing to work; they felt their health was affected. However, I feel the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) and the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) have shirked their duties by not resolving the problem at the source. What good is legislation if it is circumvented by an uncaring government willing to issue endless temporary permits to dumps?

The lack of action by the Minister of the Environment is not acceptable to the people of Maidstone township. The minister has not taken this concern as seriously as he should. Every time he is asked a question on this issue, he takes us on a trip around the world. Why does he not get out of the environment and start a travel agency?

CONFERENCE ON NORTHERN COMPETITIVENESS

Mr. Gordon: In Sault Ste. Marie yesterday the Premier (Mr. Peterson) spoke of "ruthless realism" and the need for northerners to become self-reliant, and insinuated that northerners are complainers looking for someone else to blame for our problems. At times he sounds very much like a Social Darwinian. What I find particularly galling is that he can say such things in northern Ontario after travelling direct, if you can believe it, from a new auto plant in southern Ontario.

This Premier spoke of a new reality for northern Ontario. The reality of northern Ontario is an unemployment rate that is nearly double that of the south. Does his new reality for northern Ontario include the type of incentives and moral suasion that is necessary and that only the government can provide and that will see auto plants locating in the north?

In northern Ontario now, we have the skills and infrastructure such industries require. In Thunder Bay, we have Can-Car; in Sudbury, we manufacture all-terrain vehicles; at various locations in the north, mining machinery is manufactured. All we lack is the government's political will to put in place a program of incentives and to apply pressures at the right points to get these kinds of industries locating in the north. Another gabfest in Thunder Bay is not the answer to northern Ontario's problems or its unemployment problems.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Martel: I have before me a copy of a letter written by Rae Erskine, co-chairman of the joint health and safety committee at Domtar in Hamilton, to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye). Mr. Erskine writes to say, and I quote:

"I feel that some person or persons in your ministry must have been misinforming you. Since what has been stated -- that I asked you not to intervene -- " which Mr. Erskine says is totally untrue, "is so out of accord with the real situation, I feel it is my duty to respond."

Mr. Erskine says he never asked that the report be rewritten, nor did the joint health and safety committee request Dr. Muir to rewrite or revise the report. The joint health and safety committee asked for clarification on the severity of the health effects on workers.

He also says he spoke to the minister personally in early August. The ministry officials were in the plant, and in September he insisted the inspectors record his complaint that the internal responsibility system at Domtar had failed. In 72 per cent of the cases involved, the internal responsibility system had failed. Further, Mr. Erskine says, and I quote, "We have achieved some improvement to date, but this has been done without assistance or sympathy from the Ministry of Labour."

I am not quoting now. Let me say that the minister has not responded in any way, shape or form to the facts that Muir, McCalla and company are out to get those two doctors and are out to downplay the seriousness of those problems at Domtar.

13:43

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Hon. Mr. Wrye: The administration of the Occupational Health and Safety Act is one of my most important responsibilities as Minister of Labour.

As honourable members know, the act requires both management and labour to assume the primary responsibility for worker health and safety in the work place. If that responsibility is exercised with discipline, determination and care, illness and injury on the job will be prevented and worker health and safety will be protected. If it is not, the Ministry of Labour must exercise its responsibility, which is to bring the full force of the law to bear upon the work place -- swiftly, surely and fairly -- so that things may be set right.

To exercise that responsibility fully, the Ministry of Labour must have at its disposal the appropriate resources, both human and financial. It is my judgement that the ministry has not had such resources since the act took effect in 1979. While every enforcement area has suffered from some degree of neglect, none has suffered to the extent of the construction health and safety branch.

In 1981, when the construction industry was considerably less active than it is today, there were 92 construction safety inspectors in Ontario. In 1985, when this government came to power, there were only 66. In four short years, almost one third of the construction health and safety inspectorate left the job and was not replaced.

Today, it gives me great satisfaction to announce that we are beginning the full and formal reversal of that sorry trend. I would also like to stress that the measures I am announcing today are interim measures only.

The external review of the effectiveness and efficiency of the occupational health and safety program that is now being conducted will provide blueprints for comprehensive resource enhancement in all areas of the ministry's occupational health and safety mandate.

The government has granted the Ministry of Labour the resources to hire 13 new construction health and safety inspectors just as soon as competitions can be conducted and candidates selected.

In addition, the government has granted resources to hire three new lawyers, two new articling students, an office manager and three support staff for the ministry's legal services branch. These new people will help ease the burden on the ministry's legal staff, a burden that has increased dramatically in the past year since the government came to power and since a new enforcement policy was implemented.

Permit me to provide one statistical comparison to underscore the impact that this new enforcement policy has had. Between April and August of 1986, the number of cases referred to the legal branch for possible prosecution was 296; that represents a 155 per cent increase over the 116 cases referred during the similar period of 1985.

In making this announcement, I would like to thank specifically the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) for his interest and support. It reflects the understanding and commitment of the government to work places for all workers in Ontario in which illness and injury can be prevented and health and safety will be protected.

Mr. Gillies: A year and a half after this government took office, the Minister of Labour suddenly realizes that construction activity in the province is well up and that monitoring and inspection of that activity has to be increased.

I am surprised the minister does not realize that during the years 1981 to 1984, we had something going on in the province called a recession. To use my riding as an example, building permits worth a total of $6 million were issued in the city of Brantford in 1981; more than $55 million worth of building permits will be issued in 1986. The need for increased monitoring and inspection is obvious, and the minister will have to concede that it is an increase in construction activity that necessitates this.

The minister is not going to get any disagreement in this House that there is a need for additional staff to process the case load he has. In that regard, I welcome his announcement and I am glad he is getting the staff he needs.

However, the statement did not speak to the real problem, which is that in the first full year for which he has had responsibility, the incidence of work place deaths and accidents in the construction industry in this province is way up. I know this concerns the minister as much as it does all other members of the House. I concede to the minister that in part it is because of the increase in construction activity itself, but the need is pressing.

If the minister can take all necessary steps to improve inspection and compliance with orders in the province, he will have the goodwill and support of every member of this House. I hope he can do it. In his statement, the minister alluded to the external review that is under way on the activities of his ministry in this regard. We look forward to seeing that review, but let us not lose sight of the major problem, that the construction industry in Ontario today is a much less safe place to be than it was even one year ago. The minister has an obligation to do something about it.

Mr. Martel: I am amazed by the comments of my friend to the right, since it was his party that allowed the start of this downhill slide. What amazes me about the minister's statement is that while he pretends he is getting more staff, it is my understanding he will have fewer staff when he is finished hiring than there was in 1981, when there were 235 or 236 inspectors. I believe we are now down to 221, and he is going to get 13 more; so the total figure will not be substantially altered.

The real issue is not whether the ministry has enough inspectors. One of the key problems is that the minister has not cleaned up the swamp. No one knows what anyone is doing, and everyone is contradicting everyone else. The minister has not been able to straighten that out in 17 months. In fact, he has not even been able to make a dent in the type of reporting that goes on in the ministry.

The minister talked about orders and said there was an increase of 155 per cent in prosecutions. The number of orders issued in the industrial sector alone was 50,000, and 10 per cent had to be repeated. They were all a violation of the act to start with. Those people who did not conform to the orders written were contravening the act a second time. While he talks about a paltry 200, we are talking about 50,000 or 60,000 orders, if we consider all three sectors, and he wants to blame everyone.

Lack of numbers is just a smokescreen for inactivity. The biggest inactivity he could have performed in this Legislature was to have an inquiry that cannot get to the bottom of his problems. I do not know where the agreement came from. The minister goes into the type of inquiry where witnesses cannot be called, subpoenaed if need be and documents subpoenaed. He has this little in-house inquiry that will get to the bottom of nothing, as hard as Laskin and McKenzie work. There is so much collusion going on in this field that it is not even funny. The minister knows it and I know it. Why he ever got taken in by the group which decided he needed a little in-house, private inquiry is beyond me.

One only has to look at the Domtar situation. The chairman of the Advisory Council on Occupational Health and Occupational Safety is the same Dr. McCalla who is sitting at McMaster, threatening to fire a couple of doctors who are too intimately involved with an occupational health centre. There is collusion. Then he has Dr. Muir, who happens to be the vice-chairman of one of the minister's committees, who admits he rewrote a report without anybody asking for it. What the minister is trying to do is shift the blame to Erskine and the two doctors.

The minister says to me that the doctors will not come forward. Quite naturally, they will not come forward. Their jobs are being threatened. I raised this a year ago during the minister's estimates and he told the press he could not recall any of that. I suggest he look in Hansard. I also called him in September about the same sort of situation.

I cannot understand why the minister did not ask for an open and full inquiry. He had no allegiance to the cesspool at 400 University Avenue, none at all. If he had had any courage, he would have cleaned it up. He would have had an open and full inquiry and would have had credit for it. As it is now, the minister is seen as part of the problem. For the life of me, I cannot understand why he did that. I cannot understand why he comes in here day after day with answers that are half-truths prepared by his staff. I have said that to my friend in public and I have said it to him privately. He will not get to the bottom of that cesspool. That will only occur when he has the courage to have an open inquiry.

Let the minister not tell me about inspection. I can show him 100 cases where the inspectors' orders have been countermanded by their superiors. I can name the people who countermanded the orders when the inspectors gave them out there. How can the minister have any willingness to force anything to work when his own staff at the top continues to skewer those people who are doing their jobs? The minister has to have an inquiry so this nonsense will not carry on.

13:54

ORAL QUESTIONS

CONFERENCE ON NORTHERN COMPETITIVENESS

Mr. Gordon: I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. Yesterday the Premier (Mr. Peterson) was in Saint Ste. Marie talking about the new "ruthless realism" that we in the north have to accept and, with his Trudeauesque expressions, talked about northerners being complainers. What I find particularly galling is that he did this after coming from the opening of an auto plant in Alliston.

Is this government and is the minister prepared to bring forth very definite incentives that will help to provide auto parts plants in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: If the member had been to Saint Ste. Marie and seen the reception that the Premier and the ministers received there, I do not believe he would be making comments like that. We were very well received.

In the past year and a half, this government has done more for the problems of the north than the Conservative government did in 42 years. The suggestion the member made is one of the things we were discussing when we were there. We will be working with the communities of the north to try to assist them in whatever way we can.

Mr. Gordon: Now that we have seen that the attitude of this government is that northerners should be obsequious and should bow and scrape and kiss the hem of the minister's gown, perhaps he can tell us how he expects us to act, especially since his Premier called us complainers.

I would like an answer to this question. Is it not true that in the north right now in Thunder Bay we have Can-Car, which is manufacturing, in the Sault we have steel parts manufacturing and in Sudbury we have companies that produce all-terrain vehicles and mining machinery? Is it not true that the infrastructure for manufacturing in the north is there now? Will he not give us a commitment that it is going to happen in the future?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: As I mentioned, that was one of the topics discussed not only in some of the seminars but also in private meetings I and other ministers had with people in the north. It is something we will be working very hard towards. I repeat, the Progressive Conservative Party had 42 years to put that structure into place, and what did it do? We are working on the problems.

Mr. Gordon: Not being 42 yet, that type of answer is not what we are looking for in the north. We want some definite commitments. When we hear that all this government is planning is another gabfest in Thunder Bay, it does not provide us with much confidence about his plans for northerners.

Our unemployment rate in the north is double, we have more and more people going on the welfare rolls all the time and this government has been in power for 17 months. Yet the only thing they can do is go up north, hold a gabfest and promise another one in Thunder Bay. That is hardly any kind of strategy. Can we count on a strategy from this government for the development of manufacturing in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: The people of the north, especially those who were at the conference, would be very offended by the member saying it was a gabfest. I remind the member of the comment of the mayor of the Sault about halfway through the second morning's meeting. He said: "We are very pleased that you are here in the Sault and having this conference here. We hope you have more of them throughout the north because they are of high regard."

Not only in that meeting but also in other things we have held throughout the north, we are working on problems the Conservative government left for this government to deal with.

Mr. Gordon: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I feel the minister has cast aspersions on the mayors of this province. Mayors always make those kinds of remarks.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Laughren: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: You may wish to reclassify this as a point of information, but I think I heard the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) say he was not yet 42. I wonder whether he would be prepared to table his birth certificate.

Mr. Speaker: Order. With respect, it is question period. New question.

Mr. Harris: I was 39 once.

I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. Northerners in this province are faced with a government which lacks both the ideas and the intestinal fortitude needed to help secure their place in the sun and their future. On another occasion, the minister told us his position is the Premier's position. Does he agree with the Premier's view that the people of the north are looking for someone else to blame for their problems, with the insinuation that our northern citizens are nothing but whiners and complainers?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: If the member, as a northern member, had been at that conference, I think he would have got something out of it, because the people who were there appreciated us being there. The dialogue that went back and forth will help to solve some of those problems of the north.

14:00

Mr. Harris: The minister will know that the Premier has said he is trying to get rid of the notion that everywhere he goes he is dripping with cheques. He also knows that just two days ago the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) told this House that, as we predicted, he has found himself dripping with about $400 million to spend.

The government loses credibility in northern Ontario when the Premier is prepared to drip $17.3 million on Abe Schwartz for a project at Toronto's Harbourfront, hardly an economically depressed area the last time I looked. He shrugged his shoulders up there. He said he was there to listen. Northerners have told him how he can help. He has heard this over the past year and a half. He heard it when he was up there.

Why will he not implement some of the ideas the member for Sudbury gave him today? Why will not correct unfair gas prices? Why will he not stop the tax introduction on the trucking industry? Why will he not work on four-laning Highways 17, 11 and 69 to access the north? Why will he not eliminate the mining tax? Why will he not establish flow-through shares?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: Some of those matters were discussed. Perhaps we have heard them for the last year and a half, but the members opposite heard them for many more years than we ever did. Perhaps we should be telling them about the $25.3 million we put in through the Northern Ontario Development Corp. Perhaps we should be telling them about the millions of dollars we poured in through the northern development fund. Perhaps we should tell them about some of the things the Treasurer mentioned yesterday. We have been working hard for the north and will continue to do so.

Mr. Harris: Perhaps the minister should; they were all good programs brought in by the previous government. They were all good in their day but times have changed in the past year and a half, and not for the better in the north.

The government has said the people of the north should not expect made-in-Toronto solutions. Apparently, they can expect made-in-Toronto reports, made-in-Toronto conferences, made-in-Toronto press releases and made-in-Toronto printers. Can the minister explain to us why his ministry was unable to find a northern Ontario consultant to write his report or a northern Ontario printer to print it? Why does he still expect the people of the north to live with made-in-Toronto problems and, I might add, to live with a made-in-Toronto government?

[Failure of sound system]

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: The report itself has generated some comments. Some of those comments were good and some of them were bad. The firm was very highly qualified and came to us in that regard. Some of the things the member mentioned, though, are things we will look into.

Mr. Wildman: We are not going to get directly involved in a debate between the Liberals and the Tories about who has less policy for northern Ontario. I will ask a question directly related to what the Premier said yesterday in northern Ontario. Yesterday the Premier gave a wrapup speech to the conference in which he told delegates he could not find a consensus, he did not know the solution of how to deal with the weaknesses of the northern economy and northerners would have to provide their own solutions and find their own way to become competitive.

Can the Premier and Minister of Northern Development and Mines explain to the House what steps specifically this government is prepared to take to stimulate investment in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I know my honourable friend was at the conference and I appreciate his attendance. I wish my colleagues opposite had availed themselves of the opportunity to share their very positive views of the situation and their specific situations.

I am delighted the member was there to share the air time and to squawk and fuss. We invited him and we invited our colleagues opposite and the federal members of Parliament. We wanted a full and frank dialogue and we were very happy to have him make his contributions, whether people will listen or not.

That being said, I have a number of suggestions. He will know, for example, of the new ventures small business program.

Mr. Villeneuve: That is working really well.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: It has been working well. My friend is critical, and he is entitled to be so, but he is very much aware of a number of programs that have been implemented in the last year. I am talking about major infusions into the post-secondary institutions there. It is a substantial upgrading in a number of areas. He will be aware of a dramatic improvement in the northern development fund. He will be aware of major increases in tourism and plans in those particular areas. I am sure my friend would be the first to stand in this House, knowledgeable as he is of these things, and say this is a government that is working hard to solve the problems of northern Ontario.

Let me take him back a moment. I ask my friend not to oversimplify some of the complex problems we are facing. We have started to establish a significant dialogue. We announced a very significant new approach with respect to timber management, the allocation of wood resources and land policy. As he will be aware, we have started that dialogue with the northern development councils and we are looking forward to working with the people of the north.

Let me make just one other point, if I may, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Very briefly.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I will do it on the supplementary. Thank you.

Mr. Wildman: The announcement of the ventures program was the only positive press the Premier got out of the conference.

Since the Premier made such a to-do about the need for an entrepreneurial spirit to assist the northern economy to thrive, can he indicate what he is doing to respond specifically to the demand of the entrepreneurs at the conference for government leadership to provide the capital and the infrastructure needed in the north so that we can have results such as the results he found in Alliston before he went to Sault Ste. Marie?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I hope the member will not be against what took place in Alliston the other day. He suggests he is somewhat resentful about the press. I know my friend flew into town, made a few nasty noises and then flew out of town. His whole object there, I guess, was to control the airwaves. I do not judge my life with regard to positive press or negative press. I do not have that preoccupation, as my friend has. If you do the right thing, life will take care of itself. I just pass that on to my friend opposite.

There was wide consultation there. We heard from a number of very thoughtful spokesmen, who came from a wide variety of experiences and backgrounds, that we have to develop more entrepreneurialism in northern Ontario. We heard it from the education groups; we heard it from the small business groups; we even heard it from a number of labour leaders who are looking to develop the spirit to solve some of their own problems.

The member cannot have it both ways. He cannot come down here and say, "You cannot have direction from Toronto," "You cannot have direction from Queen's Park," and, on the other hand, go back there and say, "We do not want solutions from the south."

We have taken a very co-operative view. I am sure my honourable friend does not share this view. I believe the links we have established and the faith we have established in the past little while have been very constructive. I know the member does not agree, but his whole object was to go there, cause a fuss, get his face on television and then get out of there. That is okay, and I am going to invite him next year and the year after and the year after that to do the very same thing. We are thinking positively.

14:10

Mr. Wildman: It was the New Democrats who proposed a program for development in the north. There was nothing from this government. I am afraid that all we are going to get is invitations to conferences next year and the year after and the year after that and that nothing will ever happen in northern Ontario.

At the conference, the Premier was chastised by the tourist outfitters as well as by organized labour. He said there was a need for more consultative mechanisms, and he promised a meeting again next year in Thunder Bay. When is this government going to show real leadership and provide the financial resources from the so-called Treasury surplus that was announced in the House on Monday so we can have some real development in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member says I was chastised by some of his friends, and he is right; l get chastised by everybody, including him. He says he put forward a program. I saw the program he put forward. There were 10 skinny little points, recycled stuff that had gone through many reincarnations around here. There was nothing particularly new in what he had. We have seen it all before, and we have heard the member's speeches on many occasions.

Any time the member has a positive or constructive idea, I will be delighted to have him share it with this House, and I will be delighted to implement it. One of the differences between opposition and government is that government has responsibility; sometimes we see that this is not the case with the opposition.

We have implemented a number of funds. The member knows already that the northern development fund has been doubled for the past year and that significant new programs have been put in place. He should look at what has happened at Searchmont. Why does he not stand up and give this government credit for the co-operative effort we have had with the citizens of Sault Ste. Marie in building a major new destination resort? I am giving just one example of many things that have happened.

There are new programs for tourism, for roads and for a lot of other things. As much as the gentlemen opposite would like to stand up and be nasty and negative about these things -- I understand all that -- my sense is that the people in northern Ontario are manifesting some faith in this government to work together with them to solve their problems.

I have been in northern Ontario a substantial amount, although perhaps not as much as my honourable friend, and I am in the process of learning a great deal. He may judge me inaccurate in that assessment, but I do not think it is inaccurate.

Mr. Foulds: I would like to place a question to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines. Every time there was a substantial criticism or a substantive suggestion by someone at the conference in Sault Ste. Marie, whether it was Leo Gerard from the Steelworkers, a New Democrat, a tourist operator or a town councillor, the minister turned it aside with a quip or a joke, just as he did today. The north's economy is not a joke. Exactly how are he and his government willing to help northerners rebuild and control their own economy?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I say to my honourable friend, who usually does not indulge in that kind of remark, I think the remark he just made was completely inappropriate and inaccurate, and if he were a gentleman he would stand up and apologize. It was completely inaccurate. We were gathering a number of ideas.

As I said, and I think the member answered his own question, we have shown a genuine partnership in working together with the people of northern Ontario. He has seen that good faith in the past. We have responded in very specific ways to suggestions that have come from there as well as putting forward a number of suggestions and real programs from here.

Apart from my friend's program to assist northern travel and for the Ontario health insurance plan, which came a year or so ago, he should look at what has happened with respect to the universities, the colleges and the infrastructure. I am sure my honourable friend, in fairness, wants to stand up and recognize some of the progress made in the last little while and does not want to put this on a personal level.

Mr. Foulds: It is the responsibility of the Minister of Northern Development and Mines to show the leadership that is necessary to help northerners rebuild their economy. Today, yesterday and the day before, he did not say one substantial thing that would help them rebuild their economy. His economic ambassador in northern Ontario, Bob Rosehart, said: "One thing is clear: There is a central role of leadership for the government to play in the development of the north."

Is the minister willing to establish a true northern Ontario diversification fund for the economy, managed by northerners, so they can control their economic destiny and rebuild a future for their children?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I say to my honourable friend opposite that I would disagree fundamentally with his analysis. There are many people there, perhaps a little more objective than the member, who think this government is providing that leadership in a particular way. We are soliciting the advice and consultation of the people in northern Ontario.

On the one hand, if we do things from here, the member criticizes us for that. If we consult people in the north, he criticizes us for that. He wants it both ways. I think my friend owes it to this House and to the people of the north to be very frank and forthcoming about the things that have actually happened and the things that are happening at present, and he above all should know those facts.

Mr. Foulds: I say to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines, who happens also to be the Premier, all northerners want and ask for is a fair share of the buoyancy of the economy of the province as a whole. That is all we are asking. We are asking for the provincial government to show the leadership by giving us the tools to do the job so we can rebuild the economy that he and his predecessors have allowed to be destroyed.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Foulds: Would the minister be willing to sit down with workers, company executives and community leaders in every single-industry town that is vulnerable to the shifts of the worldwide market so they can devise planning agreements, with his co-operation, to diversify their economies and to plan the future of those single-industry towns? Will he do that one thing?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: We have been doing that, and we are in the process of doing that all along the way.

Mr. Foulds: Are you doing that in Terrace Bay?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Yes, I was in Terrace Bay, Longlac and Nakina, and we are working on development programs and on a variety of other things. A lot of things are going on, of which perhaps my honourable friend is unaware.

I understand his Churchillian intonation; give them the tools and they will do the job. He has been listening to some of my speeches. We have responded in every way. When we have been asked for assistance, we have tried to be forthcoming, and I think we have been. My friend will have to admit that.

He wants it both ways. He wants us to sit here and produce all the solutions and on the other hand give the people the tools to do the job. We are working with them in co-operative ways. We have created northern development councils, as the member will be aware. People are very enthusiastic about the input.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: My honourable friend has his biases. He should listen to the mayors. My friend opposite does not have much respect for the mayors of northern Ontario, but I do. His worship Mayor Fratesi, talking on their behalf, was speaking optimistically about the new spirit of co-operation, the jobs that have gone north, the diversification of this government and its real commitment to northern Ontario. The remarks of my friend opposite today are born out of some personal insecurity.

14:20

Mr. Gordon: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The Premier has made a remark, which imputed motives, about my references to the mayors. What I said was that whenever ministers do show up, the mayors of Ontario do come forward and they treat everybody politely.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I listened very carefully. There was some reference. I will ask the Premier whether he wishes to reconsider his reference.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Excuse me?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Stevenson: It is just the Premier's usual smear. He would not have noticed he said anything out of line anyway.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I was listening, trying to hear what was being said. I will have a look at it. New question.

Mr. Gillies: Don't worry, Mr. Speaker; it was just the Premier sneezing on somebody.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It would be very nice if we could hear what was taking place in the Legislature.

NURSING HOMES

Mr. Cousens: I have a question for the Attorney General on a matter raised yesterday by our leader. We have given the Attorney General 24 hours to think of an answer, because it is much the same question. The question has to do with the Birthe Jorgensen report on criminal abuse of the elderly, a report that has been in the hands of officials his ministry for more than six months. It has also been in the hands of the Ministry of Health for more than six months.

In the light of this mass of evidence and the massive lack of action by people within his ministry, will the Attorney General take action for an immediate review of the respective opportunity to do something to help the people of our province?

Hon. Mr. Scott: I am grateful for this question. I have made inquiries. A press release issued by the Leader of the Opposition refers to the Jorgensen report as a secret report. It was a report that was made available to every student in the bar admission course and every person who attended the series of public lectures given by the Law Society of Upper Canada. A representative of my ministry, along with hundreds of other people in Toronto, received a copy at the time.

I have now read the report, which makes two points. The first point the report makes is Dr. Jorgensen's concern that if it comes to the attention of persons, relatives or others that criminal offences have been or may have been committed, these should be reported immediately to the police. We agree with that. There is no point of dispute with that.

She makes a second point with reference to some old cases, some of which are five years old. Those cases were reported to Concerned Friends of Ontario Citizens in Care Facilities on a confidential basis and did not go to the police as they should have. I agree with her comment on that. There is nothing in the report apart from that.

On Monday, the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston) asked the Solicitor General (Mr. Keyes) whether he would direct the Ontario Provincial Police to conduct an investigation. The Solicitor General said he would, and my ministry offered any legal assistance that might be required in that exercise. That is the whole story. The report has been public for six months. We agree with the points it made.

[Interruption]

Mr. Speaker: I remind everybody in the galleries that demonstrations of any sort are out of order.

Mr. Cousens: The rating given the Attorney General's questioning is 2.2 from the Toronto Star and three from the Toronto Sun. Out of 100, that means he will not go far.

It has taken six months for the minister to come up with an answer to help our seniors and to show some concern. It would not have happened if our leader had not raised the question. It would not have happened unless this crisis had become real. Why does the minister not --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. New question.

Mr. Cousens: I was beginning the question. I asked, "Why does the minister not" --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Cousens: -- and I just want to finish it.

Mr. Speaker: Order. No. New question.

Mr. Harris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: There may have been interjections, but I do not know why you feel interjections by others are a reason to cut off the question.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Harris: The member was about 15 seconds into the question --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

ALGOMA CENTRAL RAILWAY

Mr. Morin-Strom: I have a specific question for the Premier about the workers in Sault Ste. Marie and Wawa whose jobs are now threatened by the freight rate confrontation between Algoma Steel Corp. and the Algoma Central Railway. Those companies have asked for a $5-million government assistance program from both governments at the same time as they are asking for wage concessions and threatening closure of their operations.

In the past two days the Premier has had the opportunity in the Sault to discuss this issue, at least with the company officials. Can he give us his assurance that, as an essential condition of any provincial government financial assistance, he will insist on long-term job guarantees for the workers at the ACR and at the mines in Wawa? Is that not the kind of positive action we need?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Last week, the honourable member was proposing I buy the railway; so I am interested in this new idea he has.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member knows there are ongoing discussions among the various parties, including the federal government. I read the other day that it is prepared to participate in these discussions. I view that as a step forward. There are no conclusions as yet. As I understand it, there was an erroneous press report that Wawa was going to close down. To the best of my knowledge, that is not anyone's decision. We are going to do everything we can to keep that mine open, but I am not in a position to report to my honourable friend on the results of the ongoing discussions.

If I am talking too long, Mr. Speaker, perhaps I can do it in a supplementary, but I did say to the people there -- I am sure the member heard me, unless he was one of those who came to the conference, complained it was not long enough and then left early. I am not sure whether he was one of them; if he was, I did say it is my view that we have to develop a more co-operative attitude in northern Ontario among the various players. I am hopeful the interested parties will get together and come up with proposals. We are prepared to --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Morin-Strom: Someone in the ministry should have informed the Premier that I was one of those who lasted. I stayed longer than he did at the conference. I certainly did not leave early. I do not know about his cabinet ministers, but I did not leave early.

My question was on the issue of job guarantees, one of the things we have to insist on when we provide government assistance to corporations asking for such assistance to keep their operations going. Workers should be assured that they have a long-term future with those operations. Is the Premier going to insist on job guarantees for the ACR workers and the Algoma Steel workers at Wawa before the provincial government participates in any program to assist with the freight rate problem facing those companies?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I apologize to my friend opposite. He is quite right. He was there. It was his leader who came into town, said the conference was not long enough and then left before it was over.

As the member knows, one of the things being suggested now, if some kind of agreement is not made, is that the mine could be closed down. I am not suggesting that is right, but there is some such discussion going on at the moment. Obviously, our concern is to guarantee the jobs at Algoma Steel in Wawa and at the ACR. There is a very serious interconnection between all of them.

I am not sure what my honourable friend is asking me to do in terms of the kind of job guarantees, for how long, for what period of time and at what levels, but that will be the principal concern of our involvement. There is no other point in getting involved in the discussions other than to protect those jobs on an ongoing basis.

That will be our concern, and I will discuss this with my honourable friend as it goes along. The discussions, as he knows, are at a somewhat tentative stage. It is something that concerns everyone who cares about the Sault, but there is not a resolution.

14:30

NURSING HOMES

Mr. Cousens: The Attorney General (Mr. Scott) has decided not to answer a question, for which we would give him a rating of next to nothing. I want the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens' affairs to have a try at it, because we are talking about an important report on criminal injustices, on abuses that are going on within seniors' institutions within our province. Nothing was done in the Attorney General's department. Nothing has been done by the Ministry of Health. What has the minister done about this in six months?

Hon. Mr. Van Horne: The member will realize that my role as the Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens' affairs is that of a co-ordinator and developer of new plans and new activity, which are long overdue, I might add. Much of our work was presented to the House in the form of a white paper, A New Agenda, back in June. I am pleased to report to the member that we are now working on the implementation of that new agenda.

Mr. Cousens: I regret it would seem the minister has not even seen the report, let alone read it. What we are hearing now is just an example and proof that something should be done and has not been done. Will the minister support some kind of advocacy centre or support group to watch over the needs and cares of seniors, to start something real?

Hon. Mr. Van Horne: I made reference to the white paper, which is a policy paper, a very definite statement of the government's intention to act. If the honourable member had taken the time to read that, he would have seen that on page 17 there is a definite reference to a major piece of work that my colleagues and I are undertaking. Part of that piece of work will address itself to the theme of the rights of people in institutions, whether rest homes, nursing homes, homes for the aged or whatever.

TARIFFS ON SOFTWOOD LUMBER

Mr. Laughren: I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology concerning the Conference on Northern Competitiveness. Will the minister tell us why he allowed that conference to go on without any reference to the 15 per cent duty that the United States is imposing on softwood lumber? Even the consultants admitted that forestry was a key component of the northern economy. How could the minister let that issue not be dealt with during that entire conference?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: The member should be aware, if he is not, that one of the writers of that report dealt with the lumber issue in quite some detail on the first afternoon.

Mr. Laughren: I am truly puzzled by the minister's response, because that issue was never dealt with at the entire conference. Did the minister allow that to happen because of the sense that he was a willing accomplice to the fact that the federal government admitted the 10 per cent deficiency and agreed to it ahead of time? Is that why the minister allowed a conference on northern competitiveness to happen without ever dealing with the 15 per cent tariff? When the minister is responding, will he also tell us what he intends to do now about that 15 per cent tariff?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: As I mentioned, one of the panelists dealt with the lumber issue in general. There were also questions in some of the workshops that dealt with the problem of the 15 per cent.

Meetings are going on concerning that 15 per cent levy. As late as yesterday, officials were meeting in Ottawa. The Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) will be going to Washington tomorrow on this same issue.

RESIDENTIAL RENT REGULATION LEGISLATION

Mr. Gordon: I have a question for the Minister of Housing. I would like to take him back to last Thursday's meeting of the standing committee on resources development. He told the committee that he had met with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and that it was satisfied with the arrangements he had made with regard to municipal enforcement of maintenance standards and so forth. When questioned by the member for Rainy River (Mr. Pierce), who is a member of that committee, as to whether he was happy and they were happy with it, he indicated yes.

We have talked to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and it refutes that. AMO says it has very serious reservations about sections 14 and 15. Will the minister tell the House how he attributes one reply to AMO and it attributes another reply that no, it is not happy?

Hon. Mr. Curling: I will refresh the honourable member's memory. When I was asked in the resources development committee whether I had met with AMO, I reported I had met with the AMO executive and that I had presented to it sections 14 and 15 of Bill 51. I also expressed to the member at that committee meeting that the AMO executive had raised concerns about some sections of it. I did not say to him that they were happy about it in its entirety.

Mr. Gordon: I have here the minutes of the resources development committee. I can send them over to the minister. I would like him to read them. His answer does not jive with the facts in this minute from the resources development committee. Will the minister tell the House what steps he is going to take to be better informed on matters such as this? Is he going to take certain steps to be more accurate? As the minister knows, in the committee it is a matter of trust and a matter of questions and answers. Is he going to be more accurate and better informed, and when?

Hon. Mr. Curling: To make the record clear, we need the co-operation of the opposition and all the members on the committee. We need the co-operation of all the mayors across the province. We will be promoting a very extensive campaign about our bill as soon as it is passed so as to make the law one of the most effective bills this house has ever seen. It is unfortunate if he got the impression I had full endorsement for sections 14 and 15 of the bill. I indicate again that I stated the sections of the bill to the AMO executive and it indicated some concerns. I told them we would take that into consideration and present it to the committee when we go through clause-by-clause.

LAYOFFS IN SUDBURY

Mr. Martel: I have a question for the Premier. I was at the conference. Does he realize that we in the north have been investigated, scrutinized, analysed, dissected and studied to death? There are enough studies to fill his office. What is lacking is the commitment. I have a question on jobs. The Premier talked to his friend Jesse James last week or the week before about the layoffs at Falconbridge. Can he tell us the results of the discussion he had with Mr. James about the loss of 275 jobs in Sudbury?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I did have a meeting with him. I believe his name is Bill James, president of Falconbridge.

Mr. Martel: Call him what you want.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I was just passing it on. My friend needed to be corrected. He was standing in this House saying he has been analysed. Is that what he was saying?

Mr. Martel: The north has been analysed, scrutinized and studied.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Oh, I am sorry. I apologize to my honourable friend. Sometimes I have problems hearing on this side of the House.

I had quite a discussion with Mr. James and he pointed out the price of nickel and some of the problems my friend will be aware of. I said to Mr. James that I believe the problem is serious in terms of the repercussions with the community. The member is aware, I am sure, of some of the plans that have been talked about publicly with Falconbridge. I told him those layoffs present a very serious problem to me.

14:40

He made the point that the Kidd Creek operation was independent of the Sudbury operation. I know my honourable friend will not agree with that. I am just reporting his conversation to me when we met last. I told him our obvious concern as a government is to see the employment levels maintained and, indeed, increased as much as possible.

As the member knows, he was not able to give me with absolute certainty what the employment levels will be, given the price of nickel and the marginal nature of some of the ore bodies being mined at the moment.

I am sure my friend has heard all of this. I am sure, at

the same time, he is not satisfied with some of it. What I did say to Mr. James was that he has a responsibility to explain that position to the community, to the workers particularly, so that they have a very clear view of what Falconbridge's plans are in long run in the Sudbury basin area.

Mr. Martel: Since the company intends to proceed with the layoffs anyway, those who took early retirement plus those it is going to let go anyway, what action is this government intending to take to make sure that does not occur? We have to get all the facts. What is this government prepared to do to make sure? Jesse can bamboozle anybody with words that are not necessarily always factual.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I have met Mr. James before. I have run into a lot of smooth talkers in my life. I consider the member one of them. I will say to my friend that he and Bill James are a real match for each other. I am not sure who I would bet on if you both went toe-to-toe.

I did say to Mr. James, and I say to the member, I believe the company owes a frank explanation to the community from which it has extracted so much in the past many years. I think he has taken my advice to heart. I am hoping that will be forthcoming in the very near future. He told me he was going somewhere for a week or so on a business trip. I hope it will result therefrom.

He told me he has had many conversations with the member. He happens to like the member very much, as a matter of fact.

Mr. Martel: Oh, I like James.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: As I said, the member and Mr. James are two of a kind. I am hoping the member can arrange a forum where he can put in a very frank and open way his particular concerns to him and he can address them. The member is asking me if I am going to bring in legislation to prevent the layoffs from happening. I am not in a position to say that at the moment, but our job is to work with that company and with the workers to try to maintain those jobs.

EMERGENCY HOUSING

Mr. Cousens: I have a question of the Minister of Community and Social Services. The people of Ontario will not forget Drina Joubert and the plight of thousands like her.

In February 25, 1986, a coroner's jury investigating the death of this lady cited the reasons for death to be "exposure, accident caused by alcoholism, mental illness and homelessness, and failure of our support system to deal with these problems." How many more Drina Jouberts will become victims of an inadequate social service network this winter?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: I remind the honourable member that Drina Joubert had available to her living accommodation on that night, not just in the hostel system but in an apartment of her own which was available to her. It was not the lack of availability.

Put that aside. One of the recommendations of the coroner's inquiry was that more permanent housing should be made available. A beginning has already been made on that. The member will probably be aware of the tact that Street Haven, run by Peggy Walpole, has now established a second home right next door to where it is now, for longer-term shelter accommodation.

The member will also be aware of the fact, because I responded to another question earlier, that the Habitat program -- a joint service of the municipality, the Ministry of Health and my ministry, which will provide longer-term shelter for ex-psychiatric patients with some of the same kinds of problems that Drina Joubert had -- has now been established and will be operational within a very short period of time.

People will then have a placement service, they will have an ongoing case management service and they will have an increase in their benefits from my ministry so that the operators of the homes can afford to provide a greater range of services. We have made a beginning.

Mr. Rowe: In addition to the woman in Barrie who last week gave her children to the children's aid society so that she could seek housing, I am now aware of a family with three children. The father and son are living in a house with no heat at this time of year and are facing eviction within 10 days. The mother and two children are living elsewhere.

The housing predicament for the needy is reaching a crisis in Barrie. Will the minister give us the assurance that his staff will at the very least investigate this crisis and attempt to offer some sort of solution to these people who are in so much need right now?

Hon. Mr. Sweeney: Most certainly. My office in Barrie is available at any time. The member well knows that because we have provided an information service both to him and to his staff about the services that are available. All that anyone in the member's community, including the member himself, has to do is to contact the office and have a case manager go out and take a look at the services. If there is a need that is met by my ministry, we will most certainly help.

In respect of shelter, as the member knows, my ministry is responsible for emergency shelter. It works very closely with the municipality. Most certainly, in response to the question, we will give whatever assistance we can immediately.

EXTRA BILLING

Mr. D. S. Cooke: In the absence of the Minister of Health (Mr. Elston), I will ask the Premier a question. In view of the statement released yesterday by the Ontario Medical Association and in view of comments by Dr. Peachey in the papers this morning, in which he says he considers it legitimate for a doctor to charge a patient for being available, whether or not the patient calls a doctor -- in other words, that standby fees are in line with the OMA statement of yesterday -- can the Premier indicate whether, in his opinion, it is legal to have the $500-standby fee that obstetricians have here in Toronto?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The honourable minister asked me to tell the honourable member he regrets he cannot be here today. I understand he is attending a meeting in Ottawa with his peers from across the country. He did issue a statement yesterday, as I understand it, expressing some concerns about what had transpired. I understand he will be meeting with the OMA on that issue, and I am sure he will be very happy to report back to the member.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: It has now been several months since the Minister of Health first met with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. He has met with the OMA in the past. Yesterday we were supposed to get clarification of what the OMA considered to be appropriate and what it did not. In the minister's statement yesterday, he said, "While it is true that billing for uninsured services is not a new practice, I have some reservations about the OMA's guidelines contained in its letter."

If the minister still has reservations after several months, when is the government going to pass legislation to give it the enabling power to control these types of ripoffs that doctors are instituting in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: As I told the member just a moment ago, the minister will be discussing this matter, and the letter that was supposed to clarify the issue, with the OMA. It may have clarified it in some minds, but I know the minister has some concerns. As I said, he will report back to the member on that.

MINISTRY REGIONAL OFFICE

Mr. Barlow: I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology with regard to the reorganization of the ministry's field office in the Kitchener area. I understand that the director of the Kitchener office and two business consultants are being moved to Hamilton and, further, that other staff are perhaps being moved to London, at a time when industrial expansion in the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, Cambridge and the entire area is literally booming.

Can the minister please explain why he is reducing the ministry's presence in our community and threatening the economic wellbeing of the fastest-growing region in all of Canada?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: I discussed that same issue with my officials as late as last evening. I can assure the honourable member that no definite decision has been made. If a decision is made in that regard, I will make sure the same coverage, if not better coverage, is received by the people in that area.

14:50

Mr. Barlow: If change is necessary, or if change is even being discussed, can the minister tell me whether he has discussed it with the member for Kitchener (Mr. D. R. Cooke), the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney) or his own small business advocate, the member for Wellington South (Mr. Ferraro)? Has he discussed it with them prior to making a decision or perhaps advising the staff and the whole region that this is going to happen?

Hon. Mr. O'Neil: Yes. Those concerns have been made known to me by the members mentioned by my friend. I will make sure the same coverage, if not better coverage, is maintained for that area. No definite decision has yet been made on the issue.

TOURISM IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

Mr. Pouliot: I have a question for the Minister of Tourism and Recreation. When I went to the Conference on Northern Competitiveness, I and other delegates heard nothing of the very important northern component that is his area of responsibility: tourism.

How can his ministry, or the government he represents, justify the spending of $164,000 of taxpayers' money directed for the benefit of high-priced consultants and yet omit the real possibility of tourism, the very important component of tourism, as it affects northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Eakins: I am pleased to reply to the honourable member, because in the past year there has been a renewed spirit in the tourism industry in northern Ontario. One thing I have found out about the people in northern Ontario is that they are so interested in the tourism industry now that they want to talk about it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and I think that is wonderful.

One of the reasons for the meeting yesterday and the two days in Sault Ste. Marie was to discuss some of the problems of northern Ontario. The tourism industry was represented there. I am pleased that because of the work of our ministry and the co-operation of the people of northern Ontario, it has been a banner year for tourism. All the member has to do is to read the North Bay Nugget. It has been one of the best years ever for tourism because of the work of this government.

Mr. Pouliot: I am not interested in platitudes dealing with the ancien régime. I am more interested in having specifics with regard to co-ordinating efforts. What precise mechanism and specifics is the minister willing to offer the entrepreneurs of northern Ontario to give them the tools to deliver the real industry that tourism could be?

Hon. Mr. Eakins: Last April, we started with our series of roundtable conferences in northern Ontario. Six conferences were held in northern Ontario, and they were well attended. I believe all the members from the north were invited to attend those. As a result of the roundtable conferences, we announced in Sault Ste. Marie, in July, four initiatives for northern Ontario. They have been well received. The people in the north are enthused about those, and that is why we have seen a banner year for tourism in the north.

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr. Morin-Strom: I have a question for the Minister of Energy about high gasoline prices in northern Ontario. This is one issue the consultants did get correct in their study when they reported that gasoline, on average, costs five cents a litre more in northern Ontario than in southern Ontario.

At the same time, northerners have to drive longer distances and, in so many instances, have to transport their goods and services from southern Ontario to the north. How can the north be competitive when it is saddled with that higher cost burden? When is the minister going to do something in reaction to his own study on this issue?

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: It flows from the question that we are going to do everything we can to encourage and do things for northern Ontario that would relieve the pressures of transportation and distances travelled. However, we are not the only players in this game. The federal government plays a major role.

One of the things that happened with the federal government was that when it purchased Gulf, it reduced the amount of competition. It is about time, if the federal government wants to participate in a major way in refineries and in the whole issue of gasoline and gasoline prices, it has stations right across Canada. It appears to me that the outlets of Petro-Canada have higher gas prices than any other stations in Ontario. Therefore, the players down in Ottawa, the kissing cousins of the members across the way, have a very important role to play.

PETITION

RESIDENTIAL RENT REGULATION LEGISLATION

Mr. Hennessy: I have a petition for the Minister of Housing (Mr. Curling):

"Dear Mr. Minister:

"I'm enclosing for your information a copy of a petition I received that is signed by 15 tenants who are strongly opposed to any rent increase over four per cent.

"I support their request and hope you will give this matter your kindest and most serious consideration."

REPORT BY COMMITTEE

STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND PRIVATE BILLS

Mr. Callahan from the standing committee on regulations and private bills presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bill without amendment:

Bill Pr23, An Act respecting the Town of Markham.

Your committee begs to report the following bill as amended:

Bill Pr6, An Act respecting the City of Windsor.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the report be received and adopted?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: On the report, I have been informed by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) that Bill Pr6, An Act respecting the City of Windsor, deals with a matter involving the policy of the Ministry of Labour that is already before the House in the form of Bill 101. The Minister of Labour indicated that this matter was brought to the attention of the committee and that advice was available indicating there was a duplication of subject matter.

He asked me to bring this to your attention, sir, and since you have had no notice of this difficulty, I ask that you review the matter before we proceed further with Bill Pr6. We are not opposing the acceptance of the report, but before it goes a further step, perhaps we could have the benefit of your advice in this matter.

Mr. McClellan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Because of the high level of uproar in the chamber, I could not hear what the government House leader was saying. Could I ask him to repeat?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I simply indicated we were expressing a concern that Bill Pr6 dealt with a matter that was involved with public policy through the Ministry of Labour currently before the House in Bill 101. I asked the Speaker to review the matter, not that we should not accept this report at this time but that before it goes another step, he might provide his view.

Mr. McClellan: That is what I thought he said.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Thanks very much.

Mr. McClellan: No. I wanted to make sure I had understood. It was not entirely clear that I had understood the point that was being raised.

This is similar to a point of order the government House leader attempted to raise in vain last week having to do with business before committees. I believe the amendments the government House leader refers to were accepted as being in order by the chairman of the standing committee, and they were dealt with, as I understand it, without objection. I may be incorrect, but I do not believe any objections were raised, either by the Minister of Labour or by anybody else, when the amendments were put forward to Bill Pr6.

At any rate, whether or not objections were raised, the amendments were found to be in order by the chairman and the committee, and they have been dealt with by the committee. The bill will be coming back into the House as a properly amended bill, amended by amendments that were properly in order, if I may say, in exactly the same way Bill 105 will be coming back into this House in a few short weeks.

I do not believe anything is out of order, Mr. Speaker, and I submit to you there is nothing for you to review.

15:00

Mr. Speaker: Are there any other comments? The member for Nipissing?

Mr. Harris: I think it has all been said, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: There is a suggestion before the House that the report be received and that it can still be reconsidered. That is the way I understand it.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: If you want my assistance in this -- I know you are not asking for it -- we do not want to stop the acceptance of the report. Representing the government party, I want to point out that there is a problem with the amendments not being in order, since they deal with matters already before the House. I know this is a difficult matter for me to comprehend, although it appears to be very simple for spokesmen for the opposition parties to comprehend. I am asking you as Speaker to take whatever advice you choose and give us your opinion before that bill goes a stage further.

Mr. McClellan: I do not recall any procedure in standing orders for a bill to be reported back to the House for reconsideration. The report is that the bill be reported, without any qualifications. It was dealt with by the committee, and the committee's work was in order. There is nothing out of order, and there is nothing that allows or permits the government House leader to send this bill off the rails.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am not suggesting the bill go off the rails. When it comes before the House for third reading, I will suggest to the honourable member, the Speaker and everybody else that it is out of order. It might be appropriate if the Speaker had a chance to look at it before that time.

Mr. Speaker: As I understand it, the report has been presented by the chairman of the committee. I placed the motion, "Shall the report be received?" and I will place that motion again. Is it agreed to?

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: I will look at that further.

Mr. Laughren: I wish to speak on a different matter. If the member for Nipissing has something to say on the same matter, I will stand down.

Mr. Harris: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker: I am not sure what the government House leader was putting before the chamber. He is talking about asking you to pre-rule on something he says he is going to raise at some time. I suggest the whole intervention by the government House leader is out of order. At such time as he has something he feels is out of order, he can request the Speaker to look at it.

Mr. Speaker: The report is before the House. It has been approved; it has been agreed upon.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I stand to correct the record. I will leave it up to you to decide which record needs to be corrected. In the assembly this afternoon, the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) indicated he was not yet 42 years old, yet the Parliamentary Guide indicates he is 49 and flirting with 50. It seems to me we cannot allow that contradiction to remain on the record, and I ask that you rule on it.

Mr. Speaker: That is a very important subject. However, we have a means by which members can correct their own records. You cannot correct someone else's record.

MOTION

COMMITTEE BUSINESS

Hon. Mr. Nixon moved that, in the standing committee on social development, further consideration of the estimates of the Ministry of Skills Development be postponed until following the consideration of the estimates of the office responsible for seniors citizens' affairs.

Motion agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

POWERS OF ATTORNEY AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Scott moved second reading of Bill 72, An Act to amend the Powers of Attorney Act.

The Deputy Speaker: Does the minister have any opening comments?

Hon. Mr. Scott: The Speaker will remember I made opening remarks when the bill was introduced. I believe this bill will obtain the support of the House. It is designed to remedy a defect incorporated in the Powers of Attorney Act, which was passed in 1979 as chapter 386.

Section 5 of the act provides that "a provision in a power of attorney expressly stating that it may be exercised during any subsequent legal incapacity of the donor is valid and effectual," subject to the conditions in it. Section 7 provides that "a power of attorney that contains a provision referred to in section 5 may be revoked by the donor at any time while he has legal capacity."

Section 3 of the Powers of Attorney Act is designed to permit a person invited to act under the power of attorney to do so if he is acting in good faith and without knowledge of any actual termination of the power. Banks and a number of other commercial lenders that recognize powers of attorney from time to time take the position that section 3 is inadequate to protect them. The result is that donees of the power of attorney and donors who may be responsible have been embarrassed by the failure of the bank to honour the power of attorney when it should be perfectly safe for the bank, which is without knowledge of termination, to do so.

The amendment, Mr. Speaker, with which I know you are thoroughly familiar, is put before the House to remedy that perceived defect and to make it possible for banks and other such institutions to accept powers of attorney in the way contemplated by the 1979 statute.

Mr. Eves: We certainly support this piece of legislation. As the Attorney General has quite properly pointed out, some very important legal questions have been raised about the adequacy of the legislation since the amendment to the act in 1979.

The purpose of this amendment is to clarify the protection offered by section 3 of the present act and to ensure that it is available whenever the authority of the power has been terminated, revoked or become invalid. The person who has relied upon it or who has no knowledge of the termination, revocation or invalidation will be protected. We support the protection of innocent third parties, and we believe the legislation should be made consistent with the prior amendments to it.

Ms. Gigantes: It is always a pleasure for the New Democratic Party to provide support and a legal framework within which our banks and insurance companies can safely provide service to members of the public. We know our insurance companies and banks are most reluctant to put themselves in a position, for example, under family law legislation or the Powers of Attorney Act, where they might have to provide services to the public that they may feel they should not be providing. We know that institutions such as banks and insurance companies quake at the thought of being put in an invidious legal situation.

We are most pleased to be able to support this amendment.

Hon. Mr. Scott: I thank the honourable members for their support of this bill.

Motion agreed to.

Bill ordered for third reading.

15:10

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Wrye moved second reading of Bill 128, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: It is my honour to rise and begin this assembly's debate on the principle of Bill 128, An Act to amendment the Employment Standards Act.

In my view, this bill is concerned with no more and no less than the competence of this Legislative Assembly to pass and sustain law that is written in the public interest and for the benefit of workers in Ontario. Since it was first constituted in 1867, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario has enacted law to help ensure that working people are treated fairly by employers.

Over the years, one of this assembly's most important instruments for ensuring such fairness has been the Employment Standards Act. That act requires employers to provide pay, benefits and working conditions that at least meet minimum standards in 13 work place concerns, which include wages, hours of work, overtime pay, public holidays and vacation with pay. It has been to the great regret of this assembly that in recent years economic conditions have been such from time to time as to require significant use of the provisions of part XII of the act.

As honourable members know, that part obliges employers to make special payments to employees if they lose their jobs. The key special payments part XII prescribes are severance pay when a permanent closure, full or partial, involves at least 50 workers and pay in place of sufficient notice of job loss.

It is important for us in this Legislative Assembly to remind ourselves of when and why members voted to prescribe severance pay and pay in lieu of notice of termination to begin with. Those provisions were written into the act at a time when there were significant plant closures and employee layoffs. Most especially, they were written into the act at a time in which loyal, able employees of long-standing were losing their jobs because of economic circumstances. They were written into the act because the Legislative Assembly of this province concluded that in our time and place it was right and just for employers to make special acknowledgement of what employees were about to lose and to make special provision to ease the adjustment those employees were being obliged to make.

I want to take a moment to go into this in a little more detail because a clear understanding of the principles that underpin this Legislature's thinking is important. Let us start with severance pay. As I have suggested, the principal intention of severance pay is to make special acknowledgement of what an employee, and most especially a long-term employee, loses when a closure occurs. When the employee loses his job, he loses the fruit of all that goes with it, that he has invested in it, such as special valuable knowledge, seniority, pension entitlements and so on. Those provisions are gone for ever. Once the doors of the enterprise close, he can never reclaim them.

The severance pay provision of the Employment Standards Act is designed to recognize this and to ensure compensation for it. The concept of severance compensation parallels the concept that underlies a person's legal entitlement to a lump sum payment in recognition of the loss of a spouse who has been killed on the job. In most respects, obviously it is not appropriate to compare the loss of a spouse with the loss of a job. Having said that, it can be pointed out that in the case of a spouse killed on the job there is an acknowledgement, as prescribed by the community through the Workers' Compensation Act, of special and permanent loss and the provision of special compensation for that special loss. In the case of the loss of a job, there is an acknowledgement, as prescribed by the community through the Employment Standards Act, of special and permanent loss and the provision of special compensation for that special loss.

Let me deal with pay in lieu of notice of termination. The Employment Standards Act requires employers to give employees appropriate notice of layoff and job loss -- the longer the employee's term of service, the longer the notice in the case of an individual layoff, and the larger the group, the longer the notice in mass layoffs. Notice itself is prescribed in the act, because the community has concluded that the employer has an obligation to provide the employee with a period in which the employee can digest the notion of impending job loss, organize his affairs and adjust his thinking, practically and emotionally. The notice period itself constitutes special compensation for special circumstances. If the notice period is not forthcoming, the community --

Mr. McClellan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Unless I have misunderstood something or I am dealing with the wrong statute, I have An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act here. It does not amend notice or deal with any of the things the minister is talking about. Is the minister planning to bring forward additional amendments?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: No. The nature of the debate I want to put forward to the House will become clear as my remarks continue.

Mr. McClellan: Is the minister trying to pretend he is doing something he is not doing?

Hon. Mr. Wrye: No.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The point is well taken. I was having some difficulty tying in the minister's remarks with the bill, but I am sure they will.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: They will. I want to make that clear to my friend. There are no amendments to the bill.

The notice period itself constitutes special compensation for special circumstances. If that period is not forthcoming, the community, through the Employment Standards Act, obliges the employer to provide special compensation, none the less. In short, both severance pay and pay in lieu of notice, as prescribed by part XII of the act, constitute extraordinary payments to compensate for extraordinary events and circumstances.

They manifest the philosophy that recognizes that the relationship between an employer and an employee is not a relationship between master and servant. They recognize that in many cases, over many years, the employee in a very real sense has invested himself in the job and in the enterprise by virtue of his investment of time, energy, loyalty, commitment and plain hard work.

Through the act, the people of Ontario, as represented in their Legislative Assembly, have determined that it is right and just to compel an employer to acknowledge such an investment if it comes to pass that a person's employment must be ended. No one in this day and age, and most certainly no man or woman of goodwill and generous heart, would take genuine issue with the notions of equity and social justice in part XII of the act.

This is why the government, through Bill 128, which is now before the House for second reading, is moving to ensure that those special compensatory payments are vouched safe from harm. As the members will recall, potential for such harm was realized on March 31, 1985, when new provisions of Canada's national unemployment insurance system took effect. These new provisions are having the net effect of denying to Ontario workers, whose jobs have been ended, the special severance and notice payments to which they are entitled under the Employment Standards Act. The reason is that the government of Canada is taking these special payments into account when it calculates the unemployment insurance it proposes to make to a worker whose job has ended.

Permit me a simple theoretical example of how this is working. Let us say for the sake of discussion that a person has worked for an employer for 25 years, has paid unemployment insurance premiums all the while, is now earning $300 a week and has been told that his job and the jobs of at least 49 of his co-workers will end next Monday morning when the plant is closed permanently.

Under the provisions of the Employment Standards Act, that person would be entitled to a severance payment of $7,500 and a notice payment of $2,400, for a total of $9,900 in special compensation. Under the provisions of the national Unemployment Insurance Act, the worker would be entitled to a UI payment of $180 per week, 60 per cent of his total weekly salary, for 52 weeks.

In the example I am offering, where the termination begins next Monday, November 10, UI benefits would begin to flow for the week of November 24 and at a maximum would be payable for 50 consecutive weeks from that date. Under the new unemployment insurance regulations, as they became effective on March 31, 1985, our worker will not be paid UI benefits for 33 weeks. The reason is that when it changed the UI regulations, the government of Canada decided that special payments for severance and notice would be looked upon as ordinary income.

In the eyes of the unemployment insurance system, our theoretical employee's severance payment is deemed to be 25 weeks of ordinary income by another name and his notice payment is deemed to be another eight weeks of ordinary income by another name. As a result, our employee is, in effect, denied his rightfully earned special payments for special circumstances as mandated by the people of Ontario through their Legislative Assembly and its instrument, the Employment Standards Act.

15:20

Frankly, when the changes in the unemployment insurance regulations were first announced in November 1984, just two months after the current federal government took office, this assembly, the government of Ontario, other assemblies in Canada, the labour movement and other responsible voices concluded that the new government in Ottawa had not fully appreciated the prospective impact of its new rules on working men and women whose circumstances had just taken a desperate turn. Not surprisingly, my predecessor wrote to the federal government setting out his concern.

It did not take very long for this assembly and for the Ontario government of the day to realize in no uncertain terms that the government at Ottawa understood very clearly that the net effect of its actions would be to deny Ontario workers their rightfully earned special payments. In the 16 months that I have been Minister of Labour, I have sent strongly worded letters and telegrams of objection to the federal minister. The government of Ontario has been joined by other provincial governments. In addition, my officials and I have met with our counterparts in Ottawa seeking ways to resolve the issues. Unfortunately, all our efforts have been to no avail. The government of Canada has not been deterred from implementing its policy.

I deeply regret that we have not been able to settle this matter with the government at Ottawa. In that context, the government of Ontario and this Legislative Assembly obviously have no choice but to move by law to protect what the working men and women of this province have earned by the gift of their minds, the nimbleness of their hands and the strength of their backs. Bill 128 is designed uniquely to provide that protection.

This bill is in plain reality directed solely at upholding the severance and termination pay provisions of the Employment Standards Act. That there is a profound distinction between severance and insurance is clear when we consider the fundamental difference in their natures. In an insurance scheme, a person pays a premium to provide the financial protection against the risk of some specified loss. There is no similarity whatsoever between that system and the system of severance payments.

There is yet another aspect to the federal government's policy which deeply troubles the government of Ontario. It touches the very heart of the federal parliamentary system, by whose laws, customs and traditions we are all governed. The federated nature of this country and the weighty responsibilities of our respective governments should rule out unilateral measures of this sort, which carry with them such significant consequences. A government elected with whatever measure of public support, large or small, has the obligation to consult on measures of such magnitude, not only with provincial government whose statues they seek to negate but with the work place parties themselves.

In this instance, there was no consultation; there was only unilateral action. More than that, the government of Ontario is concerned that the thrust of its statutes can be thwarted by an undebated regulatory change in another jurisdiction. Only in the most extreme circumstances, if at all, should a nonlegislated federal regulation supersede a statute competently enacted within the jurisdiction of a provincial legislature. This situation is surely not one of those extreme circumstances in which competent and wholly valid provincial legislation should fall through federal regulations. Thus, we have chosen to say through Bill 128 that our legislation will not fall and that the integrity of this Legislature will be upheld.

In concluding my remarks on the principle of Bill 128, I want to remind my colleagues in this Legislature of a speech made more than four decades ago, back in 1940. The speaker was Mackenzie King, then Prime Minister of Canada, and the occasion was the introduction of a new piece of legislation, then called the Unemployment Insurance Act.

In proposing the legislation Mr. King said: "The surest foundation on which to base democratic government is a happy and contented people. Nothing militates more against happiness and contentment than fear. By this measure, fear will be removed to some extent, from 4,660,000 of the Canadian people....

"This done, it will be recorded of the present generation that at a time when we were bending every effort and endeavour to overcome the enemy at our gate, we were not unconscious of our duty and our obligation to promote the welfare and happiness of our people."

We have our opportunity today, some 46 years later, to remove the fear faced by modern workers in Ontario, who are caught up in mass layoffs or closures and who, as a result, must confront substantial disruption and dislocation of their lives.

I ask this assembly to support Bill 128 and to send Ottawa a clear signal we will not stand idly by while others seek to diminish the integrity of our statutes and the benefits they provide to the people of this province.

The Deputy Speaker: Are there questions or comments? Does the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) have any questions or comments?

Mr. McClellan: No. I will have remarks to make in due course.

The Deputy Speaker: Is there any debate?

Mr. Gillies: I am pleased to join this debate. I know, Mr. Speaker, that you will allow me a similar degree of latitude to that given the minister in his remarks. I almost feel I could get up and give a speech on the thoughts of past Prime Ministers of Canada, the meaning of peace, order and good government, democracy and just about anything else, but as much as possible, l will try to restrict my comments to Bill 128.

The minister quoted Mackenzie King, who was one of our great Prime Ministers. The quote that comes to mind for me is from the great, late John Diefenbaker, who was once exhorted at a rally to give the Liberals hell -- excuse the word, but I am using it in context -- to which Prime Minister Diefenbaker responded, "I do not give them hell, I just tell the truth, and to a Liberal it sounds like hell."

That is my quote for the day, for what it is worth. My colleague the member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. Pollock) remembers it well.

I and my caucus will be joining in support of Bill 128 for a number of very good reasons. I want to start with a couple of thoughts, inasmuch as I believe there are problems with the severance pay provisions of the Employment Standards Act in a number of areas.

The action taken by the government of Canada, as proclaimed on March 31, 1985, is one of those problems. However, there are others. I draw the minister's attention to the fact that in 1984, which I am led to understand is the last year for which statistics are readily available, only about 18 per cent of the 14,000 Ontario workers who were laid off permanently received severance pay. This speaks to a number of very serious flaws in the legislation. I hope the minister is able to address one of those with Bill 128, but I cannot let the opportunity pass without suggesting there are a couple of loopholes in there that should be dealt with.

The minister and I have had many occasions in the past year and a half to discuss these, but the one that irks me the most is the minimum of 50 persons in the layoff provisions of the bill. Members will know that when a company of any size undertakes a layoff of any magnitude, the workers are covered only by the severance pay provisions of the act if there is a minimum of 50 workers; the intent when the bill was originally drafted was, I suppose, to provide some sort of buffer. The minister is quite right in that it was our government that brought in the legislation. The intent, I suppose, was to absent those small businesses that might on occasion have to let one or two or three employees at the corner store go. Personally, I think the provision was wrong from the day it was enacted. I also believe the interpretation and the loophole that this provision has become are similarly wrong because of a conscious effort by what I hope is a minority of employers to thwart the intent of the legislation by staggering and downscaling their layoffs. As I have seen happen in my constituency -- the minister has in his, and I dare say all of us have -- a company will lay off 150 employees, let us say 49 at a time. It is not what the legislation was intended to allow and it is simply not fair.

15:30

I remember one instance in my own riding of a company that did precisely this, and I remember the workers coming in some numbers to my office to put their case before me. One or two of the employees in question had been with the company for more than 40 years, and they were getting not even the golden handshake; l doubt it was a silver handshake.

The very minimal provision in the legislation, the floor, if you will, that people in the province have come to expect as their due, is not going to many, if not most, of the workers who deserve it. One week's severance pay for every year of service with a minimum is not excessive. We, as members of the assembly, I may say, do much better. I see one or two of my colleagues saying, "Do not bring that up," but let us be honest here. Many people in executive capacities in the private sector do a heck of a lot better than we do.

People in the public sector, such as ourselves, do reasonably well under severance pay provisions that have either been bargained or legislated for us. Lord knows, I would not want to bring up matters of other public servants who are now under the scrutiny of various committees of this House with the severance packages they got.

The Deputy Speaker: That would be out of order and straying too far.

Mr. Gillies: It would indeed be out of order to do so, and I do not presume to do so. However, in saying this, I provide a context: We have to ensure that the very minimal standards that have been set for the benefit of all workers at least are met.

That brings us to Bill 128. The minister, in his statement, although with a fair degree of high-blown rhetoric -- but who am I to criticize the minister for that? -- has laid out the problem relatively succinctly. Under federal law, permanently laid-off workers must use up their severance pay before they can collect unemployment insurance. As the minister said, the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission has been treating lump sum severance payments as earnings spread out over a number of weeks according to the worker's average weekly pay before the layoff.

The minister's predecessor and my former colleague, Russ Ramsay, expressed concern at the time these proposals first came forward in 1984. They were not responded to adequately by the government of Canada at that time. The incumbent minister has similarly expressed his concerns, which I believe, if I understand the way this bill is going to be voted on, represents the concern of each and every member of this House.

Severance pay is not a gift. It is not something given to workers through the munificence of an employer or anybody else and to which the employee is not entitled. He is entitled as a matter of law because it is the law of Ontario and as a matter of right and justice.

I have always thought of severance pay packages, duly negotiated or agreed to by employer and employee, in much the same sense as I think we have to regard benefits and pensions. They are, in a sense, a deferred wage. They can be regarded as something such that, if the employee were not benefiting from this feature of his employment contract or of the law, one might presume he would be benefiting somewhere else. As we said on the select committee on pension reform in 1981, it can be said in a sense to be a deferred wage. It is something due to the employee by right and entitlement.

What we saw in the 1984-85 period was that a worker could not collect unemployment insurance during the entire time period arising from the calculation of the severance pay, and during that period of time he lost, or could lose, credited weeks of unemployment entitlement.

Although the severance pay is considered income, it cannot be used as a basis for a future unemployment insurance claim. When is it income and when is it not? I suggest there is a built-in contradiction in the action taken by the government of Canada. In effect, the 1985 offsetting of severance pay against workers' entitlement to unemployment insurance has undercut the severance pay plans. That is not something we in this Legislature wish to see happen.

I have a recent concrete event I can cite, which has a direct bearing on what this legislation tries to do. There was a recent ruling involving shipyard workers in Collingwood who are members of Locals 6320 and 8234 of the United Steelworkers of America. That ruling gave the workers both their severance and unemployment insurance benefits. The ruling is based on a federal regulation that allows an employer to attribute the severance settlement to one week after the layoff. Workers have to wait two more weeks to collect UI benefits, but they are then eligible for up to 51 weeks.

By my reading, Bill 128 -- and I believe the minister will concur in this -- is similar in its intent. By allocating the severance pay to the weeks immediately following layoff, the severance pay will not penalize laid-off workers by offsetting the severance pay against the worker's entitlement to UI benefits.

Severance packages are meant to ease difficult times for workers, their families and the people in their community when layoffs occur. Let us face it, nobody wishes to see a layoff occur, and nobody wishes to see people terminated from their employment for whatever reason -- adverse market conditions, the decision of a company to move or to close part of an operation or whatever. Nothing we can do by legislation in this area will ever replace a job, but on those occasions where employment is lost and workers have to rely on whatever provisions we as legislators can put forward for them, then we as a Legislature have the obligation to ensure those provisions are protected.

The minister will have our support in this legislation. I dare say the fight he has with the government of Canada in this area is not over, but the fight must go on none the less.

I expressed my concern as an individual member by way of letter to the previous federal minister, the Honourable Flora MacDonald, who is a good friend and who I believe is one of Canada's best and most dedicated public servants. On this issue, I expressed concern to her as a private member of this assembly. I will do so again if required to by the new minister, the Honourable Benoît Bouchard. In fact, I had an opportunity six weeks ago to sit down with the Minister of Labour for Canada. While the legislation in Ottawa regarding UI is not his responsibility, I did express my concern to him. He indicated he had met recently with our provincial minister, who had similarly expressed his concern, and I believe that may be putting it lightly.

Hon. Mr. Wrye: Modest displeasure.

Mr. Gillies: The minister is saying he expressed some modest displeasure, and that is understandable. Let us get on with it. I would venture to say there will be no disagreement on this measure. Let the Legislature pass Bill 128. When the time comes, I hope the government of Canada will recognize the will of this Legislature to protect the workers in Ontario and their severance provisions, will not in any way contest Bill 128 and will let the amendments stand.

15:40

Mr. McClellan: We in the New Democratic Party will be supporting Bill 128, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act. I was amazed to listen to that flowery speech from the Minister of Labour, which ended up with a little hymn of praise to Mackenzie King. It is entirely appropriate that the minister would take Mackenzie King for his role model when introducing this bill, because despite all the flowery rhetoric from the Minister of Labour, all this bill does is restore the status quo with respect to employment standards law in Ontario.

I do not think the minister explained clearly, and the previous Conservative speaker did not explain at all, that what the Mulroney government did in 1985 was to change the federal legislation so it is now possible for severance pay to be deducted from unemployment insurance benefits. Of all the stupid, obscene things a federal government has done in this country, this has to rank right up at the top.

For the Mulroney government literally to steal severance pay benefits from laid-off workers by deducting them from unemployment insurance has to rank with the most mindless, anti-worker legislation any federal government has ever indulged itself in. It is because of actions such as this that the Mulroney government is going to be a one-term government. I was amazed that none other than Flora MacDonald was left with the carriage of this ridiculous proposition.

All that Bill 128 does this afternoon is to put an end to the Tory ripoff of severance pay benefits and restore the Employment Standards Act to the same state of inadequacy it was at before the Tories intervened. I have to express amazement that this Minister of Labour's only initiative with respect to amendments to the Employment Standards Act is to try to restore the status quo to what it was before he took office.

Is this the best the minister can do? Is this the best the Swampmaster is able to do for employment standards? If it is, it matches his record perfectly with respect to occupational health and safety, reform of the Workers' Compensation Board and reform of labour relations law. In short, he is the pre-eminent example of do-nothingism in this new government. He deserves every bit of the criticism my colleague the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) has been ladling out on a daily basis. This bill is just more of the kind of irresponsible inactivity that has come to characterize this minister's stewardship of his ministry.

I remind the members of an exchange that took place in this assembly on February 7, 1986. I am referring to the Hansard of that date. Our Labour critic, the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie), asked the Minister of Labour when he intended to introduce reforms to our severance pay legislation. The minister said he had a number of concerns about the size of establishments and about what had happened at Dominion Stores. He was asked specifically by the member for Hamilton East, "Is the minister prepared to change the law...so that every worker who was permanently laid off will receive severance pay?" The minister said it was a good point and he was going to review the law. "I hope it will be complete so that we may see some Legislation in the next session."

Here we are now in the next session, and all the Minister of Labour can do is bring in Bill 128 to restore the status quo ante. Well, well, well. Is that not a surprise? The incident that inspired the question in February 1986, was the closure of Dominion Stores by our good friend, the minister's good friend, Conrad Black -- author, apparently, of his pension policy. When he closed Dominion Stores to loot their pension plan, he also fired 400 workers. This is the government that enabled Conrad Black to take $62 million out of the pension plan of Dominion Stores workers and to force the workers and their union to go to court to get their money back from a man who had taken it away from them illegally and who, at the same time, saw 400 Dominion Stores workers fired and thrown out on the street without a dime of severance pay.

When the Minister of Labour was asked back in February 1986 whether he did not have some concern, he wept his usual crocodile tears and promised legislation in this session. Here is the legislation, restoring the status quo ante. I do not intend to take very long. We certainly would not want not to restore the status quo ante. The major part of the Liberal reform program is to go back to square one.

I want to remind members of the extent of the severance pay ripoff under the existing Employment Standards Act. In 1981, there were 147,000 workers laid off in Ontario, of whom 1.1 per cent collected severance pay under this legislation; in 1982, 286,000 workers were laid off in Ontario, of whom 1.5 per cent collected severance pay; and in 1983, 313,000 workers were laid off in Ontario, of whom 0.7 per cent collected severance pay.

Yet this minister has the nerve and the gall to come before the House this afternoon to talk about his Employment Standards Act and its severance pay provisions as though they were meaningful and as though they did something for workers. The minister knows full well what the statistics are. In each of those three years of depression, 1981, 1982 and 1983, less than two per cent of almost a million workers who were laid off collected even a dime under this legislation, but he has the nerve to come in here today and talk about his concern and his reform initiatives and the fact that he is pretending to do something.

I would have thought he might have come here today to say very simply that he was correcting a major injustice, that he recognized the act as it stands constitutes a major injustice, that his review was now complete and that this was what he would do: change the notice and coverage provisions; change the amounts that are made available; guarantee that each and every worker in this province who is laid off receives some compensation for the loss of his job; ensure that companies are forbidden to engage in mass layoffs that devastate communities, companies with no responsibility and no accountability and no requirement to justify their economic plans to the broader community.

I would have thought he might have come here today to discuss plans for retraining and reemploying permanently laid-off workers. The fact is that this minister has learned nothing from the depression of 1981 to 1983, and he comes before us today with this bill to restore the status quo. That is all he seems to be able to come up with.

This minister's performance is pathetic, and it is seen to be pathetic. He has had 17 months of stewardship over one of the most important ministries in the government of Ontario, and no matter which corner you look into, the dust and cobwebs of the old regime are still there, the old ways are still there, the old officials are still there, the old attitudes are still there, the old complacency is still there, the old arrogance is still there. It is about time this minister made way for somebody who is prepared to do the job.

15:50

Hon. Mr. Wrye: Very briefly, I acknowledge first the comments made by my friend the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies). I appreciate his support and that of his party in this matter. I certainly appreciate the support of all parties in this Legislature for this action to restore the integrity of our legislation.

I acknowledge very quickly the additional point my friend the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) made about the legislation and all of its inadequacies. While I appreciate the support, at the same time I acknowledge that the effect of Bill 128 is limited.

In acknowledging the support of my friend the member for Bellwoods and that of his party, and also acknowledging that this legislation, important though it is, restores the status quo, I must express some surprise and amazement that my friend from Bellwoods seems to think it is of minimal importance. He should try making that statement and that kind of claim in the city of Collingwood, where the initiative taken by this government -- an initiative that, since this bill was introduced, has been copied by the steelworkers' union -- has provided hundreds of workers with some decent termination notice pay and decent severance pay. I think that is rather important. It is real money in the pockets of real people and not so much theorizing as we heard opposite.

For the member to suggest that this is only minimal legislation is just a little much. The fact of the matter is that this is the first jurisdiction in Canada to move legislatively to protect the rights of its workers. No other legislature has moved, including the legislature in Manitoba. I am amazed that my friend opposite would make that kind of comment, as if what this government is doing in this field does not have some degree of importance. We are the only jurisdiction to have launched a major and a fundamental challenge to what we all agree is an improper and a very regressive piece of action by the federal government.

I heard my friend the member for Bellwoods say he had expected we would come in today and say, "The review is complete and here is the legislation." I can only say to him that the review is not complete. When it is complete, we will bring in amendments to the severance pay section, amendments that I am sure his party will want to support fully. Indeed, all members of the Legislature will want to support them fully and applaud them completely.

When these changes are made, it is important that they be made right. I believe we have brought in changes that are right. In terms of Bill 101, the legislation to protect workers' rights to know, I hope to proceed with that later in the fall, following the federal-provincial-territorial conference at the end of this month.

When we come in with our Employment Standards Act amendments -- and they will be fairly comprehensive -- I hope they will be correct and will be applauded, and similarly when we bring in amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Act or amendments to the Labour Relations Act.

These things take time, but it is time well spent if they are correct. I agree with my friend the member for Bellwoods, I do not hear with any sense of satisfaction the statistics of workers who, while the legislation has been on the books, have not been able to avail themselves of it. We are attempting to correct that. I only indicate to the House that this has taken some time.

I must say, at the same time, that it does not matter if we bring in the most perfect piece of termination and severance pay legislation in all of Canada and North America. If the federal government continues to do what it does, at the end of the day that perfect legislation will be for naught.

Today's step, while it is a limited one, is an important one. Not only does it recognize and restore the integrity of our very special legislation, which gives those kinds of special provisions to employees who are being terminated and losing their jobs through layoffs and closures, but it also says very clearly that the integrity of this Legislature and of its statutes is going to be protected and is being protected by this government.

Motion agreed to.

Bill ordered for third reading.

House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF TREASURY AND ECONOMICS (CONTINUED)

On vote 1001, ministry administration program; item 1, main office:

Mr. Chairman: We have the estimates in front of us. How many minutes do we have left? Six hours and 24 minutes. Is that correct? Four hours and 29 minutes. I wondered whether the gremlins were back in the clocks again, but no.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Before we get into the estimates with our usual enthusiasm, the member for Cambridge (Mr. Barlow) asked a question about the Ontario municipal employees retirement system pension. I thought we had taken the action -- I see the honourable member is just coming to his place -- to permit police and firemen to retire at age 55 on a full pension after 30 years' service, and that is the case. They are now suggesting we might improve that pension further by giving them what you might call a magic number of 85; that is, their age plus their years of service would give them full retirement.

This is not a standard approach in the public service, the teachers' service group or anything like that, where it is still 90, except under special circumstances. The member would know that there is a special three-year window that permits teachers to retire at age 55 in spite of the fact they have not achieved the magic number.

Dealing with the police and firemen on the basis of 30 years and out, so to speak, as long as they are 55 years of age, I feel does recognize the special challenges, if I may put it that way, of their employment. I think there is reasonable satisfaction that this has been accomplished. Naturally, as with any other employment group, there is always a list of areas where improvements are sought, and those are always under consideration.

Mr. Barlow: After our discussion the other day, I talked to an official from the Cambridge Professional Fire Fighters Association, and he said he did get a briefing from OMERS between the time he had contacted me and the time I talked to the minister. It bears out substantially what the minister has said, although he said everything seemed to be on the right track at the time. That was the indication. I think they are reasonably satisfied.

16:00

Mr. McCague: While we are on the issue of pensions, the Treasurer will be well aware of the large pile of mail he has received from teachers who are on superannuation and of their desire, because of a reported large surplus in the fund, to have him extend benefits to earlier recipients. I know the Treasurer will recall that the retroactive date at this point is May 31, 1982. He will also know that this act was in the formative stages for some length of time and that it was made retroactive at that time in order that those who had every reason to think it would be in place by May 31, 1982, could collect their pensions, which was their understanding when they retired. Maybe the Treasurer can bring us up to date on how he intends to respond to this request from many of Ontario's retired teachers.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I am sorry. I have no idea what the honourable member said.

Mr. Chairman: The member asked you how you are responding to retired teachers who wish a five-year averaging.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The teachers' superannuation situation is very positive. The honourable member has already indicated that the most recent actuarial valuation shows there is an actuarial surplus. I hesitate, frankly -- and I sound naïve when I say this -- to think of those as real dollars, since they are substantially large sums of money and they do not take into account the additional pension requirements of the teachers that index their pensions.

Frankly, before I came into government and the Treasury, I had thought that the indexing provisions were a part of the teachers' superannuation legislation intrinsically, but it is a separate fund, which is ostensibly paid for and was set up to be paid for by an additional one per cent increase from teachers' salaries. Particularly since teachers' salaries have been rising rapidly over the years since this indexing fund was established, I had thought it would be in quite a positive position to pay that indexing over the years of retirement.

I indicated in the budget in May that there was some concern, at least on my part, that this second fund was not in actuarial surplus but quite the contrary. We have actually got some additional and special advice on pension matters to assist us in looking at the value of the actuarial surpluses and deficits associated with all our pensions and just what our commitment as a government in representing the public at large would have to be. Therefore, whenever we talk about the surplus in the basic superannuation fund, I have to indicate some concern that there is not a surplus in the other fund, which is designated with the acronym SABA, which means Superannuation Adjustment Benefits Act. I can remember SABA, but I cannot remember Superannuation Adjustment Benefits Act.

In this connection, while it is true that most of the letters I receive point with pride to the substantial surplus, as Treasurer -- and I have the overall responsibility -- I am aware of something less than a surplus situation in the additional fund. I do not want to be critical of the honourable member just because he is the only Progressive Conservative here, because I do not believe he personally was responsible for the legislation that established that. However, as I see it and as I see the unclear lines of responsibility associated with that, I can see that in the next few months and years there will have to be some very careful review of how that should be properly brought into balance with the emerging requirements for payments.

It seems to me that if the inflation rate is held under reasonable control, that might moderate the problems, but I want to indicate to the honourable member, the many teachers and others interested in the pension status, that the overall position is not one of impressive surplus.

It is also true that when we grant special advantages to teachers who have already retired, who have made their contributions and whose pensions are based on those payments, when these pensions are enriched, as they have been repeatedly for good reason, the consolidated revenue fund is usually called upon to make up at least part of those payments. Even if it all comes out of the surplus, the surplus does not necessarily accrue to payments made by those people who have been retired, sometimes for a number of years, and who, in my view, do not have a direct claim on those dollars.

The fund is there to ensure that the province can meet its responsibilities as set out in the act and any enrichments approved by the Legislature from time to time. My own experience, and it is just a brief one, is that there is always a substantial lineup or list of requests for enrichment of all the pensions over which the province has some control, because it is essentially the guarantor. Certainly, the one where the requests -- sometimes demands but essentially requests -- for improvements are the greatest, deals with the teachers, perhaps because their pension situation is a good one. I think the teachers say so, and so do we all. We are very proud of that, but the pressure to improve it seems to be very high.

The one coming to me most frequently now is from teachers, many of them formerly professional colleagues of mine, who have retired on pensions based on their best seven years. Some of our other friends, who retired a few years later, have pensions based on their best five years, and as my friends say to me in their letters: "You have to be fair about this. Why should I get less than Joe or Jane?" It is difficult to answer other than to say that they retired a couple of years too soon and that it is difficult for even a magnanimous government, such as the one in office now, to accommodate all these requests.

As for the request we are looking at, I want to know exactly what additional funds, either from the teachers' superannuation fund or from the consolidated revenue fund, will be required. There is always another request pressing in on the minister, whether myself or the Minister of Education, who had this responsibility previously. The officials in Treasury who deal with this are quite skilled at discussing it with the teachers' representatives and the representatives of the Teachers' Superannuation Commission. When I say this is under constant review, our experience in the past few years has been exactly that. The teachers are knowledgable, pressing, usually moderate and effective. We try to safeguard the public dollars, always bearing in mind that the teachers make substantial contributions, but so do the taxpayers of Ontario.

It is also healthy to note that these surpluses, which are very substantial in many pension funds, private and public, have not always been that way. Depending on the economy of the nation and the economy of the western world, these have had substantial deficits in the past. I recall there being almost yearly during the years I was in opposition a line in the budget allocation of Ontario for substantial funds, usually in the order of $200 million, to make up the deficits inherent in the teachers' superannuation fund during these many years.

Even in those days -- I do not want to sound naïve or misleading -- we did not think of them as real dollars, since they were transferences on pieces of paper to the TSF, which were then entirely borrowed back by the province for good works. The responsibility is there to guarantee the payments. Whenever we increase the value of the benefits, those guarantees carry on ad infinitum and we put a load not only on the teachers to come but also on the taxpayers, who must maintain their share of the payments as they go forward month by month to the deserving teachers who have served the province during a lifetime career.

What did the member ask?

16:10

Mr. McCague: The Treasurer was perhaps being well briefed at the time. Maybe he can try to listen to a couple of points I have so he may be able to answer them.

The message that is going out from the Treasury to the teachers is not exactly what he said. I understood him to say the matter was under consideration. He can correct me if I am wrong. I think he is sending letters out which say, in short words, that he does not have much intention of changing the system, that the money there now in surplus will be needed for teachers currently enrolled in the fund and that he cannot see his way clear either to ask them to contribute more or to ask the government to put more money into it.

Supplemental to that, I wonder whether the Treasurer has a conflict of interest in these funds at present.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Actually, if I had been as smart in 1961, when I resigned my teaching job to go into politics, as I am now, I would have kept up my payments, as some other members of the Legislature have under the regulations, very properly and appropriately. I decided to withdraw my contributions made over nine years of teaching, which I think were paid back without interest. I invested them in an implement shed on a farm. I put all the dough into that. It is 100 feet long and 30 feet wide. Any time the member wants to come to South Dumfries, I will show it to him.

Mr. McCague: I did ask the Treasurer whether it is true that letters are going from the ministry to people who are inquiring, saying he is not proposing to accede to the request, both in terms of increased contributions from them and from government.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: There is always a fairly large flow of mail on superannuation. The large flow now is for a removal of that gap between seven years and five years, and I am not sure what the response is; it should be that we are giving it careful consideration.

There are other sections in that letter indicating we have a responsibility to the taxpayers and a responsibility to the teachers currently contributing to their own pensions, not previous pensions. My natural feeling is that if there is a perceived inequity, I would like to propose to the House that it be removed. We are reviewing that.

The most compelling letter was from my grade 4 teacher. That was before grade 4 existed; it was called senior second. The member may remember senior second. Was that not right? She recalled those happy days back in SS8 South Dumfries. She retired after a full lifetime at age 65; I did not inquire what her age is now. She indicated that her retirement pension was based on the best seven years, that people retiring now are getting it on the best five years, and what am I going to do about it? Having read the letter carefully, I thought I had better find out what I am going to do about it.

Mr. McCague: The Treasurer may have the figures at hand. I would like to know what the cost might be to move from the best seven to the best five. I do not want to put him to a lot of work to get that, but if it is available, I would like to have it.

I am mentioning that because the Treasurer made a remark about what great people teachers are, and I agree, and how they are all friends of his. I suggest the way to keep them as friends is to take a careful look at the act and at the request they are making.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: It would cost approximately an additional $65 million a year.

Mr. McCague: Thank you. That is just to move from seven years to five.

One of the Treasurer's great hobbies in years past has been what should be done or what this group of people should do; I refer to Ontario Hydro, just down the street. I will give the Treasurer a moment or two to philosophize on what it is he intends to do now, and from that I am sure some questions will flow.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I think Ontario Hydro is doing a pretty good job. I do not have any particular plans to do anything to or for Hydro other than to support it in its requirements to provide power at cost and to be sure there is enough of it.

Mr. McCague: The Treasurer would have us believe that it is completely at arm's length and that there is never any discussion between his ministry and Hydro when it comes to borrowing rates, salaries and a few of those things.

I noted a recent article which said Hydro has spent $9.6 million to assure itself a share in Hydro-Québec so we will all be lit up for Christmas. He may not know about that. That may not be the type of thing a Treasurer ever talks to Hydro about, if he can tell me that.

One has to wonder about the Ontario Energy Board recommendation of a 4.9 per cent rate increase and Hydro going for something in excess of that; I believe it was 5.6 per cent. I mentioned the $9.6 million for Hydro-Québec to reserve a place to still the concern in my riding about the locked-in power at the Bruce nuclear generating station. Considerable hearings have been going on in various parts of the province, in London and in Bruce in particular. Perhaps the Treasurer can tell me where that stands. We are probably straying a bit from his estimates, but he is the minister who has some responsibility for Ontario Hydro.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The honourable member raises a subject that I declaimed on previously at length. Unfortunately, the member has not taken time to look up my speeches, but I have always been very interested in Hydro. Anyone who listened to my previous speeches would know I have been very supportive, not of the personnel but of the concept of Hydro as the greatest utility in North America. There is no doubt about that at all.

The member will remember that rate increases have been somewhat variable over the past few years. There was a time that rather shocked us all when it was necessary to have rate increases of the double-digit size, with indications that these very high rate increases would continue. That was the time when interest rates were extremely high, and it was necessary for rates to go up to pay the interest rates on an expanding system. My adviser Mr. McColl has just passed me a paper showing increases over the past few years ranging from a high of 14.8 per cent in 1983 down to the 3.5 per cent proposed in 1986.

I call to the member's mind, and I am sure Mr. Chairman is interested as well, that rates were extremely high in the 1980s and late 1970s, during those times of hyperinflation, and the concern of everybody was quite evident. Ontario Hydro cut back on some of its expansion because at the same time there was a business turndown, which meant the rate of increase of the load was reduced substantially from the historic yearly seven per cent. At one stage, the increase was zero or perhaps even negative, and so the plans were put askew by the economy of not only Ontario but also North America.

16:20

The rate increases were reduced, and in many instances when the Ontario Energy Board reviewed the proposed rate increases it came up with a recommendation quite different from what Hydro had put forward. They have a different view of it, particularly since Mr. Macaulay has become chairman. He is extremely knowledgeable about Hydro, having been at one stage vice-chairman, and I believe he was the first Minister of Energy here and certainly was the principal spokesman for Hydro. He, with some veracity, considers himself to be as knowledgeable as anyone, even the Chairman, or any of us as politicians. When he gives an opinion, it should be considered very seriously indeed, as the member will agree.

I believe it was in 1985 that Hydro's projected rate increases got as low as 3.8 per cent; a very low increase indeed, below the rate of inflation. At that time we were in an election campaign or close to it. I had the ill judgement to criticize it publicly, but it seemed to be an unnaturally low rate increase in the circumstances. I was assured and there were formal statements made that these were justified by the statistics, and I know that would be the case. The next year there was an indication that the rate had to increase, and there was a bit of a spur in the general smooth decrease of these rate changes, which we were quite prepared to ignore in the circumstances, and that was fully justified.

This year, when it is still evident from statements by Ontario Hydro that we hope in the foreseeable future as Darlington is completed and major capital requirements are reduced somewhat, and we hope they will be, the rate increases required may be as low as inflation and we hope a bit lower. This may not be possible, but at one stage that was the hope and the public projection of the utility.

Hydro, with that in mind, had proposed a smoothed-out rate increase for the next year of about 4.9 per cent. The Ontario Energy Board, in reviewing that, felt that was not appropriate. A couple of things had happened. Oil prices had changed dramatically, as had the value of the Canadian dollar, so that the cost of paying our American loans had increased and the actual outflow of dollars had increased substantially. It was the view of the energy board that Hydro was not making appropriate provisions through the rate structure to meet those payments in a responsible way.

The chairman of the energy board also indicated there should be a nestegg lying around in case we got into trouble with some of our generating capacity. We had a bit of bad luck at Pickering; not an intrinsic design fault, fortunately, but a few sagging pipes that will cost us several hundred million dollars to repair. Those repairs are under way now. Mr. Macaulay indicated this might happen again and Hydro should make provision for that a little more adequately than apparently it had in the rate structure that was proposed. He said 4.9 per cent was not good enough; 5.9 per cent was what the increase should be, which would at least move Hydro towards its goal of financial soundness. The implication should not be made that Hydro is anything but financially sound, but it has certain parameters, actually established in a letter signed by a previous Treasurer, the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller), some years ago, indicating what those parameters should be. The rate structure is the principal way this can be achieved.

The chairman of the Ontario Energy Board also indicated he felt the administrative costs at Hydro were too high, the implication being that Hydro was overstaffed and that its pay ranges were abnormally high. I cannot comment on that. I have already indicated I have a good deal of confidence in the administration of Hydro, and always have had. I think most objective observers feel Hydro is adequately staffed and adequately paid. Members can read whatever they like into the adjectives, but certainly the energy board chairman felt that too high a proportion of the revenue was going for administration, and in response I believe the chairman of Hydro indicated those costs were being brought under control.

Mr. McColl has just informed me that, over the period of time, the rate proposal from Hydro has been the same as the energy board's recommendation six times, below it five times and above it two times; so the independence of the two organizations is not in question.

As far as this rate is concerned, the energy board said it should be 5.9 per cent. Hydro had originally proposed 4.9 per cent on the basis that, although the financial soundness would suffer somewhat since it felt in the years to come the requirements would be gradually diminishing, there would be a smoothing out of rate changes. However, on the basis of the recommendation from the energy board, Hydro has announced it will require a rate increase of 5.5 per cent. I ask members to compare this with 3.8 per cent for the previous year -- that is, currently, this year -- that was announced in the late winter of 1985. Therefore, I think the process of establishing the rate and reviewing it is working quite well.

A number of people, including my own colleagues, previously and perhaps now, have felt the Ontario Energy Board ought to have the power to set the rate rather than simply to review it. We had considerable discussion in the House two years ago about the financial position of the province and whether the debt of Ontario Hydro -- which, of course, is very large at $25 billion -- balanced, of course, by the capital structures that have been built, had an effect on the credit of the province. I naturally assumed it would have; that it was one of the things that would affect our credit rating.

I can remember my predecessor, the member for York Mills (Miss Stephenson), now travelling in the Near East, saying to the House in her own definite way that it had nothing to do with the credit rating. She was a doctor, not a teacher, and she thought we would accept that if she said it firmly enough. She might have explained that as long as Ontario Hydro had the right to set its own rates within a range of fiscal and financial responsibility and soundness, the credit raters assumed that even with that large debt, because of this huge market for electricity and the fact that Hydro controlled those rates and worked on the basic premise that it was to provide power at cost, in fact it did not affect the credit rating.

I would not be averse to looking at proposals for the energy board to take on the responsibility of fixing rates, but when Hydro loses that intrinsic control of its own fiscal position, then of course it does begin to affect the credit rating of the province.

Other jurisdictions, other provinces, have made decisions to freeze hydro rates for a period of time. I think Saskatchewan did and Manitoba did. At the height of the inflation, they said hydro rates were going to be frozen. Obviously, as far as their utilities are concerned, that has to be made up with public dollars and that would affect the credit rating of the jurisdiction.

16:30

I sound a little conservative now that I am a little more knowledgeable about these things, but I would not rush in to remove that independence of Hydro. I can assure the honourable member that many of my colleagues feel differently. While it is not a matter of great controversy, it goes back to the point the member asked me about, what are we going to do with Hydro? That is one of the alternatives. I am not awfully keen about it but it is an alternative. The downside of it concerns me as Treasurer. The benefit is that an independent body establishes the rate. The member might give us the benefit of his views on that .

Mr. McCague: My view is that we have just talked about the pension fund, about which the now Treasurer had some ill-conceived opinions, and we have talked about Ontario Hydro, about which he said the same thing: that things were not as bad when he took over as he had hoped many would think.

The Treasurer says I have not read his musings of the past. I remind him that when Hydro was made a crown corporation, he was very critical of this and said that the Legislature had lost its power, that when it was a commission there was a member of the Legislature on it. I have read them, but I did not take the opportunity to read all the negative things the member said about the government of the day as they applied to the Treasury because there are not enough hours in these estimates to do that. I will leave it to my colleague.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I want to respond because I had forgotten for the moment, although I should not have forgotten, the debate on whether the change from the Hydro-Electric Power Commission to a crown corporation was a good thing. I convinced my colleagues at the time to oppose that change. I was one of the spokesmen opposing it because I felt that as a commission it had a closer connection with this House and that as a crown corporation the emphasis was on arm's-length operation.

As a commission, members of the Legislature, not always members of the cabinet, actually sat on the board of the commission. John Robarts, God rest his soul, started his career there after being elected, and Bill Davis and Art Evans. They all had the position of vice-chairman and there was always an occasion during the estimates debate when the vice-chairman of Hydro, as one of our colleagues here, got up and explained what Hydro was doing and answered questions.

To tell the truth, it was like answering questions about the United Church. It was solid, not under any great review and obviously smiled upon by all the powers of the universe. It has changed a little since then. My own feeling is that by putting it at arm's length from this House, we lost something valuable, which was at least seen as public accountability in the Legislature. A few would say that a political vice-chairman would probably not be a heavy-hitter, yet he might be. Both of those former vice-chairmen became Premiers and did not do badly at heavy-hitting. Art Evans was chairman of the select committee on conservation, which was also an an extremely important emanation of this House.

Anyway, Hydro became an arm's-length operation. As soon as we got that, George Gathercole became chairman, a very brilliant guy, but not exactly at arm's length from the administration. That is not the name I am looking for. Hugh Macaulay became chairman. He had been very closely associated with the Premier. As a matter of fact, he had been one of his campaign managers. The feeling we had, to be frank and fair, was that while they passed an act creating a crown corporation divorced from government and did away with the possibility of the vice-chairman being a member of the Legislature and explaining Hydro's position to the House, they had done something we did not think was a worthy alternative. They had put a political person into the top job in Ontario Hydro. We thought that was counterproductive and we were quite critical of it.

While the Legislature had no access to that kind of report, the Premier on a day-to-day, Hugh/Bob telephone relationship could, if he chose, run Hydro out of his hip pocket. I am not suggesting that he did, but he could have, and it was seen that he could have. In my view, without talking about the abilities of any of those people -- we all know they are extremely capable people -- it was a bad move. Now that the member has brought that to my attention again, I think I know what I am going to do about Hydro. Maybe.

Mr. Allen: I want to address one or two questions to the Treasurer on a subject the previous speaker started out with; namely, the question of the teachers' superannuation fund and some of the questions arising from that.

The Treasurer described his government as being a magnanimous government of an unprecedented sort. I must say, but for this week, the image of the Treasurer might well have been that he was simply another Treasurer in the Tory tradition. Perhaps he has broken with that image and magnanimity is becoming the order of the day. The teachers who are writing to his office, my office and to many members' offices hope that is the case.

The Treasurer seemed to imply in his remarks that because there was a public contribution to the superannuation fund through taxation at various levels, there was something illegitimate about contemplating or making a response to the teachers who are asking for some adjustment with respect to the calculation of their pension on the seven best years of their career as against the five that were legislated in 1984.

In his attempt to respond to that question, does the Treasurer have any figures for us on the number of teachers who would qualify where there is such an adjustment and what the overall sum would be were the government to respond to that, or to put it more properly, were the superannuation fund to respond to that request?

The Treasurer will allow that, with a fund as rich as the teachers' superannuation fund, notwithstanding the fact that the one per cent fund deals with the enrichment side of the superannuation commission's responsibilities to the teachers, none the less it is very difficult for teachers who contribute to that fund and whose contributions are properly matched by the employer, as is so often the case in pension funding, not to expect that the fund will have a capacity to respond when the needs of the participants seem to dictate that there is something equitable and just about the response that was requested.

I am concerned to know whether the numbers and the amounts make it impossible for the fund to respond or whether it is simply the division between the main fund and the one per cent fund that constitutes the difficulty. If that is the case, perhaps the Treasurer can inform me whether the one per cent deals only with the indexing factor or whether it deals with other elements of enrichment that the fund has tried to respond to from time to time. If there is a difficulty in the one per cent fund responding, why is the surplus of the larger fund of the larger fund not available to enrich the one per cent fund that deals with those enrichment questions?

16:40

I know it is somewhat disturbing to some of the people who analyse the fund more carefully than I do to observe that the government may indeed be in a sort of conflict-of-interest position. Whether the Treasurer himself is or not is not something I do not want to press particularly. However, the government may well be in a kind of a conflict-of-interest position with respect to the fund, inasmuch as it does use it as a major borrowing source for its own activities. Therefore, there is some reluctance on the part of the government to see it invested in other directions that might give it a greater earning capacity for the teachers than is possible through the interest the government pays for the use of those moneys from time to time.

Perhaps an even more alarming projection is that in the 1990s we will reach a state of affairs in which all the borrowing the government has to do or will ever have to do could be completely satisfied by recourse to that one pension fund from that one professional group. That is perhaps a problem which needs to be looked at in that respect.

I come back to the original questions. I want to add to them a question about which I wrote the Treasurer not long ago, and that is with respect to the other pension question: namely, the miscalculation that was the subject of some discussion in the press and with which the Treasurer is quite familiar. Have the Treasurer and the fund as yet worked out a response to the teachers who, from the commission's point of view, were overpaid and who now, from the teachers' point of view, will be underpaid in the months to come as a result of that miscalculation? Has the Treasurer any knowledge of a resolution of this problem that either has been worked out or is about to be worked out?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: On the question of the miscalculation, that occurred before this government took office. This does not mean the government is not responsible, but I am not responsible and neither is the member opposite.

We really have decided, and as far as I know it is not under any further consideration, simply to have the Teachers' Superannuation Commission inform all the beneficiaries of this matter. As far as I know, the changes in the pension will take place. No recovery of payment already made is being sought, but the pension is adjusted to what it should be. For us to say, "The mistake was made, so we will continue paying the extra amount to the end of time," we did not think to be appropriate. I am sure nobody likes it, but that is what we are going to do, as far as we are concerned, at the present time.

Mr. Allen: That is a very significant problem for the teachers who made life decisions based on that decision.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: As I recall, the difference is not large enough to affect life decisions. I may be wrong about this.

Mr. Allen: One hundred and fifty dollars a month is not exactly an inconsequential sum.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: For obvious reasons, I do not want to pass judgement on what is a lot of money and what is not. It is a significant amount of money, but the error in calculation is one we are not prepared to accept as something that will be put in place of what is correct. We are not asking for repayment and we are proceeding with it on that basis. If the member wants to continue on that subject, I will not go on to others for a moment.

On the question of recalculating teachers' pensions on the best five rather than the best seven, the honourable member may not have heard me respond to an earlier question. We estimate the cost to be $65 million a year. I cannot tell the honourable member how many teachers would be involved. That is a number that would be available but it is not readily available right now. If he thinks about that and does a little arithmetic in his head, he might come up with a rough number, but it is a significant number.

We should recall that before 1982, when we went to the best five years, the contributions from the teachers were six per cent of salary. When we went to the best five, we raised it to 6.9 per cent. Why we did not go to seven per cent, I do not know. There was another per cent that teachers retiring under the new system had to pay but teachers retiring under the old system did not have to pay. One might say they had made their life decisions on the basis of six per cent and seven years.

Also, as I recall, in any decisions made by the government that bolster former pensions, proposed to and accepted by the Legislature -- and there have been some recent ones where low pensions were raised to a certain minimum -- those costs are paid not from the superannuation fund but from the consolidated revenue fund on the basis that the teachers currently working and contributing to the fund, whether it has a surplus or not, should not be required to pay for those pensions going back. I have argued about it and discussed it, but it has been the tradition for a long time.

Since we have a lot of time here, I will tell members all about this. When I was first elected there was a large group of teachers, predominantly female, who had retired when teachers' salaries were very low; many of them $1,000 a year, believe it or not. As inflation took hold, their pensions, which seemed to be adequate when they retired after teaching for 30, 40 or more years, were not adequate. I recall them coming to the Legislature on a number of occasions.

The then Minister of Education was John Robarts. We had a large meeting in one of the committee rooms, which was filled with these teachers. I was present as Education critic and the minister came in and said they had decided to upgrade those pensions by special payment, which would come out of the consolidated revenue fund and not be a charge on the superannuation fund itself, so the rates would not have to be increased. It was a recognition of the economic problems associated with inflation. This was before big inflation took hold; this was when inflation was at two per cent, which was considered catastrophic. Everything is relative.

We should bear in mind that if we were to do this, it would cost $65 million. The teachers who retired on pensions based on the best seven years did so knowing that was what their contributions supported and they retired when they did for obvious reasons. They had either come to the proper age or had decided to take early retirement for other reasons, but most of them would have had a full career of service.

I am not adamantly opposed to improving that. I am concerned that under our usual procedures the teachers would not expect us to take that enrichment out of the superannuation fund, because it is an enrichment the teachers benefiting would not have an opportunity to pay for, even in part or statistically. However, I have a lot of sympathy for this situation and I assure the member we are giving it continuing consideration.

The letter, I must admit, is a form letter. I think we are sending out 500 a week, because all these teachers have been contacted and urged to write to all of us. The letter is not very positive. It concludes by saying: "In my view, retroactively extending the best-five formula at no cost to retirees would be unfair to those now teaching, who must bear the higher contribution rate to receive it. It would also be unfair to Ontario taxpayers, who must pay for benefit improvements for past contributors."

I balance those two unfairnesses with the perceived inequity of people who are living in an inflating economy on pensions they feel are not good as those received by their friends who retired, in some instances, 12 months later. There is nothing more galling than to see somebody doing better than you are when you know you worked harder than he did.

Mr. Philip: I will not talk about golden or platinum handshakes, because we will be talking about them tomorrow in the standing committee on public accounts.

I read with considerable interest the attempted thrust, hearings, meetings, whatever it was that the Liberal cabinet had for a couple of days, with the exception of the Treasurer and one or two other ministers who decided to stay down here in southern Ontario. I am sure I must have missed it or maybe this was one of those rare occasions where the press may have missed something of tremendous importance. Knowing the family history of the Treasurer, however, I am sure there must have been some announcement about the expansion of the Province of Ontario Savings Office to northern Ontario.

Did I miss that or did the fact that the Treasurer himself was not in northern Ontario make him choose to keep it back as something that he will announce in the near future in northern Ontario?

16:50

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I know of the honourable member's continuing interest in the Province of Ontario Savings Office and he knows of mine. In case anybody has not heard our exchanges on this matter before, I will recall that my sainted father was a member of the government in 1923 when the savings office was inaugurated. It had more elaborate terms of reference then and I think part of its name was "farm loan office" or something such as that. The government changed before it got into the loan business but it has continued to receive deposits and has an establishment of a certain number of offices around the province. This number has not changed except in a very minor way for many years. I do not believe it extends into northern Ontario at all.

Just by the way, there have been a couple of minor changes. In the city of Hamilton there may be two branches of the savings offices that I know of that have changed locations into more desirable areas, and in the city of Brantford there is going to be a change in location because of downtown redevelopment. It is not terribly significant, although I expect it will cost more in rent.

We have also opted for daily interest, simply to keep us somewhat competitive with the other deposit-taking organizations, where the competition is very high indeed. Our daily interest is designed to be competitive and since we have made these minor adjustments, the funds on deposit have been increased by more than $30 million, $32 million. I just put that out there for consideration.

The thought that the savings office would move into the north is an interesting one. I find it helpful that the spokesman for the New Democratic Party is once again going on record to recommend it. As I recall, the spokesman for the official opposition has recommended expansion as well, and I will keep those quotes handy in case I need them.

Frankly, I think an argument might be made, not particularly for the government going into competition with other deposit-receiving organizations in the major urban centres, but for providing a deposit service in some of the more remote communities where they really have no service that way. I do not call it a banking service because we are not in the loan business at present.

However, I had an interesting discussion with the Treasurer of Alberta, who is a very forward-thinking and progressive Conservative. He indicated the strength of the Alberta Treasury Branches, as they are called, that are found widely distributed in all the communities in Alberta and that give quite an extensive service not only in deposits, deposit taking and cheque cashing, but also in services much more extensive than those.

I was quite interested that the business community in that mecca of conservatism did not seem to be particularly concerned about it and felt it was an appropriate service of the provincial government. The Treasurer himself has been steeped in the tea of Toryism like nobody I have ever met, but is extremely capable and forward thinking. After all, he had been a member of the government, one of the most Conservative ones anywhere, and dealing with large surpluses up until this year. Very low tax efforts were necessary because of heavy revenues from resources. It did not occur to him that in a forward-looking jurisdiction such as Ontario there might be those who would have second thoughts about maintaining the deposit-accepting organizations.

It is in my mind, although I have not had a chance to pursue it as I might have, that deposit-taking services might be enriched in remote communities where they do not have alternatives. I am not suggesting opening up a bunch of offices but, particularly where there are other provincial offices and staff, we might add that effort as a service of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines offices or the Ministry of Natural Resources offices. Perhaps the liquor stores? No, I think that might be going a bit far.

Mr. Philip: I am pleased that the minister has gone to Alberta to do personal research on the research I have tabled in the House for two, three, four, five or 11 years, or whatever, for him and his predecessors. I think he is making far better use of his time than the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Kwinter) made of his time when he took a submarine ride in the West Edmonton Mall and then wished to give away $60 million of our tax dollars to the Ghermezians.

Mr. Ferraro: He never said that.

Mr. Philip: I am sorry; he did say that. On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: If what I am saying is being challenged, the member can stand up and say that, but it is in print. If he is calling the various newspapers liars, he should say so and say so out of the House.

Mr. Chairman: Order. That is not a point of order. It was simply an interjection. Carry on with your comments about the Treasurer.

Mr. Philip: Why is it that the minister is thinking only about giving some competition to the banks in Ontario? His father thought about it and in 1921 actually managed to implement the program. It was of use to farmers. In Alberta it has been of use not only to farmers but also to small business. One would think that if the government were interested in any kind of industrial strategy, then the Ontario savings offices, if they were similar to the Alberta savings offices, could be one of the planning tools or one of the useful tools in creating jobs and in stimulating those parts of the province where investment is needed and loans could be made.

I can assure the minister, having read the history of his progressive father, that his father did not lose the election over giving competition to the banks through the Ontario savings offices. In fact, the Liberals may have gone down for a variety of other reasons but it was a rather popular move on the part of the farmers' labour party or whatever you want to call it, the forerunner of the Liberal, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and New Democratic parties.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I like the name. I have an accord here.

Mr. Philip: I said "parties." I said it in the plural.

Why is it taking this Treasurer so long to move forward into the 1920s when his father was able to do it so amicably and receive so much personal support and make his name in history as doing something very progressive? Why is the Treasurer not prepared to do more than think about it?

We are one stage further than we were last year. At least the Treasurer has gone to Alberta. I assume his major purpose was not to go down into a submarine, but rather to have some real dialogue with the Treasurer of Alberta.

If Alberta can have billions of dollars that can be used for economic stimulation through competing with the banks through a loan system and keep the money in the province, then Ontario can follow the good example of Alberta. If the Treasurer does not want to follow the example of the Alberta Conservative government, then maybe he should follow the example of his father.

The minister will no doubt want to answer that at great length, in the same detail in which he answered my questions about the courtship between his government and the Ghermezians, which answers I doubt have shed much light on the subject.

17:00

Let me move into another area. As our party's critic on government spending, one thing I am concerned about is the way the previous government, and this government is following the same trend, set up certain agencies that are allowed to charge premiums and to run up large amounts of money which may not be technically tax money but invariably have the same effect. If money is taken out for a service and those businesses or individuals in the province have no say about whether those moneys are being paid, that is a tax in a different form.

One of my concerns is that many of these agencies are completely unaccountable except when a major inquiry or a major scandal happens. The most blatant example of an ineffective, useless organization is the Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada home warranty program. Everyone who buys a house pays for the HUDAC home warranty program. It is an organization that is bureaucratic, that has wall-to-wall lawyers to put in the way of any consumer wishing to get any kind of rebate out of it and that is so defensive it has challenged the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman to look legitimately into complaints against that body.

Another example is the new scheme of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. The Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations comes up with all these crazy schemes in which it can say the consumer is out there and it is the honest broker, but it is an independent organization that makes the decision. What is happening is this latest idea that, instead of bringing in proper lemon laws in this province, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations is going to have a scheme of arbitration as of November 15. If one buys a car and gets ripped off, one can go to this organization or body. It is very interesting. It does not even give the consumer the power to subpoena documents to prove his case.

Those are the things this government and the previous government have set up. They are schemes that are costly, they are schemes that are not fiscally responsible and it is very difficult to get any kind of information on them.

In the standing committee on public accounts, we had the latest example, the Industrial Accident Prevention Association. At least we have the Provincial Auditor, who has some ability to examine that body because of his jurisdiction over the Workers' Compensation Board. When he did, this so-called independent body, to which the Ministry of Labour had indirectly given some $13 million plus per year through workers' compensation premiums, was found to be completely irresponsible and negligent in its accounting functions and in its controls. It did not have a control system and it failed to evaluate any of its programs in a substantial, scientific manner. What we have is a multiplicity of these.

Is the Treasurer not concerned that the previous government used these kinds of techniques to be able to say: "We are not responsible. It is this agency or that agency, and it is arm's length"? At the same time, it is costing the consumer and the taxpayer more and more money, either directly or indirectly through some premium scheme. Is he worried about that and is he worried about the accountability of it?

In the case of some body such as the HUDAC home warranty program, would he at least support the recommendation of the Ombudsman that he have jurisdiction to investigate it?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I can assure the member that I, and we, set a lot of store in the findings of the standing committee on public accounts. It has been extremely busy and we all know that. Sometimes we feel that it spends more time than is warranted on certain aspects of the review, but that is bound to be natural depending on one's point of view.

The public accounts committee's review of such things as HUDAC and the safety organization are important for the government. I can assure the member we take that seriously. I think HUDAC was a good idea as a way to guarantee the quality of construction in the private sector. At the time, I felt it might have been a mistake to go to what was essentially a private organization and give it the power to do that. There was an occasion, going back to 1981, when I felt particularly strongly that it was wrong. It seems to me the president of HUDAC took an active role in an election campaign that year. Since he was operating an organization conducting a public responsibility and allocating public funds, my feeling was there was some concern. As I think about it now, I feel a flood of return of that concern.

I am not sure whether the organization is under review. I do not think there have been any specific complaints or comments other than that it is doing a reasonably good job. The recommendation from the public accounts committee will be seriously considered.

I would also like to say something about the safety organization with the four letters because it is responsible for the ads on television, is it not?

Mr. Philip: I believe the ads are under the Construction Safety Association of Ontario. There may have been one by the Industrial Accident Prevention Association that was what one would call sexist, but it was in a small publication. The major objections have been to the advertising of the Construction Safety Association of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Probably knowledgeable people such as the honourable member and others might say those are objectionable. I do not know whether they are any good or not. I find they compel my attention because I know the guy is going to fall off the ladder, I know he is going to get a terrible electric shock, I know that thing is going to get him in the eye, I know the truck is going to back over him and I know he is going to step on the nail. Even though I have seen it a lot of times, it makes a tremendous impact. It may be useless for safety but I do not know of any ads, other than a few beer ads, that make the impact those do.

There is some thought that there is too much money and there are too many portraits of the various presidents in the boardroom and so on. I really dislike that stuff, particularly if it is done with public money. l dislike that and I want to be associated with any criticism that can be directed at that kind of waste of public money.

Mr. Philip: While we are talking about the ads, the objection was not to showing the worker getting hurt. It was that they were completely one-sided. The emphasis seems to be, "You are a stupid worker because you are actually going to go on the job site without...." The one that goes up my spine is the fellow who has no safety boots on and he steps on a rusty nail that I am sure goes all the way to his tonsils.

The criticism is that there are no ads on the other side. I f those ads are effective, why not have an ad that shows an employer facing a large fine or an inquest finding that suggests the employer is guilty for not following the laws of Ontario with respect to health and safety? All of the ads depict the poor, dumb, stupid worker who is always doing something wrong. Yet when you go out on a site you find that certain things the employer has an obligation to do under the act are not being done. Nobody in those ads is saying: "As an employer, you have a responsibility and if you do not do this there are certain consequences. The consequences are not just that the employees get hurt but that we have ways of getting back at you." That is the objection; it is not a balanced ad campaign.

17:10

Would the minister not also agree that all the evidence shows these programs are not adequately evaluated? If we are going to spend that kind of money, we need to have a way of examining the objectives, of having them stated clearly and of having them evaluated. What has happened is that at the same time as the Industrial Accident Prevention Association has been holding these great, gala conventions every year and spending more than $13 million, the accident rate is going up. That is not the best use of taxpayers' money.

I worry about accountability. Every once in a white we can get directly at some of these organizations through the public accounts committee or through the Ombudsman, but we have no jurisdiction over some of them. Unless we can prove the money came directly from taxes rather than from a premium or some other system such as that, it is next to impossible even to have an inquiry into a lot of these organizations. It strikes me that is not accountability.

If we are going to talk about fiscal responsibility, we have to look at some of these runaway organizations, how they are collecting their money and how much money is taken out of the pockets of the taxpayers of Ontario.

Mr. Chairman: Before going too far down this road, I think we are straining the estimates of the Treasurer a lot. Perhaps we can keep a little closer to the dollars that he has and to the estimates that are in his votes and items.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I think your advice is good, Mr. Chairman. I will just indicate to the honourable member that I am not as familiar with the internal workings of those organizations as the member is as a member of the public accounts committee, although t have read the reports of the discussions.

As a farmer, I represent an industry that I believe has the highest accident rate in Ontario. A lot of people do not think that; they think it must be firemen or miners or construction workers, but I believe it is farmers. This concerns me very deeply. Many of my friends have been injured, sometimes brutally, by farm machinery. One of my very best pals, who used to farm in co-operation with me, lost his life under a tractor. It was terrible.

It may be that our legislation and regulations are not good enough, but I will tell the member there is nothing like the ads on TV to make an impact on individuals. I agree the responsibility of the employer is paramount. Maybe there should be ads saying, "You are going to be fined and put in jail if you do not shore up your excavation properly," or whatever. I think that is important. We have inspectors and laws to deal with that.

I think the aim of the ads we have been talking about is to make an impact on individuals, to sensitize them to the fact that, in spite of the laws and in spite of the inspections, the individuals have tremendous responsibilities in the whole matter of safety.

The fact that the accident rates are going up is appalling; in the first instance because of the injuries themselves, and in the second, on an entirely different level of importance, because of the costs met through the Workers' Compensation Board and through the injured individuals themselves.

These costs are escalating at a rate that concerns me as Treasurer. The actuarial deficit, if that is the proper term, which accrues to the employers and not to the government but which is associated with the WCB, is such a huge and growing amount that the time may come when our auditors are going to expect us to report this as something we are not responsible for but at least we are cognizant of.

Mr. Philip: On that point

Mr. Chairman: Excuse me. We have other members who want to go on. Is this on the same subject, which is very distant from the Treasurer's estimates?

Mr. Philip: In responding to the Treasurer concerning farm safety, since the Treasurer raised it, I want to --

Mr. Chairman: I think I had better put an end to this. The Treasurer said I had good advice and then went winging off in left field in the same way.

Mr. Philip: Allow me to say to the Treasurer on this one point that if all the accident prevention associations were as clean as the Farm Safety Association, then the gallons of blood the Industrial Accident Prevention Association shed before the standing committee on public accounts would not have been shed.

There is one problem. Does the Treasurer not feel there are too many accident prevention associations and massive duplication and perhaps a rationalization of those associations might save a considerable amount of money?

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The member is probably right.

Mr. Brandt: The interesting part of the estimates of the Treasury is that they cover such a vast expanse of provincial activity that one sometimes has to question exactly where to start in developing a line of questioning. I would like to pose a question for the Treasurer, and by way of background information, this is to assist me in getting some insight into the workings of the Treasurer's mind. That is going to take some doing, I know, during the exercise we are about to go through.

If taxes are of necessity to be raised during times when we have a relatively buoyant economy, and I think that is an admission both of us can make without any serious question being raised about it, what would the Treasurer's intent be at a time, predictably in the future, when there is less growth and when the level of revenues may be somewhat softer than at the moment? What does he plan to do about two things in particular, the increase in taxes the people of this province are being forced to pay as a result of his most recent budget and the increase in the deficit?

I ask him those questions against the background that it is my view that, in an economically responsible fashion, a Treasurer would be pressed into a situation where he would have to raise the deficit during difficult times but would attempt to do quite the opposite, reduce the deficit or reduce the demand, not necessarily in terms of revenues but in terms of tax increases, at a time when the economy is growing. Will the Treasurer give me his own view about why he did what he did at this precise time in our history and what he intends to do in the future when he is faced with an entirely different set of circumstances?

It is $750 billion.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: No. I was looking for what the cash requirement was in 1983, when the government the member used to be a part of faced those circumstances. I do not recall any earmark, other than huge increases in the cash requirements. I do not recall any significant reduction in administrative costs. I do not recall the government refraining from tax increases except the year before the election, when the then Treasurer, the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman), brought in a budget with no tax increases. The earmark was a huge increase in cash requirements, which amounted to -- I cannot see the definite number, but it was $2.2 billion or $2.3 billion; I think it was $2.2 billion.

When we took office, the level of the deficit was about $1.8 billion. We had some programs we wanted to introduce, but we were not prepared just to take over the old, worn levers of power and run it the way the run-down machine was wobbling along. We had some programs we wanted to bring forward to increase the development of the north; to improve the situation on the farms; to provide 10,000 day care places; to provide more money for post-secondary education, hospitals and municipalities -- to begin to make up for the drought of provincial support that had been the earmark of the dying days of the Progressive Conservative years.

17:20

It was my feeling as Treasurer that rather than say, "We are going to do all those things and we are just going to add that to the deficit," it was essential that we pay as we go. "that is a phrase that used to be popular back in the late 1930s and 1940s, but pay-as-you-go became a bit disreputable with Keynesian economic theory based on pump priming and improving working conditions. It is very rare that you get to a period of time when things are so buoyant that there are not substantial improvements to the economy that cannot be justified.

The member and I both agree the economy is buoyant now, yet the questions today all press the government to do more in northern Ontario. A few days ago, members pressed the government to do more for the farmers. Both those suggestions are worthy and worth while and the government, as usual, is giving them careful consideration.

To undertake these programs and to return what we consider to be fiscal responsibility to the province, we thought if we were going to do those things and carry the load of debt we inherited, it was necessary to increase taxes to meet those requirements. The member knows the budget a year ago increased taxes on an annual basis by about $650 million. The original figure was $700 million, but there were certain refinements in the gasoline tax of which the House did not approve. It was about $670 million at the time of costing. The member also knows the buoyant economy has probably increased the revenues on that tax-base change; so it is substantially more than $700 million now.

The economists in the Treasury, in whom I have a great deal of confidence, indicated large increases in taxation would have an effect on the economy, and we had to balance what we saw as an emerging buoyancy with that effect. Since the money was going into new programs and not exclusively to the reduction of cash requirements, it was our assessment that the negative effect would be minimal.

I can remember the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Grossman) questioning me repeatedly a year ago on what studies we had on the negative effect of the tax increases. The studies were based on the fact that new programs in government utilizing those funds for the stimulation of the economy and the improvement of the community would not have a negative effect. This is not some political judgement; it is the judgement of the same economic advisers who had been so useful to my predecessors.

I should make sure members are aware that Dr. Bryne Purchase is advising me at the table even now. I do not want to undermine his independence, which I can assure members is pristine, but he has done a good job in the years he has been in Treasury, and I am very proud to be associated with him now.

It occurred to me -- and I even used the word in a bit of a press scrum after the announcement a couple of days ago -- that I am quite fortunate. I used the word "lucky," which is true. I am not prepared to try to convince the member who asked the question that the economic buoyancy is entirely as a result of the initiatives taken by the new Liberal government. I sometimes try to persuade other audiences of that, but I am not prepared to spend the time or the energy that would be required to do it here.

The drop in world oil prices and the relatively low value of the Canadian dollar are two things that have provided tremendous stimulation and have allowed Ontario to become one of the most competitive jurisdictions in the western world. International financiers who want a place to invest their money in manufacturing processes and so on know we have a good work force and our pay levels, which many people think are not high enough, are competitive, to say the least. This has given us a remarkably valuable position to attract that international finance.

These things have all established an atmosphere of confidence and buoyancy, which shows up in our revenues and allows me as Treasurer to support my colleagues in the programs they feel are essential.

At the same time, the honourable member will know I have certainly not lost track of the cash requirements which, when we came in, started at $1.8 billion. I announced yesterday or the day before that these are now estimated to be $ 1.4 billion. If the Leader of the Opposition is right when he projects we are going to find another $400 million somewhere, it is possible the cash requirements may be even lower. It would be great if that were the case.

The idea of balancing the budget is always attractive, and it would be just great to be the first Treasurer since Charlie MacNaughton to balance the budget of Ontario. It would be like having a second Christmas, but it is not my main aim as Treasurer. What has been accepted by me as a suitable aim is to balance the ordinary revenue and expenditures so we are borrowing only for capital, which we would have the advantage of now but which people coming after us would also be using. My own feeling is it is quite justifiable to borrow money for that purpose.

When the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick was running for the leadership for the first time -- and the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies), who is his close follower and supporter, would be able to advise me on this -- he promised to balance the budget.

Mr. Gillies: In three years.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: That is fine. In 1979, Darcy McKeough promised to balance it in three years. That was followed by three of the biggest deficits in the history of the province.

Mr. Gillies: But Larry meant three real years.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: It was something like that. That is a fact. He said he was going to balance the budget. I remember his standing here, and I thought, "The SOB is probably" -- no, I said, "I bet he will do it." But it did not turn out that he had a chance.

There is always a temptation for Treasurers to say, "I am going to balance the budget." Frankly, I think it is possible, but I do not think it should be done if we are going to move into an area where we are cutting programs or the social fabric of Ontario. We have to keep up to the times and provide for the requirements of a modern community. There is a balance there. If our economy continues to be buoyant and we are able to persuade the taxpayers and the voters of the province to allow us to continue to have an opportunity to manage their affairs, it is quite possible that would happen. I am not predicting.

Mr. Brandt: Never.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: It is not impossible.

The member is asking me something about my philosophy in these matters. I think it is quite clear that I am not afraid to levy taxes to pay for programs that the government feels are necessary. If we cannot go out and convince the taxpayers it is proper for them to pay more for new programs, then obviously the electorate and the taxpayers will make other choices. We understand that. Eventually they will make other choices. As the Premier (Mr. Peterson) has said repeatedly, as old democrats we know that will occur, and we just hope the 42-year cycle that has been established will be repeated and we will have no complaints.

17:30

Mr. Brandt: As a follow-up to that, which was an extremely lengthy response to what I thought was a relatively brief question, I found it interesting that the Treasurer commented on the old, worn-out parts of the previous government. As I look around this esteemed chamber, I see many of those parts now working rather well in different capacities, even with the current government. I do not want to mention any specific names, but the same parts are functioning in some fashion or another.

I want to ask the Treasurer whether some of those parts still functioning within the Ministry of Treasury and Economics might be issuing any warning signals about an upper limit that the Treasurer may be closing in on, the maximum amount that can be extracted from the taxpayer, before he runs into a series of decreasing returns in terms of the provincial economy.

There are those who might suggest the entire tax system is going to have to be looked at. There are some inequities in it. I say that specifically as it relates to some of the so-called middle class today. I will give some general numbers. A person who earns $33,000 or $34,000 in Ontario today works from January 1 to approximately the end of June, or about half a year, before that individual starts to have any money for himself as opposed to money that is extricated from all his various pockets by government.

In terms of the many activities on the busy plate he has to deal with on a daily basis, is there any thought on the part of the Treasurer to look at some changes in the system of taxation that will relieve the burden of taxation on the low-income and middle-income classes to some extent, perhaps either to move it around or to change it in some way to reflect a fairer system? I say this recognizing there are those who can probably set figures before the Treasurer which would prove Ontario has the second-highest tax of any province in Canada. I leave that with the Treasurer, and I look forward to his response.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: It is typical of the honourable member that he thinks only of working half a year for the government rather than being optimistic and positive and realizing he works half a year without paying a cent of tax. He should think of the opportunities.

Mr. Gillies: That is why I always take January off.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: If he feels he is working for the government from January 1 to July 1, that may explain why he normally takes January and February off and goes to Florida.

Mr. Brandt: No.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Anyway; to tell the truth, this idea that people are working like slaves in a salt mine for the government for half the year is the sort of thing I would be talking about if I were in opposition. If the member wants to think about that, perhaps he will quit.

In answer to the question, I certainly think there is a limit. We expect a limit to taxation. We expect our social unit to continue to be the family. The unit has changed quite dramatically, as there are usually two wage earners or salary earners in the family. That is why we are looking at child care in a much more immediate and formal way than the previous government did. If we are going to go into those sorts of expensive services, that may very well be the kind of service which, if made universal and appropriate across the province, would require somebody such as me to go out to the people and say: "We feel this is an important expanded service, which should no longer be considered a sort of welfare service but the right of the community. We may have to raise taxes to pay for it." We would have to think of that.

I do not believe we can go out and raise taxes that are seen simply to be supporting an old, tired, wasteful governmental machine that is not productive and reform-minded. Perhaps the word "progressive" might appeal to the member rather than "reform-minded."

Mr. Brandt: A good word.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Right. On the other hand, the member is getting into an area of great importance. It is implicit in what he said that we may have to have a careful look at the whole tax system, and he is reflecting what I have said when he was not paying attention, what the Premier said, and perhaps more important for the member, what Michael Wilson is saying and is concentrating on.

Last Thursday and Friday, I went to Edmonton, incidentally to find out about the Alberta Treasury Branches we are referring to briefly, but mostly to sit down with the treasurers from across Canada under the chairmanship of Michael Wilson and discuss matters of mutual concern, including tax reform. We as politicians might be able to attribute certain motives to the new-found enthusiasm for tax reform at the federal level. If you look at the election cycle, tax reform -- particularly since it has proved so popular, although it has not proved effective as yet in the United States -- is something that any sensible politician here would look to.

I believe, and I am sure Mr. Wilson does as well, that besides the very proper political pressures for reform, there is a real requirement that we look at our tax system so we can improve its fairness and equity and simplicity. I tend to talk too long in my answers to members' questions, but tax reform for the man in the street usually elicits the thought, "At last, I am going to pay less and those other people are going to pay more." Whatever tax reform might be for the Minister of Finance for Canada, we are going to prepare a better apparatus to pay our bills and reduce our deficit. The federal deficit on a yearly basis is the same size as our all-in budget in Ontario.

Everything is relative. I can say we need more revenue, and as we look into the coming year, we see how programs are growing very rapidly, such as the drug benefit program, the Ontario health insurance plan and dealing with the doctors on a new contract. We have already announced additional funding for post-secondary education, and municipalities are demanding more money for roads. The Minister of the Environment talks to me repeatedly about additional funds needed to clean up our environment, the beaches, the water, the air, the soil, acid rain.

The pressures are all there, and the members present, having recently been in government, know what that is like. Having run ministries themselves, they know how dearly we would like to get our hands on a little extra money to accomplish some new program we think is important in the areas in which we have special interests. The member who asked the question was Minister of the Environment, and very highly regarded as such. He knows how almost limitless the requirements would be if we were to embark on a program to do what he knows eventually has to be done.

Tax reform, then, from the standpoint of some treasurers and maybe the Minister of Finance, is essentially in the long run designed to get more revenue, it is to be hoped on a fair basis that is acceptable to the people. Nobody likes paying taxes, but individuals can be convinced that it is appropriate for certain tax changes to be made for fairness and equity and for revenues to be increased to pay for specific programs.

I would like to hear the member's view on how tax reform might proceed. In the US they increased the corporate income tax tremendously, not the rate, but by the removal of preferences and loopholes. They said, "We are going to take that money and reduce personal income tax." That is very popular. I have even heard members in this House say that corporation taxes should be increased so the little man, if there is one, will have lower taxes to pay.

The New Democratic Party used to say, "Let Inco pay." They do not say that much any more. They just say, "Let the corporate welfare bums pay," which is rather a popular, acceptable concept. I have mentioned that as I drive into Toronto, there is a railway overpass with a big piece of nice, clean concrete. In the last election campaign, somebody could not resist taking a can of red paint and painting on it, "Let the rich pay." What a great slogan. There was a hammer and sickle right after it, but that is irrelevant.

17:40

Mr. Foulds: We have revised that to, "Let the rich pay their fair share."

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Oh, yes; their fair share. "To each according to his needs."

The Americans have had a lot of popular success with this. It is interesting that most people associate this tax reform with the Republican Party, yet last night we saw that the people did not respond with enthusiasm to Republican candidates, at least in the Senate, and the control passed to the Democrats. It is rather depressing to think that even good government sometimes is not adequately recognized by the electorate.

It appears from Michael Wilson's statements -- and I have carefully read everything he has said; I think he has had it prepared very carefully -- that he is committed to a substantial reform of the federal sales tax, which is now restricted in its application to about a third of the goods and services sold, at a level of about 12 per cent. That returns a lot of money but obviously it is an anachronistic tax. It means domestically produced goods are taxed at a higher rate than those goods that are imported. There are all sorts of anomalies; so he can justify a thorough-going reform.

He is talking about a business transfer tax, which might very well apply what amounts to a sales tax, not on one third of Canada's goods and services but on two thirds of Canada's goods and services. He might very well be able to reduce the rate from 12 per cent to three or four per cent and get even a little bit more money, heaven forbid. That is going to have quite an effect on our tax base, because if we are applying our seven per cent sales tax without changing our base and the federal sales tax goes down on those items, then our revenue will be decreased.

One of the first things we have said in these discussions is that we want to participate in any tax reform, at least to the extent that our provincial revenues are maintained and that initiatives taken in Ottawa are not going to undercut us and leave us scrambling to stay in the same place.

Michael Wilson has already unilaterally reduced the transfers for established program financing which, at the end of this five-year cycle, will have cost us $5 billion; actually more than that. It is quite significant. He was criticized by Liberal treasurers, but mostly Tory treasurers, for doing that, almost with as much bitterness as they used to criticize his predecessor for acting unilaterally and in a high-handed way and for not thinking about the provinces' needs sufficiently. He has great responsibilities as well. I have a lot of sympathy for what he is doing, and I tend to have a high degree of support for at least his aims to improve the tax system, etc.

He is interested in expanding the sales tax dramatically and using those additional revenues to lower income taxes. His statement in the House of Commons was quoted, although I thought the reporters had perhaps taken a little poetic licence when they said Wilson was going to give you more take-home pay.

Mr. Foulds: Journalistic licence.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Yes, journalistic licence, although some of them are poets.

He is also considering changes in the corporation tax. It would be helpful for me to know members' views, either in this debate or later, on where the emphasis should come.

I believe, and I have always been taught and I do understand, that sales taxes are regressive. One can moderate that regressivity with tax credits and things such as that, but the more one puts in taxes based on the ability to pay, the healthier is the tax structure.

I am a little uncertain about the new emphasis on a sales tax at the federal level. I also know our seven per cent sales tax returns to us about $700 million for each percentage point. We are right up there at around $5 billion from sales tax; so I cannot be too pious about it. I am not thinking of abolishing it or anything, but certain changes are possible, and it would be very helpful for me to hear from the members and from the select committee on economic affairs in the province, chaired by the member for Kitchener (Mr. D. R. Cooke), which will be undertaking these reviews if it ever gets a chance.

Mr. Brandt: The Treasurer was looking for some thoughts with respect to tax reform, and I would say in a very general sense this party would certainly not oppose any initiatives or moves on his part to remove more of our less-privileged citizens from the tax rolls and to continue to shift the tax burden to some of the higher-income groups and perhaps to some of the corporations as well. That is not something this political party would oppose, because we have done exactly that in previous budgets where we relieved the tax burden on those who were at the lowest end of the economic scale.

In terms of a general thrust, there is more that can be done by the Treasurer and by the current government, particularly during a time of a relatively strong economy. Those individuals who are continuing to suffer from the limitations of their economic circumstances should not be paying taxes. That tax burden, because it has to be made up -- and I fully recognize that -- has to be shifted to others who in some instances are paying no tax or very limited tax in relative terms.

I want to raise another question about a concern I have relative to the way in which some of the statistical bases developed in Ontario flow to the Treasurer's office at the moment. I speak specifically of the way in which the figures are computed for purposes of assessing the regional strengths or disparities in each of the regions of the province.

It appears that we have been using essentially the same fundamental statistical base for some time. Western Ontario is looked at as a unit, or southern Ontario, in the same way as northern Ontario, eastern Ontario and the Metro Toronto area. Because of the circumstances we are faced with in the province at present, the true regional disparities are not showing up in many instances. I am sure circumstances are considerably different in some regions of the north, for example. We know that is an area that needs a great deal of attention and it is an area our party is very much in favour of seeing given that additional assistance as a result of it being identified as an area of some concern.

The same can be said of eastern Ontario, but I want to assure the Treasurer, from the reviews I have taken of some of the communities in southwestern Ontario, there are a great many that are also suffering from unemployment rates equally as high as those that exist in the north. There has been a lot of attention quite justifiably paid to single-industry towns in the northern part of our province and some attention has been paid -- not necessarily today during question period, but at other times -- to the eastern part, but there is a sort of quiet, assured attitude that all is well in western or southwestern Ontario.

There are communities such as Chatham, Wallaceburg, Sarnia, Brantford -- which has had some very serious problems, not too far from the Treasurer's own riding -- and many communities across this part of Ontario which, because of their regional placement in an area that is relatively buoyant, appear to be doing somewhat better than they really are.

How does that reflect on the Treasurer's budget? Let me give an example. The Treasurer came out with a program, which I support and applaud, with respect to a tax write-off. There was a 30 per cent write-off given in northern and eastern Ontario, and the rest of the province was all treated in the same fashion in terms of that particular program. This was for investment in the small business community. The Treasurer now knows the program I am talking about.

17:50

Hon. Mr. Nixon: The small business development corporations.

Mr. Brandt: That is correct. For the purposes of the rest of the province -- excluding, if one will, all of eastern and northern Ontario by regional definition -- the rest of the province was all treated as though it was a "have" part of the province. That is entirely untrue. I do not want to get parochial in our discussions today but let me share some of the concerns I have about the area I represent.

With 4,000 construction workers in my area, at present 3,000 are unemployed. That is an effective unemployment rate of 75 per cent in one segment of industry in my community. By way of comparison with some of the northern communities being devastated by layoffs as a result of the problems with the lumber industry at present and shutdowns in the mining industry and all the problems they are facing, many of those communities do not have nearly the kinds of problems some of the communities in western Ontario are facing.

I know there are no quick-fix answers and I am not going to take an irresponsible opposition position and say the Treasurer has in his bag of tricks an immediate response he can give to some of these difficult and complex problems. For starters, I suggest he have his staff take a more realistic look at the changes that have occurred within our province. We all know, as an example, that there is far too much development being concentrated in the Toronto area. We have to look carefully at the cost of that development in environmental terms and in terms of the municipal infrastructure required. I am talking about overhead roads, subway systems, a whole series of costs that are much higher in a community as large as Toronto than would be the case in a community the size of Brantford, London, Windsor or wherever.

There are some tradeoffs in that situation. Industrial stimulus provided in Thunder Bay, even though it looks like a net outflow of dollars to that community, may well be cheaper than paying nothing in Toronto for a particular industry but then having to pay all the attendant additional costs associated with a concentrated community that is built up in a very intensive way.

I do not think I have ever seen developed at any time economic figures that took some of those concerns into account. I admit it is not an easy question to resolve in Treasury terms when trying to get the maximum return on an invested dollar. I want to share the concern I have about the regional disparities, which we are all aware of, and the statistical base that relates to those regional disparities, which is somewhat misleading in that some dramatic changes have occurred. I suggest there can be some modification of the information flow the minister gets so that the picture he is receiving will be somewhat more accurate than what he is getting at present.

Of course, the bottom line of my plea is that when those figures percolate to the top and he sees a more accurate, more true picture of where those disparities are throughout Ontario, he will then fix certain programs that will be directed towards overcoming some of those problems. One of the ways is through SBDCs and my direct appeal is that at least some portions or some parts of the province should be treated with consideration equal to that with which the northern and eastern parts of the province have been treated. I am not saying take something away from them; I am saying give the same consideration to other parts of Ontario that are suffering just as badly, that in many instances have one-industry structures in their communities and that are looking for some way or means by which the Treasurer, in concert with his colleague the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. O'Neil) and whoever else, can help them come out of this problem.

I have spoken at some length about this. Perhaps the Treasurer would like to respond in his normal brief fashion.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I can respond in perhaps less than five minutes. The honourable member talked about disparity in geographic terms. He began his remarks by talking about disparity in the income spectrum and indicating how effective the previous government had been in attempting to assist in that. In the two budgets I have presented to the House, we have increased the tax reduction commitment so that 700,000 people in Ontario, who are taxpayers under federal law, pay no tax in the province.

It still leaves some people who are below the poverty line, and I feel we have not done enough in that regard, but I am very proud of that commitment. At the same time, when we talk about the redistribution of wealth -- and people such as the member would not be so keen about this -- there is a three per cent income surtax which applies to people such as the honourable member and his friends who earn more than $50,000 a year and who contribute -- not enough, but some additional funds to the general revenue of the province that can be used for programs on a wider base.

I ask the members to compare that with the actions of the present government of Canada. In the brief time the member's philosophical friends have been in charge, they have entirely taken away the tax reduction program at the federal level. They have also given a very significant capital gains deduction of half a million dollars to everybody.

Maybe that is fair and equitable, except that it is not the people at the low end who have capital gains for exemption purposes; it is the people at the upper end, who are earning incomes well above $50,000, who actually apply for the major parts of those. There is a philosophical difference in the two approaches. I am sure it is not enough to satisfy my friend the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds), but it is at least worth mentioning in the presence of my honourable friend from Sarnia.

The chief economist, Dr. Purchase, has indicated that the province is working with Statistics Canada to develop better and more complete data on communities and regions, but we do have a very effective regional and sectoral branch in the Treasury which provides me with a lot of guidance in this regard. For example, the most recent figures show that the unemployment rate in Sarnia is 7.8 per cent.

Mr. Brandt: That is exactly the point I want to bring to the Treasurer's attention. Because the unemployment rate in Sarnia is computed by the federal authorities on a regional basis, it takes into account a much larger geographic area. The Treasurer's friend and philosophical colleague the mayor of Sarnia has on many occasions indicated that the unemployment rate in the urban area is at least double the figure the minister is quoting.

I ask the Treasurer to do something about it within the responsibilities of his ministry. I do not say this in an argumentative or provocative way. All I am saying is that if there are going to be programs directed towards communities that need help, then we have to work from an accurate base of statistics.

The figure I quoted to the Treasurer, which is about double the one he read back to me, is one that apparently even the federal authorities recognize is fraught with inaccuracies. They have indicated they are going to move towards a different form of database to come up with a more accurate set of figures. I know we are running out of time, but I just wanted to correct the record with respect to that number.

Hon. Mr. Nixon: Just in this last moment, I want to accept what the honourable member has said. Brantford has suffered in the same way. Its unemployment rates have been associated with a fairly large area that we think is somewhat more prosperous, involving the Niagara Peninsula and Hamilton.

On motion by Hon. Mr. Nixon, the committee of supply reported progress.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Nixon: I would like to report to the House that tomorrow we will continue with these estimates, but the House leaders will be meeting in the morning and, by agreement, there may be some bills we would like to consider. I am not in a position to tell you what they are right now, Mr. Speaker, but I think they are bills that were put forward at the last meeting of the House leaders involving Bill 8, the French Language Services Act, which is one we will be proceeding with, and supply.

The House adjourned at 6:01 p.m.

5 novembre 1986