Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

[Report continued from volume A]

1810

Mr Cooke moved that the House move to orders of the day.

Mr Norman W. Sterling (Carleton): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: As I said, we were trying to finish introducing the number of bills we had. This has been recognized as a dilatory motion by previous Speakers in terms of delay. There has been a ruling by this House, but there has never been a ruling with regard to this kind of dilatory motion during the introduction of bills or during a part of the routine proceedings. There have been dilatory motions between various parts of the routine proceedings; in other words, once the reports by committees had been completed and we were about to move on to the next part of the routine proceedings, the House leader on a previous occasion stood in his place and moved that we move to orders of the day.

Therefore, I would ask you, Mr Speaker, to allow members of this House who are introducing private members' bills to have the opportunity to continue introducing those if in fact we're going past 6 o'clock.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): We will be sitting past 6 of the clock. The honourable government House leader does and did have the floor legitimately. It's a non-debatable motion and he has moved that we go to orders of the day.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I came today to make a few comments on a particular piece of public business. I don't have much use personally for some of the tactics that have been engaged in in this place over time. I say quite sincerely that I'm quite prepared to discuss the public business. Before we get too far into the evening, I think it would be useful for representatives of each of the three parties to meet quickly and quietly to sort out what might be done, because June, July and August tend to be long, hot months, and there are some things --

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr Conway: I'm trying to be conciliatory, which is not my normal disposition. I want to say to my friends particularly in the government that I know exactly the pressures they face and I'm not unsympathetic to them. But before we get too far down a road that now has some choices, I think it would be prudent, if nothing else, for representatives to meet soon so that the hateful streak in some of us is not stimulated beyond a reasonable degree.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable government House leader has moved that we move to orders of the day, a non-debatable motion. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

1845

The House divided on Mr Cooke's motion, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes 48; nays 18.

The Acting Speaker: Orders of the day, the honourable government House leader.

Hon David S. Cooke (Government House Leader): During the period of time in which the bells were ringing, the three parties have had an opportunity to discuss this matter, and I'd like to just indicate what we're going to do over the next short period of time.

There's an agreement that we will return to introduction of bills, so that the Conservative Party can quickly introduce six bills. Then we will move to orders of the day. The first order that we will call will be the 23rd order, which is second reading of Bill 123. That will be followed by unanimous consent to move to third reading of Bill 123 and we'll complete that bill.

We will then move to the third order, Bill 118, and we will complete the third reading of Bill 118, An Act to amend the Power Corporation Act, debate that for a short period of time and defer the vote until Monday. There is an absolute commitment by the opposition parties that we will get to orders of the day on Monday to take the recorded vote on Bill 118. So it's with unanimous consent that we will move back to introduction of bills.

The Acting Speaker: Do we have unanimous consent to return to introduction of bills? Agreed?

Interjections: Agreed.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

TASK FORCE ON ONTARIO LABOUR RELATIONS ACT REVIEW AND INQUIRY ACT FOR THE SUDBURY REGION OF ONTARIO, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 SUR LE GROUPE DE TRAVAIL CHARGÉ D'ENQUÊTER SUR L'INCIDENCE DES MODIFICATIONS DE LA LOI SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL DANS LA RÉGION ONTARIENNE DE SUDBURY

Mr Harnick moved first reading of An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Mining Industry, in the Primary Metal Industries, in the Telecommunication Equipment Industry, the Electronic Office, Store and Business Machine Industry, the Heavy Construction Industries, the Highways, Streets and Bridges Indsutry, the Waterworks and Sewage Systems Industry, the Power and Telecommunication Transmission Lines Industry, the Water Well Drilling Industry, the Septic System Installation Industry, the Excavating and Grading Industry, the Equipment Rental With Operator Industry, the Asphalt Paving Industry and the Concrete Pouring Industry; that operate in the Sudbury Region including the Counties and Regions of Manitoulin Island and Sudbury and including the cities and towns of Sudbury, Elloit Lake, Levack, Cartier, Chelmsford, Benny, Ruel, Westree, Gogama, Tionga, Kukatush, Foleyet, Capreol, Val Caron, Garson, Noelville, Espanola, Chapleau, Nemegos, Sultan, Ramsey, Biscotasing and Metagama.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Mr Harnick moves first reading of An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Mining Industry, in the Primary Metal Industries, in the Telecommunication Equipment Industry, the Electronic Office, Store and Business Machine Industry, the Heavy Construction Industries, the Highways, Streets and Bridges Indsutry, the Waterworks and Sewage Systems Industry, the Power and Telecommunication Transmission Lines Industry, the Water Well Drilling Industry, the Septic System Installation Industry, the Excavating and Grading Industry, the Equipment Rental with Operator Industry, the Asphalt Paving Industry and the Concrete Pouring Industry; that operate in the Sudbury Region including the Counties and Regions of Manitoulin Island and Sudbury and including the cities and towns of Sudbury, Elloit Lake, Levack, Cartier, Chelmsford, Benny, Ruel, Westree, Gogama, Tionga, Kukatush, Foleyet, Capreol, Val Caron, Garson, Noelville, Espanola, Chapleau, Nemegos, Sultan, Ramsey, Biscotasing and Metagama.

Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr Harnick's motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Willowdale can have a brief time to explain his bill.

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): I will not go into any detail whatsoever, only to say that the remarks regarding this bill are the same as the remarks regarding the companion bills introduced earlier. I merely wish to apologize to the people of the picturesque town of Killarney that was omitted from the list and I have no other remarks to make about this.

TASK FORCE ON LABOUR RELATIONS ACT REVIEW AND INQUIRY ACT FOR THE NORTHEASTERN REGION OF ONTARIO, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 SUR LE GROUPE DE TRAVAIL CHARGÉ D'ENQUÊTER SUR L'INCIDENCE DES MODIFICATIONS DE LA LOI SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL DANS LA RÉGION ONTARIENNE DU NORD-EST

Mrs Marland moved first reading of An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Logging and Forest Industry, in the Mining Industry; the Sawmill and Planing Mill Products Industry, the Veneer and Plywood Industry, the Prefabricated Wooden Building Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; that operate in the Northeastern Region including the Counties and Regions of Timiskaming and Cochrane and including the cities and towns of Hearst, Kapuskasing, Timmins, Kirkland Lake, New Liskeard, Cobalt, Haileybury, Englehart, South Porcupine, Iroquois Falls, Cochrane, Smooth Rock Falls, Valrita, Harty, Opasatika, Mattice, Calstock, Pagwa River, Moosonee, Onakawana, Coral, Fraserdale and Island Falls.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Mrs Marland moves first reading of an Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Logging and Forestry Industry, in the Mining Industry; the Sawmill and Planing Mill Products Industry, the Veneer and Plywood Industry, the Prefabricated Wooden Building Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; that operate in the Northeastern Region including the Counties and Regions of Timiskaming and Cochrane and including the cities and towns of Hearst, Kapuskasing, Timmins, Kirkland Lake, New Liskeard, Cobalt, Haileybury, Englehart, South Porcupine, Iroquois Falls, Cochrane, Smooth Rock Falls, Valrita, Harty, Opasatika, Mattice, Calstock, Pagwa River, Moosonee, Onakawana, Coral, Fraserdale and Island Falls.

Is it the pleasure of the House that Mrs Marland's motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

The Acting Speaker: Would the honourable member for Mississauga South have a few remarks pertaining to her bill?

Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think it's important to recognize the significance of this bill. The bill is being introduced because of the concern that we in the Progressive Conservative Party have with the Labour Relations Act amendment legislation that was introduced in this House today.

Whether or not the Bob Rae socialist government recognizes it, we have an appreciation of what a regressive piece of legislation the Labour Relations Act amendments are. Thus it is necessary for me to table this bill in this House tonight in order to protect the people I have identified in this bill who will be adversely affected in regard to their opportunities of employment.

TASK FORCE ON LABOUR RELATIONS ACT REVIEW AND INQUIRY ACT FOR THE SAULT STE MARIE REGION, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 SUR LE GROUPE DE TRAVAIL CHARGÉ D'ENQUÊTER SUR L'INCIDENCE DES MODIFICATIONS DE LA LOI SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL DANS LA RÉGION ONTARIENNE DU SAULT-STE-MARIE

Mr Wilson moved a bill entitled An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and on the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Steel Foundaries, in the Steel Pipe and Tube Industry, in the Iron Foundries, in Primary Smelting and Refining of Non-Ferrous Metal Industries, in the Sawmill and Planing Mill Products Industry, the Prefabricated Wooden Building Industry, in the Particle Board Industry, in the Custom Coating of Metal Products Industry; that operate in the Sault Ste Marie Region including the Region of Algoma and including the cities and towns of Sault Ste Marie, Blind River, St Joseph Isle, Espanola, Searchmont, Frater, Hawk Junction, Goudreau, Lochalsh, Franz, White River, Hornepayne, Oba, Fire River, Peterbell, and Hillsport.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Mr Wilson from Simcoe West moves first reading of An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Steel Foundaries, in the Steel Pipe and Tube Industry, in the Iron Foundries, in Primary Smelting and Refining of Non-Ferrous Metal Industries, in the Sawmill and Planing Mill Products Industry, the Prefabricated Wooden Building Industry, in the Particle Board Industry, in the Custom Coating of Metal Products Industry; that operate in the Sault Ste Marie Region including the Region of Algoma and including the cities and towns of Sault Ste Marie, Blind River, St Joseph Isle, Espanola, Searchmont, Frater, Hawk Junction, Goudreau, Lochalsh, Franz, White River, Hornepayne, Oba, Fire River, Peterbell, and Hillsport.

Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr Wilson's motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

1900

The Acting Speaker: Would the honourable member for Simcoe West have a few brief remarks pertaining to his bill?

Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): I have a few brief remarks. This bill, along with several bills that have been introduced this afternoon and this evening, simply expresses the concern of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party and caucus with the government's Labour Relations Act amendments that were introduced this afternoon in this House. The bill calls upon the government to study the economic and employment impact of the Labour Relations Act amendments, to be sure that all members are fully informed of the pros and cons of the proposed amendments and to ensure that the government does carry out economic impact studies. So we would encourage the government to pass these bills, particularly this bill, so that all members have the information they require to make a fully conscious decision on the government's proposed labour law amendments.

TASK FORCE ON LABOUR RELATIONS ACT REVIEW AND INQUIRY ACT FOR THE THUNDER BAY REGION OF ONTARIO, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 SUR LE GROUPE DE TRAVAIL CHARGÉ D'ENQUÊTER SUR L'INCIDENCE DES MODIFICATIONS DE LA LOI SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL DANS LA RÉGION ONTARIENNE DE THUNDER BAY

Mr Tilson moved first reading of An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and on the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Logging and Forestry Industry, in the Forest Products Trucking Industry, in the Wood Industries including the Sawmill and Planing Mill Products Industry, the Veneer and Plywood Industry, the Wood Preservation Industry, the Particle Board Industry and the Wafer Board Industry, in the Paper and Allied Products Industry including the Pulp Industry, the Paperboard Industry, the Corrugated Box Industry, the Paper Bag Industry, the Coated and Treated Paper Industry, and the Consumer Paper Products Industry, in the Machinery and Equipment Industry, in the Urban Transportation System Assembly Industry, in the Furniture and Fixtures Industry, in the Railway Transport Industry and Services Industries Incidental to Railroad Transport, the Marine Cargo Handling Industry, in the Ship Chartering Industry, in the Harbour and Port Operation Industry, in the Tourism Industry including the Hotel and Restaurant Industry, and in the Food, Beverage and Drug Retail Industries that operate in the Thunder Bay Region including the Region of Thunder Bay and including the cities and towns of White River, Thunder Bay, Manitouwadge, Caramat, Longlac, Geraldton, Nakina, Kowkash, Tashota, Auden, Armstrong, Collins, Allanwater, Savant Lake, Graham, Larson, Red Rock, Nipigon, Schreiber, Marathon, and Hillsport.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Mr Tilson moves first reading of An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and on the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Logging and Forestry Industry, in the Forest Products Trucking Industry, in the Wood Industries including the Sawmill and Planing Mill Products Industry, the Veneer and Plywood Industry, the Wood Preservation Industry, the Particle Board Industry and the Wafer Board Industry, in the Paper and Allied Products Industry including the Pulp Industry, the Paperboard Industry, the Corrugated Box Industry, the Paper Bag Industry, the Coated and Treated Paper Industry, and the Consumer Paper Products Industry, in the Machinery and Equipment Industry, in the Urban Transportation System Assembly Industry, in the Furniture and Fixtures Industry, in the Railway Transport Industry and Services Industries Incidental to Railroad Transport, the Marine Cargo Handling Industry, in the Ship Chartering Industry, in the Harbour and Port Operation Industry, in the Tourism Industry including the Hotel and Restaurant Industry, and in the Food, Beverage and Drug Retail Industries that operate in the Thunder Bay Region including the Region of Thunder Bay and including the cities and towns of White River, Thunder Bay, Manitouwadge, Caramat, Longlac, Geraldton, Nakina, Kowkash, Tashota, Auden, Armstrong, Collins, Allanwater, Savant Lake, Graham, Larson, Red Rock, Nipigon, Schreiber, Marathon, and Hillsport.

Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr Tilson's motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

The Acting Speaker: Mr Tilson, a few brief remarks on your bill? Mr Tilson passes on the opportunity for brief remarks.

1910

TASK FORCE ON LABOUR RELATIONS ACT REVIEW AND INQUIRY ACT FOR THE NORTHWESTERN REGION OF ONTARIO, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 SUR LE GROUPE DE TRAVAIL CHARGÉ D'ENQUÊTER SUR L'INCIDENCE DES MODIFICATIONS DE LA LOI SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL DANS LA RÉGION DU NORD-OUEST

Mr Arnott moved first reading of An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Logging and Forestry Industry; in the Mining Industry; the Sawmill and Planing Mill Products Industry, the Veneer and Plywood Industry, the Prefabricated Wooden Building Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; in Tourism and Recreation; that operate in the Northwestern Region including the Regions of Kenora and Rainy River and including the cities and towns of Fort Frances, Dryden, Kenora, Rainy River, Atikokan, Ignace, Tannin, Redditt, Quibell, Hudson, Sioux Lookout, Goldpines, Red Lake and Watcomb.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Mr Arnott moves first reading of An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Logging and Forestry Industry; in the Mining Industry; the Sawmill and Planing Mill Products Industry, the Veneer and Plywood Industry, the Prefabricated Wooden Building Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; in Tourism and Recreation; that operate in the Northwestern Region including the Regions of Kenora and Rainy River and including the cities and towns of Fort Frances, Dryden, Kenora, Rainy River, Atikokan, Ignace, Tannin, Redditt, Quibell, Hudson, Sioux Lookout, Goldpines, Red Lake and Watcomb.

Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr Arnott's motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

The Acting Speaker: Does the honourable member for Wellington have a few opening remarks on his bill? No?

TASK FORCE ON LABOUR RELATIONS ACT REVIEW AND INQUIRY ACT FOR THE NORTH BAY REGION OF ONTARIO, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 SUR LE GROUPE DE TRAVAIL CHARGÉ D'ENQUÊTER SUR L'INCIDENCE DES MODIFICATIONS DE LA LOI SUR LES RELATIONS DE TRAVAIL DANS LA RÉGION ONTARIENNE DE NORTH BAY

Mr Sterling moved first reading of An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Logging and Forestry Industry; in the Mining Industry; the Sawmill and Planing Mill Products Industry, the Veneer and Plywood Industry, the Prefabricated Wooden Building Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; the Accommodation, Food and Beverage Service Industries including Hotels, Motels, Tourist Courts, Lodging Houses and Residential Clubs, Camping Grounds and Travel Trailer Parks, and Recreation and Vacation Camps, Restaurants, Take-out Food Services, Caterers, and Taverns, Bars and Night Clubs; Tourism and Hospitality; that operate in the North Bay Region including the Counties and Regions of Parry Sound, Algoma and Nipissing and including the cities and towns of Sturgeon Falls, North Bay, Noelville, Bonfield, Corbeil, Eau Claire, Mattawa, Phelps, Cache Bay, Verner, Callender, Algonquin Park, Kiosk, Daventry and Ascalon.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Mr Sterling moves first reading of An Act respecting the establishment of an inquiry into the effect of the proposed amendments to the Labour Relations Act on employment and in particular employment opportunities for women, racial minorities, persons with disabilities, native peoples, youth and workers over the age of forty-five; on investment and in particular investment in new plants or the retrofit of existing plants; on entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial environment; on competitiveness and in particular the competitive tax position of Ontario companies; on productivity and in particular the potential for lost time due to strikes, lock-outs, layoffs and complete or partial plant closures; in the Logging and Forestry Industry; in the Mining Industry; the Sawmill and Planing Mill Products Industry, the Veneer and Plywood Industry, the Prefabricated Wooden Building Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; the Accommodation, Food and Beverage Service Industries including Hotels, Motels and Tourist Courts, Lodging Houses and Residential Clubs, Camping Grounds and Travel Trailer Parks, and Recreation and Vacation Camps, Restaurants, Take-out Food Services, Caterers, and Taverns, Bars and Night Clubs; Tourism and Hospitality; that operate in the North Bay Region including the Counties and Regions of Parry Sound, Algoma and Nipissing and including the cities and towns of Sturgeon Falls, North Bay, Noelville, Bonfield, Corbeil, Eau Claire, Mattawa, Phelps, Cache Bay, Verner, Callender, Algonquin Park, Kiosk, Daventry and Ascalon.

Is it the pleasure of the House that Mr Sterling's motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

The Acting Speaker: Does the honourable member for Carleton have a few opening remarks on his bill?

Mr Norman W. Sterling (Carleton): Yes, Mr Speaker. This is the last of 20 bills that were introduced by the Progressive Conservative Party today dealing with the lack of knowledge this government is displaying with regard to its introduction of the Labour Relations Act today. It was our attempt today to introduce 20 different pieces of legislation which are peculiar to each area and the industries that affect those areas calling on this government to do an inquiry before we pass the labour relations amendment act which was introduced today to find out what the impacts of that legislation will be on these particular areas.

We believe strongly in supporting the industries that are located in those areas now. We hope we can get new industry into those areas now and we believe this government is turning a blind eye to reality and to the facts by not having proper studies done before it embarks on this very major change to the Labour Relations Act which it has introduced today.

1920

ORDERS OF THE DAY

REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF OTTAWA-CARLETON AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LA MUNICIPALITÉ RÉGIONALE D'OTTAWA-CARLETON

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 123, An Act to amend the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton / Loi portant modification de la Loi sur la municipalité régionale d'Ottawa-Carleton.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): The honourable member for Markham had the floor when this bill was last debated. I do not see the member for Markham, so we continue in the normal rotation. Debate? Do any other members wish to participate? Does the minister want to make some wrapup comments?

Hon David S. Cooke (Minister of Municipal Affairs): I will just move second reading of Bill 123.

The Acting Speaker: Mr Cooke has moved second reading of Bill 123. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I believe I heard a negative.

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Motion agreed to.

Bill ordered for third reading.

REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF OTTAWA-CARLETON AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LA MUNICIPALITÉ RÉGIONALE D'OTTAWA-CARLETON

Mr Cooke moved third reading of Bill 123, An Act to amend the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton Act / Loi portant modification de la Loi sur la municipalité régionale d'Ottawa-Carleton.

Hon David S. Cooke (Minister of Municipal Affairs): Mr Speaker, I have no comments.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Further debate?

Mr Norman W. Sterling (Carleton): As I already had an opportunity to speak on second reading of Bill 123, I was not able to join the debate because it had passed from me.

I only want to indicate that Bill 123 deals with the Ottawa-Carleton area. It allows the Ottawa-Carleton government to charge a tippage fee for waste which is coming to a waste disposal site in the Ottawa-Carleton area from outside the Ottawa-Carleton area. I do not oppose that concept.

I had argued on second reading and was hoping for some cooperation from the minister which would have assured the residents of the Ottawa-Carleton area that any money gained from these tippage fees would not go into the general revenue of the Ottawa-Carleton pot, so to speak, or bank account, but would in fact go to a special sinking fund which would be used for future waste disposal sites, because I believe that was what the intent of the bill was.

I also had the opportunity to write to all of the mayors of the various municipalities I represent: the city of Kanata, the township of Osgoode, the township of Rideau, the township of Gilbert and the township of West Carleton. The city of Kanata came back to me and requested that there be amendment to the bill to make certain and clear that a municipality which was disposing of its waste or garbage into the waste disposal site would not be charged a tippage fee under Bill 123. I don't think that's the intention of the bill.

I think what is perhaps more galling to me as a member, and perhaps I'm being oversensitive, which I am rarely, is that after debate on this particular piece of legislation in December I recognized that there was some urgency with regard to this bill, so on December 12 of this year I wrote to Peter Clark, the chairman of the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, who had just been recently elected at that point in time, and sent him copies of my remarks in the Legislature and asked him to respond to my concerns. I did not receive a response from Mr Clark; I received a phone call from Doug Cameron, who is the solicitor for the region, in April, three months later. So while the region is indicating there is some urgency with regard to this bill, there wasn't enough importance for it to respond to my request for some three months.

On April 15 I had to send again the same information I sent to the regional chairman with regard to my concerns, and also the concerns of the city of Kanata. On May 7 I sent to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the House leader, a copy of the concerns of the city of Kanata. I have yet to receive a response from the minister with regard to the concerns of the city of Kanata with regard to this legislation. I find that a very arrogant attitude on the part of this government not to respond to either members' letters or to a municipality's letter.

I guess what tops it all off is that on May 14 a letter was sent to me by Peter Clark, the regional chairman, who does not refer to my letter of December 12 because I guess he was embarrassed in responding to my letter some five months later. But I think it's of interest, particularly to the Ottawa-Carleton members, with regard to Mr Clark's perception of the role of opposition members in this Legislature. For unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you want to look at it, within the Ottawa-Carleton area we have one government member, the member for Ottawa Centre, but we have seven opposition members who are as interested with regard to the wellbeing of Ottawa-Carleton, I submit, as the member for Ottawa Centre.

This is what Peter Clark says to me as an opposition member, "With that history in mind, it is not appropriate for Ottawa-Carleton legislation to be introduced by an opposition member, amended by an opposition member, as you propose, or initiated by Ottawa-Carleton directly by private bill as we might on occasion be tempted to do."

If Peter Clark is interested in limiting his options in the future as to what he might want to propose on private legislation, so be it.

Hon Mr Cooke: He's a good friend of the Conservative Party.

Mr Sterling: But I'll tell you this, Mr Speaker: Mr Peter Clark is going to cross swords with me very soon. Even though he has, from time to time, indicated that he is of the same party colour as I, I do not care. Mr Peter Clark better learn that I do not intend to sit here passively when legislation comes forward on Ottawa-Carleton. I will continue to represent my municipalities, my area, as the city of Kanata has wanted me to do on this particular occasion. I find his remarks arrogant and out of line.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I don't profess to know a great deal about this bill. I know that were he here my friend the member for Ottawa West would probably want to say some things. I must say that the extraordinary nature of the evening sitting makes that difficult, if not impossible.

I never thought I'd live long enough to hear my friend from Manotick throw down the gauntlet with such a declaratory quality as he did into the face of the newly elected regional chair for Ottawa-Carleton. As I said to my friend from Manotick, I'm quite prepared to print the tickets and rent the hall for the encounter.

Hon Evelyn Gigantes (Minister of Housing): I'll buy one.

Mr Conway: The member for Ottawa Centre is even prepared to at least buy a ticket. It's not like our friend from Manotick to be so querulous in so far as dealing with members of his own family is concerned. I would not want the departure to pass unobserved.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments? The honourable member for Carleton has two minutes in response.

Mr Sterling: I have no response.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate on third reading of Bill 123?

Seeing none, Mr Cooke has moved third reading of Bill 123. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

1930

POWER CORPORATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1992 / LOI DE 1992 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LA SOCIÉTÉ DE L'ÉLECTRICITÉ

Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for third reading of Bill 118, An Act to amend the Power Corporation Act / Loi modifiant la Loi sur la Société de l'électricité.

The Acting Speaker (Mr Noble Villeneuve): Debate on third reading of Bill 118. Mr Jordan, the member for Lanark-Renfrew, had the floor when this bill was last debated. I do not see the honourable member for Lanark-Renfrew present. We will therefore proceed with normal rotation. The honourable member for Sarnia.

Mr Bob Huget (Sarnia): I'd like to begin this evening by thanking all the members of the standing committee on resources development for their enthusiastic interest in Bill 118 and especially all those groups and individuals that appeared before the committee. I would also like to thank the member for Ottawa South and the member for Lanark-Renfrew for their active participation and usually constructive contributions to the hearings.

When this government took office in the fall of 1990, it announced its intention to point Ontario in new energy directions. Where electricity is concerned, the new directions emphasize the need to control demand so as to reduce Ontario's need to keep building costly new supply. Ontario Hydro has been assigned a key role in carrying out that strategy, and that is why this House is being asked to approve Bill 118. It will free Hydro's hands to make a full contribution to demand management in Ontario.

As members are aware, the utility plans to invest $6 billion over the course of this decade on measures to promote energy efficiency and conservation, making it the biggest demand management effort of any utility in North America. By the end of the decade, Hydro's program is expected to produce a total electricity saving of around 5,000 megawatts. That is equivalent to the peak output of 1.5 nuclear stations the size of Darlington.

Considering that the bill for one Darlington currently stands at $14 billion and counting, the $6 billion Hydro intends to spend on demand management is clearly a bargain. It confirms what we have been saying all along. When it comes to meeting Ontario's electricity needs, demand management is the least-cost option. This becomes clear when we look at the mathematics of just one demand management measure, fuel substitution.

Hydro estimates that encouraging electricity users to turn to other fuels, where that is in the interest of both Hydro and the customer, will reduce electricity demand by over 1,000 megawatts by the end of the decade. That saving is equivalent to the peak output of one of the nuclear reactors at Darlington. In other words, that is a reactor that won't have to be built. It's a cost of construction that will never have to show up in our electricity rates.

That's the longer-term consideration, but for householders the saving is immediate; it begins the moment fuel switching takes place. It's estimated that switching from electricity to natural gas reduces heating and hot water bills by two thirds; switching to oil reduces the cost by one third. Over the life of a typical two-storey home, replacing electricity with natural gas will reduce space heating and hot water costs by an estimated $15,000; switching to oil will bring a saving of around $7,000.

Quite clearly, fuel substitution holds the promise of very important savings for householders in Ontario. Where fuel substitution promises direct benefits to householders, demand management as a whole promises very direct benefits to the Ontario economy. To begin with, it reduces energy costs for business and industry. That makes our goods and services more competitive in world markets and contributes to Ontario's economic recovery.

Demand management carries another economic benefit that is sometimes overlooked. I'm referring to its potential for encouraging investment and job creation in Ontario. This happens on two levels. First, measures to control electricity demand directly stimulate or encourage investment in energy-efficient products and services. Second, by reducing energy costs for business and industry as well as ordinary households, demand management frees up money and makes it available for spending and investment in other areas.

We don't have to be economists to know that spending and investment translates into jobs. Of the $6 billion Hydro is investing in demand management by the end of this decade, almost $600 million is to be spent between 1992 and 1993. According to Hydro's calculations, this spending will create or help to sustain over 19,000 jobs a year over the course of this decade.

Hydro is carrying out a series of demand management programs. For example, it plans to spend $173 million this year and next on residential programs. Upgrading homes across the province will create jobs in renovation and construction and in our manufacturing sector. Hydro's programs will also stimulate purchases of home improvement products and efficient appliances. Still more jobs will be created in the commercial and industrial sectors. Over the course of the decade, Hydro programs already approved and those awaiting approval have the potential to create or sustain an estimated 190,000 person-years of employment.

In particular, Hydro's projected spending can be expected to provide an important boost to Ontario's green industry. This is an exciting, high-tech sector, based on creating and providing new products and services devoted to energy efficiency, conservation and pollution prevention. Although the industry is relatively new, it already employs close to 30,000 people and produces sales of $2 billion a year.

It is growing, as we saw in January when General Electric Canada made its big announcement. As members will remember, the company is going to spend $144 million to start making energy-efficient lighting products at its Oakville plant. That decision, helped along by an Ontario government loan, will help secure up to 550 existing jobs and is expected to create nearly 200 new jobs, and because the company has a world mandate for the new lighting products, there will be significant export earnings as well.

Hydro's demand management program will contribute to the further growth of our green industry. In doing that, it will help create and protect the high-tech jobs we need in Ontario and help generate the export earnings we also need. The measures contained in Bill 118 will help nourish this fledgling industry by allowing Hydro to expand its demand management efforts, just as they will help Hydro to cut electricity costs for householders and the economy as a whole. The benefits of Bill 118 are many, and it is clear that Ontario needs this bill.

I want to dwell for a few moments on Ontario Hydro and the issue of accountability and policy directives.

Hydro is a statutory corporation and the government is accountable to the Legislature and the public for Hydro's activities. The government must be able to ensure Hydro accountability and provide policy direction to Hydro. It has to do that, because Hydro's actions have a major impact on the environment and Hydro can provide a leadership role in meeting the environmental priorities of the people of Ontario. Hydro's activities can have a significant impact on the province's economy. These amendments to the Power Corporation Act will allow Hydro and the government to work more effectively to meet these priorities.

The people of Ontario have expressed a need for increased Hydro accountability and greater responsiveness by Hydro to public concerns and needs. Indeed, this government was elected with the mandate to steer Ontario in new energy directions and to increase Hydro accountability to the people of Ontario.

These amendments to the Power Corporation Act meet the public's desire for increased Hydro accountability. Our goal is not so much to increase control but to make Hydro more responsive to public priorities and government policies. We have accomplished this with these amendments.

These amendments allow Hydro to move in new directions. They allow Hydro to place greater emphasis on energy efficiency and equip Hydro to pursue lower-cost solutions to meeting the province's energy needs. The appointment of the Deputy Minister of Energy to the Hydro board of directors will facilitate liaison and advice on government policy and public concerns.

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Mr Chris Stockwell (Etobicoke West): Drink water, raise right arm.

Mr Huget: It's good stuff, Mr Speaker. Some have asked, why appoint the deputy minister to the board if that person can't vote? The answer is very simple. The deputy minister's non-voting role removes any possibility of conflict of interest between the deputy's responsibility as a board member and the deputy's responsibility for advising the minister, who is responsible for Hydro.

I would like to address the provision where the chairperson of the corporation will also be the chief executive officer. There is nothing new here. It simply restores the position to its status between 1906 and 1989. This government feels it is the most effective way to structure the corporation. Restoring that status is also consistent with the position in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. In all of those provinces the chair is also the chief executive officer.

Hydro has historically had two top executive positions: a chair and a president. The chair is primarily responsible for long-term planning and policy setting. The president is primarily responsible for operations and the day-to-day performance of the electricity system. The senior executive level at Hydro was reorganized in the summer of 1991 to ensure that both these areas receive proper attention. The chair and chief executive officer, Marc Eliesen, is responsible for strategic planning functions, overall policy direction for the corporation and the implementation of the government's policy priorities including new energy directions.

To reflect these responsibilities, the following departments report directly to the chair: finance, energy management, aboriginal and native affairs, human resources, new business ventures division, the executive office and the audit office. The president and chief operating officer, Alan Holt, continues to report to the chair but is directly responsible for operations and production, supply and distribution. A key responsibility of the president will be to improve the operation of Hydro nuclear plants. Nuclear plant capability has deteriorated in recent years from a planned 80% availability to a 69% availability in 1991. Improving this figure to the planned level of 80% would result in savings to Hydro ratepayers of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Let me address the issue of policy directives. This act is being changed to remove ambiguities in the current legislation about the roles of government and Hydro, to clarify that the government sets the policy direction and Hydro carries out that policy and to clarify that Hydro retains responsibility for effective management of its day-to-day operations.

The new act will also require the government to consult with the Hydro board on the content and effect of policy directives. This reflects the board's important role and responsibility in ensuring that the needs of the people of Ontario are met in the best possible way.

There has been criticism regarding the change from the government issuing a policy statement to the new "government may issue a policy directive." A directive power is not radical. Providing the government with a directive power is certainly not new. The Financial Administration Act enables the federal government to direct its public corporations.

Hydro has always been able to play a role in implementing government policy. However, a complex set of procedures and approvals had to be satisfied first. This hindered the efficient implementation of policies that were designed to meet the energy needs of this province.

To avoid these problems, previous governments often provided informal policy direction in closed-door sessions with Hydro senior management. What we are doing is simplifying the process and opening the door to full public view.

The board of directors is responsible for the business and affairs of the corporation. Nothing in Bill 118 changes that. Amendments to the act clarify the government's responsibility for giving broad policy directions to Ontario Hydro. The government has a mandate to ensure that Hydro is provided with the appropriate legislative framework to assist the government in implementing its new energy policies.

When the bill was introduced, there was concern about the scope of these directives. This government listened to those concerns and introduced changes during clause-by-clause that clarified the government's intent to give policy direction to Hydro on matters within the scope and mandate of Hydro as set out in the Power Corporation Act. During clause-by-clause hearings, this government introduced a motion that requires the Minister of Energy to publish policy directives in the Ontario Gazette and to give notice to all members of this assembly. This government is open and accountable and has nothing to hide.

Hydro and the government must work together to implement Ontario's new energy directions. The focus of this policy is to concentrate more of our resources on controlling growth in demand for energy and to ensure that we use energy efficiently. Bill 118 provides the framework for this new partnership and removes barriers to the implementation of the government's new energy directions. This bill will benefit all Ontarians now and in the future. Bill 118 is good for Hydro and good for consumers, and I urge swift passage of this bill.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Questions and/or comments? Further debate.

Interjection.

Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): I say to my friend from Orono, no, not much history tonight, but there's going to be some recent history that I think you might enjoy.

I want to say right at the outset that I think the member for Sarnia has done an extremely good job in working this bill through the second reading stage. I hope I don't sound patronizing when I say that, but I thought he did an excellent job and was an exemplary member of the Legislature throughout the entire process.

I say it because, quite frankly, the conduct of the Chairman of this committee was something other than exemplary. I don't like to accuse people in their absence, but I'll tell you, the conduct of the member from Welland -- who is an individual of not inconsiderable talent and intellect -- as Chairman of that committee during the time I had the opportunity to serve on it was a very difficult diet. I'll say no more than that. I thought I'd seen it all until I saw his conduct in the so-called Martel committee.

Mr Randy R. Hope (Chatham-Kent): We weren't that bad.

Mr Conway: No, the member for Chatham-Kent wasn't that bad. In fact, he was quite good. He was better than I was on occasion. But to see the member from Welland expectorating, to put it mildly, in the face of witnesses, and doing other indelicacies that I would not want to take the time of the House to repeat is for me just a sad reminder of how lots of talent can sometimes find itself sadly misdirected. I'm telling you, I sat through some of the hearings on Bill 118 and felt almost embarrassed to be there. I sorrily make those comments in the absence of the Chairman; I just want to say that for my own benefit, if for no one else's.

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The hearings: I think Bill 118 has to be understood in terms of some of the public hearings. The members who have spoken on this third reading debate, my colleague the member for Ottawa South, my partner in Renfrew county, the member for Lanark-Renfrew, Mr Jordan, who spoke yesterday on this have spoken -- and my friend from north Wellington will say something, I'm sure -- about what we heard and where we went.

We went to some interesting places, and I think all of the places I've been to on many occasions. I don't ever remember a committee where we ordinarily rose at 4 o'clock in the morning, I think it was, to head out from places like Sioux Lookout to arrive in Timmins, I remember, one January morning when it was 40 below zero. It was a very hospitable and very interesting and educational tour as we travelled from Toronto to Ottawa, to Chatham, to Guelph, to Thunder Bay, to Timmins, and to Sioux Lookout. Those were all interesting places, and there were some others I suppose I'm missing.

I was struck by where we didn't go. We didn't go to places like Bancroft and Alexandria and Moose Creek. I'm not being funny. We didn't go to a whole swath of rural Ontario, which has no access to natural gas. That was not accidental, and I understand why the steering committee could not find the time to go to places in rural Ontario where there is no natural gas. Those were not venues where one wanted to make oneself too available, because, I'll tell you, in places like Bancroft and Haliburton and Alexandria and Almonte and Victoria Harbour, this bill and, more important, the policy that informs it become of more interest and greater relevance with the passing of each day.

What did we hear as we travelled around to places like Guelph and Chatham and Ottawa? It was interesting that, for some reason, at the Chateau Laurier that day in January or February, whenever it was, the elements seemed to conspire to make it appropriately cold. I've spent many a day in the Chateau Laurier Hotel; I don't ever remember being as chilly as I was in that meeting room for a long day at the Chateau Laurier Hotel.

We heard a number of people there, as elsewhere, speak to what I would broadly characterize as the two solitudes. This was, as the energy debate has been for so many years, a wonderfully religious debate. We had those who came forward largely from the environmental and the native communities, but the environmental community most especially, singing te deums of praise to this wise policy at long last. It was their view that Bill 118, as the member for Peterborough, who introduced it, observed, was a very important turning of the road in the energy policy of the province; that we were forsaking the supply-side obsession of Bill Davis and David Peterson and all that Liberal-Conservative establishment that's run this province for a long, long time; that we were embracing the softer alternatives of energy conservation and demand management. This, they said, was a very good thing.

We had of course, to my very considerable surprise, entrepreneurs, capitalists from the gas companies, the oil companies, who also thought this was a very good bill and an exceedingly attractive policy. They spoke feelingly and without any thought of vested interest. The gas companies, the oil companies came to us in Chatham and in Ottawa and said, "This is virtue itself and, with no regard to benefit, it should be endorsed."

Then of course, we had on the other side other capitalists, other entrepreneurs who said, "This is a very worrisome policy, and it's a worrisome policy on a number of fronts." They said that the fuel-switching initiatives were ill-considered, that the demand management targets were pie in the sky. They thought the directive power, even as it was going to be restrained by the government amendment, was still open to the kind of application as had been seen last year in Elliot Lake and in Kapuskasing, and this was a very, very upsetting possibility and reality to those individuals.

I cannot easily calibrate the fervour with which those people who came forward with an anti-nuclear point of view embraced this policy, because I'll tell you, they were extremely pleased we would have no more nuclear power -- no more at all. Several witnesses came forward, sometimes under friendly cross-examination, to tell the story of Darlington generating station.

In fact, my friend the parliamentary assistant, the member for Sarnia, has done a little bit of that tonight. I don't fault the government at all for that. In fact, I stand in my place tonight and think, where are the architects of that decision? It is true the government of which I was a part made a decision to complete that work. I want you to know I certainly supported that decision, though I had been critical of the original Darlington decision, not because it was a nuclear plant but because I thought it was altogether too large a plant, both in terms of the technology and the capital required.

Mr Stockwell: Where are those architects?

Mr Conway: Yes, where are those architects? You see, they're gone: Bill Davis is gone, Darcy McKeough is gone, Bob Welch is gone. I don't want to sound maudlin. That's the interesting thing about these kinds of decisions. In the kind of electoral politics in which we now find ourselves, I suppose we can all take comfort in the knowledge that when that which we now sow bears fruit, we too will be gone. It will fall to another generation of legislators to explain the wisdom and the incompleteness, perhaps even the error, of our decision-making.

The SkyDome: another classic example of where I think, in retrospect, we probably made some mistakes.

I only mention that because I can remember in this place over the years the fervour with which the proponents of the Darlingtons brought their case here and to the people. It wasn't as though it was brought in under cover of darkness. It was done in the broad light of day, with one, if not two, electoral sanctions. I remind my friends opposite that Darlington was a centrepiece. The acceleration of Darlington was the centrepiece of the economic program of the Davis Progressive Conservatives in I think the election of 1977; maybe it was 1981. It was one of those. BILD, the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development, had as one of its centrepieces the acceleration of Darlington.

I can remember having some critical things to say about that. I remember the night on March 19, 1981, when that policy and its proponents won the day. As a democrat, of course, I accept that verdict. I well remember what was said afterwards about the rightness of that decision and the democratic sanction that it had received. There was no time and no truck nor trade with those carping oppositionists who did not understand the full weight of opportunity that ideology contained. I'll tell you, they worked a wonderful magic. They could do so because, of course, they were inspired by the fervour that only ideology allows one to have.

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Back to the hearings: What did we hear? Can I talk briefly about three or four of the submissions? Because I think they raise some very important points.

There has been much talk in this debate about demand management and conservation, and I take it as a given, particularly in this week where straw persons seem to be the order of the day. I tell you, we have a Premier who this week seems, in a wonderfully aggressive and Socratic way, to want to take every piece of straw he can find and construct a whole army of straw persons. Let me say in this connection that I don't think there is anyone I've ever met who could be opposed to energy conservation and demand management. There is probably a debate about the extent to which one can achieve those objectives. There will be a debate about how one gets there. There might even be a debate about the nature of your commitment. But I don't think I've ever met anybody, particularly in the last 15 years -- I haven't met too many people who say to me, "You know, energy conservation is a bad thing and demand management is a stupid thing."

But it's interesting to listen to what people have to say when one goes out to talk to the community, as we did in this exercise. I found it very interesting that three major businesses in the province came to us and said, "We accept what you're telling us about the need to conserve energy." But in three cases -- there were others, but three that really stuck with me were one presentation in Guelph from ICI, formerly CIL, the presentation in Timmins from Inco, and the presentation at that chilly meeting room in the Chateau Laurier from Ivaco Steel of L'Orignal, all of which made the same point: "We accept the efficacy of energy conservation, and we've done it. Over the course of X number of years we, as major employers in Sudbury, in Cornwall, in Courtright and in L'Orignal, have made significant energy reductions. But within the overall envelope of substantially reduced energy consumption, our electricity portion has risen significantly."

I'm going to let these witnesses tell their story very briefly, because I realize the hour is late. I want to take you through the CIL presentation, ICI, that we heard in Guelph; let me just read from some of that testimony. "ICI, also well known under its previous name of CIL, employs over 3,000 people in Canada, making and/or selling mining explosives, chemicals for Canada's pulp and paper industry, pharmaceuticals, paints, fertilizers, and so on." I think we all know who CIL is.

"Of ICI's sites in Ontario, two are major electricity consumers. One is in Cornwall, the other is in Courtright." Which is where? Courtright, where is that? I should know that. Is it the place just up here north of Kleinburg? I apologize for my ignorance in that respect, but two plants, one at Cornwall, one at Courtright.

"Electricity is a crucial input and cost at these sites, and totals approximately $20 million and nearly 20% of the manufacturing costs. Employment at these two sites is 530 people.

"The ICI Courtright ammonia plant has reduced its energy use per tonne of ammonia by over 30% in the last decade by replacing an old technology plant with a new technology plant.

"The new Courtright plant achieved high energy efficiency by reducing its natural gas needs and increasing its electricity consumption several times over, in comparison to the older, less energy-efficient plant."

The presenter from CIL then goes on to observe: "In spite of our high energy efficiency, ICI in Ontario finds itself at a cost disadvantage on all energy forms relative to our US competitiors." I thought this was an interesting observation, and I don't hold this out as system-wide, but we heard some other testimony which made the similar point.

He said that his colleague at ICI Cornwall observed the following: "A recent report studying power costs for a number of chloralkali plants in North America showed Cornwall's power costs were about 10% higher" than any other plant in Canada or the United States.

Just remember that as I turn then to the presentation by Inco at Sudbury. Again, I thought some of what they had to say was interesting. I remember, in 1978 I think it was, I served on a select committee with a number of people. My friend the former member for Sudbury East and I had some interesting times in that, where we were looking basically at the kind of restructuring and downsizing that Inco was going through. I'll never forget that, because I was stunned by the amount of energy that is consumed in that kind of major resource extractor. So at Timmins we got an update, at least I got a bit of an update, of what had happened in the intervening decade. In the submission by Inco on January 15, 1992, the following observations were made.

"Inco is a substantial user of energy, accounting for about 1% of both natural gas and electric power consumption in Ontario." That gives you some idea of the magnitude of their energy bill. "Natural gas is used for mine air heating, building heating and process applications. Electricity is used for everything from mine pumping, ventilation and hoisting, to electrolytic refining and oxygen production. The latter is used in high-temperature metallurgical application and is a key element of Inco's $600-million sulphur dioxide abatement program" -- an environmental program, I think we would all agree.

They go on in this presentation -- I don't want to read too much of it, but essentially they make the same point, that while their total energy bill has come down and come down significantly, within that reduced energy envelope the electricity portion has gone up and gone up significantly. They provide charts to make that point.

"As chart 1 indicates," Inco observes, "Inco's use of electric power is increasing, while its other forms of energy are decreasing. Natural gas will continue to decline with conversion to new flash-smelting processes. Electricity use," on the other hand, has increased over the 1980s "and is expected to increase substantially by 1995. This is because other forms of energy are being saved by using electricity. An example of this is the use of oxygen in high-temperature applications, which are extremely energy-efficient but require a great deal of electric power to produce the necessary oxygen.

"In 1991 the Ontario division of Inco spent $92.3 million for energy. Of this, $61.5 million was for purchased electric power." Not all of which came from Hydro, by the way; they generate some of their own. Interestingly, they now observe that their Manitoba electric costs are less.

They also point out in this submission that Inco's Ontario division "is presently in or actively considering over 40 conservation projects with Ontario Hydro and the Ministry of Energy."

"Despite these efforts, Inco's electricity use will increase, not decrease, in the future." I remind you, they are projecting a significant increase in electricity consumption in their Ontario operations in the first five years of this decade, 1991-95, the same point as CIL or ICI: a substantial reduction in energy consumption, but within that a significantly increased electricity consumption.

Then we have the submission of Ivaco. Let me just read what the submission indicated; this is the submission to the committee on January 16 in Ottawa by Ivaco Rolling Mills of Ontario. Just to give you a little background, Ivaco is a steel producer with 52 plants all together; 21 of those are in the United States, one is in Australia and 30 are in Canada. Sixteen of the 30 Canadian plants are in Ontario. Total employment is about 8,400; 2,100 of those jobs are in Ontario and 550 are employed in a wonderful little community, the old county seat of Prescott, I think it is, L'Orignal, just outside of Hawkesbury, a big employer in rural, small-town eastern Ontario.

In 1991, Ivaco purchased $13 million worth of electricity. That was 20% of their cost of making steel, a big input cost. But because they operate in Ontario and other parts of North America, they clearly have to pay some regard to competitive costs. I remind you that Inco is now saying electricity costs in Ontario are higher and becoming higher still vis-à-vis Manitoba. Ivaco is telling us they have an operation in the Hawkesbury area of eastern Ontario and they also have an operation in Cartersville, Georgia.

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Mr Kimble Sutherland (Oxford): Carters, Georgia?

Mr Conway: Pardon me? No, because I can understand. I don't hold it up as everything, but I'll tell you, there was a pattern here and I'll come to it a little bit later. I think I heard the member for Niagara Falls rightly observe what's happening in her part of the province. Why does one imagine that those explosives and abrasives industries located on the Niagara frontier to start with? My friend from Orono is quite right when he observes quietly "Cheap power." Ivaco in eastern Ontario says Ontario already has some of the highest power costs in Canada. "At our facility" -- in L'Orignal -- "we pay over 18% more for electricity than our...steelmaking operation in Cartersville, Georgia," and they have no sweetheart deal in Georgia, they go on to observe.

My point in citing these submissions is obvious. When we talk about the virtues of conservation, I think we have a very receptive audience and it's becoming larger all the time. But there is more to this policy than meets the eye. Because I'm not very technological, I find a lot of that testimony paradoxical. It does not recommend itself to my common sense. It seems to me unusual that you could reduce your energy consumption substantially, but somehow within that have a substantially increased electricity component. But it's happening and it's happening in important places apparently, in major bedrock industries in this province which employ thousands of people. The representatives of those companies said, mostly off the record, "We are very concerned about where we think this is going."

Ivaco is right on the Ottawa River. Quebec is just across the river from them. There is no question that we face a very real concern there that is to be taken account of. I do not honestly believe the policy that informs this legislation has come to grips with that.

One of the other things I just made a note of, because it was part of the religion of this debate -- and there was a lot of religion on both sides. I have to be fair. I didn't include in the antis the Municipal Electrical Association and the local chapters. We just had no little bit of: "Whatever happened to Adam Beck and power at cost? We are very concerned about what seems to be a new direction." I think it has to be said to people like the MEA and others, "Well, there is a new government and it has promised a new direction."

I think we will come later in this discussion this evening to whether or not the time is here to perhaps have a very close look at the cost of power and how we define the input costs. But one of the most interesting elements of the debate for me had to do with presenters and some friendly cross-examination, which would generally go like this: "Well, now, demand management and energy conservation are very good, because did you know that Bob Franklin, former CEO of Ontario Hydro, wrote a letter once and said that it costs Hydro $50,000 to keep a house warm that is heated electrically? I mean, $50,000 just to keep one house electrically heated." I'm paraphrasing. "Now, don't you just think that's terrible?" It got to such a point that someone -- I forget who it was -- said, "Maybe we better just get a clarification."

We got a clarification from Hydro. Now, this is the latest clarification and it may change, but it turns out that Mr Franklin did not say or mean to say that the cost of keeping an electrically heated home and business was $50,000 a year, I think it might have been, but in fact someplace between $7,000 and $12,000.

Interjection.

Mr Conway: The member for London Centre rightly wonders, and so do the rest of us. My only point is, this is the joy of this debate. The ideologues say: "Did you know, $50,000 a year to just keep enough juice there to have the home electrically heated? Isn't that a scandal? Isn't that a crime against the planet? We have no less an authority than the former CEO of Ontario Hydro as our expert." When we got the clarification, it was not $50,000 but someplace between $7,000 and $12,000.

I only make the point that this debate today is, as it has always been, full of passionate advocates for a variety of positions, and information is often advanced that turns out not to be true. I believe Billy Davis believed that Darlington would only cost $3 billion or $4 billion. He's an honourable fellow. I have to believe that Adam Beck honestly thought the first plant at the first major Hydro works at Queenston would be, as he said, $10 million, not the $72 million that it cost at the end of the day.

But I just want to warn members of the assembly that this is one of those cases, this is one of those policies that is central to the economic and social wellbeing of this province, and at the end of the day, my colleagues opposite are right. We are the ones who will be held accountable. I can only speak for myself. The older I get, the more experience I get --

Mr Hope: Some of us argue that point.

Mr Conway: That's a fair point, but if I'm going to be held accountable, then I'm going to say my piece, and I'm going to mean as much of this as I possibly can on the basis of the evidence I have before me.

But electricity, and this probably will be a very poor analogy, is almost like the blood system in a human being. It is everywhere, it touches everything, and we are very imprudent if we fail to understand just how important this policy is not just for today but for tomorrow. For those of us here today, we now get to explain what our friends of a previous generation did or did not do. It's a lot of fun, isn't it, explaining that Darlington's gone from $4 billion to $14 billion? I don't want to be disingenuous. I know there are some factors that were beyond the utility's control and beyond the government's control.

I promise not to be too historical, but I have read in the last few months a fascinating book, and I think I made some reference to the character before.

Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): I like the history.

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Mr Conway: Well, I tell you, if you don't do anything else over the next few weeks, those of you with an interest in Hydro, read those sections of the new Hepburn biography that concern Hydro.

One of my former colleagues, a very distinguished Minister of Justice and Hydro minister for this province, Arthur Roebuck, became very famous in the Senate with his wing collar and his long life. According to Jack Saywell's recently published biography, when it came to Hydro, he was fanatical to the point of madness. He took his government to the brink of absolute disaster, because he was fixated on what he believed were the thoroughly corrupt private power contracts that had been negotiated by Howard Ferguson a few years before he took office.

He believed that as he believed nothing in his life, and he pushed Hydro and he pushed the Legislature and he pushed the government to the absolute brink of disaster. He was a very smart, very experienced individual, but on the subject of the Quebec Hydro contracts, he was irrational, he was, I think, according to that portrayal, madness itself, and it was at the very last moment that his Premier and a few other people realized just how close to trouble they were.

Now, I know that's a long time ago and you'd say it could never happen again, but one of the things about this debate is that it does have a recurring theme. As I say, when you talk about the scandalous overruns at Darlington, you're right, but in terms of an order of magnitude, they're somewhat less than Beck's first great works at Queenston. I'm going to come a little bit later to the end of megaprojects. Somebody said the Dome, and I take the criticism directly.

But I look at this policy, and what do I see? I see in it a commitment to spend $6 billion for the virtuous purposes of demand management and energy conservation, but I'm just going to tell my friends from Oxford and Orono and elsewhere, $6 billion ain't chicken feed. That's a lot of money. That is a very considerable amount of money, and I just want to make the point a little bit later on that we are responsible and we better have some answers if some of the early returns produce a pattern. I'm going to talk about some of the early returns in a moment.

I want to at this juncture talk a little bit about the amendments, and I congratulate the member for Sarnia, because I think it is fair to say the government did listen. They did listen and they accepted a number of amendments, I think very wisely so. They deserve credit for that and I give it to them, I hope honestly.

The amendments have already been talked about, and I don't want to go on at any great length, but the amendment which curtailed the directive power to the purposes of Ontario Hydro is what the government always intended and of course now it's clear. I can remember as a minister of the crown desperately searching through a statute for a way to do something we had all agreed to do and for which there was no apparent legal authority, so I know only too well what an executive is faced with in the heat of the moment when you are trying to find legal cause for what you have committed to doing. In that case, it was of course a happy three-party agreement on a matter of some major public interest.

At any rate, the government has now accepted an amendment to curtail the direct power to apply only to the purposes of the corporation. There is the public notice of any directive, and I think that's also very helpful, and of course, one of my favourite little peccadilloes, the amendment that touches upon the chairman and the chief executive officer, a peccadillo to which I will momentarily return.

Mr Hope: No, Sean, not again.

Mr Conway: Well, no, because I'm reporting back on what I think are the early returns, and you will dispute this and it's fair ball.

There were a number of amendments the government chose not to favour. I can understand why they wouldn't want to do so, but I will make a bit of a case, I hope, for a contrary view.

There was the amendment placed by my friend the member for Ottawa South, which I call the due diligence clause for directors of the corporation. That is a very typical provision mandated upon directors in the province under the Ontario Business Corporations Act. It's not going to apply in this case.

The amendment to restrict conservation initiatives to the electrical area was not favoured, nor was the amendment to cause a costing of any conservation initiative favoured by the government.

Where does this leave us, then, with the bill as amended? The bill is substantially as it was, I think, from the point of view of the government. I think there were some helpful amendments around the edges, but the bill is, by and large, as it was when introduced here a year ago tomorrow.

I was thinking, as I prepared tonight's comments, about the beginning of this beginning. Government members have rightly highlighted this over and over again. The member for Sarnia observed these ingredients in his speech a few moments ago, and that is that we want a policy that is a new direction and we want hallmarks of that policy to be openness and accountability. Three cheers for that. It's true, as has been observed, that over the years governments have not always done their Hydro business in the full light of day.

I was struck -- it was really interesting, by the way -- by a piece the Toronto Star had on June 1, 1992. They're running this historical business. I noticed they had a piece about Premier Drury reducing his salary by $3,000. That left Adam Beck the best-paid public servant in the province. That's not what caught my eye. What caught my eye was that in 1919 he received a salary of $12,000, half of which was paid by the province, the other half by the utilities. I thought that was an interesting comment.

It's certainly true of one of the great Ontario dictators, Adam Beck, that he didn't believe in the kind of openness and accountability that I think the government imagines. He would have done very well with the NDP, actually. Adam Beck had a modus operandi that paralleled the modern NDP. I don't fault him for that. He was the master of working the special interests and the populace in ways that I've always admired about the NDP. Adam Beck, although he was a member of this Legislature from the distinguished city of London, never really had much time for the Legislature and even less time for his Premier and cabinet colleagues.

Over the years the history is replete with examples of the Premier's office -- to be frank, and I want to be very clear, for most of the 20th century the de facto Minister of Energy was the Premier, and there have been some very interesting examples of that.

We have the perfectly understandable and laudable objectives of this government, newly elected, for a new direction with openness --

Interjection.

Mr Conway: You're observing that there aren't very many people here. I was hoping somebody would do that, because that is the delicious irony of this. Adam Beck and his later-day apostle, Marc Eliesen, couldn't have written a better script. You see, this is the way it ought to be. There ought to be no one here. In fact, it would make me feel better if you all left because it would be a fitting tribute to the reality, not the rhetoric. Ideally this kind of bill passes with nobody here and nobody paying attention. It's damn tough, highly complex and very technological. I'm going to --

Mr Hope: We're listening to you, Sean.

Mr Conway: Just give me a moment. So we've got new directions around demand management, no more megaprojects and a theological commitment, which only new puritans could manufacture, that there will be no more nuclear. I don't accept that but I understand it. Obviously the NDP has a right to that view. To be fair, it's been their view since at least the days when they believed in the common pause day and public auto insurance.

We have openness and accountability and new directions. We want political control in the best sense of that word. So what's happened? I mean, I don't agree with some of the ingredients of that, but I'll tell you, it's pretty clear and I can't quarrel.

Political direction: That means the minister and the executive council, with the support of at least the government caucus in the Legislature, are going to provide the direction and the oversight. That's the way I would read it, and I think that's a fair interpretation.

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What has happened in the intervening 363 days since the member for Peterborough rose in her place and made the speech? I have it before me. I'm not going to read it all, but it says some of what I've already said, that in November 1990 the government read a throne speech which called for new energy directions that would concentrate more of our resources and efforts on demand management. We would have a moratorium on new nuclear power stations. We have told Hydro to redirect its spending to conservation. The primary goal, of course, is safe and reliable energy. We've got to open up the process. We've got to accommodate the public's desire to have a greater say in Hydro. And, of course, the board would be increased in membership. The newly appointed chairman would also be the CEO, the chief executive officer, and there would be a change in the act to allow for fuel substitution etc.

That was the framework. So what's happened? Well, we've had three ministers. We had the member for Peterborough, we had the member for Kitchener and we have the acting minister, the member for Hamilton Mountain, all good people. They are all good people, but three ministers in the space of less than a year, a revolving door, which is, to be fair, not something that could be said of just this government; there's been quite a revolving door at Energy since the days of Darcy McKeough. But three ministers in about 11 months or six months -- Brian, when did you become the minister?

Hon Brian A. Charlton (Acting Minister of Energy): February.

Mr Conway: February. So three ministers in seven or eight months. That's close to a record, and a new deputy, Mr George Davies, and of course a new chairman and chief executive officer. I ask myself --

Mr Hope: Bob's been there all the time.

Mr Conway: Yes, and I say the member for Sarnia has done a very creditable job as the parliamentary assistant.

But three ministers, a new deputy, I think even a new assistant deputy -- someone I know well -- but most important, a new chairman and chief executive officer.

I ask myself, who's running the store? What's been going on? Now, what do I know? I know this much: I know something about the file that attaches to the Minister of Financial Institutions. I'd say, particularly in a day and age when you're wrestling with public auto insurance -- upside, downside, sideways -- that's not an uncomplicated business, so he's a very busy fellow, the member from the mountain, the acting Minister of Energy.

What do I know? Well, I just know what I see and what I hear. What did I see? I saw something early on that I might return to, and that's my friend the chairman. I was not the one who said there would be a new day of openness and accountability. My friends opposite have said it repeatedly, and I understand that. So the first case study in the new world, or one of the first, has to do with the pay and perquisites of the chairman and chief executive officer. I don't intend to make an Everest out of that issue, but I think it is an important and symbolic issue in the early days of a new order where openness and accountability and political control are offered up as new directions.

Do you remember the pathetic sight in this place months ago? I'm sorry, because my tone begins to rise and I get really angry about what I saw there, and it's not exclusive to the NDP. I mean, our government was taken for one of the royalest rides of recent history by Bernard Ostry, for example. I tell you, my friends -- I mean, talk about scheming, manipulative, self-promoting operatives.

Mr Noel Duignan (Halton North): He's supposed to be a good Liberal.

Mr Conway: Ah, but that's where you make your mistake, my friends, that's where you make your mistake. You know, it was once said of imperial Britain that she had no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. That is exactly the world view of people like Bernard Ostry, who was brought here not by the Liberals but by Hughie Segal.

You think I'm critical? You ought to talk to Frank Miller. Frank Miller had him as a deputy minister for about a month until Frank could stand it no longer. To our discredit, as far as I'm concerned, we took him to our bosom, though some of us made efforts to arrange other possibilities. You know, it's a professional breed of apparatchik. They are loyal only to their own importance and their own centrality in the scheme of things. NDP, Social Credit -- I mean, they are the ultimate chameleons. So we have Marc Eliesen.

Listen, I'll make a confession. I was offered the gentleman as a deputy minister. I don't know why, but I just didn't find it possible to accept him as a deputy, though I will say this of Marc: He is a bright, diligent, creative, hardworking person. From the government's point of view, if you want Marc Eliesen as the chairman of Ontario Hydro, that is your democratically won right to so do. I can't complain about that.

Over the years the Tories had Hugh Macaulay and George Gathercole. I mean, there were some pretty prominent partisans. To me that makes sense in that job. I don't agree with my friend the member for Sarnia who made the comment about the policy role of the chairman. The chairman's job historically has been simply to liaise with the government, to be the political connection. The chief executive officer has had the office of chief operating person.

In our case, after Tom Campbell left we took a chief executive officer, Bob Franklin, and made him chairman as well. I thought that was not a bad choice, but I can see how other people might want to do it differently. But I certainly do not think it makes any sense to take a political person who's properly made chairman and then make that person the chief operating officer for one of the country's most complex and significant corporations, if for no other reason than the health of the corporation. Because you know perfectly well that should -- God forbid -- the fates intervene at election time and the government be washed out to sea and a new party be entrusted with the responsibilities of office, that person is then a likely candidate for being removed.

It's one thing to remove the chairman, but if you start moving the chief executive officer out as well, because he or she is perceived as a political person, I submit to you that human resources people looking at big corporations would tell you: "Don't do that. You run a very real risk of a major management difficulty." But I don't want to get off on that track. I've said that before.

Let's go back to what we saw last fall. It was actually one of the environmental groups which said, "Did you know that the new chairman, who was happily employed months or weeks ago at the rate of about $125,000 or $130,000 as the Deputy Minister of Energy, has summoned up enough reserve to suggest that he be paid $400,000 as the chairman and chief executive officer of Ontario Hydro?"

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My old friend Stephen Lewis had a word that used to roll mellifluously from his lips from time to time, and it is the word to describe that kind of strike. Stephen Lewis would say, "That's chutzpah with a capital C." That is a grab for income that I think most of my NDP friends would recoil from, if for no other reason than with very few exceptions there would be at least enough shame to prevent them from being so extravagant. But not Marc Eliesen. Of course, it became public and then the debate in here began. It became interesting because Bill 118 had an amendment that has been --

Mr Drummond White (Durham Centre): Did it never happen with your caucus, Sean?

Mr Conway: We've got lots of sins, but I don't think I can find another example where there was such a brazen grab for power and income as that grab. I mention it because, of course, the original bill did something I thought was very peculiar in light of the government's objectives. The government objective was openness and accountability and "We're in charge here."

You remember the original bill? It was going to take away from the cabinet and give to the board the right to set the salary for the chairman of Hydro. I thought, now isn't that peculiar and paradoxical? The rhetoric suggests more political control, which has got to mean the cabinet. Why, if that was your stated aim, would you then turn that responsibility away from the cabinet and over to the board, particularly when you've appointed someone who, apparently without any embarrassment, thought nothing of asking for a tripling of his salary? I submit again, I have no problem with Marc Eliesen being chairman of Ontario Hydro, but I do not think he is qualified to be the chief operating officer of that kind of corporation. I would say that of a lot of other people, myself included. It's a very complex corporation and I just don't think, talented as Marc Eliesen is, he's got the experience and the related qualifications that job requires.

I come back, then, to when this became public. As I say, I was opposed to the original bill because of that move of the responsibility away from the cabinet to the board, but then this. But then, of course, who are we dealing with? What kind of person? This is Bernie Ostry. All of you people sitting around the cabinet are good people and I suspect most of you wouldn't in your wildest dreams think anybody would do it, so you're not even looking for it, and there it happens.

Then we get the spectacle we had here last fall, and what a spectacle. Who's on first? The Premier wasn't sure he knew. I think the minister was responsible. Conway and Harris were saying some terrible things, impugning the integrity of the honourable chairman-designate of Ontario Hydro when really my question was, who's running the shop? Is he going to be paid $400,000?

Then, of course, we had the example, I think it was on October 23, of the member for Kitchener, the then Minister of Energy. I thought the statement -- and I have it someplace in this pile of paper -- was "special," to quote the church lady. Here it is. I know it's not a big deal, but to the public out there, to the ratepayer in Renfrew, 400,000 bucks is a lot of money. I know there are others who would find it a mere trifle. I won't mention my several constituents who have been writing and complaining about these bills, but Glengarry is more perfectly rural than Renfrew and I tell you, in Glengarry they would not have been amused about someone who had, weeks before, been earning $125,000 or $130,000 making this smash and grab for $400,000, particularly when we have a new day of openness and accountability and the government is in charge. The government didn't seem to know -- the Premier himself didn't seem to know -- what was going on though he had in fact executed the order in council of June 6, 1991, making Mr Eliesen chairman and chief executive officer.

We get the member for Kitchener making a statement, and I thought this was fetching, because he said on that day that Mr Eliesen had come forward, he had cleaned up the confusion, clarified the confusion, by offering to take a pay cut. He wouldn't be asking for $400,000; he would only be taking $260,000.

Mr Paul R. Johnson (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings): Hear, hear.

Mr Conway: People said, "Hear, hear." I think I was pretty strident, but I think I might have gotten up and said a few things that were mildly conciliatory because I thought, "It makes you feel good."

I don't mean this as partisan; no, I don't. I know it sounds like it, but it's the character. We had them and the Tories had them. I'm just reading Roy Jenkins's wonderful biography A Life at the Centre. God, did Harold Wilson have them. It's just humanity. They come in different ways. They're just not all the same.

So we get this statement. I remember thinking, "I should just go and see whether or not anything else has happened on this account." This was Thursday, October 24. We beat our breasts in thanksgiving to Mr Marc Eliesen, who has offered a 30% pay cut, reducing his salary by $140,000, from $400,000 to $260,000. In fact, there's even a little comment in this statement directed at me, hoping, says the member for Kitchener, that the member from Renfrew will stop what is basically his character assassination. I will admit I said some very serious things.

You can imagine what I felt like when I went to the library later that day. Isn't it interesting? On Thursday, October 23, 1991, less than 24 hours before this triumphal act of self-denial, the executive council had quietly executed a new order in council extending my dear friend the chairman's length of stay from three to five years. I thought, "I guess there'll be an announcement." There was no announcement. My point is simply this: Openness and accountability? I tell you, I think you've got a tiger by the tail.

I have a lot of sympathy for the members of the cabinet. This character, from all accounts, is a scheming, manipulative operator who is capable of getting this government and that Hydro corporation into no small amount of trouble. He has other qualities which are, I'm sure, very endearing, but sitting over here and watching the spectacle of that character putting this cabinet through those calisthenics was sad. It really made me angry. It doesn't say a great deal about openness and accountability, admittedly only at that level.

It was really interesting, in a similar way, to be told by what I think I could characterize as reliable sources about how it is the demand-supply update of January 1992 came to pass. I think this is a much more serious issue. Again thinking about openness and accountability, what happened, I am told, is that this document -- and I thought it was interesting, though I understand how these things happen, that after the public hearings on Bill 118 concluded, but not by many days -- that's not true. Actually, it happened in early January.

The chairman of Hydro announced the DSP Update 1992. This is a very important document. I don't profess to understand it in all its ramifications. It is extremely complicated, highly technological. One would have to be a very long-serving and astute observer to begin to understand the assumptions and the implications and the applications of this adjustment.

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Mr David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre): The caucus understands it.

Mr Conway: My friend the member for Hamilton Centre says the caucus understands it. Let me tell you this much. I am told -- and I know this -- that the original Hydro demand-supply plan of 1989 took four or five years to prepare. My friends opposite can quarrel about its contents, its direction -- I can certainly accept how they would reject the emphasis on new supply; that's a perfectly fair observation -- but it took four or five years of very substantial and intensive work to produce. Outside consultants were apparently brought in to analyse and assess the conservation and demand management targets that were contained in the 1989 demand management plan.

What happened when the new update came to the board? I want you to reflect on this. Apparently the board of directors was confronted at one meeting -- with no prior paper, nothing -- with a two-hour presentation, much of it in slides. On the basis of that two-hour presentation, with no prior paper and no outside professional consultants looking at the fundamental changes it addresses, the board of directors, under the new government, approved on a divided vote the demand-supply Update 1992.

My friends, I tell you, that is a dramatic development. That is a very sharp contradiction to some of the fundamentals of your policy: a two-hour presentation to a substantially new board, containing enormous changes in the energy policy of this province, and it passed on the spot with a division. I think it begs the question -- some openness, some accountability; it's more the accountability than anything else.

I raise it simply because of what I said earlier. People wonder why private members of this Legislature might be interested in an amendment that calls for due diligence on behalf of the board of directors of this kind of corporation. I want to say that I think what happened, or apparently what happened, around the DSP update was a scandalous abdication of the responsibility of the members of that board. It is a scandalous contradiction of the accountability the government rightly seeks to appropriate for itself. It is a scandalous policy in so far as if it is wrong it will open the province, its economy and its citizens to pressures and difficulties that are going to be very severe indeed. I simply say, the early returns make me very worried about who's running the store.

I know exactly what's happening. This is why, again, I come back to my friend the chairman. The minister is an acting minister with lots of experience, but he has a very complicated dossier at Financial Institutions. He is distracted. Of course there have been two predecessors who, for whatever reason, were not there all that long.

Normally the Premier's office would be running a very closely watching brief on this. I know exactly what this Premier's office is faced with in the spring and summer of 1992. It has major policy questions of a very immediate kind to decide, whether it's the Retail Business Holidays Act, whether it's the OLRA, whether it's the constitutional talks or whether it's a variety of other things the Premier is rightly involved with. So I can imagine that there cannot be in that person, bright and capable as he is, very much residual time and energy to look at this file.

So who's running the store? I think I know who's running the store. He has to be the happiest man in Upper Canada, because this is just the kind of atmosphere in which that kind of apparatchik thrives. These dupes are sent in here -- good people -- I'm sorry to even use the word, but that's the only word you could use for people who had to stand up day after day and sputter one inanity after another about what kind of salary, what kind of pension, who's on first and who's on second, because they did not know.

I simply make the point that to be told the demand-supply update was approved by the board at one meeting with no prior consultation, no paper, no nothing, is positively breathtaking. I hope and I pray you are right, because if you are wrong in any way like some previous people charged with the responsibility, we are in big and reasonably immediate trouble.

I say to myself when I look at the demand-supply update, what has changed? It's essentially the same people at Hydro who prepared the 1989 report. I know there's a new government and I understand that, but my friend the acting minister knows -- I mean, I was Minister of Education for the better part of four years and that general legislative grant --

Hon Mr Charlton: Look at the document and you will see 1989. It is all there.

Mr Conway: We're going to return to that. The only thing that has changed between 1992 and 1989 is a new government and a new chairman. You might say, "Well, that's enough." When you look at the fundamental changes in this policy -- let me use one.

Hon Mr Charlton: There aren't any.

Mr Conway: The acting minister says, "What are they?" Let me use one example.

Hon Mr Charlton: No, I said there aren't any.

Mr Conway: There aren't any. Let me just cite my favourite example. In the 1989 demand-supply plan, Hydro said it could manage on the conservation and demand management side about 5,000 megawatts. By the way, I am told that at that time Hydro had outside experts telling it those conservation targets were at the absolute outside of possibility. They were very liberal indeed. That was 1989. That was done with outside consultants apparently analysing the Hydro target. Two years later, by the magical wave of Marc Eliesen's wand, it's not 5,000 megawatts, it's 10,000 megawatts.

I'm from Renfrew and we just say for that kind of transfiguration, there must be some evidence. There must be some study to set aside what was indicated just two years before, that 5,000 megawatts was very rich and liberal and don't tie your star too completely to that, and now we're told, "Ye of little faith, it's not 5,000, it's 10,000 megawatts." That saving alone, that difference in the conservation target, is more than all the megawattage at Darlington, I believe.

Let me say I hope you're right. I hope and I pray you're right, but there are some early returns that perhaps suggest something else. I'm going to talk about those briefly. But before I do, I just want to say again, it's all well and good to talk about accountability, but I ask you, in the first year of your new Hydro policy, look at what happened around the handling of the chairman's salary and who was going to set that salary. Look at what happened in the case of that DSP update of just three months ago. What I heard about the DSP update made me think Adam Beck is truly alive and well.

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Just think about it. This chairman walked in and said: "Board members, here it is. Here's the diet. Consume it, pass it and be gone." That's what happened. We now have a new day and we have a dramatically altered policy. Boy, it makes me feel very comfortable about the amount of control and accountability. I repeat, it's the kind of decision made by directors that makes me want to see an amendment for due diligence, because I think those directors have an obligation to assess the range of choices, options and consequences flowing from those choices and those options. I am not at all convinced that the new board -- good people, and I know some of them very well -- had any opportunity to do that in a meaningful way.

At the end of the day, I say to my friend the member for Elgin, people in Sparta or Aylmer are not going to wonder who the board member was. They're going to want to know what their elected member did or did not do to provide reasonable protection against some wrongheadedness.

Again in terms of the policy, we have the directive power. People of course have beat their breasts and said: "It is a good thing. It is a good thing that we have the directive power. We can now of course accept an amendment that puts the directive power squarely within the purposes of Hydro so that, unlike those oppositionists who said Hydro could go out and do a variety of things not related to the mandate of Ontario Hydro, that can't now happen because we've accepted the amendment to constrain the directive power to the purposes of Hydro as set out in the Power Corporation Act." But what does it now provide?

Apparently, this directive power provides this chairman and this government with the opportunity to do the sorts of things they've done in Elliot Lake and Kapuskasing. I submit to you, Mr Speaker, that is a very expansive interpretation of the directive power. Ratepayers in Moose Creek and Maxville will be looking at their bills -- a bill that is hard to miss these days because it went up about 12% last year and it's going to go up about 10% this year -- and saying, "Why is is costing me so much money?" I have to tell them, "In part it's because the government has decided to take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Hydro ratepayers and do good works in Elliot Lake."

I have no quarrel with government's responsibility in ameliorating the effects of the phase-down at Elliot Lake. The question is how one does it and who pays. To tax the electrical ratepayers for that regional economic development program I think is unfair and unreasonable. But more than anything else, it is unfair.

My parents, who live in a small town in eastern Ontario in a fully electrically heated house, have no natural gas. My mother doesn't get excited about too many things, but she waved the Hydro bills in my face the other day and said, to quote Queen Victoria, "We are not amused." There they sit in Barrys Bay, Ontario, with no natural gas, and like a lot of senior citizens, they've had their experience with wood and they've had their experience with oil and they switched 10 years ago because the government sort of encouraged them to switch to electricity. Now, in their 70s, they have no great desire to make another switch, so they will get to pay a disproportionate share of the Elliot Lake program compared to what I will living in Pembroke, where I have an electrical bill that is about one seventh my parents', largely because I have a choice they do not now nor ever will have, namely, natural gas.

I say again to my friends in the NDP: They have been passionate on the subject of equity, and what I don't understand about this policy is that, particularly in its application around rural Ontario, it is so fundamentally and transparently inequitable as to just leave me speechless, if you can imagine, and most people can't imagine it.

It's not just people like my parents who are observing this. I notice in the submission from Ivaco, a big employer in eastern Ontario, they raised some concerns about fuel switching. Reading from their brief in Ottawa:

"We are aware that the government has agreed to limit any policy directives that are issued to Ontario Hydro to the corporation's exercise of its duties under the act. This, however, does not provide us with any comfort since the government itself will make the decision as to whether the directive is within the corporation's mandate." Believe me, that is true; that is in the nature of how all governments work.

He goes on to say that, "We have already seen how this decision will be made," using the examples of Elliot Lake and Kapuskasing. And I didn't hear anybody on the travels argue that something ought not to have been done, but it's who paid. The submission from Ivaco goes on to estimate that the Elliot Lake and Kapuskasing subvention represents more than a 5% increase in the rates, based on projected 1992 revenues.

The fact of the matter is, my friends, that when one appropriates hundreds of millions of dollars, as was done for Elliot Lake and Kapuskasing, and then tacks that on not to the general taxpayer but sticks it to the electrical consumer, you have a policy that I think is unfair and is seen to be unfair.

I want to say something else about expenditures. My friend the member for Sarnia made the point earlier this evening. I see where the deputy minister in his comments, and I'll make some reference to those momentarily -- one of the things I hear from my friends opposite is, "You know, they will sing the Hallelujah Chorus because the era of megaprojects is over." Well, it may be, but I just want to remind everybody that according to the plan, Hydro, under your direction, is going to spend $6 billion in the next seven or eight years on demand management and energy conservation. And I'll tell you, they are charting very uncharted waters in many respects.

I was in Espanola not too long ago. My friends in Espanola think they have died and gone to heaven. Why?

Mr Stephen Owens (Scarborough Centre): Because you were there.

Mr Conway: Listen, you will get to explain this, I tell you. I get to explain SkyDome, and the ghost of Willy Davis gets to explain Darlington and the ghost of Adam Beck gets to explain a lot of things, but you are going to get to explain this.

You know, you may be right. There may be not a trifle of worry. But I went to Espanola not too long ago. Some of my friends could hardly contain themselves, because Hydro, that gargantuan public corporation, had come to town. They have something called a Home Saver program, and they spent millions of dollars going around, I think to the entire town, offering to do an audit and pay for a lot of retrofitting houses and I think businesses.

I remember, Mr Speaker, it was one of your colleagues, Jim Taylor, the former member of Parliament, of the Legislature, for Prince Edward-Lennox. He was Minister of Energy. He said something here one day I thought was interesting and I thought a little bit controversial. At the time he said, "You know, I'm the Minister of Energy, and you know what bothers me about Hydro?" This is the minister talking, about 13 years ago. He said, "The problem with Ontario Hydro is that it's so big and it's so inherently bureaucratic that when you phone Hydro and ask them to replace your lightbulb, their response is to build you a new house."

So what have we got in Espanola? We've got this big, awkward, gargantuan public corporation up there doing a Home Saver program, I think it's called, and I'll tell you, you'd be a fool, an absolute idiot, not to take everything they offer, because they're paying at least 50% of it, and you can believe it is deluxe. Somebody is already standing up and saying: "Now, Conway, what you need to understand is what we're doing. We're going to places like Espanola, a town of 5,000" -- you know, if Hydro gives every other community of 1,000 or more the same deal Espanola got, the corporation, the consolidated revenue fund and the province will be absolutely broke.

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We all saw the spectacle of the lightbulbs. I think my friend the member for Lanark-Renfrew was making the point. Hydro people, good people, are embarrassed about this foolhardy business of sending out these lightbulbs. I was talking to a good friend of mine in a Hydro office the other day and he said to me: "What a nightmare. We sent the damned things out by mail and many broke. People who were mad as hell about their bills were phoning and saying, 'I've got a bill that's 15% more than it was this time last year and you've sent me these'" -- I won't tell you what they said in Renfrew -- "'you've sent me these two broken lightbulbs and this is supposed to make me feel good?'"

My friends who know more than I do say $7 million to save $4 million. We had all kinds of good people come before the committee and say, "If you want to do this, there's a way, but this is not it." I'm no technical adviser, but boy, there were some pretty impressive people who said it: $7 million to apparently save $4 million.

I heard somebody on Gzowski a few months ago who was very supportive of a lot of the initiatives of the government, and he couldn't contain himself about that admittedly not big program. You see, that's the point. Espanola and the lightbulb program are not big items. They're $7 million in one case and I don't know what Espanola's going to cost but, boy, I bet you we never find out. But the new plan is to spend $6 billion on demand management. I'm sure I sound like a carping oppositionist.

Mr Duignan: You got that right; it's the only thing tonight you've got right.

Mr Conway: Well, I was not the one who called for night sittings.

Hon Marilyn Churley (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): You wanted this opportunity.

Mr Conway: I wanted an opportunity to unburden myself of this, because I've got to go home to people who in the main are just going to get stiffed with these bills.

Hon Frances Lankin (Minister of Health): It's cheaper than OHIP.

[Laughter]

Mr Conway: Laugh; I don't mind. Laugh all you want. It's not that many years ago that I heard people making passionate speeches about what would happen, if an NDP government took office, with auto insurance. I remember the outrages around the want of a pause day. My friend the member for York South -- I'll tell you, what a diet of crow, and the poor man is driven back into reminiscences of Oliver Mowat.

Hon Ms Churley: You're not talking about the bill.

Mr Conway: I'm responding to honourable members. I'm flattered to have the government's leading environmentalist here to keep me on track, but I simply make the point that Espanola and the lightbulbs are two early returns on energy conservation.

Mr Will Ferguson (Kitchener): They're very remotely connected.

Mr Conway: They're remotely connected? They're central to your policy. I'm not the one who said, "I can, with demand management, increase the avoided supply from 5,000 to 10,000 megawatts." So we look at how you're going to do this. You're going to do it with very creative initiatives around energy conservation. I tell you, early returns are not very encouraging.

I hope some of you -- we've got the former mayor of Oshawa, and other people have had good municipal experience. I was really struck by the parliamentary assistant, who seems to have a far better grasp of a number of the technical issues than I ever had. The lightbulbs: you don't want to have to explain too many of those. It's pretty comical, if it weren't so painful. As I say, in the constituency break I kept meeting people who got, at one and the same time, a mittful of broken Hydro lightbulbs and a very richly increased Hydro bill. They certainly made a connection and, I want to tell you, it was not the connection you would have wanted.

I want to also make a few comments around what I heard in my recent travels in the constituency in terms of talking to my local commission. I had an opportunity -- when I wasn't reading the Windsor Star about the very interesting activities at the Windsor Utilities Commission, a subject to which I will return shortly -- to go in and talk to my local commission in Pembroke. They took me into a warehouse, and they've got a warehouse full of returned electric hot water heaters. I call it a hot water tank; the place is full of them.

Two things are happening. I think the honourable members opposite better understand this, because I think they're going to be asked soon to give some explanations. The best friend your DSP has is the recession. It's helping you in a way that it helped Billy Davis in the early 1980s. We had Arthur Porter here in the late 1970s saying, "Hey, there's trouble," royal commission reports saying, "Brownouts are possible in places like Ottawa-Carleton if we don't deal with either the supply or transmission issue." That was projected in the late 1970s. From 1981 to 1984 we had a fairly good recessionary downturn and that provided some additional time in which to move, to do some things, particularly on the transmission side.

The recession is kicking the stuffing out of the Ontario economy. It's kicking the stuffing out of a lot of things. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, well placed within the Workers' Compensation Board. I wouldn't even want to repeat what the recession is doing to that public corporation. But it's interesting that in so many of these utilities industrial demand is collapsing, commercial demand is retreating substantially and of course the marketplace is driving residential users away from electricity over to natural gas as the alternative of choice.

So my friends in the Pembroke Hydro-Electric Commission said to me the other day, "What do you suggest we do, because our dilemma is this," and it's going to be a dilemma faced by the corporation. I thought it interesting the other day, and I will talk about the corporation's similar difficulty, that these utilities are in the main facing the same problem. Demand is down and down significantly, and without even the incentives you're going to offer under fuel switching people are moving in droves, apparently, where they have a choice, particularly to natural gas. Demand is dropping, the bulk power rates from Hydro are up 10% to 12%. So what do you suppose that means? It means something very simple and something very painful. Many fewer ratepayers are going to be paying substantially higher costs and that's going to continue for some time to come.

I repeat, whether you're the London utility or the Pembroke utility or the Espanola utility, if you are successful and the recession and other things are moving customers away from Hydro in droves, I would say to my friends in the NDP, what are you going to do in the short and intermediate term when you are faced with this very painful situation of sharply reduced demand, substantially fewer ratepayers and substantially increased bulk power costs? The per-unit price of what you have to offer is going to go up and go up dramatically. If I were a New Democrat, I would be worried in the short term not just about the price consumers are going to have to pay --

Interjection.

Mr Conway: I'm just telling you what people running utilities are telling me, and it makes perfectly good sense. If there is a substantial reduction in the demand and a substantial reduction in the number of ratepayers, you don't have to be Einstein to figure out what that's going to do to a price structure.

The answer that's going to be provided is that over time we're going to have a lot of avoided cost and it's going to all even out. Well, maybe so, but people in places like Grimsby, Pembroke and Niagara-on-the-Lake are faced with a problem now and for the next number of years. I tell you, it is going to cause a very real and palpable pain.

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Mrs Joan M. Fawcett (Northumberland): What does Mr Klopp think of the farmers?

Mr Conway: I was talking to a dairy farmer the other day and he said: "In Stafford township, I'm a big, highly mechanized dairy producer. My hydro bill is $1,000 a month. Now you tell me, Mr Conway, that the government in your Legislature is going to increase those bulk rates by 25%, 30%, 40% over the course of the next few years. My cows do not produce in a way that responds to that kind of logic. I don't know where I'm going to get, out of an increasingly competitive agricultural commodity market, prices that are going to allow me to eat that kind of increase."

My friend from the Beaches looks puzzled. My point is a very simple one. In talking to local utilities, they're telling me something that I think makes a lot of sense. In the here and now, industrial and commercial demand is down substantially, in the main caused by the recession. A lot of residential consumers like myself, and I dare say a lot of other people here, are making or have already made a switch away from electricity to natural gas. So the load is dropping substantially. We've got fewer, and in some cases substantially fewer, customers to pay for the fixed costs of the utility and the increased bulk power rate that Ontario Hydro is charging us. So fewer people are going to pay substantially higher prices for some considerable number of years, and that is causing a lot of worry.

If you're running a utility, your first response is: "We've got to shake down the cost. We've got to reduce the number of people." That is unavoidably going to happen. For example, when Hydro says, "We're not going to be into the nuclear business; we're not going to be into megaprojects," I'm telling you that ought to be of interest to CUPE Local 1000, because Hydro is being privatized to some extent. I'm not so sure that's a bad thing, but if I were a New Democrat, I would be interested in that. By virtue of this policy you are going to squeeze local utilities in the short term in such a way that they are going to have to lay off hundreds of people, because they simply have got to bring down their costs to relate to their new load. Otherwise they're going to face a ratepayer rebellion. That is not just the local utilities' problem, but it appears as well to be the corporation's problem.

I know Canadian Press is never wrong, but I picked up the Ottawa Citizen of May 30, 1992, and I read a headline that said "Ontario Hydro Profits to Fall by $214 Million." Let me just read briefly from that CP report: "Ontario Hydro says its profit this year and next will fall by $214 million or 25% below a forecast it made only two months ago." Let me repeat: Hydro is now telling the Ontario Energy Board that its profit forecast of two months ago is off by 25%. I know how it can be, and they go on to explain how it is:

"The announcement indicates, says Hydro, a marked deterioration in the financial results at the giant corporation. The projections were made this week in filings before the energy board. The utility said its profit outlook is worsening because of a continued slump in electricity demand and the expectation of higher borrowing costs next year."

I don't want you to remember too much from that, but I just want you to remember two things: First, Hydro's profit forecasts of two months ago, it now says, were off by 25%. They're saying they are facing some very tough times because, of course, the recession is kicking the stuffing out of demand. Of course, they also tell us they are going to be able to offer a bulk power rate increase for 1993, subject to Ontario Energy Board approval, of 8.6%. How could they do that? Well, I say to my friend the member for Northumberland, they're going to do that because they're going to reach into the reserve fund to the tune of $250 million to keep the 8.6% rate increase from being an 11.6% increase.

That's a bit like Floyd Laughren's recent budget. He said, "You know, I can keep the deficit down this year to $10 billion because I have decided to delay payments that are due this year to some of our pension funds in the amount of half a billion bucks."

I never took accounting, but that is not very comforting. I want to just say to my friends opposite that in the very early days of their new policy we are seeing some of the contradictions that potentially could rip this policy to shreds, and do so over the heads of senior citizens and other ratepayers, to say nothing of those industries in constituencies like Lincoln and Niagara Falls that are crying out at public meetings.

My friend the member for Lincoln will have read the Standard, the Niagara Falls Review and the Spectator of the other day, but at the Niagara regional council there was a delegation of Niagara business people saying: "Help. We are sinking under the weight of these appalling Hydro rate increases."

Mr Paul Klopp (Huron): Should have been elected 10 years ago.

Mr Conway: My friend says they should have been elected 10 years ago. Listen, I'm now asking you to give an account of your own policy and your own policy appears to be coming unstuck in some very important respects within the first six months. I'm not the one who went to the OEB and said, "Hey, our forecasts of two months ago were off by 25%." I'm not the one out delivering these lightbulbs and spending the millions. I'm not the one up in Espanola. And Hydro is saying, "We are in a worsened financial situation because the recession is robbing us of demand."

Of course, in the short term what we're going to do is do everything we can, including taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the rate base, to cause even more demand shift. If that happens in the next little while, I can tell you that next year Hydro will be at the OEB saying what Energy Probe is saying, "I don't believe yet that our financial situation is desperate."

I want to tell my friends opposite that their friend Marc Eliesen is able to trot out an 8.6% bulk power rate increase this year, subject to OEB approval, only by dipping into the reserve fund in the amount of $250 million. Those of you who've served on councils locally know that you can do that, often in election years, but you can't burn the furniture to heat the parlour for very long.

Mr Klopp: I am glad you're burnt out.

Mr Conway: Oh, no. I just also want to digress briefly --

Mr Klopp: "Digress" is the word.

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Mr Conway: I know it's vexatious, but you know, it could get worse. It could get a lot worse. I am, in all my energy, as nothing compared to going to CUPE 1000 when its members figure out what some of the elements of this Trojan horse are. I am as nothing compared to my friend the member for Elgin, who has to go home and explain to the farmers down there in west Elgin that, "Yes, it's going to be 12% next year and it's going to be 13%," in an age when inflation is running at about 2%.

I want to digress for a couple of things. Where do I start? I should also start by making comment as well on the Ontario Energy Board hearings currently under way on the 1993 rate increase, where Hydro has admitted that over the next four years it is going to spend $2 billion -- $2 billion of that $6 billion on energy conservation is going to be spent in the next four years.

I just say to my friend the member for Sarnia, you don't need to tell me now, but you people better, since you're interested in accountability and openness -- $2 billion is a lot of potatoes.

Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): Not to them.

Mr Conway: I think it is to them. These are not unreasonable people.

Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): They spill more than that.

Mr Conway: I don't think that's fair, but $2 billion are going to be spent in the next four years. I would like to see some kind of analysis of how and where that is going to be spent. I say it because last year -- and my friend the member for Ottawa South went through this -- the energy board said it has virtually no confidence in the whole program as it's been offered. They are terrified at the energy board that for largely political reasons the government-driven corporation is going to go out and sponsor a whole series of lightbulb giveaways and Espanola home saver programs.

One of the amendments we offered was that there be some kind of costing of individual initiatives. It's not me; it's the energy board from last year saying, "This is very thin ice on which you're skating and we had better know more than we know now, if there's any hope of getting value for money, of making sure that benefits outweigh the costs."

I found interesting -- I don't know the file as well as the member for Lanark-Renfrew and the member for Ottawa South -- that submission by the London Public Utilities Commission where they argue that some kind of load management on their hot water account will be more effective than any kind of fuel substitution. I don't know whether that's true, but I have to believe those good people know something of which they speak.

Interjection.

Mr Conway: Pardon me? I would say to my friend the member for Sarnia, before you go out, and you're out on the streets now preparing apparently to spend $2 billion on energy conservation, demand management, I think you owe it to this Legislature to explain the details of that policy because there will be a tremendous temptation to have this as a political show. That's what we got in the first instance. It's not all bad, I suppose, but I'm going to tell you, those first two departures are peanuts compared to what you're planning to spend.

I would like to know what I suspect Hydro cannot now tell me, just what kind of multibillion-dollar plan it has got and whether or not after spending $1.9 billion over the next four years -- by the way, according to the energy board submission of the other day, that $1.9 billion is going to be a net cost even after the electrical savings of those years are taken account of. That's a $2-billion cost net above any electrical savings within that same time period.

I can understand why you don't want megaprojects. I am worried that you are going to have, with all the best of intentions, a coopered together, trumped up bag of political offerings that are going to look good for a day or two, but are going to evaporate against the horizon of real opportunity. Three or four years from now we're going to be sitting here wondering, "What do we do now?"

I just say to my friends to look at what the energy board said last year. I can't imagine what they're going to say this year on the basis of what they've already heard in just the first two weeks.

I repeat board findings from last year. The board is very concerned about the cost-effectiveness of Hydro's energy management expenditures. I repeat, the Ontario Energy Board is very concerned with the effectiveness of Hydro's energy management expenditures. Since the last energy board report Ontario Hydro has increased substantially its energy management expenditures, partly in response to a government directive to redirect nuclear-free engineering expenditures. The energy board notes Hydro's testimony that the additional expenditures are not planned to result in additional long-term savings. Let me repeat: The energy board notes Ontario Hydro's own testimony that the additional expenditures are not planned to result in additional long-term savings. Hydro has expressed some hope that it may do so, but the energy board questions the usefulness of spending the money based on hope of future savings.

The report goes on -- I'm sorry, Frances, but what do I do? Let me just say that if you are as interested as you say you are in accountability, I'm sorry, this is what it's all about. Once every so often this Legislature is going to have to bite its tender little teeth into this stuff and accept the responsibility that comes with being big person on the block. The easy part of this is to say, "I'm in charge here," and then run like hell when somebody says, "Who is paying what to the chairman of Hydro?" "Oh, I don't know." "Well, what's going on about demand?" "Oh, I don't know; that's not my job."

You're the ones preaching accountability. You know what? I think you're right. So I'm here to talk about it. I'm sorry I won't be back for a while, but this debate is going to be re-engaged at some point, I suspect in not too many months, and not because of anything I do.

But let's go back to the energy board. I'm talking now about the provincial regulator of Ontario Hydro and last year's assessment of the centrepiece of the new NDP order which is, "We don't need to build any more Hydro nuclear plants and we don't have to build a lot of new supply, because we can save, we can conserve, we can manipulate demand in such a way as to obviate the need for thousands of those megawatts." Of Marc Eliesen's ability to manipulate I have no doubt. Of Marc Eliesen's ability to manipulate these highly complex forces I have great doubt indeed.

But I want to go back to the energy board of last year. The energy board has other concerns with the process by which additional energy conservation expenditures were allocated. The amount chosen was arbitrary. The choice of options between information and incentive programs may have been distorted since only the latter were eligible for capitalization and only capitalization expenditures were to be added.

Hydro testified that the result of the additional expenditures has been to bring forward programs from 1993 and 1994. This is of concern to the board in that programs may have been rushed into place. I'm absolutely certain the board is right. In short, the energy board said last year, 1991, in its late summer report, "We, the Ontario Energy Board, find that the additional expenditures will not likely result in cost-effective energy management savings but only in additional costs and lost revenue in the short term."

In the board's view this is not short-term pain for long-term gain; rather, this is short-term pain for little or no gain. The fact that Hydro is struggling to spend the funds is of little comfort to the board. In the board's view, Hydro should review its energy management programs to ensure that energy management expenditures are being undertaken in the most cost-effective manner. The board notes that it concluded in last year's report that Hydro's energy management savings objectives could be met with a budget 25% less than Hydro was planning to spend at the time.

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I want to repeat the one salient fact in that. This concerns itself with the centrepiece of this policy, and the energy board, the watchdog, said last year about this policy that the board finds that additional expenditures will not likely result in cost-effective energy management savings, but only in additional costs and lost revenue in the short term. The energy board has the view that this is not short-term pain for long-term gain; rather, it is short-term pain for little or no gain at all. That's not Conway speaking -- that's the energy board. I only raise it because you're putting a lot of eggs in that basket. You're putting $6 billion worth of eggs in that basket, and you're going to spend $1.9 billion of that $6 billion in the next three and a half years.

You say you are for openness and accountability. I ask only this: What programs are going to attract the $1.9 billion over the next three and a half years? What kind of analysis has been done? What have you discarded? What are you promoting? What is the hope, for example, of the London PUC in getting some consideration? Perhaps it's very high. I talked to a friend of mine last night who's associated with Brock University. He said the university there in the member's riding is doing some very interesting and creative things about conservation and demand management. I know that a lot can be done. I worry, when government gets involved to the extent that the government is involved and when the instrument of intervention is the elephantine corporation that is Hydro, about how we are going to avoid what Jim Taylor said was the lasting problem: I need a new light fixture and they respond by building me a new house. When I was in Espanola I had no very great comfort that much had changed in the intervening decade.

Mrs Barbara Sullivan (Halton Centre): And they attacked Jim Taylor in the corridor.

Mr Conway: Well, we all attacked Jim Taylor for that.

The night wears on and so does the speech. It won't go on for ever, I can assure you. I'm trying to be a bit light, but this is serious stuff.

Again, another thing I found about being a cabinet minister as opposed to being a private member in the opposition is, by gosh --

Mr Turnbull: It pays more.

Mr Conway: No, it doesn't, actually. It doesn't pay more. That's what everybody thinks, and I'm quite happy to have people think that. But it's that "Hon" that sits before your name, because that means you're responsible. They will expect -- particularly if you're around, and you may not be. You see, the good thing about this from the fly-by-night artist's point of view is that it takes a while for these 1,000 flowers to bloom. If you're lucky and you've made a mistake, you're gone. Billy Davis is gone. He doesn't have to give an accounting of his stewardship, particularly in its failed aspects. But if you were around in four years or six years, you might very well be charged with the same responsibility.

The energy board has proven to be accurate --

Interjection.

Mr Conway: The hour's late, Frances, and I don't think that's a fair observation on your part so late in the evening. You have many fans over here, and I just don't think you should be so despondent about the future. The joy of politics is that you never know.

Mrs Sullivan: Never give up, Frances.

Mr Conway: And of course, since one never knows, one is always --

Mr Sutherland: You didn't hear right, Sean. She wasn't despondent about the future.

Mr Conway: Well, all right. I'm sorry if I heard incorrectly.

I want to just say a couple of other things, particularly for the benefit of the chairs of treasury and Management Board. Somebody got up here the other day, I guess it was in the throne speech or the budget -- I can't remember which -- and said, "We've got to strike new collective bargaining processes." I think it's a good line.

I've sworn off education discussions for a long time. I read the Ottawa papers. Not since Olga Korbut have I seen such dexterity on the balance beam. That which is supple, that which is supine, that which is eternally flexible is always to be admired. What better evidence do I have than my friend opposite from York South this week. To see Bob Rae this week is to give me some heart, the proud son of Bill Temple and J.S. Woodsworth into casino gambling and open Sundays. Hey, listen, I'm just one of those temporizing, pragmatic Grits. I have so many sins of a pragmatic kind that you wouldn't even want to associate with me. But to see this latter-day saint come down from the mount with the new tablets is to justify my experience in this Parliament.

I read with some interest, I think in the budget or the throne speech, the reference to new collective arrangements. The citation that was offered was the Hydro agreement, 1%. I know something about those Hydro negotiations and they're not always easy; tough job. My friends who left high school at grade 12 and went to work for Ontario Hydro, when one looks at working conditions, pay and pensions, I tell you, they made a better choice than some fool who spent six years in university and went to the Legislature. I admire their wisdom.

At any rate, I was thinking about this not too long ago, because I remember in the Ottawa debate I thought, "These teachers are causing some general anxiety, not because they're not good people, and why shouldn't they ask for 10% or 8% or 4% or whatever?" But I thought: "The federal public servants have accepted, unhappily or otherwise, 0% this year. The Hydro people I'm told have accepted 1%. That's a pretty low threshold."

I said this actually to some of my local utilities not too long ago and they said, "Oh, Conway, you bought that line?" I said: "What do you mean? You don't mean that Bob Rae misled me?" I thought 1% was 1%. Particularly if you're going to hold out the Bob Rae-Marc Eliesen collective bargaining success at Hydro for 1% and put it in the throne speech or the budget -- I think it was in the budget -- you've got to know that that is unassailable. It is what it is. I was disappointed.

Some place in this mass of paper I have a little piece of paper that a local utility person gave to me and said, "Well, Conway, if you believe that, you are the mayor of Sucker Bridge." I said, "What's wrong with it?" It is, he tells me, much more than meets the eye.

I heard the leader of the third party in his throne speech response. He did go on. He had what I didn't have: He had Hydroscope. I get it, but I didn't read it. I don't read it all the time. He had the CUPE version of the 1%. I'm not going to bore honourable members with what CUPE said in Hydroscope as to what the deal was, but according to Mr Harris's reading of Hydroscope in the throne debate of April 9, 1992, oh, Mr Speaker, there is much more than 1% and there's much more than meets the eye. Disingenuous, you say? Dissembling, you say? I don't know that parliamentary language would allow it, but there is much more than meets the eye.

I just say to my friends in the House tonight, if you believe the Hydro settlement is 1%, you are wrong, because there is a whole series of reclassifications. Hundreds if not thousands of good people, largely in the trades, many of them my friends and some of them my constituents, are going to do very well, apparently.

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Let me just read from the background information covering the new Hydro agreement: "As an outcome of the recent negotiations between Ontario Hydro and CUPE 1000, a family of regional maintainer classifications has been created." I repeat, "a family," a new family of quite a few brothers and sisters has been created called the regional maintainer classification family. As a result, the power line maintainer classification will be expanded to include an additional two years of training and a wage increase of 8%.

My friends will say: "Oh yes, but you know, this is progress through the ranks. These are training allowances." Well, I'm going to tell you, when you trot out in a budget that you've held the line at 1% and by sleight of hand you then start into a whole series of reclassifications to effectively give all those wonderful men and women at Hydro well above 1% for the next two or three years, you may have done the right thing and you have perhaps done a good thing, but you have done something much more than you admitted to in your budget and you have created additional cost pressures on the corporation at the very time when its rate base is shrinking; and if you have your way it will shrink much more significantly.

Equally, you have replaced very real pressures on the Sarnia, Hamilton, Woodstock, Etobicoke and Pembroke utilities and all the others, because of course they are not going to be insulated from that kind of ratcheting-up of your cost structure. So I just simply make the point that, like so many other things in this policy, there is more than meets the eye and that sometimes there is less than meets the eye, as we will find out fairly soon.

I also want to tell you about my own experience on fuel-switching. I have an example in my own county in the town of Deep River. I have an example of, I think, some of the first fuel-switching we're going to see in the province. This is an irony, actually, because Deep River is the home of the atomic research community. The substantial bulk of the population of 5,000 in the town of Deep River works at the Chalk River nuclear laboratories. I can tell you they are not very amused by the energy policy of this government, because more than any other place in this province the energy policy of this government threatens the viability and the future of that town.

But you have been generous. You selected the town of Deep River as one of the first places where you're going to apply some of the Hydro revenues for fuel-switching. Generous people, you're going to give them the opportunity to switch to natural gas before you throw perhaps hundreds of those people out of work.

I was very interested, because there are a lot of people around my constituency, including the local member, trying to figure out, "I wonder how they're going to do this?" The paper, the North Renfrew Times, a very fine paper, reported as recently as August 1991 that the way you were going to do this under the new policy -- you needed Bill 118 to be passed -- was that you were going to respond to what the Ontario Energy Board said.

Essentially, the energy board said, interestingly, as it applies to gas regulations, the regulation of gas utilities -- I know my friend Pat from the Hansard table would want me to remind everyone that under OEB mandated policy gas companies cannot ask current ratepayers to pay for a capital expansion of the gasworks out of their rates.

That was the problem in Deep River. Deep River is right along the line of the TransCanada pipeline, which is being doubled at the present moment. For obvious reasons there was an interest in that community in tapping into that gas pipeline. A couple of years ago, the Ontario Energy Board said it would only allow that to occur if moneys were found to bridge the gap under the formula that I just mentioned, namely, that the expansion by Consumers' Gas into the town of Deep River could only occur if there was no requirement by the existing Consumers' Gas system to pay for the capital expansion. When the analysis was done, there was a gap of several hundreds of thousands of dollars. The government of Ontario had gotten out of the direct incentive program, which I think was operated some time ago. So there was a very real problem.

I thought it interesting, and I still do, that the gas utilities cannot by regulation do what Bill 118 is going to allow and the government is going to force Hydro to do because, of course, the energy board has said that would be an unfair burden on the existing rate base of the gas utilities. Can you imagine a more harebrained paradox? If Bill 118 concerned the gas utilities instead of the provincial electrical utility, you could not by regulation, by virtue of decisions made by the provincial regulator, do what you are about to do to Hydro in the area of fuel substitution. I think that's a very interesting irony, which I wanted to just observe.

My friend the acting minister smiles. I hope he smiles because he sees the contradiction in that. The interesting thing about that is that the private entrepreneurs and investors at the gas utility are being protected in a way the citizens and the electrical ratepayers are not being protected. That too is the last thing I would have expected from an NDP government. I repeat, in this Deep River substance switching -- and it's one of the first under the bill, as I understand it -- we can do it now with the passage of Bill 118 because we're going from gas to electric and the electrical ratepayers are going to pay the difference to protect the stockholders in Consumers' Gas. But there is no reciprocity. It doesn't work the other way for you and me as ratepayers to Ontario Hydro. But I move on.

We all expected the basis for the policy in Deep River was going to be what the paper suggested. The North Renfrew Times, in its report of August 21, 1991, under the headline "Natural Gas A Go," says, "Consumers' agreement reached with Hydro will see the utility cover some of the capital cost." The article goes on in a way that certainly I thought was very consistent with the energy board ruling and the policy of bridging that gap and saving the stockholders in Consumers' Gas harmless from any unjustified or unprofitable capital expansion cost. That's what I thought.

The other day, I get a letter from a constituent of mine who has a letter from the chairman of Ontario Hydro.

Mr Stockwell: What did it say, Sean?

Mr Conway: My friend, the upfront, straight-shooting Marc Eliesen --

Interjection: He signed it?

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Mr Conway: The letter, signed by his own hand, makes no reference at all to the OEB ruling and the bridging policy. No, the letter says the following, and I quote the letter, dated April 14, 1992. I want you to listen to this. "Thank you," he says to my constituent, who had written him asking, how is this going to happen and how are you going to pay and what's the basis for all this? Mr Eliesen writes:

"Fuel substitution is an option for reducing consumer demand for electricity that Ontario Hydro has been assessing for some time now. This option is a potential component" -- a potential component -- "of our overall strategy for ensuring that there will be a reliable and economical supply of electricity for our consumers in the future."

Now listen to this. I love this kind of desert, because I can just see the scheming, conniving chairman, knowing the kind of corner into which he has been backed. How is he going to finesse this in light of the bill not being passed and a variety of other things? Well, in a move that would be expected of Harry Houdini, he writes:

"Our involvement, namely, Ontario Hydro's involvement with Consumers' Gas, is that we have tentatively agreed to pay them $180,000 for research information" -- this is all a research project -- "that would benefit Ontario Hydro in the future if we are given a mandate by the provincial government to encourage fuel substitution. We will be getting reports from Consumers' Gas on" -- and this is the stuff of a $200,000 research project in my constituency: town, Deep River, population 5,000.

"Our research project is going to be the number of water and space heating systems converted in Deep River, the resulting electrical demand reduction, technical and safety problems encountered in conversions and general customer interest in and response to natural gas."

What do I say to that? There is a somewhat indelicate quote I believe derives from Irving Layton. Irving Layton once said in response to something equally --

Mr Stockwell: Inane.

Mr Conway: -- inane and equally disingenuous that -- and I quote the sainted Irving Layton -- it was so much nauseous crapperoo. I tell you, there is no better phrase for this. I mean, it is nauseous crapperoo. I know why Hydro is doing what it's doing --

Mr O'Connor: Mr Speaker, listen to that language.

Mr Conway: I accept the advice of my friend the member for Durham-York, but that is an absolutely transparent insult to the intelligence of anybody who knows anything about this bill, this policy, the past rulings of the energy board on these kinds of switches or the expansion of the gas system. There is a good answer. Why doesn't my friend the self-effacing, always accommodating chairman have the guts to tell the truth? He seems to have a problem.

Again, I know you will think I have a prejudice here, and I'm afraid I do, because my every encounter with this character leaves me with a very hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. I mean, can you imagine: 200,000 bucks to find out what a good summer student from any of the engineering schools could do in that town for probably 15,000 bucks, tops.

You see, openness and accountability. My constituent sent it to me because he was flabbergasted. He is a very knowledgeable, experienced individual, who knows infinitely more about this whole business than I will ever know. He got this and he was stupefied. And you know what? He ought to have been.

I just point out that this is, as far as I know, one of the first in the new day of fuel switching. Let me repeat, I am pleased that Deep River is going to have access to natural gas. I understand the problem they had that the OEB made claim over the course of the last couple of years, but I ask only this of my friend the acting minister, from whom I expect a much more positive consideration than I will get from the chairman of Ontario Hydro: If you want the policy to work, I think it would be wise to make every effort to ensure that this kind of nauseous crapperoo ceases.

Now, just a couple of final observations. I was met the other night by representatives of the Independent Power Producers' Society of Ontario and did they have a story. They had a really interesting story. We all were told. You don't have to believe me. You just have to read the new gospel, you just have to read the new demand-supply update. It says, in January 1992, there is going to be a substantial expansion of the non-utility generation, NUG. Aren't we going to get a lot of additional generating capacity out of NUG?

The non-utility generation is essentially private power in the main. I think that's one of the interesting elements of the Trojan horse. If I were at CUPE Local 1000 and I was listening to this -- "no more megaprojects" and "I'm going to be really interested in lots more non-utility generation" -- I would say to my friends in the NDP, "Those are my jobs you're talking about."

Let there be no mistake about it: In the short and intermediate terms, the new generation is coming outside the traditional mandate of Hydro. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, but that is going to cost jobs at Hydro. If it doesn't, it should, simply by virtue of the fact that you're going to be reducing your operation necessarily.

I was very interested to read the new plan called for thousands of megawatts of non-utility generation. Last fall the government began the crank-up and then, within weeks, that which was turned on was turned off.The independent power producers were in the other night and they were apoplectic. They said: "We want you to know that the commitments of the government and Hydro around non-utility generation are bunk. They are demonstrably not true, and if they tell you they are true, they are not telling the truth. If we don't get some latitude, we are going to deteriorate and diminish substantially as an option." That's not Conway talking; that is the association of independent power producers.

Now, I don't want to embarrass anyone opposite. My friend the parliamentary assistant is closer to this than I am, but if you really want a show on the non-utility generation, you want to go to Windsor. The debate in Windsor over the last six months, for someone who would be quite rightly looking at this policy and saying, "I think it's a better way, it's a new direction, and clearly it's the stuff of opportunity, and we have a very considerable new possibility here" -- Windsor, of course, had the Nordic-TransAlta proposition.

The minister and the parliamentary assistant know I've been to Windsor. I don't raise the subject any more; it's too tender. I don't know where the litigation is -- it may not have even started -- but I bet you my pal Marc is scrambling, I bet you my pal Marc is twisting and turning as only he could twist and only he could turn.

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I'm going to read one of the several reports, an editorial out of the Windsor Star of March 6, 1992. Let me just read some of it. I repeat, as late as last week, the independent power producers, the engine that's going to give you a lot of your non-utility generation, were in to tell me and some of my colleagues that the whole commitment by the government and particularly by Hydro to non-utility generation is a sham. The Windsor Star editorial of two months ago said the following:

"If you're a ratepayer who thinks something just doesn't add up at Hydro, you're not alone. Consider this: Just a few weeks ago, Ontario Hydro embarked on a 25-year conservation program that's become so successful it has now a surplus of energy. Apparently, having just discovered this unexpected windfall, the crown corporation found itself scrambling two months ago to pull the plug on some of the 13 non-utility generating projects it had been so keenly promoting. The reason? Promoting energy at a lower cost through the private sector would, Hydro decided, cost ratepayers more money."

Hon Allan Pilkey (Solicitor General and Minister of Correctional Services): Right on, Sean. Right on.

Mr Conway: Your policy, not mine. I would have thought that least among the interveners this week would be my friend the minister of a common pause day, a very estimable fellow, but I think a week that he would want to now conclude in quiet introspection. I tell you, looking at the government's energy policy in Windsor city over the last six months is not a place to go for quiet reflection, because the policy looks like a joke. It's not me talking, it's the Windsor Star.

Interjection.

Mr Conway: Now we've got the intervention from Huron. Don't do this to me. I'm trying to wind up.

Hon Mr Pilkey: You are wound up.

Mr Conway: You see, I want the ability to say, another day, that we once had a discussion. So my friends, who want political involvement and public input, are getting it from one member of the Legislature who has happened over the years to have taken something of a passing interest in Hydro. I have made my miscalculations and I have made my mistakes; I will make no bones about that.

Back to the Windsor Star, though. "Apparently, having just discovered this unexpected windfall" of private power potential in that city, Ontario Hydro found itself scrambling, just two months after cranking all of this up, to shut it all down, because they found out in places like Windsor that people like Nordic-TransAlta could deliver the power at substantially lower costs. They say, of course, the problem now is a surplus. Your policy is working, and the reason that one part of the policy has to be shut down is that another part of the policy is working so well.

"Yet somehow this cursed surplus, not to mention the usual laws of supply and demand" -- says the Windsor Star editorial of March 6, 1992 -- "couldn't stop Hydro rates from jumping more than 11% this year. In fact, they're expected to jump another 11% in 1993." That's actually now wrong, because Marc Eliesen's found $250 million in the sinking fund, so the 11% is now 8.6%, pending the OEB review.

"These facts alone would make most Hydro ratepayers do a slow burn. But it gets better," says the Windsor Star. "Now Ontario Hydro has decided to spend $100 million to send glossy questionnaires to 2.4 million homes in Ontario asking about energy conservation. Called the Power Saver program, the program will take" and on it goes. I want to make the point here that you've apparently got a serious difficulty on the non-utility part of this program. I think it is a good program. It is going to privatize power in ways that will have an impact on the public utility; we should not be under any misapprehension about that. If the demand-supply plan updated in January of 1992 is to be believed, non-utility generation is going to play a very significant part of your achieving the goals for the year 2000.

I want to say something about my friend the deputy minister. The deputy minister is Mr George Davies. I went through the file recently looking for some speeches. I was looking to see who's been saying what about the energy policy in the government. I didn't find too many by the acting minister, and quite frankly I wasn't surprised; he's a busy man. That's not to say he hasn't made some. But I found a very interesting speech from the deputy minister.

Again, I hope what I'm building here tonight is a case that there is a gap between promise and performance. There is a gap between rhetoric and reality, whether it's the chairman's salary and what it is and who's going to pay it, whether it's what's going on in Deep River, whether it's how the demand-supply update got dealt with by the new board, or a variety of other of these issues.

But I have a very interesting little piece of information that ought to give comfort to everybody under the gallery and all the ratepayers. I want to read a little bit of the deputy's speech. The deputy made a speech, and the deputy is a very purposeful fellow.

Mrs Fawcett: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I really think my colleague from Renfrew North, who is a most knowledgeable person and is doing such a fine job, deserves the attention of his colleagues. I really think they need to listen.

The Acting Speaker: I want to thank the honourable member. The evening is getting late, but you're absolutely right, even if it's not a point of order. Could we possibly have a little more order in the chamber while the member for Renfrew North continues with his debate. The honourable member for Renfrew North.

Mr Conway: I understand the frustration of honourable members. I say to my friend from Rexdale, it wasn't my plan to make this speech tonight. I can appreciate the frustration. But I come back to the government's agenda. The government's agenda is all about accountability. You see, accountability is time-consuming, accountability involves some of us delving into some of these details. Forgive me for taking the government up on its own suggestion.

I really do want to move along and wind this up, but I want to tell you that the Deputy Minister of Energy, Mr George Davies, made quite an interesting speech on Friday, April 10, 1992, to the Association of Major Power Consumers in Ontario in Toronto at the Marriott Hotel. He made the speech 10 days after Hydro filed its 1993 electricity rate submission. I want my friend the minister -- I'm going pick a few items here, from my favourites.

On April 10, Mr George Davies, the Deputy Minister of Energy, said in a public speech the following -- and boy, he's really singing the government line. George does very well here and I applaud him for the vigour of his commitment to the new policy.

Mrs Sullivan: George always was clever.

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Mr Conway: George always was clever. George understands keenly this new policy. He said the following in his speech of April 10. He's talking about the demand-supply update and how demand management and energy conservation is really working. He says we're not just dealing with pie in the sky; we're dealing with reality. We're dealing, not just with projections -- let me quote directly from his speech:

"Demand management is already working. In 1991, Ontario Hydro reported savings of 319 megawatts from demand management, which was 16% above their target for the year." Who am I to question that? That was the deputy minister speaking about the success in year one, 1991, of demand management; 319 megawatts from demand management, 16% above target. That's interesting.

Then I happened to pick up the Hydro submission tabled at the energy board 10 days before the deputy made his speech bragging about how well it was all working. Guess what Hydro said 10 days before? Let me read this carefully. In its submission to the Ontario Energy Board of April 1, 1993, Hydro said and reported the following:

"In 1991, Ontario Hydro's demand management programs achieved 250 megawatts of saved or shifted load, an increase of 23% over 1990 results. However, these program results were slightly lower than planned, despite the strong efforts in all aspects of program development and delivery to overcome the effects of economic downturn which continues in the marketplace."

My point is this: What have we got here? And this is not some triviality, this is not some marginalia. We have Hydro itself saying, on April 1, "Our 1991 demand management savings were 250 megawatts." They say that in 1991 the results were 250 megawatts -- below targets. Ten days later we have the deputy --

Mr Klopp: Ten days earlier.

Mr Conway: Oh no, no, no. If it has been the other way around, I'd say you had a point. But it's not the other way around. Hydro said on April 1, "We didn't make our target, we were at only 250 megawatts," and 10 days later the deputy minister is telling one of the most important audiences in the province that the savings were 319 megawatts or 16% above targets.

Let me say to my friend George the deputy that I am sure this was a slip of the tongue, a slip of the pen. I wouldn't want to think that being around the chairman of Ontario Hydro he's catching some of the disease. But where I come from in Renfrew this is seen as, at the very least, a contradiction. Some people might call it something else.

And it's about something important because, you see, demand management is going to be a very important part of this program. I am here to tell my friends in the government that the early returns, whether on demand management or on some of the particular energy conservation initiatives they have undertaken -- the Home Saver program in Espanola, if that's what it's called, the lightbulb program, to name but two -- are giving substance to the articulated worries of the energy board and others.

I'm going to conclude my remarks tonight by saying that I know it's not easy and I know this is an extremely complex, complicated business. I think, for example, your plan for the Manitoba purchase is -- not your plan, it was our plan -- but on the basis of what I now hear I would not be banking very much on that 1,000 megawatts. I wouldn't bank very much on it at all. I see the reliance; you're still counting on the Manitoba purchase. You're still talking about very substantial non-utility generation. People who are actively involved in the business are saying, "They're kidding," at the very least.

I don't take much comfort in the early days of this new initiative. I hope it works. I don't want to be committing vast new dollars to projects that are not going to be necessary. But I ask this question of my friend the acting minister. It is absolutely clear that the policy of this government with respect to meeting intermediate demand, for base load purposes particularly, is going to be gas-fired electric, and that seems to be the plan of most utilities around North America. For a whole host of reasons, no one is building megaprojects. Hydro-Québec is having the problems we all know about Baie James. I was in New England not too many weeks ago and it was interesting seeing some of the developments there, but megaprojects or even mini-megaprojects are not the order of the day, and not just in Ontario, and the recession is giving us some breathing space.

I'm sure my friend the Minister of the Environment is pleased to see that in the short and intermediate term there is a very considerable reliance on the coal-fired plants, something like 4,300 megawatts in the intermediate term are being counted upon from the coal-fired plants. I think there would be some in the environmental community who would be a bit perplexed by that, but we're not going to have any nuclear, and I understand that. We're not going to build any new major hydro-electric for a variety of reasons.

The policy is demand management, all kinds of creative energy conservation, some kind of non-utility generation that appears mysterious even to those people who are going to deliver it for you, a very considerable crank-up and extension of life for the coal-fired plants -- that must bring joy to the souls of good, environmentally conscious New Democrats -- and most especially, any new demand, particularly for base load purposes, is going to be met by gas-fired electrical generating plants. That's not often stated, but it's there and it's not hard to find.

I just ask you this. If, in three to five or seven years, we find ourselves, along with Illinois and New York and Michigan and a variety of other people, faced with the reality that no one has been doing much during the recession, other than the things I've mentioned, and all of a sudden there is a sudden spurt of demand and we all go rushing to the western natural gas producers, what do you suppose is going to happen to price? I can only guess, but I think that price is going to respond to that kind of demand.

I also ask my friends opposite, what do you think you're going to do in the short term? Because even gas-fired electric turbines, or whatever that technology is, apparently need a lead time of about five years. Apparently the people who produce that highly sophisticated technology have lineups even in quiet times.

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I don't know whether Hydro has any plan for that, because you might just succeed with the Ontario Labour Relations Act and other things and get the kind of spurt that Bob Mackenzie anticipates by virtue of that extraordinarily positive stimulus that is the Ontario Labour Relations Amendment Act. What are you going to do? I suspect you're going to be caught quickly between the vise grips of Alberta gas suppliers and West German technologists, who will have what you desperately need, but not at prices or with time lines that you can easily afford.

Again, I might be being too much of a Cassandra, but people who are much more knowledgeable than I am have raised a flag of concern in that connection. But let there be no confusion as to what the ingredients of the energy policy of the NDP government are for the next few years: substantial reliance on coal, a very dependence on gas-fired electrical plants. That is a very obvious reality from anything that has been produced over the course of these hearings.

I simply make the point that as you go forward now, as you go forward in the coming months to spend $6 billion --

Mr Klopp: And save about $9 billion.

Mr Conway: My friend the member for Huron says savings. I'm going to make one last digression. It's like the OLRA. I was saying to my colleagues in the antechamber earlier today, debating the OLRA with the New Democrats -- good people; a very distinguished, honourable, political tradition in this province and country -- is none the less like debating papal infallibility with the college of cardinals in Rome. It is just a non-starter and there's just no point.

Bob Mackenzie and I will agree on the time of day and the reality that rain is sometimes wet, but beyond that it's like Copernicus and Galileo. It's actually like Ptolemy and Galileo. It's like the Flat Earth Society and Galileo.

Hon Ruth A. Grier (Minister of the Environment and Minister Responsible for the Greater Toronto Area): And you're on the flat earth.

Mr Conway: And I'm on the flat earth, my friend says: the minister of dumps. I thought today for a moment I smelled a political hide or two burning. I've got to tell you, in Marmora and in Whitevale, have some of my NDP friends put their virtue, in all its fullness, on the line. And I've got to tell you, there are wise persons around Durham who will probably remember.

At any rate, the government and the NDP on savings: I want to digress, and my friends from Wellington will remember this from the debate. One of the things about the cost accounting of the New Democrats that fascinated me were the savings. I forget how many billions of dollars were saved by cancelling the Rio Algom and Denison contracts. Just so you know, and I don't expect you to care, those contracts, which I railed against -- that's another good example: Where are the architects of those contracts? They're long gone. But those contracts had written into them points of cancellation. So what did the government do? And I don't blame them for doing it. The government and Hydro cancelled the contracts at that point in the contract when they could by the terms of the contract so cancel.

So what do they want? They want us to give them credit for notional savings that would have accrued if -- if, if, if -- they had extended the contracts 10 years. That's like saying if I choose at my apartment in Toronto not to renew my lease this next month, when it is up and cancellable, and go elsewhere that I have saved in real dollars moneys that I never intended or had to pay.

This saving is a pure fairy tale. I understand what you did and why you cancelled them, but they go around beating their breasts saying: "We have really cut costs, Mr Speaker and Mr Hydro Ratepayer. We cancelled a contract that we could by law cancel, in 1991 or 1992, and by not extending the contract" -- which probably should never have been entered into in the first place, under those terms and conditions -- "we've saved ourselves a pile of money." Who the hell ever heard such logic? That is the kind of arithmetic calculation and accounting that reduces my friends in the government to a laughingstock.

I only ask this. There are lots of substantive issues we can debate around this energy policy, but will you cease and desist; and will those good people under the gallery and others in Gerry Moog's silver palace across the way stop writing that kind of nonsense? Because there are some people who see it for what it is. Now of course, my friend the chairman is going around saying: "Well, we're going to save $9 billion in borrowing costs because we're not going to be building a lot of these expensive megaprojects." That's what he goes around the province saying.

But that of course is not what Hydro's saying to the energy board this week: Their profits are dropping precipitously because their borrowing costs are going up. I understand the difference between short-term borrowing and avoided borrowing over the longer term. But I say to my friends, particularly to the minister of industry, and he will know -- he's a very good fellow -- from dealing very regularly with business and industry all across the province. He's so effective, he's so good. A friend of mine was at the Ottawa Board of Trade the other day and said, "Heard a good speech, so good we didn't even have to ask a question." I thought I should take lessons. I should, because there's no other way to read an NDP cabinet minister making a speech that left the audience both speechless and questionless.

But I say to my friend the minister of business and industry that there are very real concerns in the community about the impacts of this policy and that if a wrong call has been made on some of the substantial elements of the demand-supply update, it's not just residents who are going to be affected, but in fact it's going to be a lot of people in big business and in small business. My friends at Ivaco Steel, who employ 550 people in L'Orignal, said to me, "We are not just worried about the price, but we're also worried about security of supply."

When I look at the submissions to the energy board this year, and see that the demand management is below expectation and that we're just in the early years, that the big savings are anticipated down in 1994, 1995 and 1996, that we are being saved for the moment on much of the demand by a gut-wrenching and job-busting recession, we'd better hope that when the recovery comes -- and hopefully it will come soon -- we are going to have a policy that is going to have real answers for real people, who want fairness and equity in energy policy, who want cost-effective energy and who demand energy conservation and who demand management strategies and who want to know that if they are going to expand their job opportunities in this province, they are going to have the electricity at both price and availability as we can best provide it in a competitive international situation.

I have spoken at length, Mr Speaker. I appreciate the indulgence which honourable members have shown. This is for me a critical issue. This is an issue that is at the centre of the province's economic and social wellbeing. If this government is wrong in some of these calculations and some of these expectations, we are going to pay dearly for these mistakes. I hope and pray they are not, but I take my seat observing that early returns on a number of the key questions give me more discomfort than they give me cause for hope and comfort.

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The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?

Mr Tilson: We have been listening for approximately three hours.

Mr Conway: Was I that long?

Mr Tilson: Well, I guess time flies when you're having fun. We have listened for three hours to the excellent words of the member for Renfrew North, and I think he has made some excellent points that I think we should all look at. This bill essentially is the end of Ontario Hydro as we know it; it really is. It's turning Ontario Hydro into an agency of the government.

The public, of course, is concerned. They appreciate that, but their real fear is what's going to happen in the year 2006 or 2009. Well, I'll tell you what's going to happen, because the predictions are coming from the staff at Ontario Hydro who have researched this to a certain degree. We're going to have what you call blackouts or brownouts. We're not going to have any power. This House could be in blackness.

Interjections.

Hon Mrs Grier: There'd be some merit.

Mr Tilson: It may help us to agree, I agree, but it's a genuine fear. I think one of the main points of the member for Renfrew North was that essentially there have been no studies done to justify what they're doing -- none. I think that's the greatest concern.

He has talked about rates. Rates are going up in double-digit increases. Aside from the legality of Mr Eliesen, we don't even know how he is there. We don't even know what his job description is. It's nowhere in the act. There are a lot of very strange things in the act, which the member for Renfrew North has talked about.

The public is concerned about the rates it's going to have to pay. They're concerned about how they're going to lose power. They simply won't have the power to operate our businesses and the power to operate our houses. That is the main crunch that the people of Ontario are concerned with: all to do away with nuclear stations.

You haven't thought it out as to what you're going to do and as to the repercussions and the irreparable harm that will be caused by the passing of this bill.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments?

Mr Klopp: I can only say that a lot of the comments made were made, in real terms, based on what has been at Ontario Hydro in the past. Indeed we all know that with Hydro you start today and you build for the future, and what we're living in are exactly the problems that we've had. Bill 118 is needed to create a situation where the government is in control of Ontario Hydro, where it isn't just an agency of a few at the top, and where we can come and debate here.

I look at Goderich, which wants to do something in non-utility generation, and can't now because of bad mismanagement by this company 10 years ago. I remember in my riding we were told 10 years ago we needed a hydro line through because there was going to be a shortage in London, and by the time we got through the hearings they were wrong.

He kept talking about information that is not credible. Well, it is true it's not credible. This organization has gone on with a planning department which has said: "Spend, spend, spend. Don't worry about it."

I still remember going to those hearings, and now we have the line, thanks to Mr Peterson. We defeated that line going through some of the most prime agricultural land in Ontario. We went through the system. At the first OMB hearing, farmers beat Ontario Hydro. I still remember that the day before the hearing came out the lawyers phoned the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and said, "Get your farmers together tomorrow so that we can tell them how good the line will be." I still remember my honourable federation president -- who reminded the person, "My name is Geraldine, not Gerald, thank you very much" -- saying, "How do you know what the OMB hearing is going to be tomorrow?" and the person on the other side said, "We know what it's going to be because we set the system."

If Mr Bill Davis did one thing right, at least he had the intestinal fortitude to agree with that hearing. Unfortunately there was an election and the people made a choice and got rid of him. A few of us said, "Well, at least Mr Peterson, now that the Honourable Jack Riddell is there, will keep this hydro line out." But no, that did not happen. Bill 118 is exactly the start, the beginning, to fix the problems.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments?

Mrs Sullivan: I was quite taken with the remarks of the member for Renfrew North because I believe, unlike the member for Huron, that he was speaking to the issues relating to Ontario Hydro's performance today and for tomorrow. Clearly this government believes it has taken full responsibility and accountability for the actions of Ontario Hydro, and I found it quite amazing to hear a New Democratic parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy standing before this House as the chief apologist for Ontario Hydro.

The member for Renfrew North has pointed out the sceptical response of the Ontario Energy Board to the Ontario Hydro conservation projects. The minister, I believe, and the ministry itself, should be similarly sceptical. The lightbulb giveaways, the showerheads, the numbers of independent so-called conservation schemes that will over the next four years add up to a $2-billion cost, are clearly not based on a cost-effectiveness analysis and on delivery of appropriate energy conservation programs. The energy board has said it has no confidence at all in Ontario Hydro energy saving initiatives, that the benefits must outweigh the costs and that there should be a full costing of the energy saving initiatives Ontario Hydro is putting forward.

If we are going to be looking at a full energy-electricity program in the future of Ontario, we have to be assured that the conservation programs are cost-effective and indeed that above and beyond that, there is full security of reliable supply of electricity. That is important to every one of us in every part of the province. The member for Renfrew North has underlined those issues in full force.

The Acting Speaker: We can accommodate one final participant.

Mr Stockwell: I certainly enjoyed and learned from the comments made by the member for Renfrew North. It certainly is interesting to hear comments that at the same time as being informative are very entertaining. I might also add that it's much of the same policies and approvals this government makes with respect to Ontario Hydro that cause me grave concerns as the ones they make with respect to budgeting or financing or deficits.

The true measure of how wrongheaded the measures are won't be seen for years to come, many years in some cases, probably long after this government is no longer in power and long after many of the people across the floor and some on this side are no longer here. You'll have very grave concerns with respect to providing reasonable and effective electricity. It seems to be a common thread that runs through much of the debate in this place. It comes from budgeting and many billions of dollars of deficits. It comes through the suggestion that they now have control of this very important utility. What is very clear in my mind is that I think they overestimate their own success. They've clearly underestimated the magnitude of the job. They're going to, in a measurable sense in the not-too-distant future, begin to realize that what they've done is make a grave mistake.

It's very clear in my mind that this will happen, as it happened on publicly run auto insurance, as it happened on Sunday shopping, as it happened on the minimum corporate tax, as it happened on the litany of promises they made during the campaign. The only difficulty is that more than likely they will not be around to clean up the mess. That's what is most disturbing for me, along with the financial mismanagement and the gross mismanagement of this bill.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Renfrew North has two minutes in response.

Mr Conway: I want to thank my colleagues for their observations. I rise in this debate, among other reasons and most especially, because the people I represent in Renfrew county living in communities like Palmer Rapids and Foresters Falls and Douglas and Wilno are deeply concerned about their hydro bills. It's the most significant tax bill those people get. They're going through the roof. They have no hope of some of the alternatives readily available in Toronto or in Kingston or in Pembroke or in Goderich. They are horrified to think their bills are going to be jacked up by 10% and 12%, in part to pay for a fuel switching for their city cousins to lower-cost alternatives that they will never have. The senior citizens in Douglas, Ontario, or in Foresters Falls see that as the most profoundly unfair and inequitable public policy they could ever imagine.

I say to my friend the member for Huron that I appreciated his intervention and I understand from it very clearly what it is he's opposed to, but the discipline and the responsibility of power obligate him and his colleagues to commit themselves to a constructive policy of sensible and achievable energy alternatives.

I entirely accept their reorientation away from the supply side of the past to a much more demand management and energy conservation ethic for the future, but I say to him that I spent a good bit of tonight focusing on the early returns, and the early returns on the conservation initiatives, on the demand management targets and your failure to meet them caused grave concern to thoughtful analysts, most especially people at the energy board, who predicted last year that ratepayers and citizens generally ought to be on guard for what may become a policy of political expediency and not one of energy security and self-sufficiency into the future.

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The Acting Speaker: Thank you. Further debate on the third reading of Bill 118.

Mr Ted Arnott (Wellington): I'm pleased to rise at this late hour this evening to debate Bill 118. It's a pleasure to follow the member for Renfrew North, although with his having spoken for three hours, my presentation might make a few points that are overlapping with his, and I expect they will. But I still want to rise and give my contribution with respect to how this bill will affect my constituents in the riding of Wellington, and provide some of my observations of my experience travelling with the standing committee on resources development, of which I was a part during the January break.

I suppose I should start by explaining the bill as I see it, Bill 118, An Act to amend the Power Corporation Act, which was given first reading in this Legislature June 5, 1991, by one minister, second reading October 21, 1991, by a second Minister of Energy and now tonight third reading by a third acting Minister of Energy, June 4, 1992.

This bill is intended to do as follows: make the Deputy Minister of Energy a non-voting member of the board of directors of Ontario Hydro; increase the membership of the board of directors of Ontario Hydro from 17 members to 22 members; and the now chairman of the board becomes the chief executive officer of the corporation when in the past the chief executive officer was the president of Ontario Hydro.

All this becomes effective retroactive to the date of first reading, June 1991. Later on the bill indicates changes in the way the Minister of Energy will be authorized to issue policy directives to Ontario Hydro when in the past policy statements were issued by the minister. Later on we see that the bill will change Hydro so energy conservation measures can be paid through Hydro rates. Municipal corporations and commissions may treat the cost of an energy conservation program as a current operating expense or as a capital expenditure, at their discretion.

So we have Bill 118 and we've listened to what the government has put forward in terms of its arguments over the past number of weeks, months, now a year since this bill was first introduced. Basically, their arguments can be summarized in six or seven points.

The government has indicated repeatedly that there is a need to control demand for electricity, power, not controlling and regulating the supply, as has been the case in the past. We've seen a government that is more interested in demand management initiatives, and it is going forward with this bill in the effort to put forward fuel-switching initiatives to save megawatts of energy.

I think the next point they continue to make repeatedly is that they see the need and they wish to put Ontario Hydro under some measure of control, because they feel it's been out of control over the years. They see a necessity for additional accountability to them as the government. They want to issue policy directives which, as I said earlier, are different from policy statements. Directives, in the words of the bill, indicate that these are orders that must be carried out, I believe the wording in the bill is "immediately and efficiently by the board of directors."

The government indicates that there is a need to open the doors at Hydro to provide more openness. "No more closed doors," I believe the member for Kitchener said in his presentation to us in Thunder Bay.

The government talks about the need for enhanced energy efficiency. That's one area where I don't think anybody argues with them. The need for energy efficiency is very clear. I think we all support that. We all support the most effective and sensible use of all the energy resources we have.

The fifth argument they continue to make is the need for expanding the board. They're going from 17 members of the board to 22 and they're saying that more groups need to be represented. In the past, essentially, they say it's been an old boys' club and there haven't been certain minorities represented on the board, so they've got to expand the board and put more people from various groups that they select on the board.

Sixth, they talk about the environmental benefits that Bill 118 will apparently create. They hope there will be less sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions into our atmosphere from the burning of coal and they hope to convert much of their generating capacity over to natural gas. They see environmental benefits of that.

Last, they talk about the economic benefits of this bill. They indicate that their $6-billion expenditure over 10 years on demand management initiatives will create jobs, and they point to the lightbulb deal that was signed by the government with Canadian General Electric of Mississauga, I believe, just recently.

Those are essentially the points they make and the points they put forward in defence of this bill. But you look at this bill and you look at the arguments that are made and put forward on its behalf by the government, and you find that on the surface these points seem very appealing. Of course, the New Democrats are very good at promoting their ideas and their agenda. They're very good salesmen and saleswomen of their ideas. The argument appears very appealing. But we all know that if $6 billion is going to be spent, someone is going to be paying for it. We all know it's going to be the ratepayers, the consumers of hydro, who are going to be paying this $6-billion expenditure over 10 years.

That guarantees higher hydro rates in the short term and, I believe, higher hydro rates in the medium term, and I can't project any longer than that. Because of Bill 118 you can guarantee that we're talking about higher hydro rates for everybody.

I think one of the underlying motives of the government with respect to putting forward this bill is its historic concern about Hydro. They don't trust Hydro; they never have. They've used the words: "It's a monster. It's a huge monolith that's out of control." They constantly use that sort of rhetoric. I think what they're trying to do with Hydro with this bill and the directive power that it gives the Minister of Energy is to bring Hydro to its knees. I think they want to see Hydro smaller, they want to see it in a more difficult condition financially. I'm not sure what their plan is, but I think in their long-term game plan they hope to see Hydro broken up. I think that's very apparent with respect to what they're doing with this bill.

The most difficult thing to know about this bill is it creates very uncertain prospects for supply in the future. We know that Bill 118, as a part of government policy, will in fact create a great deal of uncertainty, that we don't know that the hydro supply we've grown accustomed to over the years is going to be there in the next 10 years.

Bill 118 is only part of their total energy policy. They started off with their throne speech in November 1990 by announcing a nuclear energy moratorium. They said, "We're not going to build any new nuclear generating facilities." Of course we weren't particularly surprised about that statement because we know the NDP has historically opposed nuclear energy. We might ask why. I've asked that question of many of the NDP members informally and they laugh at me. They say: "Have you never heard of Chernobyl? Have you never heard of Three Mile Island?" Yes, I have, but I know a little about Ontario Hydro.

I know a little about the Candu reactor system and I know a little about the safety record of the Candu system. There's no comparison. There's a design difference with the Candu system which is inherently superior to the Three Mile Island design, to any design in North America. The design of the East Bloc nuclear generating facilities is something else again, and of course we know there's an abysmal safety record there. But of course the NDP doesn't want to really go into the details of the Candu system. They equate them all together and they feel that one's as bad as the other.

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I submit that the NDP doesn't fully understand nuclear energy. They fear it because they don't understand it. That's essentially where they're coming from. Perhaps the word "nuclear" scares them a little bit. Nuclear energy is sort of like nuclear weapons. I sometimes wonder if they know the difference between a B-52 bomber and a Candu reactor. It's all sort of the same thing -- nuclear energy and nuclear systems. It scares them, frankly. I don't think they have a rational position upon which to base their opposition. I have yet to hear it. I hope, if there's a response to my speech, that I will.

We have the nuclear moratorium. We see that one of the cheapest and most environmentally sensitive methods of generating electricity, which is through uranium, is going to be shelved. We see that the government wants to convert to demand management from supply management to try to reduce the consumption of electricity.

Fourth, with the NDP energy policy, we see a tendency and a desire to politicize highly technical energy issues. In the past it has been felt that, politicians not being experts in energy issues and none of us having a degree in nuclear physics that I'm aware of, it's best to leave it to the experts. It's too important to be screwed up, frankly, by politicians who are generalists, who don't understand exactly how the thing works. With Bill 118, we see directive power coming from the Minister of Energy, and frankly that worries me very much.

A number of members of the NDP have brought up the issue of the cost of Darlington. They claim nuclear energy is very expensive and they cite the cost of Darlington. When Darlington was announced in 1981 it was estimated it would cost $6.1 billion to build. Over time the total cost of Darlington, when it finally goes into production -- which the NDP, I believe, is going to allow; it has indicated that it will -- and starts producing electricity in 1993, is going to be $13.5 billion.

So we see a significant increase from the projected cost to the actual cost when it's finally built. We wonder why that happened. Why were the costs increased as they were over the period of years? If we look at these numbers we find that political interference and a number of changes in the construction plan, as ordered by politicians, are a significant part of the cost. About 70% of the cost increase from the original projection versus the ultimate cost is associated with schedule delays and financial policy changes. The balance is associated with scope changes, mainly due to more stringent regulatory requirements. So we have a safer Darlington. Naturally that small component of it is making the project more expensive, but we have a safer project as a result. It's interesting to see that figure come forward which the NDP prefers to ignore.

There's a concept called peak demand. Peak demand is the day of the year when the most hydro is required by the province of Ontario. If you're running the hydro system, you've got to have enough generating capacity to meet peak demand on that very day; otherwise people have brownouts or blackouts. Peak demand in Ontario is approximately 23,000 megawatts. We hit our peak demand in January, generally. In January 1991 we hit our peak demand for that year.

The basis upon which the government talks about its fuel-switching initiatives, the underlying premise of the fuel-switching idea, is that more people will switch to natural gas furnaces and their electricity furnaces will be scrapped, I guess, so that your electricity demand will be down. There's a problem with that in that summer peak demand is rapidly approaching winter peak demand. It's because of the extensive use in our society of air-conditioning. Summer peak demand is approximately 21,000 megawatts. We generally reach that in July. So we're coming very close to the winter peak demand. There have been many projections put forward that eventually the total peak for the whole year will be in the summertime, as I say, because of the extensive use of air-conditioning systems.

That calls into question the whole underlying premise behind fuel switching, because fuel switching, in my understanding, will not lead to natural gas air-conditioning systems in the near term. It won't. So if we have a peak demand that we can't meet in the summertime, I'm not sure what we'd do except perhaps throw up our hands and say, "There are blackouts and it was all the Tories' fault and the Liberals' fault, because they left us with such a mess." I assume that's what they'll say if that indeed happens under their watch.

There are quite a number of issues this bill brings forward. When I was travelling with the committee in the wintertime I felt it was a real privilege to be a member of that committee serving with the member for Lanark-Renfrew, who spent over 30 years of his life working at Hydro, who has a knowledge of Ontario Hydro that's absolutely unsurpassed by anyone in this Legislature and who has a sincere desire to serve his constituents -- the knowledge he brought forward was so invaluable to the committee -- and with the member for Renfrew North, who is the dean of the Liberal Party now, I guess. He's been here for 17 years now. With his extensive knowledge of Ontario Hydro issues it was a very interesting committee and I learned a great deal.

Many presentations were brought forward as we travelled around the province. We had excellent presentations from groups that were concerned about the economic impacts of Hydro, including the Association of Major Power Consumers in Ontario. This group represents a great many companies that are great users of electricity, mainly manufacturing concerns. The Association of Major Power Consumers in Ontario consumes about 16% of Ontario Hydro's primary energy sales, at a cost of more than $200 million. So they are a big consumer of electricity.

I think it's quite obvious you would expect that any big consumer of electricity has a serious interest in trying to make sure its hydro bill is as low as possible so as to maintain a competitive edge on its competitors. It's not surprising that is the case.

We had a number of different presentations from individual companies that testified they had gone to great lengths to try to keep their energy bill as low as possible, again to ensure they've got a reasonable chance at profitability so they can keep their operations going.

We had people from Quebec and Ontario Paper Co. They have a mill in Thorold employing approximately 1,000 people, consuming 80 megawatts of power at a cost of $31 million a year. Their electric bill represents 20% of their total manufacturing cost. So if you've got one cost within your total manufacturing cost that is 20%, you definitely have an interest in trying to be as efficient as possible and keep your consumption as low as possible.

Of course the whole assumption of this bill is that these companies can save more power than they're already saving, which frankly I highly doubt. At least the companies that came forward to us indicated a great interest in keeping their hydro bill as low as possible and were able to demonstrate in many ways the various things they had done over a number of years to try to keep their hydro bill manageable. So we had a great number of these presentations from various industries.

We received one from Dow Chemical. I know the minister's parliamentary assistant might be quite interested in that. I know of the interest he has in that company, it being one of the large employers in his riding. In Dow Chemical he has a huge consumer of electricity to run its operations. In 1991, power consumption at the Sarnia division averaged approximately 140 megawatts, of which 10% was purchased from Ontario Hydro. They make a lot of their own power through a very efficient cogeneration process, so they have done a great deal on their own.

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But they are very concerned about Bill 118. The bill will deviate further from the power-at-cost principle. They have concerns about that. They see this government using Ontario Hydro and the borrowing capacity of Hydro for its social objectives. They made reference to that and they talked about fuel switching. I thought it was an excellent presentation. I hope the member for Sarnia will in fact bring forward the views of his constituents later on in this process.

Two of the most interesting presentations that we received were from the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 1000. This is the union that represents the workers who are employed by Ontario Hydro. They have grave concerns about Bill 118. Again, these people understand Hydro. They work with it every single day. Among labour people, who is more knowledgeable about Hydro than CUPE 1000?

They expressed very serious concern to the committee. There was concern that they weren't consulted by this labour government. I'll briefly read what it says here: "For the record, it makes no difference if other parties are equally ignored. Different behaviour was expected from this government and in this instance it was not forthcoming."

If you look through the presentation that was made by CUPE 1000, it is very similar to the concerns made by other groups, concern about the expansion of the board of directors, concern about government control and government not really knowing what it's doing with Hydro and perhaps making errors that will be compounded in the coming years and be very damaging.

They concluded by stating the following:

"The proposed amendments to the Power Corporation Act indicate that the government wants to use Ontario Hydro to carry out its agenda for energy in Ontario. However, actions such as the lack of consultation with major stakeholders, the reluctance to give CUPE 1000 direct representation on Hydro's board, and the commitment to privatize both energy source and electrical generation raises serious concerns about the appropriateness of that agenda for CUPE 1000 members and the ratepayers of Ontario."

It's a very interesting presentation. The union that is involved with Hydro is very seriously concerned about this bill.

We had many presentations from local public utilities commissions as well as the Municipal Electric Association, which is the umbrella group that represents all the municipal utilities, excellent presentations, all of which I would say were ignored by the government. They didn't listen; they weren't interested in listening. They were physically there. I think that from their perspective they were doing something wonderful. They were enduring this great litany of negative comment about what they were doing. But they didn't listen, and that made us wonder if the whole process wasn't a farce. I don't know what else to conclude after spending four weeks of public hearings listening to groups that made very legitimate presentations and actually nothing apparently coming forward.

Of course there were certain groups that came forward in support of the government's position on the bill. We've heard from the member for Renfrew North his characterization of some of them, but it was interesting that many of them had essentially the exact information that the last group you had heard from the last town had. It was as if they were circulating around information that was trying to assist the groups that wanted to come forward. A $50,000 figure was consistently applied to the expansion of the network of Hydro so that you could add one additional house to the hydro network; $50,000 was the cost, we were told, to add one house to the grid.

Of course, when my colleague the member for Lanark-Renfrew questioned that number, we found it was erroneous. It was completely false, it was completely exaggerated. It was roughly 10 times what the actual cost was. Frankly, I think there was a lot of rather erroneous information flowing around that was being presented as fact. It appeared to be not the most productive use of our time, I felt.

The main concerns of the Municipal Electric Association are quite simple. They're concerned as well about the lack of consultation. They are a very important stakeholder in Hydro. In fact, municipal public utilities are significant shareholders in Hydro. They were not consulted about Bill 118 until June 5, the day the bill was first presented. That indicates, I think, a government that isn't interested in their perspective and isn't prepared to consult them.

They are very concerned about the government's intention to issue binding policy directives which would give the corporation really very little say over its own affairs in answering directly to the government. They were concerned about the further degradation of the principle of power at cost, which has always been an important leg of Hydro. In the past, I suppose the government will tell you, there has been substantial movement away from power at cost, but I think the principle is still very important, and every time we further deviate from power at cost it becomes irrelevant. You can call it what you want, but after this bill is passed, if indeed it is this evening, the power-at-cost principle will definitely be relegated to the history books.

The Municipal Electric Association was concerned about the demonstrated propensity of this government to use Ontario Hydro for its social policy goals, as was evidenced by its package to bail out Elliot Lake as well as Kapuskasing. But $65 million of the money that's going into Elliot Lake of the $250 million total going into the northern Ontario heritage fund is coming directly from Ontario Hydro, and the ratepayers of Ontario Hydro around the province will be paying for that.

I've never heard of anyone over the course of our hearings who was opposed to some sort of assistance for Elliot Lake, because we recognize that there is a serious local problem there. But very many people question the effectiveness and question the reality, I guess, of having money coming out of Hydro ratepayers when in fact power at cost had been the order of the day in the past.

We've heard a number of different things about fuel substitution in this debate as it has unfolded. Fuel substitution concerns energy conservation, and nobody here, I don't think, is opposed to fuel substitution. Nobody's opposed to energy conservation. Where we differ and where we're opposed to this government is on who is paying for fuel substitution.

I think the view of our party, as enunciated by our critic the member for Lanark-Renfrew, is that the market should be the one that dictates fuel substitution and the need for fuel substitution. In fact, the Minister of Energy in his statement to us in Thunder Bay indicated I think that the price of natural gas was one third the cost of electricity. My question immediately was, "If that's the case, if that's true, why is that not enough to encourage people to switch?" Well, of course, it is enough and, as we've heard, many people are switching if they have the option. If they're building a new house or moving into a new house, natural gas is the fuel of choice because it seemed to be cheaper, it seemed to be very clean, it seemed to be efficient. So I would question very much if we need this sort of direct government intervention to try to force fuel substitution when it's already happening as a result of the dynamics of the free market.

If you do have fuel substitution that is provided by the government and $6 billion worth of incentives to encourage fuel substitution, you know that the $6 billion is going to be added on to the hydro rates of every single ratepayer in this province and they're going to be paying for it. There are people, frankly, who don't want to convert to anything other than electricity. They've come to like it, they feel safe with it, and if you've got electric baseboard heating in your home you have a system that requires very little maintenance. It's more expensive to keep up over the ongoing period, but you probably don't have duct work in your ceilings, in your walls or in your floor. In order to convert to natural gas, you've got to rip out your walls, ceilings and floors. So you wonder how many people are going to want to take advantage, even if the government does give away generous incentives, because it's going to cause severe disruption in their own homes, and that's something which is a basic commonsense fact that the government's not addressed and doesn't seem interested in listening to.

There are many, many other issues that I would like to get into, but the lateness of the hour will keep me brief. The issue of hydro rates -- we've seen a projection that there will be a 44% increase in hydro rates. Last year we had something like an 11% increase in hydro rates and this year they're projecting 8%. They have not yet, to my knowledge, denied the suggestion that there won't be a 44% increase over the three- to four-year period.

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We're living in a time of very low inflation. For this government to say there's going to be an 11% increase in hydro rates and then 8% next year, in a period when inflation right now is running 2%, is a phenomenal increase in real terms. We know that some of the component cost of the increase is coming from the government's various social uses of hydro dollars. We also know the fuel-switching $6-billion incentive program is going to be reflected in hydro costs. We know that is where it's coming from, at least a significant proportion of it.

In my riding I have a great many seniors who are on fixed incomes and they see the prospect of higher hydro rates as very frightening. They see all their costs going up and their incomes being fixed. Inflation being what it is, as I said, if they have a bit of money put in the bank, their interest income is down significantly. When they see the prospect of a 44% increase in rates as a result of the energy policy of this government, they're very concerned and very frightened. I sympathize with them.

Farmers in my riding have good reason to be concerned. They see these 44% increases over a period of years. Speaking to farmers in my riding -- for example, a farmer in Arthur township, who has a good-sized dairy herd, consumes a lot of electricity because he has a big barn and he has to heat it and he has to light it and he has to use his milking machine. His hydro bill is about $1,000 per month. He sees the prospect of a 44% increase in that single cost of running his farm as being something that's going to be very difficult for him to pay over time. He sees that as one other initiative that is going to make it very difficult for him to continue farming.

Industry: In my riding we have concern that we don't have enough industrial jobs in our area. We're trying to attract more, but the prospect of higher and higher hydro costs is making it more difficult for us to attract industry to our riding.

When we were travelling on the committee, we went into a community very close to my own. My riding surrounds the city of Guelph. We went into Guelph and we heard presentations from a great many people from my home riding. When I was on the subcommittee of the standing committee on resources development I urged the committee to go to Guelph because I wanted, frankly, presentations from people from the community of Rockwood.

The hamlet of Rockwood in my riding is very close to the city of Guelph -- under five miles, actually. It is a sizeable community of approximately 2,000 people but has no natural gas service. There have been a lot of individuals in the riding -- the township council is supportive of it now -- who have for a long time wanted to have access to natural gas service.

I have had meetings with Union Gas representatives. They tell me they can't provide gas service to Rockwood because of the cost of running the line. As the member for Renfrew North alluded to, they are prohibited by Ministry of Energy regulations from penalizing their existing customers in order to extend the line. Of course, this is precisely what this bill does to consumers of electricity: penalizes existing customers in favour of other customers. So we see a really strange dichotomy there that the government hasn't addressed.

The demand-supply plan issue is very relevant, I think. We saw a 25-year demand-supply plan presented in 1989 that outlined the energy needs for the province for the next 25 years. It was presented to the Ontario Energy Board and great discussion ensued. But, of course, while our committee was in the north -- I'm not sure what community we were in -- we were flabbergasted, frankly, to find the update to the demand-supply plan dropped in our laps.

Of course the numbers were totally different. The objectives for demand management were, I think, double what they initially were. The original demand-supply plan had taken five years to produce, and this one was put together, after Mr Eliesen was appointed chairman, in I think five months. It was totally different, a projection for demand that was considerably less. Frankly, we were flabbergasted because it presumed that Bill 118 was going to pass, because inherent in the new updated demand-supply plan were significant demand management initiatives that Hydro at that time was not authorized to undertake. So we knew at that point that our committee work was totally a waste of time, that the government intended to go ahead with the bill in its own way, as we will probably see this evening or Monday when we go forward with the vote.

When you look at the jobs that may be lost as a result of Bill 118 and higher hydro rates, I think you've got to reflect on it, especially at this time in our economic cycle. Anyone who may happen to be watching our proceedings this evening will find it quite unusual that we're discussing hydro rates tonight, when yesterday we had a major Sunday shopping announcement and the government's new policy on that, and this afternoon the labour law reform issue was announced. It seems rather unusual to be discussing hydro at 11:30 at night.

But higher hydro rates are without a doubt hurting our capacity to compete with neighbouring jurisdictions. It's just another problem we have, and if this government continues to undertake policies which will ensure higher hydro rates in the future, it's going to make it very difficult for Ontario to compete with neighbouring jurisdictions. I think the government had better reflect on that. Hopefully, over the weekend they will reflect on the various comments that have come forward over the course of this debate and rethink Bill 118.

We in our party have consistently called upon the need to establish a committee of this Legislature to study all energy issues. We would like to see Bill 118 referred to that committee for further study, because we think the direction this government is going with respect to the energy issue and the hydro issue in particular leaves us open to the possibility of blackouts in the future and insufficient supply of electricity. That's the sort of thing that's scaring industry, which requires certainty of supply. I personally feel that we may live to rue the day that Bill 118 was presented in this Legislature because of this potential for very serious negative consequences that may result if the policy directive power by the Minister of Energy is misused.

I'll conclude with that point, and thank you for your indulgence at this late hour.

The Acting Speaker: Questions and/or comments?

Mr Huget: I thank the member for Wellington for his comments. My problem with the member and his party is that they seem to want to stay stuck in the past. I think it's important to talk about the past, because in the past there was a tendency to accept rising demand as a given. It was almost something that was ordained by the gods, and the only obligation of planners in those days was to make sure that there was enough supply to meet the demand, whatever that demand was. The member for Wellington's party was a chief architect of that approach.

The supply-at-all-cost approach is largely responsible for this year's 11.8% hydro rate increase and the 8.6% increase proposed for next year. Fully three quarters of those increases will go towards the costs of bringing Darlington on stream and the costs of repairing and upgrading existing nuclear facilities, so demand management makes sense.

We've heard the criticisms that Hydro's demand management targets are unrealistic, that they're pie in the sky, but I can assure this House that there is nothing pie in the sky about it. The program is already producing impressive results. Last year Hydro reported savings of 250 megawatts of demand management, which is enough to meet the electrical needs of a city the size of St Catharines.

Hydro predicts that the Home Saver program will save more than 90 megawatts of peak power and help householders save a total of $350 million. Those savings are still in the future, but Hydro's demand management activities have already produced an important result. Their success has allowed Hydro to defer major new supply projects in its updated demand-supply plan. That will reduce Hydro's borrowing needs by about $9 billion and protect tomorrow's ratepayers from the kind of increases we're seeing today.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments?

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Mr Jim Wilson (Simcoe West): I just wanted to point out what an excellent job my colleague the member for Wellington did. His remarks clearly pointed out, as did the member for Renfrew North's, that the tinkering the government has done with this legislation hasn't fooled anyone. Our local public utilities continue to be adamantly opposed to this legislation, as do the people of Ontario.

The member also raised the question, why should the government go through with such an awful, ill-conceived piece of legislation? The only conclusion we can come to is that the government is hell-bent on taking control of Ontario Hydro and having cabinet essentially run Ontario Hydro. I think it was pointed out by a number of speakers this evening that this is the demise of Ontario Hydro as we know it, and certainly the demise of the principle of power at cost, which has always been a very proud part of not only our tradition but the economic strategy here in Ontario.

The government tells us it's going to bring forward an economic and industrial strategy. We've not seen that. In fact, we've not seen any evidence that the government is seriously considering helping private business in this province create jobs.

To send directives and have the authority to send directives to Ontario Hydro to essentially make it a social arm, a social agency, of this government is very ill conceived and will not be tolerated by the taxpayers of Ontario. They've already seen their hydro rates increase as a result of Ontario Hydro being used as a social agency to bail out communities, and I think the government should be listening to the people of Ontario, who are fed up with this government changing agencies that were doing a very good job in Ontario.

There's no doubt that Ontario Hydro requires tough management. That can be done under the current system. To tinker with the bill and try and pretend that they've made concessions to the public utilities commissions and to the taxpayers I think is misleading the public. I'm pleased that the member for Wellington was able to point out those points this evening. I think he did an excellent job and I support everything he said. I'm pleased he had the opportunity to express those views in a very forceful way.

The Acting Speaker: Further questions and/or comments?

Mr Stockwell: I want to address the savings issue. Much as the Minister of the Environment argues about the reduction in waste going to landfill, the same argument applies to the reductions at Ontario Hydro. Clearly, during a recession demands at landfill sites, as are demands made on Ontario Hydro, are reduced. When plants close, when manufacturing areas close, they're reduced significantly because there are fewer and fewer plants operating. So the argument that simply because there is a reduction therefore means their programs are successful does not necessarily hold water.

So more and more jobs close, and with the new labour legislation it appears they're going to take credit for a further reduction in the amount of energy needed at Ontario Hydro. They're also going to take credit for a great reduction in the 3Rs for the Ministry of the Environment because there are fewer and fewer plants, fewer and fewer jobs and fewer and fewer demands. Eventually, when this recession ends, these will again peak. You can measure apples to apples at that time of how successful the 3Rs were and how successful these programs are that are supposed to reduce the demand.

It's a very poor time to compare the amount of use from, say, two or three years ago, as it's a very poor time to measure the amount of waste going to landfill sites. Because whether or not they understand it or realize it, there's a recession. When a recession hits there's less demand. With less demand you have fewer needs.

The Acting Speaker: Thank you. We can accommodate one further participant.

Mr Tilson: I congratulate the member for Wellington on the number of issues he's raised, particularly on the short term, the whole issue of cost; the issue that the switching initiatives, the subsidy policies being suggested by this government to encourage people to switch from electrical power to other resources, we simply can't afford.

The corporation clearly now is in a $35-million deficit. I have no idea where this government thinks we're going, with the double-digit increases we're having, by suggesting these switching initiatives and that this government is going to take over that type of subsidy program. During the period of economic decline we're into, encouraging customers to look at other forms of energy is one thing, but by suggesting that we're going to subsidize those customers on the massive scale that's being suggested we simply can't afford.

On the long term, there's no question of the genuine fears of the public and of the members who have spoken from our party, the critic of our party as well as the last speaker, the member for Wellington. The fear of blackouts in the future as a result of this bill's policy are a great concern to the people of the province. It's mentioned constantly in the press, it's mentioned constantly in this House, and I hope this government has taken into consideration all of those remarks that have been made because, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to have brownouts or blackouts as a result of your policies. There's no need for it, and all for the fear of nuclear generating stations.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member for Wellington has two minutes in response.

Mr Arnott: I'd like to thank my neighbours the member for Simcoe West, the member for Dufferin-Peel and the member for Etobicoke West, for their responses to my comments.

To the member for Sarnia, who spoke on behalf of the government, he has indicated that he feels our caucus and I would like to turn the clock back. Well, in some ways I would like to turn back the clock in Ontario to the days when we had jobs in Ontario, when industry was flourishing, when communities were strong, when families were strong, those 42 years when the Progressive Conservative Party was in power. I would like to turn back the clock to those days from 1943 to 1985. We weren't perfect. We've never stated that we were perfect, and admit we made many mistakes, but we were infinitely better than this bunch over here today.

His suggestion that demand management initiatives have already been realized is absolute bunk. Ontario Hydro has no authority to undertake demand management initiatives. The only thing that's reducing the demand for hydro today is the recession that this bunch is keeping us in much longer than we need to be, with higher taxes, more regulations, labour law reform and higher hydro rates. It goes on and on. You wonder if they have an interest in keeping us in the recession. I don't know if they do or what, but you almost wonder, with the continual policies of ineptitude and continual policy reversals we see on a weekly basis.

I just hope they take the comments that have come forward on this third reading debate and reconsider what was presented at the standing committee on resources development over the time we studied Bill 118. I hope they'll reconsider their position on Bill 118 and send it to a committee.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate on third reading of Bill 118? Seeing none, does the honourable Minister of Energy have some final words?

Hon Mr Charlton: A couple of very quick comments, first of all to thank my parliamentary assistant for all of his very able work on this legislation in the committee hearings. I also thank the members in opposition who worked on that committee and who spoke here in the House. There were a number of interesting comments both yesterday and today. I could spend hours responding to some of those interesting comments, but I won't.

But I will take one thing that I suggested to members across the way in my opening remarks and repeat that suggestion, specifically to the two members who spoke tonight, the member for Renfrew North and the member for Wellington, that they should take the time to sit down and read the report of the select committee on energy from 1986. For the member for Welllington, he can read in the dissent in that report very clearly this party's position on nuclear and why the Candu system doesn't work, because it's there in black and white in a public document.

For the member for Renfrew North, he referred tonight to the changes that were tabled at the DSPS hearing earlier this year vis-à-vis the document that was tabled in 1989. The member should know that there was a document that preceded both of those. It was called the DSOS, the demand/supply options study, where all of the options were looked at. All of the numbers that were tabled earlier this year are there and referred to in that select committee report in 1986. Nothing has changed; Hydro has just learned what it's capable of.

This bill I commend to the House, and I thank the members for participating in this debate. I move third reading.

The Acting Speaker: Mr Charlton has moved third reading of Bill 118, An Act to amend the Power Corporation Act. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Just a moment. I have received a request from the chief government whip:

"Pursuant to standing order 27(g), I request that the vote on the motion by the Honourable Brian Charlton for third reading of Bill 118, An Act to amend the Power Corporation Act, be deferred until immediately following routine proceedings on Monday, June 8, 1992." This will so occur.

The honourable government House leader.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon David S. Cooke (Government House Leader): Mr Speaker, before I move adjournment of the House pursuant to standing order 53, I'd like to indicate the business of the House for the coming week.

On Monday, June 8, 1992, I will announce the business for Monday, June 8, 1992, and Thursday, June 11.

Tuesday, June 9, will be an opposition name in the name of the Progressive Conservative caucus.

Wednesday, June 10, 1992, is a non-confidence motion put forward by the Liberal caucus.

The House adjourned at 2343.