Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 2 o’clock.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

DEATHS AT GENERAL STEEL WARES PLANT

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, a few days ago I undertook to look into the possibility of making public a report dealing with coolants at the General Steel Wares Fergus plant.

I have examined the report which was compiled for the industrial safety branch of my ministry by the occupational health protection branch of the Ministry of Health. Normally, Mr. Speaker, these reports are confidential because they often contain personal medical reports or the chemical analysis of products which, if released, could cause acute embarrassment to individuals or seriously affect the competitive position of a company; this confidentiality is specifically provided for in the Industrial Safety Act.

Mr. Speaker, the report I will be tabling today includes a chemical analysis of the component parts of the coolants and it comprises the whole of the report on the investigation into the use of these coolants at the General Steel Wares Plant.

There is another point which I should also mention and this fact I cannot overstress. Mr. Speaker, everything that man deals with on a day-to-day basis can be dangerous. Too much water may be dangerous or even oxygen, if taken in excess, can be dangerous.

The coolant to which I am referring today is composed of many ingredients any of which in certain circumstances, if taken in excess, can have a detrimental effect on a person’s health. Some of these ingredients in certain concentrations may, by absorption, inhalation or ingestion, be toxic, but in combination with other chemicals or in diluted forms this may not be the case.

In reviewing all of these combined circumstances our consultants have advised me that there is no health hazard involved in the normal and reasonable use of these coolants.

DAYCARE SERVICES

Hon. M. Birch (Provincial Secretary for Social Development): Mr. Speaker, on June 17 I undertook, at the request of the hon. Leader of the Opposition, to table some of the documents used as background material leading to my recent statement on day care. I wish to table those documents now.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): The hon. provincial secretary needs a wheelbarrow.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I was going to bring a baby carriage.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Is the hon. provincial secretary sure she hasn’t missed anything?

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

DAYCARE SERVICES

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the policy secretary who is just tabling this load of information, if in fact there is any further review she or her advisers, intend to undertake, or whether, since her policy statement seems to have been so badly received by those knowledgeable in the circumstances of the provision of day care, she contemplates any further change in this policy; or is she sticking to her guns in this regard, even though the experts in the field say that the policy is detrimental to the quality of day care?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, to begin with I don’t accept the hon. Leader of the Opposition’s premise that there is great opposition to the daycare policy. There is opposition, of course, and it is coming from one source. But the policy as enunciated still stands.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Would the minister not agree this is of great concern to all of us, since I received, I believe 30 letters in the last three days from specific individuals who are working in the daycare field, as well as formal presentations previously from a number of organizations which have been working with the government representatives and the ministers back over the years for a good long time? How can she say that she simply rejects this criticism when it is coming with such strength and such force and from such a widespread base in the whole community of Ontario?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Brunelle) indicated that he would be naming an advisory committee on day care to his ministry. That will be announced. In the meantime the policy will go ahead.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Mr. Speaker, supplementary: I quickly scanned this material and it suggests to me that you could make two interpretations of its contents, one of which is clearly at variance with the provincial secretary’s. Now I ask her, on the basis of what she tabled, could she allow to sit on her advisory council, representatives from the early childhood education group, from the Ontario Teachers’ Federation committee on day care, and from a number of representative groups, public and private, in the field, who could then appraise the ratios and other contentious items which the minister introduced and perhaps suggest revisions within the next few months that would be acceptable to her?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, that’s exactly what we intend to do.

Mr. Lewis: That’s what she intends to do?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: She means we really don’t have to read this stuff, then?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Not really.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Leader of the Opposition have a supplementary?

Mr. MacDonald: Supplementary to this?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Opposition did direct a question. I thought it was a supplementary. The hon. member for York South.

Mr. MacDonald: My supplementary question is, how does the minister square her final statement with her earlier one that she is going to proceed with the policy? As I understood her statement now, she is going to have an advisory council that will review the policy and presumably revise it in light of its views. But her earlier statement was that she is going to proceed with the policy; it’s a fait accompli.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I’d like to clarify something.

Mr. MacDonald: It is needed.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: We’ve had several calls from people within the province who have been misled. They have been misled by being told that there was an urgency to sign their names to petitions because, as of last Friday, legislation changing the whole daycare policy was going to be enacted. We had to tell them quickly that this was not true. At no time was any legislation required to introduce this new policy. All that was required was a change in the regulations.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): That’s a terrifying thing.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The Minister of Community and Social Services had announced there will be an advisory council named; he will be doing so. But in the meantime it will probably take two or three months before the regulations are finalized, which will be early fall. The policy as enunciated will be implemented at that time.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: What’s the sense of a review then?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The review is to look at the programme. We are convinced that no harm will be done. The standards will not be lowered, but this will open up day care across this province to many people who need it very badly.

Mr. Lewis: Fair enough. May I ask by way of supplementary, if the provincial secretary’s regulations are not in fact to take effect until the fall, and given the literally scores of phone calls, letters, petitions, etc., which many of us have received -- quite surprising on this issue -- can the provincial secretary undertake to have the advisory council appointed and at work on her statement, as it were, with some kind of critique which can then be made public in advance of the regulations being enforced? Can she provide the review, given the two or three or four month hiatus?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I would rather have my colleague, the Minister of Community and Social Services, make a comment in that area.

DEATH OF YOUNG PATIENT AT QUEEN ST. HOSPITAL

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have a question of the same minister, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask her if she read -- and if she did, was she shocked as I was -- the account in the Globe and Mail this morning of the unfortunate circumstances leading to the suicide of a young patient in the psychiatric hospital at Queen St?

If she does feel that way about it, will she undertake to establish an inquiry as to how this young person got involved in, let’s say, the psychiatric services of this province and was shifted from one place to another, with changes in diagnosis and treatment, ending up with the most shocking circumstances at Queen St., where he was cut off even from the friendliness of his family on the basis of treatment which ended in his suicide?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of that situation but I certainly will be most pleased to look into it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I have another related question for her, in the absence of the Minister of Health, because I think it should directly concern him, would she undertake to confer with the Minister of Health on the basis of an inquiry which may lead to something which would serve the young people and others in this province who are making use of this huge and expensive facility which obviously broke down seriously under these circumstances?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will.

Mrs. Campbell: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would the minister, in investigating this situation, look at the situation with the troubled child and the emotionally disturbed child, of which all of this appears to be a part, to ensure that emotionally disturbed children will remain under the Ministry of Health with the kind of care they need and not be shunted to welfare, to group homes, in order to save costs?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I think that question should be directed to the Minister of Health.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, it is supplementary to the question that was put by my leader.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Minister of Health prefer to have the question repeated?

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): I would like to hear the original question, if I might.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I directed a question to the policy secretary concerning the facilities available for the treatment of victims of mental illness, dealing directly with the extremely unfortunate and sad circumstances of the suicide reported in the Globe and Mail this morning, at 999 Queen St.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I understand there is to be an inquest into that particular death; on Aug. 8, isn’t it?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Miller: It’s very difficult for me to make any comments at this time, in terms of the case, until I have had an opportunity to see the results of an inquest. Certainly reading the column, as I did today, and having had some information internally one cannot help sympathizing with the parents.

This does not necessarily indict the system used to try to help the boy. I would like to have opportunity to review the case as impartially as we can before making comments on it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Since the story itself is a very serious indictment and will remain so until further information comes forward, will the minister undertake to have an inquiry with -- if the Legislature is not in session -- a public statement based on that without delay, independent of the inquest? The indictment, if anything, has to do with the whole of the mental health treatment facilities available to people of that age and with that illness.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I think I have indicated in the House a number of times my concern with the treatment of children in mental health facilities and my determination to learn more about this procedure. Believe me, it’s not a question of the minister learning more about it but of society learning more about the treatment methods for children with mental diseases. This is something I had already determined to have done. This case in no way does anything but reinforce my wish to have us learn more about and improve methods of treatment of emotionally disturbed children and adolescents.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Would it not be possible, rather than just learning more, to have an inquiry on the circumstances which shoved this young man from pillar to post in the various facilities with contradicting treatment and with contradicting advice to the parents concerned, leading to the ultimate tragedy reported today?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I get back to my original comments and I think in this specific case there will be a review, I am sure, at the coroner’s inquest of this boy’s case history and the events leading up to his death. That is why I can’t comment on his particular case until I have had that opportunity for the review.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Mrs. Campbell: Could I have the answer to my supplementary now that the minister has heard the original question?

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. member would want to repeat it?

Mrs. Campbell: My question was: Would the minister investigate the situation of the emotionally disturbed child within the context of this case, and the possible treatment, to ensure that emotionally disturbed children will remain within the Ministry of Health and not be transferred into welfare to save costs?

Hon. Mr. Miller: That has an implication, Mr. Speaker, that I don’t think exists. I think the assumption that transfers into other places for treatment are done simply as a cost-saving device is wrong. It is the opinion of many experts that that’s where they need to be for proper treatment. The fact that a group home may, in fact, give better treatment than an institution, regardless of whether it is run by the ministry or run by a charitable group, or run by a “non-profit” group, I don’t think is the issue. The question is, where should the person be and what kind of treatment is he getting at that time?

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary: Has the ministry responded directly to the extraordinary survey that Bob Shaw, I think it was, of the Dellcrest Children’s Centre, produced; showing, if memory serves me, some 15,000 children in the North York school system sufficiently disturbed to require some kind of intervention or response? What can the ministry now do in a situation like that, either in conjunction with the minister’s fellow cabinet colleagues or directly, in order to begin to move in at the earlier stages?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I had the good fortune of meeting with the Dellcrest group about two weeks ago and the statistic that they gave, of some 15,000 children in North York being emotionally disturbed, was not based on any survey of theirs at all. It was based on the statistics that arose from studies of the population at large -- and I believe it was in Canada rather than the US -- showing the percentage of children, -- and for some reason six per cent is the figure that comes to my mind, but it may not be accurate; it seems very low -- who suffered from emotional disorders. They took that statistic -- in fact they had two, and they averaged them and came up with a figure of somewhere around 15,000 children within their community who needed some special handling, whether it was in an educational environment or in a group home, or simply by therapy. They were presenting, I thought, a very good case for the expansion of their programme as the main deliverer of services in that general area.

Mrs. Campbell: Supplementary: Do I take it then, Mr. Speaker, that the minister is viewing kindly their request for $700,000 to expand their centre for emotionally disturbed children?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I always review kindly requests for money.

NURSES’ SALARIES

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the minister how kindly he is going to review the situation involving the 10,000 nurses who have indicated that they intend to go on an illegal strike, July 22, unless there is an agreement made between the nurses and the various hospital boards; hospital boards, of course, coming under the direct budgetary control of this minister?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I am beginning to wonder, Mr. Speaker, why I rushed away from the Medical Officers of Health luncheon.

We are leaving the negotiation in the dispute between the nurses and the hospitals in their respective hands with the assistance of the Ministry of Labour. Our directives to hospitals in the past month following the Toronto settlement have been relatively clear in terms of the approach they are to take to meet demands for costs, whether they are labour or otherwise. I know that discussions have been going on. I believe mediation may have broken off, but I really think this question now needs to be directed more to the Minister of Labour than to me for any up-to-date decision on this.

I have to remain optimistic in this particular case, on the basis of the willingness of the nurses to abide by the law and, secondly, with a July 22 deadline ahead of us, there is the fact that there will the time for these proceedings to go on and a settlement to be reached that is acceptable.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary of this minister: Can he assure us that his budgetary control policy, through the ceilings, will not interfere with the free collective bargaining that the nurses very properly are requiring?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I categorically can say that it will not interfere, nor will I.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, why is the minister so categorical about his own non-interference? Let me put it in context. Given the ceilings, given the absence of the right to strike and the particular constraints in the health sector, doesn’t he see the immense value of having within his ministry, or developing within his ministry, a kind of mediation or conciliation service for hospital workers, nurses or others in the health field, given the absence of involvement which the Ministry of Labour normally has in such matters and the special expertise which his own ministry has?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, if we assumed that the Ministry of Health was the bargaining body with the various suppliers of health services, I would say yes. But at this point in time, and hopefully in the future, we will not be. As long as the boards of the hospitals are functioning in this capacity, it is properly left to the Ministry of Labour to supply the mediation facilities required to resolve disputes.

Mr. MacDonald: A bit of legal fiction.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Grey--Bruce is next.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey--Bruce): As I mentioned before, the cleaning staff at hospitals receive more money than the nurses do. Now the minister has said he has tossed the ball to the hospitals by taking off the ceilings, as it were. I would like to ask the minister this: In the area of education we elect school boards to solve our education needs. Why aren’t we allowed to solve our hospital needs at local level, because it is just as important as education to be able to solve our health problems?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I think I have an answer to that, Mr. Speaker. If in fact, the capital funds were raised by local debenture that might be a little different, but they are not. As the member knows, a great deal of the money is raised and supplied by the Province of Ontario.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Yet the government is insisting on calling the tune.

Hon. Mr. Miller: This is one of the reasons we have had to say that we have the right to determine what capital expansion shall take place. I think the member knows that --

Mr. Sargent: It isn’t working then.

Hon. Mr. Miller: It isn’t always working -- no. But I think it is working the great bulk of the time. As a matter of fact, I think your own area has resolved its problems, albeit with some stress.

Mr. Sargent: The fact is that the minister is talking in generalities. We want to know why we can’t solve our hospital problems at local level. The minister says that it is a matter of his giving money from here. Well, he is not giving the money from here.

Hon. Mr. Miller: That is true. We aren’t always, but we give a great deal and have to give on the basis of priority throughout the province. The member’s group came in, and it is interesting that they turned down the offer of money we made for expansion of the facilities at Owen Sound, and suggested that we cut it down to one-fifth of the amount we were willing to give them at Owen Sound. I have looked at that and very shortly they are going to have the answer. I suspect it will be affirmative.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Mrs. Campbell: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: All right. I will take one more supplementary.

Mrs. Campbell: I wonder if the minister could explain his statement in the House now in view of the letter of June 14 from his ministry. That letter indicated that no one could make a settlement granting increases, either in amount, or to a rate at Dec. 31, 1975, in excess of the recent CUPE settlement. If he doesn’t have control and if he is telling us now that the ceiling is not going to control it, how does he explain that June 14 letter, particularly in light of the fact that some hospitals have signed agreements which indicate an increase over the CUPE settlement?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Well, that last statement is true; it happens to be an indication of the state of affairs that the hon. member doesn’t accept, that hospital boards have been making certain decisions and felt free to do so. There were settlements in excess of those guidelines, signed prior to June 14, 1973, through the collective bargaining process. But the key thing is that they did not expire Dec. 31, 1975; they carried on for a period of time past that. That is the reason why some of those settlements, apparently by one month, missed the guidelines that were proposed. They were done, I must say, completely without my knowledge and without any need to go to me.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

GRAND RIVER FLOOD INQUIRY

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Premier why it was decided that Dr. Andrew Booth, president of Lakehead University, should not continue as the head of the commission inquiring into the flooding on the Grand River and why he was replaced by Judge Leach, particularly since the judge comes from an area through which the river flows.

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) would have the detailed answer to this. I think it was done on the basis of the consideration that this had moved to more of a judicial inquiry under the Public Inquiries Act and that it would be appropriate to have somebody with judicial experience as the commissioner. I think it really was as simple as that. As I understand it, and I can only give second-hand information, this was discussed with Prof. Booth and it was felt that this was probably an appropriate route to take.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Does the Premier mean there is nothing prohibiting a lay person, so to speak, rather than a judge, heading a royal commission, and the government thought it would be better to have a judge rather than a hydrological expert who was also the president of a university?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think this was determined after discussions with the head of Lakehead University after the initial hearing and after the objections were raised as to the legal position of those people who were presenting evidence to him. I think it is fair to state that Dr. Booth concurred in this decision.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Can the Premier advise if Dr. Booth or other staff persons will be available to assist the judge who might not otherwise have specific knowledge of the mechanical and hydrological matters that are involved?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, once again, I can’t speak with first-hand knowledge. I can’t report really what the discussions were with Dr. Booth, but I do know that there was thought given that he or somebody of comparable ability would be available to the inquiry as far as expert or technical evidence is concerned.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Leader of the Opposition have further questions?

Before I call the hon. member for Scarborough West, perhaps I might be permitted to interrupt the question period for just a moment to inform the House that we have a distinguished visitor with us today in the Speaker’s gallery. The hon. Vernon Wilcox, who is the Attorney General of the State of Victoria in Australia is with us in the Speaker’s gallery, with Dr. Allan Leal who is chairman of the Ontario Law Reform Commission.

The hon. member for Scarborough West.

PREMIERS’ CONFERENCE

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Premier: Since we may be adjourning shortly and not reconvening until a little later, could the Premier tell the House now what he intends for the Premiers’ conference, which I believe he is hosting in this province some time in mid or early September? What are the items which he has proposed for the agenda for discussions? How much of the conference will be public? How much of it will be private? Can he, in advance, give us some idea -- it must surely be fairly well developed -- of what he intends?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, it is Ontario’s opportunity -- I guess that is the right word -- to host the annual Premiers’ conference. The conference is now tentatively scheduled for September rather than August, the thought being that perhaps it would give a greater opportunity to get into some subjects at a little greater depth.

Mr. Ian Macdonald has been visiting the other provinces, talking to the senior officials and meeting some of the Premiers, to go into matters that would relate to the agenda. The total agenda obviously hasn’t been finalized yet, but we are hopeful to perhaps tackle one or two broad areas of discussion that could be important to all of us. As soon as we have additional information, as soon as there is any greater degree of finality with respect to the agenda items and some of the plans, of course, I will be quite prepared to inform the members of the House.

As I say, and I think I am right in this, the meeting is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 10 and 11 rather than the annual sort of Aug. 1 period. This gives us a greater opportunity to finalize the agenda and as soon as we have that, I will make that information available.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, by way of supplementary: Among the many topics which have been suggested, has the Premier really proposed the possibility on the agenda of the provincial role, both practically and constitutionally, in the regulation and control of various prices within a province?

Secondly, has the Premier put oil on the agenda, both in terms of its pricing policy and in terms of the various proposals which are being modelled in the provinces for controlling some of the aspects of most concern to the consumer with increases in oil costs?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think there have been any items per se which have been finalized for the agenda. The traditional pattern has been that the chairman of the annual conference has communicated to his fellow Premiers asking for those items they would like to see on the conference agenda, with the hope that perhaps there would be a number of them on which there would be some degree of consensus as to the advisability of having them on the agenda.

In this particular case, Mr. Macdonald has been exploring with the senior officials and with, as I say, some Premiers, the possibility of having one or two subjects, one of them obviously related to the economy and the question of inflation. The question of, shall we say the matter of price, the question of oil and some other matters which probably will find their way into either a general discussion or a specific one, has not been determined.

Our efforts at this moment have been to try to develop the agenda for the conference with some focus. Quite frankly, we have been suggesting the concept of greater inter-provincial co-operation in terms of economic opportunities in the various parts of Canada as being a concept we think is worthy of exploration. At this stage it really is premature to say what will or will not appear on the agenda.

While Ontario is the host and I have the privilege to be the chairman, the other Premiers, quite properly, have a very great interest in the agenda and the form the conference will take. I really can’t inform the hon. member much more than that at this stage except that we are spending a great deal of time and effort on it because I think these conferences can and should be meaningful, and we are attempting to achieve that in this case.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary: Does the Premier feel that he might be well enough briefed on this occasion, that the Minister of Energy might perhaps be by his side to hold his hand so that he doesn’t emerge with as much misinformation as in the last major Premiers’ conference?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am always one of those who is prepared to accept, and has accepted, the very best advice I can get --

Mr. Lewis: I am offering him the best advice he can get.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Unlike the leader of the New Democratic Party I have that kind of advice available to me and I accept it.

Mr. Lewis: He does?

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): What happened at 24 Sussex Place?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am not one of those people who pretends to have all the knowledge available and totally unto themselves --

Mr. Lewis: Now, now.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- which is really the attitude he has successfully developed. I will confess this to the House -- I don’t pretend to be an expert in all things like the leader of the New Democratic Party.

Mr. Lewis: That is why I am suggesting the support for him.

Mr. MacDonald: Here endeth today’s little sermon.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It was only the beginning of the sermon. I can give a longer one.

Mr. Lewis: I know, but we must revitalize the question period a bit now and again.

Mr. Deans: It would drive us out of here the way it would drive people out of churches.

Mr. Lewis: The Premier is doing brilliantly with Stanfield.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He will do a lot better than the senior member of the leader of the NDP’s family.

Mr. Lewis: He is handling the campaign exquisitely. More power to him, keep at it. He has another 10 days left.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Let the NDP count its seats when it is all over.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: He is certainly achieving his own object in all of this, I must say, with great panache.

Mr. MacDonald: Dief’s on his side.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Whose side?

UNION GAS

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the Minister of Labour, now that we ended, I guess yesterday or the day before, the 20th week of the Union Gas strike and the negotiations have broken down quite decidedly and in a very unhappy way, is it now not time for the Minister of Labour himself to intervene? Surely it has gone on long enough?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, no, I don’t think it is yet time. I am sorry negotiations have broken off; and I will be sitting down either today or first thing in the week with my advisers to decide what we can do next to get these things moving again. I keep telling members and repeating that it takes two to make an agreement and if the two parties can’t or won’t agree, all the minister can do is to urge them; and I expect to be urging them again at the start of the week.

Mr. Roy: The minister expects to do what?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: And I expect to be urging them again.

Mr. Lewis: Labour relations by urge is a new concept.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: It might work.

Mr. Lewis: It is certainly creative but it may not settle anything.

May I ask the hon. minister, by way of supplementary, does the minister recognize that the wages have been agreed to and that all that is left which is not agreed to is a cost of living formula, a sick pay formula and the insistence on the part of the company that it has the right to determine the precise time at which an employee arrives at work, and to retard it and change it unilaterally? Does the minister not think those items give him ground to intervene and to solve it fairly, amicably and quickly, given that they are not the most difficult items in some ways?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to say which items are outstanding between the parties. Again, I do not think it is my function to tell the parties which items they may regard as major or minor items. That is all part of the collective bargaining process.

Mr. Lewis: Come on.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: It is. The member knows that as well as I do.

Mr. Lewis: The process is breaking the minister down.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): He is just copping out and looking for an excuse to leave them alone until winter.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I am not anxious they should be alone until winter. Mr. Speaker, there are strategic times for the minister to enter the scene and there are times when it would be inadvisable for him. It is not my intention, sir, in collective bargaining to unduly pressure either side.

Mr. Deans: When is that?

Mr. Lewis: It is 20 weeks -- that is not undue pressure.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Is the member saying one side is more responsible than the other?

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I certainly am. I am saying Union Gas --

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Is more responsible? Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to endorse that statement.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister for some clarification. In the question as it was put it was indicated that the negotiations had broken off. Are the two sides not meeting any further? Has it broken off completely?

Mr. Lewis: Yes, broken off completely.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: They have not broken off completely. They met for 58 days continuously with people from my mediation group and they have at present adjourned those talks. Our position is to try to get them together again at a time which is ripe and when both parties are ready to talk again. There is no point in keeping them talking continuously if progress is not being made and I think the interval or recess is in the interests of eventually getting these people together.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon, member for Scarborough West have any questions?

Mr. Lewis: No further questions.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Huron-Bruce, Grey--Bruce I should say. How could I forget that?

Mr. Sargent: Before I ask this question I better congratulate you, sir, on your elevation to ministerial status. Very well deserved.

NUCLEAR ENERGY PROGRAMME

Mr. Sargent: I want to ask the Premier, Mr. Speaker, if I may --

An hon. member: The member gets two questions for that.

Mr. Sargent: I get two questions? In light of --

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): Question!

Mr. Sargent: -- Mr. Macaulay, who was the stemwinder and the father of our nuclear power program --

Mr. Roy: The member wouldn’t know a question from an answer.

Mr. Sargent: -- and all our billion dollar commitments here, and in view of the fact he has been retained at an exceedingly high price of about $1,000 a day to --

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): What is the question?

Mr. Sargent: -- represent this department -- it is probably money well spent in view of what is happening I don’t know --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Speaker: I think the hon. member is in order.

Mr. Sargent: In view of the fact that in today’s Globe and Mail he is quoted as saying “Millions of dollars of the cost of power is being charged” back to Hydro by a secret agreement regarding the pooling of heavy water supplies. In view of the fact that we are facing a 15 per cent increase in power costs on Jan. 1 --

Mr. J. M. Turner (Peterborough): Get a soap box.

Mr. Sargent: -- what is he going to do insofar as the man who is doing the investigating and the man who started the programme? What is he going to do about having top authorities in here to have an inquiry to find out how many hundreds of millions of dollars are involved in a bigger deal than the Davis-Moog property probably was --

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Question.

Mr. Sargent: -- to have a royal inquiry to find out what is going on, in view of Mr. Macaulay’s question?

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps that should go on the notice paper.

Mr. Sargent: Having said that, I think the people of Ontario have a right to know what is going on, we’re talking of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I had some difficulty in following all parts of the question. I wonder if the hon. member would do me the service of repeating the question so I can understand it?

Mr. Sargent: No, seriously Mr. Speaker, this isn’t funny. We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. The Premier is letting out billions of dollars in contracts on the proposal system, so what is he going to do about a royal commission inquiry to find out what’s going on? If Macaulay says things are in trouble he should know. What is the Premier going to do about it?

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): What kind of a question is that?

Mr. Roy: Can he understand that question?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I must confess I have some difficulty following the logic of the member for Grey--Bruce but --

Mr. Sargent: Can he read the Globe and Mail and find out then?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I read the Globe and Mail, and as many papers as I can religiously. The member for St. George is quite right.

Mr. Roy: If the Premier can follow Stanfield’s logic he can follow anyone’s. Is that true?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would say this to the hon. member for Ottawa East --

Mr. MacDonald: Question! Answer the question.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: The Premier is going to be following Stanfield.

Mr. Sargent: The Premier is out of order, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would say this, at least Mr. Stanfield attempts to do things with logic, which is more than can be said about the leader of the member’s national party.

Mr. MacDonald: It’s a non-answer to a non-question.

Mr. Lewis: His words were interesting at least.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, to try to get back to the question, such as it was, by the member for Grey-Bruce, personally I would never presume to speak for a former member of this House but I think he would be very flattered if, even in the eyes of the member for Grey--Bruce, which he might feel are somewhat jaundiced, he was the one who initiated the singularly successful nuclear plant at Pickering and the success that Ontario Hydro has had --

Mr. Sargent: By gosh, the price is right.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- a success that has not been matched anywhere in the United States or the United Kingdom. If the member for Grey--Bruce is saying that Bob Macaulay is the one totally responsible for that, he would be tremendously delighted. The fact is, he wasn’t.

Mr. Lewis: That’s true.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The success of the nuclear programme was a combination of the involvement of many organizations, including the AECL, which happens to be a federal agency administered by the member’s friends who were part of the initiators of the successful programme that we now have in this province, it was done also by Ontario Hydro, which made a decision to go the route that we know, a route that has proved to be extremely successful. It was a very courageous decision on their part.

I think the member for Grey--Bruce should share in the accomplishments of Ontario Hydro, because I will tell him he can go into any jurisdiction in Canada, the United States or on the continent and he will find the experts who have analysed it are very impressed with what Ontario Hydro, in co-operation with AECL, has contributed.

Mr. Lewis: That’s probably true.

Hon. Mr. Davis: There’s no question about it.

Mr. Lewis: But we’ll regret this nuclear reactor proliferation yet, my friend.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, all right. The hon. member may wish to get into matters of international affairs, I don’t know. I’m talking about the particular question.

Mr. Lewis: I agree with the question.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can’t add any more to the answer to the hon. member for Grey--Bruce. If he is saying that the nuclear programme here in this province has not been successful, so be it. I think he would stand almost alone in those observations.

I will pass on to Mr. Macaulay the real importance that the member attaches to his contribution. I can only say that he is a very modest man and he would disclaim at least some of the credit.

Mr. Deans: He is a man of modest means.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He would share it, I think, with many others, and very properly so.

Mr. Sargent: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: There has been sufficient time taken on that question. There are just a few minutes left. The hon. member for Sandwich--Riverside.

PROJECTED DEMAND FOR ELECTRICITY

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich--Riverside): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Energy regarding a Rand Corp. study of California’s projected per capita demand for electricity. Is the minister aware that the Rand Corp. study states that the projected demand could actually be reduced very significantly -- in fact about 65 per cent -- instead of being doubled every 10 years or so as the power plant promoters are fond of predicting?

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Burr: Mr. Speaker, supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: I think one supplementary would be in order,

Mr. Burr: Has the minister yet investigated the similar study made by the University of California at Berkeley in 1971, a study to which I drew his attention on May 2, on page 1633 of Hansard?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Why not?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It hasn’t come to my attention as yet.

Mr. Laughren: What’s the use of our speaking about it in the House?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Solicitor General has the answer to a question asked previously.

JOSEPH BURNETT

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Mr. Speaker, on May 13 last the hon. member for Downsview asked me if our investigations have revealed anything about the suggestions of control of the potato business involving Mr. Burnett.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): I didn’t ask the minister that.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Yes, it was a supplementary.

The answer, Mr. Speaker, is that the Ontario Provincial Police investigations indicate that the potato business is not controlled nor is Mr. Burnett directly involved in that business. Mr. Burnett has one indirect connection with the potato industry. One of his companies did make two loans in 1968 and 1969, totalling approximately $525,000, to Cappuccitti Bros., one of the major potato wholesalers in Ontario. These loans were for the purpose of building storage facilities. Otherwise there is no evidence that Mr. Burnett is involved in the day-to-day business of the potato industry.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Ottawa East is next.

OTTAWA NEWSPAPER DISPUTE

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Labour.

In light of the fact that both English newspapers in the city of Ottawa, the Journal and the Citizen, were forced to cancel publications on June 14 and 15 and again yesterday, would he advise the House why the provincial mediator who was sent down there after June 14 was called back and why he was not allowed to remain in Ottawa, because during the period of time he was there the papers continued publication?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, I understand the mediator involved had another appointment in Toronto yesterday, but he is returning to Ottawa tomorrow. I hope that will bring about the republication of the newspapers. He’ll be back tomorrow.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: No, there are only two minutes left. The hon. member for High Park.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: No, I will not allow a supplementary. The hon. member for High Park.

AGE LIMIT ON CLERICAL WORKERS

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): I have a question of the Chairman of Management Board, Mr. Speaker. In reference to the ad his ministry is running at the present time asking for clerical workers for gathering statistics, providing information to the public and various programmes, or working as a teller, and asking them to phone Mrs. Snow, can he please tell us why applicants aged 30 are being told they are too old for those jobs?

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): No, I am not aware of that; but I will certainly investigate it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Huron--Bruce is next.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron--Bruce): Mr. Speaker, I had a question of the Minister of the Environment (Mr. W. Newman) and he slipped out on me.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

TRUCK LOAD COVERS

Mr. Breithaupt: I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications.

Can the minister advise when the regulations will be completed so that gravel trucks using 401 and other major highways will be required to have the load portion covered so as to avoid continuing damage to passenger vehicles and other private cars?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, those regulations are being prepared and I am hopeful they will be dealt with very shortly.

Mr. Speaker: The time for oral questions has now expired.

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, my minister is back.

Mr. Speaker: I think that is reasonable. I’ll permit it.

An hon. member: I hope it’s an important question.

POWER CORRIDOR EXPROPRIATION ORDER

Mr. Gaunt: I have a question of the Minister of the Environment.

What steps has the minister taken with respect to altering the expropriation order served to the property owners in the Douglas Point-Bradley Junction power corridor?

Mr. Roy: It was an important question; he probably doesn’t have the answer.

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, under section 42 of the Expropriations Act, I worked out an arrangement where the people involved will be allowed to sell 500 ft with reservations on the other 400 ft for the future; or they will be allowed just to sell those 500 ft, and Hydro has agreed to it.

Mr. Gaunt: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Shulman: More Liberal questions than NDP this time.

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry, I didn’t hear that statement.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, on March 15 I received a preliminary report from the beverage packaging working group of the solid waste task force sponsored by my ministry. The beverage packaging working group was set up by the task force to look into the packaging and marketing of carbonated soft drinks, fermented beverages and distilled beverages.

Working group members were drawn from the soft drink and container industries, the retail sector and environmental and consumer organizations. They conducted their work over the space of a year, from February, 1973, to February, 1974, and met on 25 occasions for discussion and to develop recommendations.

The report of the beverage packaging working group contains 16 recommendations, dealing principally with carbonated beverage containers, backed up by a very large amount of statistical material.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the work that went into this study and I feel that the recommendations indicate the direction in which the government should move. However, I feel there is a need for more direct action in a number of areas. Therefore, an intensive study is being made of the report and the recommendations to see what further action can be taken on beverage containers.

In considering what further steps can be taken, Mr. Speaker, uppermost in our minds is the dislocation or disruption that might be caused by that action. I feel it would be unwise to make hasty decisions in this area that might jeopardize a large number of jobs or cause a major disruption in an industry that would affect its employees. For this reason, Mr. Speaker, we are looking at the report and the recommendations very closely and I hope to put forward proposals fairly soon that will achieve the results that I believe the public expects.

At this time I would like to publicly thank the members of the beverage packaging working group for their dedication and immense effort in producing this report. I have been informed that this is the first time such a complete study has been done of beverage packaging containers anywhere in Canada.

So that all members may gain a greater understanding of this very complex problem, I am pleased to table the report of the beverage packaging working group at this time.

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to add my personal thanks to the members of that committee who are sitting in your gallery today, for the great job they did on this report.

Hon. Mr. Wells presented the annual report of the Ministry of Education ending March 31, 1974.

Mr. Lewis: Well, it is nice to have one in advance of the estimates.

Hon. T. L. Wells (Minister of Education): Always.

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to table for the information of the House a report received by my ministry on the Onakawana project, prepared by Shawinigan Engineering Co. Ltd.

This report represents an independent review of the facts concerning a highly technical subject which is under active consideration by the government at this time. While further action on this report will be forthcoming, I suggest that the public interest requires that this report be released.

The material tabled here represents parts 1 and 2 of a four-volume report. Parts 3 and 4 represent power plant and mining study appendices, which are available for inspection in the ministry’s library.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves that Mr. Havrot and Mr. Ewen be substituted for Mrs. Scrivener and Mr. Reilly on the select committee on company law.

Mr. Laughren: Just a minute. Who is he substituting for whom?

Mr. Deans: Is he trying to destroy that entire committee? That committee has worked well until now.

Mr. Laughren: The hon. member for Timiskaming? We can’t have him on that committee!

Mr. Speaker: Shall the motion carry?

Mr. Lewis: No, Mr. Speaker. No, no. Before it carries, as in the last instance, we wish to express our quiet and contemplative objection to the appointment of the hon. member for Timiskaming, but we understand that he must, none the less, serve.

Mr. Havrot: Very funny.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: That should be worth a thousand votes.

Mr. Lewis: Not at all. The Minister of Energy is going to need more than that.

An hon. member: He keeps on making statements like that.

Mr. Havrot: The best friend my riding has ever had.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 16th order, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 88, An Act to amend the Planning Act.

PLANNING ACT (CONCLUDED)

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, the amendments to the Planning Act that have been already discussed by the hon. member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell) are now before us after some considerable debate, within the city of Toronto particularly, as a result of the original legislation that had been suggested. I was interested this morning in seeing a small comment in the Globe and Mail which apparently sets out certain problems within that municipality’s own council concerning the matters which we are debating.

It would appear that Mayor Crombie thinks that the proposed amendments in this Bill 88 are as good as can be obtained at this time. On the other hand, other members of the council apparently are greatly concerned with respect to several particular items.

The first one, of course, has already been referred to in that it is the suggestion that this bill should deal with more control over non-residential buildings as well as residential ones. These points have been raised by the member for St. George, and I presume we can debate this more when this bill goes to committee.

The other matter, of course, seems to me to be the points raised concerning the logic that has been suggested, not only by Mr. Sewell, whose motion apparently received the support of the council, but by others who called for a stronger control over all of the demolition situations so that landlords, in fact, would not be able to use this kind of legislation to allow eventual demolition and as a result to downgrade residential areas that now perhaps require some sprucing up.

As the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) said this morning, as I understand it there are some 138 acres of parking lots and demolished areas in the downtown part of the city. If demolition control is therefore not available for commercial buildings as well as for residential buildings, there would appear to be nothing that will avoid the tearing down of non-residential buildings and, in fact, the kind of block-busting referred to earlier.

One point that I would like some clarification on is set out in the second section of the bill. I wonder if this section really conflicts with the recent amendment to the Housing Development Act. As you will recall, Mr. Speaker, Bill 63, section 7 replaced the previous section 16, I understand that the amendment allowed the municipality to bank land when there wasn’t an official plan or an improved housing statement.

As we are all aware, the acquiring and holding of land is being interpreted by municipalities as a long-term kind of land bank. However, it would appear in this bill that the amendment set out in section 2 indicates that the acquisition and holding of land is only going to be permissible as the first words set out: “If there is an official plan in effect.”

One would then presume that the idea of the policy statement, which was referred to in the amendment to the Housing Development Act, does not obtain in this circumstance. I would appreciate the minister looking into that matter and finding out if in fact the matter of the policy statement should be considered.

There have been many comments made so far on the 45-ft height bylaw and the demolition control bylaw and these types of matters which have been brought particularly by the council of the city of Toronto to the Legislature. We can, of course, look into them when the bill goes into second reading, but I would appreciate the comments that the minister might choose to make on this matter of the policy statement that I had referred to.

Finally, of course, it is of great value, as the member for Waterloo North (Mr. Good) had cited, that the problems of Century City have at long last been resolved.

I am interested in the points raised in section 4 of the bill dealing with this matter of land that is being connected on a horizontal plane only. I wasn’t aware that there was much requirement for the division of lands in the province as between their mineral rights and their surface rights. I am wondering if the minister, when he replies, can explain to us what the purpose for this section and this amendment in this bill is. It would have appeared to me that the abutting of other lands on a horizontal plane would be sufficient to have obvious contiguous ownership and, therefore, require certain approvals by the present kinds of planning legislation or severances, if that was required, in order to deal with those lands. It would appear that this matter is not the case and would only apply where the mineral and surface rights are severed. I’m wondering if the minister in his reply might be able to enlighten me as to that situation?

Mr. Speaker: The hon, member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, I think that a number of the sections of the bill can be best dealt with in committee, but I do want to spend a moment on my concern about the minister’s version of demolition control.

The specifics of the section he proposes in this bill now before us are not, at this moment, my major concern. As I stated, we can deal with that in the committee. What bothers me is that the concept as originally set out and proposed by the city of Toronto in its bill, which was turned down on the direction of the government when the private bills committee met to deal with it, has been abandoned entirely.

The purpose, of course, was to integrate demolition into the overall planning process so that demolition could not take place as an isolated aspect of land use in the city of Toronto, but could only take place when there was an opportunity to assess the kind of development which was going to replace it, or the kind of use to which the land was going to be put.

The city of Toronto proposed a very sensible, staged programme for establishing a moratorium period of six months during which time development plans could be instituted. If those plans were instituted, which would result in an amendment to the official plan, then the freeze or the moratorium would continue for an additional two years.

For some reason or other that conception of an ongoing process, the vitality of the planning process, has been lost sight of. The minister is dealing with it in isolated situations of a specific application to demolish a particular building. I cannot see in the statute any indication of how anyone can make any decision as to whether or not the demolition permit should or should not be granted, because it is not related to anything.

I find it extremely difficult for the city council to say, “Will we grant the permit to demolish this particular building? Must we as the city council give ostensible reasons for doing so?” If an appeal is taken to the Ontario Municipal Board, on what kind of basis will the Ontario Municipal Board review the decision of the city council not to grant the demolition permit?

What are the criteria the municipal board would use for the purpose? As the minister knows, because he was in attendance throughout the private bills committee hearings dealing with this bill, the city’s bill provided very clearly the kind of matters which council would take into account before it instituted this moratorium in order to prevent a reassessment of the existing development plans, the existing impact of the official plan and a redevelopment scheme to be pronounced for a particular area.

As I said, it seems to me that this bill says nothing. It simply says that you must apply to get a permit to demolish a building in an area of demolition control. It makes no reference whatever to redevelopment plans for the area, and makes no effort to take into account the kinds of needs which brought about the request by the city for that demolition control.

I recall very clearly when I spoke in the Throne debate about two to three years ago, when the now Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) was the parliamentary assistant dealing with municipal matters, that I raised the question about what was happening at Pape Ave. and Gerrard St. in my riding, when the demolition permit was granted without any relationship whatsoever as to what was going to take place in that area when the Consolidated-Bathurst plant was sold to Bramalea Consolidated and since that time, of course, sold for the purposes of a shopping mall.

That area was a mixture of residential accommodation and of industrial undertakings. A substantial part of the area of the city which I represent in this Legislature and a substantial part of the downtown area is inextricably mixed up with residential accommodation and industrial undertakings of one kind or another.

It seems to me to be totally unreal for the minister in the bill which he has projected before us and proposes that we should pass, to deal only with residential property for the purposes of the demolition.

The destruction that took place of the neighbourhood at Pape and Gerrard was because of the demolition of the Consolidated-Bathurst plant destroying the area around it and creating, as I have often stated, what appeared to be sites that one would have expected to see in London during the blitz in the last war. That’s what destroyed the area.

There was no opportunity for an orderly planning process to take into account that the exception which had been made for the Consolidated-Bathurst plant and other plants along the railway that runs diagonally through the riding of Riverdale -- diagonally through wards 7 and 8 -- that kind of exception allowing these plants to exist would be overtaken by time as the plants moved out to other areas of the city. The minister may not be aware of it, but I suppose that there are a dozen major plants that have moved out of the riding of River- dale in the last 10 years. I would also point out to the minister that there are a number of plants that still remain in that area.

Unless the demolition control is going to take account of a geographic area, regardless of whether or not there are residential properties or non-residential properties, and abandon that unwise distinction between buildings which are residential and buildings which are factories or plants, then the government is permitting a significant disruption to continue to take place in an area such as the riding of Riverdale.

I think it is fair to say that at least one of the foci of this concern about demolition and its relationship to the planning process and the development of a plan for a particular area was the situation which occurred in the riding of Riverdale at Pape and Gerrard. I know there were others and I’m not suggesting for a moment that it was the one example, but it was one of the major examples which led the city of Toronto to want to have the kind of demolition control on a moratorium basis for the purpose of redeveloping plans for an area.

It seemed to me that the point made by my colleague, the member for Ottawa Centre, is very valid, Mr. Speaker, that the minister disagrees with this legislation. He has so watered it down in his bill at the present time that for practical purposes once again we will be faced with a clash between the so-called unlimited right of private ownership of land coming into conflict with the expressed wishes and needs of the city of Toronto in particular, and other municipalities as expressed by their elected representatives.

The minister leaves it wide open for that kind of conflict to continue. And when that kind of conflict exists, you can be certain that appeals usually end up supporting the unrestricted right of the owner of the land to do with the land as he wishes within the framework of the official plan. The minister knows that, and that is why I assumed he is happy about this bill because it doesn’t trench upon his entrenched views of the unlimited right of the owner of land to use his property as he wishes, regardless of the wishes of the elected council.

I just find it passing strange that a man as receptive and as sympathetic as the mayor of the city of Toronto, who knows very well the needs of the city of Toronto -- it was, indeed, part and parcel of his mandate as mayor, which will undoubtedly be renewed again for him -- should in some way or other allow himself to be taken in by this minister. I don’t know what kind of misguided aberration seized the mayor on that particular day that he had the nerve to sit down in secret session with the provincial Treasurer (Mr. White), and presumably with the Minister without Portfolio, (Mr. Irvine) and accept this kind of legislation. The minister knows, as well as I do that the mayor has had serious second thoughts about the wisdom of having indicated that, yes, in general he assented to this legislation.

It’s not over yet, and the game can’t be won to redevelop the downtown core of the city of Toronto, to the extent that it is going to be maintained as a residential area, with the kind of law which the minister is pro- posing this afternoon. The problem won’t disappear, the problem will persist. The places that will get hurt are places such as the riding of Riverdale, because they will be subjected again and again to that kind of demolition which can only take place where you have this mixture of traditional residential-industrial business complexes, side by side, chockablock, inextricably involved with each other.

As I say, I am not going to go on at great length. We will talk about it more when the matter is in committee. We will vote against that particular section of the bill and we will divide the House on it at the appropriate time.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to enter the debate? If not, the hon. minister.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister without Portfolio): Mr. Speaker, before I reply to the hon. members who have debated this bill, I would like to take the opportunity to introduce to the members of the House the gentleman whom I had the pleasure to meet with this morning, who has travelled a long way to visit Ontario to determine how the government of Ontario has developed in regard to municipal affairs, new towns, and planning. I would like to introduce, in the Speakers’s gallery, the Hon. Allan Hunt, Minister for Local Government and Planning, for the State of Victoria, Australia. A very warm welcome to you, sir.

Mr. Speaker, we have before us today a very important and very innovative Act, one which is the first of its kind in regard to demolition control, in all of North America. It also encompasses many other important features, but most of the remarks have been toward section 6, in regard to demolition control. I would like to say at the outset that if there is any doubt in anyone’s mind about whether I believe in this bill, I believe in every bill I bring forth before this House, and I think it is in rather poor taste for any member to suggest that I don’t believe in it.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): But the minister said he didn’t believe in it a year ago. It is just a rapid conversion, that is all.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I do believe in this bill, and I also believe in the fact that we must retain the right of every human being in Ontario. We also must make sure that municipalities have the right to legislate as they wish to, in the best interests of their people.

We have brought forth in this demolition control something which does not infringe upon the rights of a human being, but does allow the municipality, if it wishes, to control demolition and building throughout the city.

I will speak directly to the points raised by the hon. member for St. George, but before doing so, I wish to say that I do have some amendments which will be brought forth in the committee of the whole House, which will clarify in section 6 what a dwelling unit is, residential property. It would also clarify that we mean $20,000 for each dwelling unit, as a penalty, and we also mean $20,000 for each residential unit when it is demolished without permission. We also mean, in section 6 -- where we have said “notwithstanding” we are changing it to “subject to” -- that all of the clauses related to health and safety do carry on at all times, regardless of whether there is a stay in regards to the appeal to the OMB. Health and safety will be enforced at all times. Maintenance and occupancy control can only be enforced when there is a bylaw and the municipality must in the first instance have a bylaw for maintenance and occupancy control before they can enforce demolition control. I believe that is quite clearly stated in the bill.

We were even asked why they may not include all properties. I believe there are several members who have mentioned this. Mr. Speaker, I wish to say that in our opinion at this time residential control is the most important, and in my opinion it is necessary to move forward one step at a time. I wish to review the workings of this particular legislation to see whether or not it is something which would pertain to the control of industrial or commercial property. But I also wish to say that I believe that municipalities can control industrial and commercial developments by way of zoning bylaws, by way of their official plans.

I think, without any doubt, this matter will be one of the most important features which we will determine during our overall review of the Planning Act.

Remarks have been made, and quite rightly so, that this review has been delayed. It is not to our liking, as was said by the Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. We have tried to get an appropriate official, appropriate chairman of this review, and have not been able to do so up to this time. But we will make every effort to make sure that the review is started in the very near future. This will be a long review; I expect it will take many months to complete. I have no quarrel with the statement that we have a review; we will do so.

The member for St. George brought up the matter of the issuing of building permits. Building permits must be issued when they are outside a demolition control area or when they are in a demolition control area, if it is in conformity with the zoning. And this has to be, if it is in a demolition control area, then also tied in with a demolition permit. If it is outside, of course, the building permit carries on. We must protect the right of the human being to be able to have a building permit if it is in conformity.

We are trying to broaden the powers of the municipality. As I said here the other day, we are giving more authority to municipalities day by day and month by month; and section 8(1)(b) of the Act only removes the minister’s authority. That’s all it does. It only removes the minister’s authority for approval of delegation. In doing so we have included the definition of Metropolitan Toronto, which is not included in the Planning Act. Metropolitan Toronto is included in this Act in order to make sure that the minister’s approval may be removed if it is considered wise to do so.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): I understand they have their own plan now.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The member for Ottawa Centre brought up several points in a review of the Act -- the review being overdue; the demolition control not being wide enough. I say again, this is some of the best legislation ever brought before any House and it is legislation which is agreed to in principle by the mayor of the city of Toronto, even though it has been said that he has had second thoughts. But I have said before, and I say again, I have endeavoured in every instance to make sure that his staff and himself, personally, are in agreement with what we are proposing to pass today. Now, whether or not he and his council are in agreement is something which I don’t know; I have read there may be some disagreement.

Mr. Cassidy: He is in agreement but he feels bound to the deal he made with the minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: That’s fair enough. That’s fair enough, but I wish to say this --

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Sounds as if he is playing a game.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I wish to say this, that I believe maybe the mayor knows a little bit more about this legislation than some of his councillors. I think it would be very appropriate for all of us to recognize that certainly the mayor has a great responsibility to all of the people; he takes it very seriously.

I give the mayor full marks for recognizing that this legislation applies to all of Ontario, and that the legislation originally proposed by the city was too arbitrary since it took away the rights of the human being to be able to do what he wanted with his property if it was in conformity with the municipality’s zoning bylaws. I will never, as long as I am in charge of this particular portfolio, allow the rights of a person to be arbitrarily taken away.

I did not make any commitment during the private bills committee that I would bring forth legislation which would be similar to the city of Toronto’s legislation; at no time. I said I would bring forth legislation which would be applicable to all municipalities.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): It suits the Treasurer.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well, if it suits the Treasurer, it will suit me, I can tell the hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We know about that.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: And I wish the hon. Leader of the Opposition would listen a little bit more carefully to the Treasurer and to myself sometimes, and it might keep him out of a bit of the trouble that he gets in.

We have included the appeal to the OMB very deliberately. We feel that there must be an appeal to the OMB. When the hon. member for Ottawa Centre says we shouldn’t have the appeal to the OMB, I fail to understand the reason.

Mr. Cassidy: I did not say that.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The member didn’t?

Mr. Cassidy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I said that there should be guidelines in the legislation because otherwise the OMB would abuse the legislation.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Thank you. Mr. Speaker, that clarifies in my opinion what he said and I wish to say very clearly I have never seen the OMB abuse any legislation. The OMB has resulted in entire satisfaction in 99.9 per cent of the cases that came before it. It has dealt fairly with the people who are presenting the cases, for and against, and I hope that the hon. member --

Mr. Cassidy: People will spend $5,000 more for a house in Kingston because of the OMB and this cabinet. Now that’s an abuse. And that was just last week.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I would hope that the hon. member would stay on this bill because

Mr. Cassidy: It was the minister who strayed off it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- would like to say to the hon. member that the OMB without any doubt made the best decision for the people of the township of Kingston they ever had in their lives. The decision was fully in accord with the best financing principles and the best development of land.

Mr. Cassidy: Oh nuts, nuts.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I wouldn’t expect the hon. member to understand in any event.

Mr. Cassidy: The process was abused by a group there --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I wish to compliment the member for Waterloo North on noticing that this Act did bring in clarification of a situation which has existed unduly long in regard to Century City. We are endeavouring by this legislation to make sure that we do not have a similar situation exist anywhere in Ontario, and I wish to assure him that the members for Ontario (Mr. Dymond) and Ontario South (Mr. W. Newman) were delighted when I brought it into caucus, along with all the other members, but in particular my colleagues here to my right.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I thought the government solved that last year too.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The member for Kitchener again brought up the issue of the mayor of the city and council. I have said enough on that, I believe.

His next point was on the conflict in regard to a previous Act and this Act. What we are doing here really is only removing the necessity of the ministerial approval which has existed and exists now in the Planning Act, for municipalities to acquire land for certain purposes if it is in the official plan. All we are saying is that it no longer needs ministerial approval if the municipalities have had it approved in the first place by way of an official plan.

Regarding the matter of horizontal rights as a severance, we are defining horizontal only and not vertical. This has been a matter of contention among some people who are in the mining business, and it is related to horizontal and vertical separations. The section we have here, referring to horizontal only, is to clarify that it does not pertain to vertical. It is a matter of separation; that’s all.

I wish to say to the member for Riverdale, who is not here at the present time, that he only repeated what he had said before in the private bills committee. He and I have a very great difference in philosophy. He wishes to take away the right of the people to have any appeal, to have the right to do anything with their property, for a period of six months at least, and maybe longer. I will not agree with that, and my government will not agree with that; therefore, we did not include it in this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to discussing this item by item in committee of the whole House, and with the amendments I will bring forth at that time, I hope that all parties would agree to this particular Act. Thank you.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?

Some hon. members: No.

Mr. Speaker: Committee of the whole House?

Agreed.

TORONTO AREA TRANSIT OPERATING AUTHORITY ACT

Hon. Mr. Rhodes moves second reading of Bill 115, An Act to establish the Toronto Area Transit Operating Authority.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, this bill is one of substantial importance, I am sure the Minister of Transportation and Communication (Mr. Rhodes) would agree, since if it carries, and I presume it will, it will establish a transportation authority that is going to have very widespread and very expensive responsibilities, with ramifications reaching right into the households of many millions of people in Toronto and the district surrounding the urban area.

We have examined the bill quite carefully. We believe that it should be supported, but we have some substantial fears associated with it.

The transit authority is going to be made up entirely of those people who are not responsible to the electorate. In other words, they are all appointed people. The various chairmen, and even the chairman of the authority itself, will be named by the Lieutenant Governor in Council and owe their appointments either to the Minister of Transportation and Communications directly, as we presume the chairman of the authority would, or to the government in general, as in the case of the chairmen of the various regions involved.

We do believe that there has to be a co-ordination of the transit responsibility beyond the Metropolitan Toronto boundaries. Even the idea of officials from the Halton and Hamilton-Wentworth area having the right under the statute to come into the consultation when it affects their area, is a concept that in our view, should be supported.

We are very concerned, however, that all of the people on this transit authority will be appointed rather than elected. We can’t see why the ministry has gone for that particular concept. We believe in the democratic process, as does the minister surely, and we might just as well appoint a committee of technologists and bureaucrats to co-ordinate the functions of the various transportation media. We can’t understand why the minister is leaving it in the hands of only appointed officials, rather than leaving some more direct responsibility with those who are elected.

Transit, of course, is going to come primarily under their jurisdiction to begin with, but I was also interested to read that the government here at Queen’s Park maintains the power to approve the rates of transportation. The independence of the commission is going to be very much in question in this respect, and it is hard to see what they are going to do if the basic decisions are still going to emanate from the government here at Queen’s Park and specifically from the Minister of Transportation and Communications and his advisers. They are an appointed emanation, and the basic powers remain with the transport officials provincially, so that it is difficult to determine what substantial powers they are going to have, other than for the merest long-range consultative planning, which in our view is really substantially inadequate when you look at the challenges facing the transportation planners, and the people who are going to provide the funds in the future.

I am also interested that the government of Canada has, somehow or other, taken a very widespread new interest in transportation at the community level --

Mr. Martel: I wonder why that is.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- and that is much to be applauded. I’m sure the electorate in all parts of the province is deeply impressed with this interest and particularly --

Mr. Cassidy: It’s the new, promised government of Pierre Trudeau’s, eh?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- the commitment of dollars to the programme.

Mr. Martel: The timing was beautiful.

Mr. Cassidy: They used to say they would never get into transportation because that was a municipal thing.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It reminds me that some degree of their substantial interest is in parks and other areas of concern for the people in the community.

Mr. Martel: The Leader of the Opposition has difficulty saying that with a straight face.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: They deserve a great deal of credit, indeed, for moving into this area at this particular time. I am sure the minister will agree. But it appears that there’s going to be lots of money around if, in fact, the interest at both levels is going to be perpetuated -- which, of course, we trust that it will.

The municipalities, of course, are deeply involved. The provincial government is sometimes grossly in error, but at least it’s deeply involved. And the government of Canada is now indicating its direct concern with the statements by the Prime Minister himself.

Mr. Martel: And very seldom resolved.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We can look for substantial improvements in a situation which has been seriously lagging.

I have felt frequently, Mr. Speaker, that even the government of the province only shows its real interest in public transportation in the few months prior to an election. I recall the GO Transit wheels got turning by way of billboards just before the election, I believe, of 1967. It was substantially expanded just before the election of 1971, and the minister has been trying his best to provide some sort of a showcase expansion in transportation capability for 1975.

Unfortunately, there is every indication he is going to fall short of the envious record established by his predecessors, but maybe the project that he has bitten off is a little difficult to chew. The government of Canada, however, doesn’t treat it that way --

Mr. Martel: They have just ignored it for years.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: They don’t do it by means of billboards --

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communication): Let Hansard show that the Leader of the Opposition is laughing at this comment.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It is the Prime Minister himself who indicates, without any reference to the political ramifications, of course --

Mr. M. R. Dymond (Ontario): Without asking Parliament.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- a substantial interest in a provision of, not only services, but of cash dollars.

Mr. Dymond: A Prime Minister with no deference to Parliament.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He is not prepared to impose the control of this expenditure under some tame board that would be named from the government of Canada, but he --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Jean Marchand is a board all by himself.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- is prepared to deal with the provinces and municipalities concerned.

I believe that this is a generous, liberal and progressive attitude for the government of Canada to take.

Mr. Martel: They haven’t put the strings on it yet.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Even the Minister of Transportation and Communications in his newest project is not going to put wheels under the programme, although in his recent statement he said he may be going to put a few wheels under it, just so that --

Mr. Martel: They are looking for a job for the member for Fort William (Mr. Jessiman).

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- it is going to go for sure. But we believe actually that the concept of this co-ordinating body is going to have very far-reaching importance as long as the Minister of Transportation and Communications doesn’t attempt to run it out of his own hip pocket, or through his officials or in the various other emanations from this ministry concerned with urban transportation. They must have a position of substantial independence so, when criticism is merited, they can be critical of some of the initiatives that come forward from this level.

The minister is very quick to pooh-pooh criticism that comes from this side of the House, which I would say to you, Mr. Speaker, is completely independent, completely fair and, as the minister knows, very well researched. Now, he is prepared to dismiss that, but if he is going to turn for his advice only to some tame bodies that he sets up to do his bidding, then the taxpayers, as usual of course, are not going to be well served. We’d be interested to hear further what the minister has to say on the principle of the establishment of this board. We will, as I say, look forward to his comments with interest.

Mr. Martel: Did the member for Fort William get that job?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a few comments on this bill which is setting up the Toronto Area Transit Operating Authority.

The bill is the result of the task force which studied the problems surrounding the major metropolitan area of the province, surrounding the city of Toronto. The study made certain recommendations and, to some degree, the bill has enunciated what was recommended in the study. It also transgresses, as do most pieces of legislation, of course, on the recommendations. Also, I don’t necessarily agree with all of the recommendations which were the result of the task force study.

The previous speaker mentioned the composition of the board. The chairmen of Metro Toronto, Durham, Peel and York are going to be the people in control of this new authority. We all know there are certain suspicions that appointed people are not as responsive to the electorate as they should be. I seem to hold the view that the democratic process is a good process and I always object whenever there is any move made to water down the pure democratic process. We’ve seen this happen several times in the past and the government continues to rely on these metro chairmen to inflict their will upon the area residents.

We must understand that all of these chairmen are government appointees so, to a great degree, the control of this authority is going to come right from the Minister of Transportation and Communications because it is at the pleasure of the cabinet that these people sit in these positions of tremendous authority. I would like to have seen a different method, a different composition of the board.

There is another anomaly in the bill which is not as the result of the recommendations of the task force. On the one hand it gives the chairman of Halton and Hamilton-Wentworth powers to sit on the board. I understand they don’t have voting powers as far as I can read the bill. They’re going to be mailed an agenda. They’re going to be able to go to the meeting. They’re going to be able to discuss things. I don’t think they have the same powers or tenure as the chairmen for Metro, Peel and York seem to have. I don’t understand what their functions will be. Perhaps the minister will clarify that for me and tell me specifically if the chair- men of Halton and Hamilton-Wentworth have a vote when they choose to attend some of these meetings.

Whether or not they will be able to discuss everything on the agenda or just those items which are relevant to their particular areas, is still not spelled out very clearly.

The objectives of the bill are to assume the operation of our GO Transit system. I think that is quite acceptable. I believe, as this service is operated right across all of these particular areas, there should probably be one operating authority in order to co-ordinate its movement. It would be ridiculous to have this operation controlled by four different authorities so I can quite readily agree with them taking that over.

The advisory role to the province and to the regions is something which I am wondering about. It seems they are going to have a little more power than that of advisers and I’m a little bit concerned about that. It flies in the face of what the Premier of the province (Mr. Davis) said on Aug. 23, 1973:

A transit authority with full planning powers over the development of transit throughout the entire service area (Durham, Peel, York and Metro) would conflict with the concept of local area autonomy and the concept of maximum user efficiency. Transportation planning cannot be separated from community planning. The authority will not have any planning powers.

To some degree that statement by the Premier has been abrogated when the regional areas have to submit certain information to the Toronto area transportation authorities.

If they want to increase fares or change fares, they would presumably have to submit their fare structure to the TATOA. They would have to submit this information and presumably they would have to get permission before they put this fare structure into being. To some degree they are going beyond what the Premier said would not happen, that they would not be interfering with the individual regional problem.

They have to file a statement of intent if they intend to change any routes. To change equipment presumably they also have to file a statement of intent with the authority.

Further, the transportation authority is going to be given the power to investigate the use of funds allocated by the government to the individual region. Presumably, the minister, before giving funds, would have to determine that the funds were going to be rightly spent. It appears that the transit authority has the power to investigate the wise spending of public funds in an area which I think is beyond its jurisdiction completely. I don’t understand why the minister would want to have that.

The authority does not have the power to dictate the route or the mode of transit. I wonder if we can envisage that they are going to be adopting the Krauss-Maffei system. Is this possible or is the Krauss-Maffei system locked into the development corporation or will the TATOA turn into an authority to install the Krauss-Maffei system once we get it off the grounds?

I hope the minister will respond to the question about the power to investigate the use by municipalities of transit funds allocated by the ministry. I just don’t know what he means by that one. It seems to me that it’s a backdoor approach to control transit spending in a regional area without the ministry directly coming in contact with the regional government.

It seems to me that this transport authority is going to be a buffer, or a voice, or the hatchet man for the minister, when it will be able to go in and investigate and then, at their direction presumably, the regional government will be told exactly where they are wrong and what they are supposed to do. The minister will come away with clean hands and will say it wasn’t he who interfered with the spending of these funds, it was the transit authority who went in there. We also know that the transit authority finds its power right back at the minister’s desk. I believe the net effect of this agency is just to provide a shield for this government’s manoeuverings in infringing itself or its will upon the spending on regional transportation.

While there are certain weaknesses in the bill, Mr. Speaker, along those lines that I have mentioned, I do agree that with this tremendous concentration of population in this particular area the transportation of these people can be solved only by such a broad all-encompassing authority under the original principle of the bill. I do adopt that, but I am concerned about these several things where power is granted to this authority to infringe upon the local autonomy of the various reckons which are concerned with this.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York Centre.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Yes, Mr. Speaker, as my leader (Mr. R. F. Nixon) said, we certainly agree with the principle of this bill co-ordinating the transit operations in the Toronto area and the regions around Toronto.

I was interested in getting the reactions of some of the regions which had expressed concern and they were mainly concerned because they felt that perhaps this authority would interfere with local service. They didn’t object to the fact the authority might want them to integrate local services operating between regions; they felt that made good sense. But they didn’t want to have this authority imposing its will upon their local services and may be requiring them to provide a service which they felt wasn’t needed or was in a form that wasn’t wanted.

I’m sure that is not given in the powers expressed here. It seems to me to be clear that this is really one to co-ordinate services between regions and to ensure the best possible origin-to-destination service between one part of this whole area and another.

There is an aspect which my leader mentioned and which we feel is wrong. That is, the spelling out that the chairman of the region shall be the member. I think and we think it should be that the regions are to appoint a member from among the council, whether it be the chairman or whoever it might be; leave it up to them. In some cases, these chairmen are pretty busy people. Perhaps they don’t have a real interest in this work and there is another member on the council who does have that interest. Changing that clause so that it is to be a member appointed from the council of the region would cover the matter and eliminate the objection some of the regional councillors voiced to the province saying it shall be the chairmen of the regions. It also overcomes the problem some of us on this side of the House have with the matter of non-elected chairmen.

With regard to the whole future of transit operations in this area, I’m not very optimistic that we’re going to be able to get very far until we persuade the government of Canada to take over the ownership and the responsibility for traffic control of all rail lines in the area. At the present time, as the minister well knows --

Mr. Cassidy: The member wants to nationalize the CNR; is that right?

Mr. Deacon: I’m not talking about nationalizing operations. I’m talking about owning the rights of way and maintaining the rights of way just as we own the highways.

Mr. Cassidy: One of the railways is publicly owned already. That’s the Liberals for you.

Mr. Deacon: The highways are available for any carrier to provide service. It doesn’t have to be Gray Coach; it can be Charterways or Travelways or whatever it might be.

Mr. Haggerty: Even the railways have trucks.

Mr. Deacon: The fact is, those are public rights of way and the province controls the specifications of the vehicles and ensures that those vehicles meet safe operating standards and that the operators themselves are properly qualified. That is the sort of thing the government of Canada does with regard to air service and with regard to water service. The canals and the seaways are all regulated in this way. Why shouldn’t it be so with rail?

Here we are in a situation where our lakeshore service has only grown very modestly over the years whereas it could have gone ahead in leaps and bounds had the Ontario government’s GO Transit operation had the freedom to operate without interference from freight. All the time, GO Transit has had to take second place to the freight requirements on those lines. It seems to me if it were under the authority of the federal government and it had the traffic control, as it does with air and water, this government and its agencies would have some opportunity to really co-ordinate the service.

One of the best examples of this is in Montreal where the CPR finally decided to provide a good commuter service, and they introduced what it called skip scheduling. By doing that they greatly speeded up the origin-and-destination times -- the intervening time -- by 10 to 15 minutes on trips from the west end of the island. The traffic grew by leaps and bounds. What we want to do here is get cars off our highways and stop the congestion by providing good public transit service.

I urge the minister to tell Ottawa that we are glad to have their help in buying vehicles and things like that, but that they should give us some real help by making it possible for us to deal, not with the railways, which are a monopoly situation subject only to the control of the Canadian Transport Commission, but in effect with the government operating a public right of way, just as we operate the highways as a public right of way and just as the canals and the airports are operated in this way.

The other thing I want to say is that if the minister looks at the history of public transportation in North America, he will find there is a serious deficiency in marketing skills for public transit, compared to what is available in Europe. The railroads in the United States have had a serious decline that has almost wiped out their passenger service. They introduced a new form of passenger service, but it hasn’t gone well be- cause that new type of operation is still subject to the whims of the railroads as to what the condition of the tracks will be. They are always asking for more grants to upgrade tracks, and in many cases the major need for upgrading the tracks is for freight, not for people.

It seems to me that only when we get those rights of ways made available for our operation on a priority basis, because it is carrying people rather than freight, will we ever make that rail side of it really work. But if we can do this, then we can build up a really good marketing service for public transit. We can do such things as posting schedules. As the minister knows, if he goes to a bus stop somewhere in Peel, he won’t be able to find out what time that bus comes along. Nor will he find it in Markham or most other places. He won’t be able to find how long it would take him normally to get to a major well-known point, because we haven’t thought in terms of co-ordinated services in the past. We thought in terms of a bus service here, a streetcar service there, a subway service somewhere else, and a rail service somewhere else -- but we really haven’t co-ordinated those services. We haven’t thought of them in terms of one merging with another and providing an overall service.

I spoke to the minister about the problem of the service to the north of Toronto, for example. We have a new service which the Canadian railway transport committee ordered the CN to provide but which is operating completely separately from the bus service. There are different schedules, different fares and it is not really providing a co-ordinated service. The people who aren’t necessarily travelling when that train is travelling -- those who could use it in the morning but not at night or vice versa -- really can’t take advantage of it. But the fact is that we haven’t co-ordinated this.

I would hope that one of the prime objectives of the transit operating authority in this area would be to co-ordinate all of these services and not look at one being separate from another. The parkways, the expressways and the highways can move traffic very quickly outside rush-hour times, for instance. At that time, instead of operating a lot of rail service, perhaps we should be using express buses to carry passengers. They wouldn’t be interfering with traffic or adding to congestion, and they’d be giving good, fast service. But we must have fares that are interchangeable and schedules that recognize this interchangeability.

I am looking forward to the achievement of this operating authority, and I am sure it will really make headway if we recognize that the essential nature of public transit is the co-ordination of various types of service to meet varying types of local and regional conditions.

We would certainly appreciate the minister’s reaction to this matter of the appointment of a representative from each region from among their members on the council, but indeed not to spell it out in the bill, because we don’t think it is right for the province to state that it definitely has to be the chairman of the region. Other than that, we are in support of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York--Forest Hill.

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): Mr. Speaker, I also rise in support of the bill. I think that it is long overdue, and I think it is the first and foremost thrust of something that should have been done a long, long time ago. But there are a couple of things that concern me and I’d like the minister to relieve my mind on a couple of subjects.

First of all, how does the minister reconcile the operations of his provincial urban transit corporation which will be dealing with the Krauss-Maffei system, and the operation of this authority, which I regard as an unmitigated disaster which will never see the light of day? The minister disagrees with me but --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The authority is?

Mr. Givens: The corporation on the --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The authority is an unmitigated disaster?

Mr. Givens: The Krauss-Maffei system is an unmitigated disaster.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I thought the member was referring to the authority --

Mr. Givens: The corporation, insofar as it relates to that particular scheme, will be an unmitigated disaster, I want to know how the minister is going to relate the two.

I also have a reservation that this may turn out to be a façade, because, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, having had experience with the chairman of Metro Toronto, they do have a lot of things to do. The minister indicates here that they are going to be required to file with the authority the various service schedules and they have to file a statement of any proposed change in addition to or deletion from schedules or tariffs. He is going to expect a man who is chairman of Toronto, and the other regional chairmen, to deal with matters as detailed as those. If he is really serious about that, then I suggest to him, he is burdening people who already have tremendous responsibilities with undue burdens.

Either the minister is going to have a façade where actually, in practice, his department is going to run the whole show through a vast bureaucracy which is even going to be bigger than he has right now, or he really doesn’t need it. I think that he should amend his legislation to say that the members shall be the chairmen of the regional municipalities, or somebody designated on their behalf. In other words, the chairman of the municipality should be able, with the consent of two-thirds of the vote of his municipality, let’s say, to designate somebody, such as a member of his executive, to represent him on this authority instead of him sitting there himself.

Every time I pick up the newspaper I find that the unelected chairman who draws his authority and legislative jurisdiction from Queen’s Park ab initio -- the government was determined to go ahead with that right from the start; something which is, to me, a fascistic principle. I don’t know why the government demands democracy in every facet of our political life, but when it comes to setting up regional governments it is determined that the guy who heads the regional government always has to be appointed by the government; he can never be an elected person. So every day I pick up the newspaper I find that the head of a regional government is always being loaded on with another chore. One day it’s housing, another day it’s a harbour, another day it’s something else. These people are only human beings.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): The parkway belt.

Mr. Givens: Another day it’s the parkway belt. How many responsibilities does the minister think he can give these human beings to carry out? They’ve even got more work to do than the head of any one of the ministries here.

Surely the minister can’t be serious? Either that or he is trying to kid us and he is establishing these people as representatives of their municipalities knowing full well that they can’t do the work, that they are either going to be in absentia most of the time, and that, actually in point of fact, his friends under the gallery here, the people he hires who are very capable people, or if he hasn’t got them now whom he will advertise for, they will really be running the show.

Please don’t kid the troops. Let the minister say what he means. I suggest he would be well advised, with great respect, to indicate that it should be the chairmen of the councils or somebody designated on their behalf. The minister can word it any way he wants but he knows what I mean and what the essence should be, because they are very busy people.

Other than that, I think that it is high time that the government had an integration of the transportation authority for the whole of the region because it’s all a mixed bag. In addition to this, I think he should also add or subsume under the same rubric, put under or include in the whole ball of wax, not only transportation matters -- and he is getting into pretty minute details when he talks about deletion of schedules or tariffs and so on -- but he should include under the same heading the question of parking and public parking authorities and even the regulation of parking lots and probably even the regulation of the taxicab business. I consider all these things are indivisible.

All these things are inextricably interwoven. One cannot separate one from the other, whether it’s the streetcar or GO transportation or rail traffic, or whether it’s public transit of any kind, manner and description, or whether it’s parking. Parking affects public transit and public transit affects parking. They are all inextricably interwoven. One reacts on the other. On affects the other. One determines what will happen with the other.

I really do think this is so, especially now when we have public parking authorities like we have in the city of Toronto. I know they have been discussing for many months in the Metropolitan Toronto area the taking over by the Metropolitan corporation of the Parking Authority of Toronto. As a matter of fact, there has been this juggling with parking rates in Toronto indeed for the purpose of trying to discourage the bringing of motor vehicles downtown. As I have said for many years about the business of freedom of travel, everybody has a right to come downtown, but what right does anybody have to come downtown and bring two tons of steel with them?

Consequently there has been this imperfect attempt on the part of the parking authority or some members on the parking authority to juggle parking rates in order to discourage people from bringing their motor vehicles downtown.

The minister can see from that that these things are terribly interwoven. I don’t want to repeat myself unduly but I think that he should bring this matter in because it’s part of the whole concept. I don’t think he can regulate successfully one without the other, and he should include it in. It won’t be fatal to the passage of this thing if he doesn’t include it in right now, but I certainly think that over a longer period of time he must bring into this public parking authorities and the regulation of private parking lots and the taxicab industry because they are interconected.

If he is going this route already and if he has plucked up enough courage to go this way --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Better be careful.

Mr. Givens: I am being careful. Don’t provoke me.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: He is saying what he is thinking.

Mr. Givens: Does the minister see what I mean? I think he does. I think he should do that. If he includes those things in that I have mentioned, he will have himself a much better and more comprehensive bill than what he has right now.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, the concern I want to express about the bill is that it is a skeleton kind of organization and that a lot of things could happen within the umbrella being created by this particular organization, the Toronto Area Transit Operating Authority.

I have been looking through the material which was tabled by the minister, or at least by the minister at the time the announcement was made, and I must say that some of the comments which were made are troublesome. The government has got to recognize that the present situation with transit in the Metropolitan Toronto and surrounding area is this: There is only one really first-class transit system -- that is the TTC, as the minister knows; there are relatively small operations in Mississauga and in Oshawa, and apart from that, the other operations right now are nickel-and-dime kinds of transit operations, as far as the operations within the three regional municipalities around Toronto are concerned.

Just to put it on the record, Mr. Speaker, with the exception of Toronto, Metro Toronto, Mississauga and Oshawa, the total transit fleet for intra-regional service, as of about a year ago when the count was taken, consisted of 11 transit buses, like the Toronto buses, five school buses, and 18 mini-buses. I believe that was as of October, 1973, when a census was taken for the report submitted by the minister’s department. It really is in embryo out there.

Two or three things are being done in these particular proposals, Mr. Speaker. One is that consequential amendments will presumably be coming forward in the fall in order to require, in the case of Durham and Peel, and permit in the case of York, the regional municipality to be the sole operator or contractor for transit.

Right now, York doesn’t even have that power under the York bill. And it is not mandatory in the case of the regional municipalities of Peel and of Durham.

The second thing is that the bill says, or some of the discussion in the report suggests, that this transit operating authority will be a source of expertise to the embryo transit systems in these three regions until they can build up their own competence and expertise. The TATOA is, in itself, an embryo organization, which at the present time has no transit expertise because it doesn’t exist. It is going to have to borrow people -- I presume it will borrow some from the TTC and will integrate them with people from GO Transit, the GO Transit operation which is now in provincial hands -- it may also be hiring people in the open market. I don’t know; the minister might comment during the course of the debate.

If it is selling its services to the York regional transit authority, and the Peel and the Durham regional transit authorities, the effect will be that those authorities may, in fact, be permanently under the wing of the TATOA, to the point where we in effect have a super-regional body which carries on those functions and prevents them from ever doing those things on their own.

The next thing is this, that in the discussions of the McNabb committee, which led to the formation of the TATOA, it is very clear that the advisory function which was envisaged is much more than that on behalf of most of the people who were involved. I will just try to read a few things into the record if I can follow my notes in this particular regard.

There were a number of alternatives looked at, and eventually the alternative that was adopted was that the TATOA would operate GO Transit and other inter-regional services, and that it would have a consultative function as far as the intra-regional services are concerned, such as the TTC, and whatever was born or developed in other regions.

They said on receiving a request for operating or capital subsidy from the regions, the province would request comments from the TATOA which would be required to respond to the province within 30 days. TATOA can, therefore, and I quote:

... bring to the attention of the province areas where there is a lack of co-ordination, or where a combination of service functions, such as maintenance, may be desirable. The degree to which service co-ordination is achieved will depend on the way in which TATOA uses these powers of comment and review.

That suggests that when the TATOA tells the province about a problem, the province would normally expect to follow the advice that it receives from the TATOA. If you look further into the document, Mr. Speaker, you find out that some of the people who were considering it, and considering the powers, could foresee very great powers being used by the TATOA through the power of consultation.

John Kruger, about whom I have been speaking to the ministry from time to time, says:

The lower tier of a regional municipality would develop its financial plan for intra-regional transit needs. [That is, the four regional transit systems that would serve within each region.] But the TATOA would rationalize the requests of all four regions in accordance with the budget allocation made by the province.

There is another quote from him as well. He said, in reference to the No. 4 option, the option that was taken by the province:

With funding under its control, ATA should have sufficient influence to bring about the co-ordination of the various transit systems and to control the establishment of facilities for storage and maintenance.

Now this is one of the participants in the study committee who recommended a solution which has been adopted. That is, that the ATA would be consulted about fare levels for the regional systems and would be consulted about subsidy requests going to the province. Nevertheless, he puts it down in his interpretation as saying the ATA would have funding under its control. One has to ask just what kind of animal one is going to be creating.

The ATA is a special purpose body covering several municipal jurisdictions, being created after a number of years in which this government has been trying to do away with special purpose bodies. As several speakers have said, the board of the ATA is not only made up of four people who are appointed by the province and only one of whom is directly appointed from the municipal level -- and even he is not elected -- but its membership are all people who have not had to pass the scrutiny of an election and who have got an awful lot on their plates already. Therefore, the policy-making of the ATA is inevitably going to migrate to the staff level.

There is an organizational diagram in the summary of this report which suggests that the ATA is not going to be merely a co-ordinating committee, but will have a fairly elaborate structure -- a general manager, an assistant, and various other people working for it. These people, who are completely insulated from the local, municipal or regional level, apparently will have a great deal to say in advising the province about the so-called co-ordination of services, about the way in which subsidy funds are distributed, and in advising the province about whether it should leave or should accept proposals by various transit authorities -- including regional transit authorities -- on the fare levels they are going to set.

Now I just say that those are very broad powers and that they seem to be unnecessarily large, and that maybe the province might have started in a rather more modest way. By going as far as it has, Mr. Speaker, it suggests to us that the province really wants to see another level of control over the TTC; that it wants to see the new regional services come under much more direct public or provincial interference than has taken place in the past and that’s why they filled it in this particular way.

The powers which are laid out in the bill could be used with incredible impact and could be used to grossly undermine any kind of municipal or regional autonomy in running the transit system. I think the minister might comment on this matter when he speaks to the debate and might comment on whether the province does intend to maintain local autonomy, as the Premier promised at the CNE, or whether this was a matter of provincial influence coming in once again.

You know, Mr. Speaker, we have already seen in the case of the GO Transit and the Krauss-Maffei system that the province is capable of simply coming crashing in, imposing its planning on Metropolitan Toronto; saying: “Okay, boys; this is what we are going to do.” Telling the CNE that that’s where they were going to go with the test track and eventually getting into a great deal of trouble from which the minister is now trying to extricate himself. The provincial authority is now much more flexible and much more accommodating because they know they made some severe mistakes. But one fears they may be making the same kind of error again in giving the kind of powers that are allocated to this transit operating authority.

Mr. Speaker: Do any other hon. members wish to speak? The member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I have been overly or unduly suspicious about this particular authority. I am supporting, of course, the fact of the authority itself, but when I recall it was the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto who prevailed upon this government to set up a joint committee to study air transportation, I want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is not an umbrella under which the provincial northland operation will come into the southland or southern Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We wouldn’t think of bringing it down.

Mrs. Campbell: There are some very serious implications when one looks at the wording of this particular Act. It is not, in my view, precluded as a possibility as a system which could come within this authority presently constituted or expanded, as it could be, by the inclusion of the chairmen of other regional governments in southern Ontario. I could have hoped that this would be clarified and trust that it will be when the minister addresses himself to this.

Insofar as the authority itself is concerned, I share with my colleague from York--Forest Hill a concern about how these particular people will be able to function in accordance with the powers given to the authority under section 7. We have a Metropolitan chairman and regional chairmen who have tremendous responsibilities in the regional field. On top of that I believe, if I am not mistaken, each of these chairmen also serves on the parkway belt authority or commission. I would think it would have been appropriate to provide for an alternative membership on this, particularly, perhaps, someone who has been sitting regularly -- as an example on the Toronto Transit Commission -- but, who has been involved specifically in the transit field.

I don’t know how they can do all of these things adequately. Therefore, again we have two results: One is that there will be some civil service setup which will, in effect do the work of this authority and if there is time, the chairmen will function over and above that. I can see, again, what happens in any big government -- be it here, be it in Ottawa, be it in Metropolitan Toronto -- the authority of the civil servant being increased in this kind of setup. I would hope the minister would direct his comments to that concern.

Also, of course, with the way in which it is set up it seems to me that it is again another authority which removes further from people an opportunity to have any input. We have to have that sort of concern when we see the way in which Metropolitan Toronto itself acts; particularly with the way in which the chairman acts vis-à-vis the people.

So, Mr. Speaker, while I do endorse the very real need for an authority of this land, I have concerns about the actual authority as set up and the powers which it may attract in the decision-making process, areas which are not probably or possibly at this point contemplated in the bill itself. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Peel South.

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): I just wanted to speak briefly on this bill, Mr. Speaker, and to commend the ministry for bringing it forward. The very good report prepared by the group authorized to do this has been of great encouragement. In our area, one of the things requiring clarification -- and perhaps the minister would comment on it; I believe that I am on target on it -- is the relationship between the region and, in the Peel case, the three municipalities making up the region.

The main congestion -- though perhaps some around Brampton wouldn’t agree with this -- I believe is in the southern area of Mississauga. Commuters have the daily fight back and forth, and it is a significant event in their daily activities if they have made it into work and make it home in the ironically named rush hour.

Without doubt, Mr. Speaker, the area of public transit has taken on more importance and significance as the population grows and the number of vehicles that clog the highways increases. Obviously, and it is very clear now, the answer has got to be expanded public transportation service. So I mention the point that I opened with, the need for clarification between the role of the city -- in this case, Mississauga -- and the region.

I understand the possibility is having the region as the vehicle that deals with the authority, but they can presumably make some contractual or administrative arrangement with the local municipalities. Perhaps the minister could comment on that aspect and explain just how it would work.

Then -- not in this bill, but after the authority is in place and operating -- there is the matter of financing, the levies. Would they be funded through the region or would the sharing municipalities join with the authority in a broad discussion? I would like to think that the channels and the opportunity for communication will remain wide open.

I had one other point here. It just makes sense that the GO authority will be part of the administrative responsibility of the authority. This is a good thing, because I really do believe, as at least one of the previous speakers mentioned -- and I wasn’t able to hear them all -- that unused track is available to us. There is a real need for it and, presumably, a relatively simple solution with the route and the tracks in place, other than the very complicated and sophisticated equipment which goes to making such a system operational. It is not just as simple as it appears, but at least the routes are there, the tracks are there and the time is there in which to run them.

I mentioned before during the ministry’s estimates the significant benefit which would accrue if we could get a third GO system on the CPR through Cooksville and into Streetsville.

Of course I am delighted, too, that the TTC in some capacity or other will be involved in this, because I believe, it may not be in our time in the House, -- I hope it is in our time -- the subway will extend at least west and perhaps in the other directions of the compass -- other than into the lake to the south -- to pick up a great many commuters, east, west, north and south.

I speak particularly of the very significant alleviation of automobile traffic on our highways and the cutback in budget which I believe could be achieved if the subway was extended west into Mississauga and on out. Perhaps there will be a day when it will run farther than we imagine at this time.

Those are the points which I did want to make. I again say it is so obvious that the answer to the movement of people is in public transit. The movement of people grows daily, more and more, and we have an expanding population in our area, perhaps 10 per cent a year. Ten per cent of a couple of hundred thousand or quarter of a million is 20,000 or 25,000 people. They need to be moved and we can’t have one in a car and add that number of vehicles to the traffic with the existing highway capacity.

I again commend the minister for bringing this forward. I think if we could get it processed as expeditiously as possible, let’s get the programme under way and get going on it.

Mr. Speaker: Do any other members wish to enter the debate? If not the hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it is certainly evident from all the comments made by the various speakers that the one point on which there is unanimous feeling is the appointment of the members of this particular authority. The criticism has been that none of the people on the authority would be elected officials and it was suggested they would not have a direct responsibility as a result of not being elected.

I think it would be fair to say that those chairmen of the regions certainly have a responsibility and that is back to their particular regional councils. The chairmen themselves would be representing all those elected people and will have to report back to the elected individuals on the regional councils who will be making their decisions.

Mr. Cassidy: There is no obligation.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: There is one other problem I think the hon. members should recognize.

Mr. Cassidy: There is no obligation under the Act.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It was suggested by the hon. member for St. George, among others, that the chairman should be able to appoint an alternative to represent him on this authority. The problem there is it is more than likely that the person appointed would be an elected official from one of the municipalities within the region and he would not necessarily be reflecting -- with the greatest of respect to all elected officials -- the views of the entire region. It certainly would be parochial and I think justifiably so, for the particular municipality they may represent, I think members will agree it is their function.

Mr. Cassidy: On that argument you shouldn’t be minister because you come from a certain part of the province.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The wishes or the needs of the entire region would not necessarily be carried forth in that form, to serve the needs of the entire region.

The Leader of the Opposition certainly raised that particular point. I think it is fair to say that in due time and in the not too distant future the chairmen of the various regions will be elected; by what form I don’t know but I think they will be. It is our feeling it is a good way to start off this authority to have the chairmen of these various regions working together for the common purpose of developing a good inter-regional transportation system on behalf of all of the regions, which include Metropolitan Toronto and the surrounding regions.

It’s been pointed out that this would be rather expensive, according to the Leader of the Opposition. This isn’t really necessarily so. Again, other members have touched upon the point about the costs involved and taking care of the changes in the fares, the conducting of affairs and the handling of the funds. The cost actually might be reduced by this particular method of operation, because it will do away with the duplication of services from one region to the other. As an example, if there is a need for a garage facility, it would be silly to have one built in the region of Peel and to have another one built right next door, perhaps in Metropolitan Toronto, whereas one would do the job for both regions. This can be handled by this particular authority.

The member for Sudbury, aside from his comments about the appointment of the regional chairmen, inquired about the Hamilton- Wentworth involvement in the authority. The Hamilton-Wentworth involvement, quite frankly, is so that they will be kept appraised of what is going on in the regions immediately to the east of them. It will give them an opportunity to study what sort of work this particular authority will be doing.

I think it is our feeling and rightly so, that the Hamilton-Wentworth area will develop more away from Metropolitan Toronto, as opposed to Peel, Durham and York, which focus towards Toronto. Probably in due time we could see the establishment of another authority similar to this one which would involve the Hamilton-Wentworth region, as well as other regions which may be established in the future.

The feeling was that they could participate in any of the discussions that might involve them in the fringe area. Their involvement also was to give them an opportunity to see how this particular authority would operate and to allow them to have their input if they are going to be affected.

I want to emphasize that this authority is an operating authority. It’s the Toronto Area Transit Operating Authority. It is not intended that this authority will have the planning function. The planning of the particular transportation systems will still lie with the regions. That is their responsibility and they will do that planning. Planning for an extension of the GO Transit service or an extension of any other type of service within the region will be carried out by the regions; then the operation of the modes will be carried out by this particular authority.

Mr. Deacon: Does the minister mean to say the regions will operate their own services?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It’s conceivable that that could happen eventually. It’s conceivable that the regions themselves would be able to plan, and perhaps in time even to run their own operation. But our plan now is simply to have an operating authority that will allow the planning to be done by the regions themselves, obviously in consultation and with any assistance that can be given to them. It is not intended that the planning be done by this authority. They are an operating authority and an operating authority only.

There has been concern expressed about the funding of the municipalities --

Mrs. Campbell: That does not make good sense.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: That is what the bill is intended to do.

Mr. Deacon: I thought this was to co-ordinate the planning and to integrate the regions.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: They can work in the area of co-ordination, but the planning itself is not the responsibility of the authority. It is not intended to be. It was very clear at the outset that they were an operating authority, and they will be starting out with the operation of the GO Transit systems as they are now.

This can all evolve into what I think is in the minds of all the members -- an authority that can work together with the regions and with the municipalities within the regions. But one of the fears that was expressed to us was that the municipalities were concerned that they would not have an opportunity to plan and operate their own transit systems within their municipalities. We intend to allow them to do that. It’s not taken away from them by this Act.

I think there are some fears being generated in the minds of the hon. members that some sort of overpowering body is being created here to take away the autonomy from the various municipalities or from the regions. That is not the intention at all.

Mrs. Campbell: What about the Ontario Northland Railway?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I certainly can assure the hon. member for St. George that we don’t intend to run the Ontario Northland Railway down here to Metropolitan Toronto, although she can get on it here now and go to Moosonee, if she wishes. I would be happy to have her do that sometime. I would be prepared to supply her with a ticket -- perhaps one way, but I’d supply her with a ticket.

Mrs. Campbell: How about air services?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I suppose the authority has a goal in a sense, to co-ordinate in the due course of time the transit system in this area. I think the hon. member for York Centre hit it right on the nose when he said we should be involved with the rights of ways of railways, and that is something I think the authorities should be looking at and will be looking at.

Mr. Deacon: But the minister is the one who needs to get at Ottawa on this.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I think it’s unfortunate, as the hon. Leader of the Opposition pointed out, that Mr. Trudeau waited until immediately before an election, or until during the campaign, to make these statements, because he has, in effect --

Mr. Deacon: No he hasn’t.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- said that railways should be required to make the rights of way available for public transit, and we completely agree. We think that he is right.

Mr. Deacon: Yes, but until we own and operate those rights of way as a government --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We feel that those rights of way should be owned, perhaps by the federal government, and we would be very happy to urge that. If the federal government could take on the ownership of those rights of way and the ownership of the rails and make them available for public transit, to be operated by this authority or by the province or by a municipality, that would be just great, because then we would have all kinds of funding left to provide other facilities.

I sometimes think somebody has been reading some notes to the member for York Centre, that he has had some notes read to him, because very much of what he has said must be from mind-reading. It’s exactly what we have been discussing.

Mr. Deacon: Right. I started writing it in 1969.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I think the member’s foresight is tremendous. Then someone has been reading his notes because we are thinking along the same lines, I can assure him, thinking this sort of thing can be developed by this authority and it can do a good job on it.

But I hasten to point out it is not a question of attempting to create, and I repeat, an overpowering body to remove the autonomy from these various regions and municipalities. On the contrary, it is to act as an operating authority to efficiently set up the inter-region transportation that we are going to need, and desperately need- more than just the GO trains, but in buses and other modes. The decision of the modes will again be up to the regions to determine.

Mrs. Campbell: Aircraft?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I think any mode of transit that can be used is a logical way to have it done, and I agree that we need some sort of short-range aircraft as well.

Mrs. Campbell: That means Godfrey and the Island Airport. There we are!

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Let me go back to the member for York--Forest Hill. I can’t disagree with many of the points that he has made that some authority should be responsible for parking and for taxi operations, but again we just can’t jump into this whole thing to the full extent that is suggested here. We are starting off, we think, in the right way with existing services like GO Transit, and the operation can be carried out effectively by the authority without doing any more than just the operation.

Remember, too, the concern that the member for York--Forest Hill had about the great job and the great deal of responsibility to be foisted on these chairmen, and he mentioned specifically the handling of scheduling and fare rates. Only those matters which would have a detrimental effect on transit movements between regions would be brought to the attention of this authority. They are not going to go into matters concerning only the individual municipalities and the individual regions themselves, but those things that go on between the regions, the inter-region operations.

The member for Ottawa Centre mentioned the recommendations that have been made in the report. But it isn’t really necessary for the operating authority to follow the recommendations of the particular report, nor is it necessary for the regions or probably for the province to follow the recommendations of the authority. They will be making recommendations --

Mr. Cassidy: They will still have an awfully strong control there, though.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- especially in the area of capital expenditure, and I think that’s a very logical thing that we can co-ordinate within those regions, the spending -- the capital spending in particular for the supplying of facilities. We can avoid any duplication, and if there is an area of some concern, I think it would be wise for the authority, in fact, to come back to the funding agency, which will remain the ministry, and make recommendations, not necessarily to be followed, but certainly we can go back in and take a look at what they are recommending and whether it is worthwhile.

Mr. Cassidy: Then they will have the kind of control I said.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: And I think it does give some control in the hands of the ministry, which will retain, to a degree, the funding control. There is no question about that and it was never intended to be otherwise than that it would stay there. But we want to avoid the overlapping and the duplication of expenditures that could develop.

It is not intended at all to take away the local autonomy. I think we should emphasize that these people are to operate their own facilities within their own municipalities and within their region until there is a possibility in the future where it would be desirable to have this all operated under one authority.

To my colleague from Peel South who is concerned about the funding, I say, again, the ministry will continue to fund it. The funding operation will be the ministry’s. We will not be removing the decision-making process from the individual municipalities.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the bill be ordered for their reading? Committee of the whole House?

Agreed.

ONTARIO PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Irvine, on behalf of Hon. Mr. White, moves second reading of Bill 84, An Act to amend the Ontario Planning and Development Act, 1973.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Waterloo North.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Mr. Speaker, the amendments to this bill come just about a year, after the original Planning and Development Act was passed. Most of these amendments as I understand, deal with the strengthening of the definitions and clarification of certain aspects of the procedures. The definition of the development plans, as restated here, I presume makes it clearer as to the areas that are designated and as to the purposes of the development plan and the planning area.

The procedure now whereby the minister may alter the boundaries of the area defined in the planning area by an amendment to the order, enables him to do this, I suppose, under this bill without having to go back for further resolution to this Legislature. I suppose one could argue as to how far he can make his amendments to that particular planning and development area, in which case he’d have to have new authority.

One thing I would like to comment on is the part where the development of a planning area requires notice to be given. I note here that he has included any municipality which abuts a development planning area. I’m asking where he has given notice to those areas which abut a planning area, after the development plan has been completed, whether these same abutting areas are going to receive copies of the plan, and whether there are going to be background documents available in those areas, in the same way as in the original Act that applied to the areas which were concerned in the development areas.

In section 6 on the appointment of the hearing officers and the publishing of notices, I couldn’t see a great deal of difference here from the original Act, except that on the appointment of the hearing officers the Act now states that the minister shall appoint one or more hearing officers acceptable to the municipal councils, or shall after consultation with the municipality appoint. I think the point here that must be made is that it is very important that the objective is to appoint hearing officers who are considered impartial and fair to the whole development of the planning area and the development plans, so that no parochial interest would be served by the appointment of any particular person.

I was interested to note the amendments in the latter part of section 6 where separate reports shall be submitted for each part of the planning area for which a hearing or hearings are conducted so that where there are changes in certain areas of the planning area, these separate reports go back to these municipalities so that they know what is going on. I was also pleased to note the amendment that was included, under subsection 9 I believe it was, allowing separate appeal to the cabinet. I think this amendment was instigated by the member for Downsview (Mr. Singer) when this went through committee last year. I see it has been left in the Act, and I am pleased with that.

While it is difficult to understand the complete implications of all these amendments, I can’t see that the original purpose of the bill is that much altered by these amendments.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to enter the debate? The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: I just wanted to comment that the reason these amendments are before us now is because of the fact that this bill was originally considered by the Legislature during the final weeks of the session last June, about a year ago as I recall. What has happened now is that after a series of amendments that were worthwhile, but were hastily put forward because of the time at which the bill came forward, the ministry has now had another crack at it in order to improve the workability of the amendments to make them more effective.

What the ministry did last year represented an enormous improvement on the draft of the bill that was originally submitted to this Legislature, Mr. Speaker. The minister probably recalls that in the first draft -- I think I have them all in front of me here -- the whole process of consultation, of access to information, cross-examination or questioning of officials if desired, and the whole process by which the plan could be referred back to the community if there were major changes made by the minister, all of that was inadequate.

It was greatly improved in the committee here in this Legislature on the basis of representations made to the committee by the public and on the basis of amendments that were moved by the opposition members on the committee considering the bill. It is the kind of thing one would like to see more of, Mr. Speaker. Nevertheless, now, before there has been an opportunity to even use the Act, the ministry comes back again -- and has to do it -- to further improve a bill which is already streets ahead of the original bill.

Anyway, with that I think I can just about subside. I think the amendments are in the same spirit as the amendments introduced to the bill in committee last year. The major difference is that they permit planning to go on for two or three different areas within a development planning area, and that is fine. It is more flexible than it was before. The requirements for public hearings and for consultation with the public and for access by the public are maintained. If the bill goes into committee we might have one or two suggestions about slightly improved access to the material on which the hearings are being held. But apart from that we accept the principle of these amendments.

Mr. Speaker: Do any other members wish to enter the debate? The hon. member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make just a few comments. I am interested that in this bill it is made mandatory that there be this consultation and that the development plan be produced. But what it doesn’t do -- and I would just ask the minister to give consideration to this -- it does not make mandatory that all the reports of advisory committees, working documents or papers, ministerial reports and so forth, are made available to municipal councils during the planning process. It would seem to me that this would be very helpful to them.

When we see that each municipality has a minimum period of three months to respond, if that period for response were to be -- as a result of having all this documentation, it might be in order -- but three months by itself --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I’m sorry, I just wanted to interject to the hon. member, it’s “not less than three months.”

Mrs. Campbell: That’s right, it’s a minimum time, but I would suggest that that is rather short even for a minimum period; and certainly if it is to be such there should surely be available to the municipalities all of the things that go into the making of the development plan itself.

Section 6, the matter of the hearing officers, has been covered by others, but I wonder whether, in 6(5), we don’t have the information at too late a stage in the process. Reasonable participation is made extremely difficult for the public and councils, and it would seem to me that perhaps it might be an improved procedure if all of this were available at an earlier stage.

Certainly I do feel that this is an improvement, but with those words I would like some reaction from the minister on the points which I’ve made.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scarborough West.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Mr. Speaker, I’m going to suggest, and I don’t think the minister will mind, that in effect we debate Bills 84, 85 and 86 collectively together. I know that the principles overlap.

The item I wanted to raise is sort of very specifically appropriate to Bill 85, but since the principles of Bill 84 apply perhaps I could do it now.

Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the House a little story. It won’t take very long, it lightens the day, it adds a nip to the air and at five o’clock it’s probably useful.

The debate that took place on the Ontario Planning and Development Act, the Parkway Belt Planning and Development Act and the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act of June of 1973 was prompted by the announcement, if memory serves me, on June 4, 1973, which was made in the presence of the provincial Treasurer and the member for Carleton East (Mr. Lawrence), the then Provincial Secretary for Resources Development, with an enormous retinue of supporters and paraphernalia of multi-media equipment, to persuade people that the government was about to engage in very serious planning for southern Ontario; and they introduced and slapped on the concept of development controls and development plans with which we are now dealing in this bill.

There was much debate at the time about compensation. There was much debate at the time about people who would be unfairly harmed by the bill, and there were many members, of the opposition in any event, who pointed out that it applied rather arbitrarily to people who wanted to separate property, whose motives were not suspect and who should, therefore, have some access to redress if the development controls and development plans envisaged under these Acts applied.

Not very long ago, Mr. Speaker, there appeared in the Toronto Star, I think under David Allen’s byline, a rather fascinating piece on the continuing anger felt by a number of aggrieved citizens within the area of the parkway belt who had the feeling they were still not fairly dealt with by this kind of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, that is what is inherently worrisome about this legislation. I don’t for a moment pretend that development controls are not necessary; obviously they are. I don’t for a moment pretend that land use planning isn’t crucial in southern Ontario and needs to be rescued from the dismemberment which has characterized land use in Ontario; I accept that. But when you apply a very major control or very major plan of this kind, affecting all of the holdings in the area, then it’s surely necessary, quickly, sensitively and without bureaucracy, to provide the kind of redress and the kind of recourse for individuals who might well be harmed through no fault of their own. It’s the kind of sensitivity required from a government if you put through a Land Speculation Tax Act. A lot of individuals in the Province of Ontario, who never thought of themselves for a moment as speculators, are suddenly branded as such -- at least in their own minds -- and must surely have recourse to correct it. Similarly, with these planning controls Acts.

Mr. Speaker, I want to read a letter. It dates back to June 21, 1973. It was just a very short time after the bill was introduced. It was to all the members of the Ontario Legislature at Queen’s Park. I want to read it to refresh people’s mind. Some may recall it.

“Dear Sirs:

“We wish to vigorously protest the proposed land freeze to be legislated by Queen’s Park on June 22, 1973.

“We feel certain that the hon. members do not realize the extreme hardship they will be imposing on hundreds of innocent people in the Province of Ontario.

“May we use our own case as an example? We have a small fruit farm, lot 8, concession 2, Town of Burlington, overlooking the Grindstone Creek Valley, which my father, now 91, acquired in 1912, My sister and I, confidentially in our late 50s --” the confidentiality, since it was addressed to all members of the Legislature, isn’t immediately apparent -- “find it is too much physically to operate all of it, nor with the present minimum labour rates can we afford to hire help the year-round. The logical step is to sell the portion most difficult to work.

“In mid-February we received an offer to purchase this land and since that time have been methodically completing the many requirements for land transaction.

“June 20, when we presented the final application for a hearing at the committee of adjustment, town of Burlington, we were told it could not be considered because of the upcoming land freeze, and they only took possession of the application under protest, although they had held the required payment since May 7.

“This was the very first inkling we ever had that our land was affected by the freeze. We’ve already spent over $1,000 for the required survey and other legal requirements. We’ve discontinued spraying it and even cut down several trees because of the pending sale. Thus, we stand to lose the crop as well. The buyer has also spent a considerable sum for required levels and architects’ fees.

“Surely there should be some immediate consideration for transactions already in process. From the above, may we point out:

“1. This property has been in an area zoned for residential development for many years. It cannot be farmed indefinitely because of its small size, nor would it ever be required for conservation as it has been farmed since 1912, We are very conservation- minded and have always tended our property well. This is another reason we wish to sell this lot. We do not wish to see it become unkempt. We cannot care for it ourselves.

“2. A farmer’s land is his bank account, particularly in a family-owned farm. The eventual sale of the property is the hope and means for retirement. Would you, as a taxpayer and citizen, like to have a freeze on your bank account and retirement fund. Just how would you feel?

“3. To comply with the present regulations in this area takes at least six months. There is already a backlog with the committee of adjustment; even a temporary freeze will worsen that situation. There is great hue and cry about the scarcity of housing but the red tape involved in carrying through what should be a simple transaction is unbelievable. It surely won’t be simplified if such matters have to go to Queen’s Park instead of the local boards. How long will it take and will the buyer wait?

“4. If the government wants to freeze the land, then they should buy it outright at the current price.”

Not a bad idea, actually. “In our own case, we are losing the interest on a fairly large sum of money, for a farmer, plus, probably, the whole sale.

“As far as we can see, such action by the provincial government is sheer robbery and violates the very principle of freedom in Ontario.

“It has long been our understanding that democracy is government by the people, for the people. I’m sure other small landowners will feel equally victimized.

“When this legislation comes to a vote, may we urge you to vote according to the dictates of your conscience and your sense of justice, not because of party affiliations.

“Any help you can give us and other innocent small landowners would be appreciated.

Yours very truly,

Bernice Anderson.

For Eloise and Bernice Anderson”

These very charming ladies are in their late fifties. I have now spoken to Eloise and Bernice. In fact, maybe it was the address. Maybe anybody who lives on Snake Rd. in Waterdown deserves an immediate reply. But the letter got to me, Mr. Speaker.

I thought, well, two sisters, living alone on a piece of land, obviously feeling about the situation, obviously taken aback, they were seeking redress. I replied to them; I sent a letter to Bernice Anderson and told her what impossible scoundrels the government of Ontario were, and how all of the Tory members couldn’t be trusted. Actually, it was a fairly temperate letter if truth be known. I ended up and I said:

I should very much like to know how Mr. White and Mr. Davis replied to your letter, and if you could send me a copy it would provide some sense of how to proceed. In the interim, I’ll send you Hansard so you can see the debates that took place, and give you an idea of the positions taken by opposition spokesmen. Do let me hear from you again.

That was on June 25, four days after they wrote.

They also got a number of other letters of which they sent me copies, from various members of the House, and I kept some of them. I don’t think I need read all of them into the record, not even the Tory letters, but the letter of the member for Renfrew South (Mr. Yakabuski) was a jewel, because -- shall I read it? Sure. Okay.

“Dear Ms Anderson, [That member knows his liberation all right] This is to acknowledge your form letter re the land freeze imposed by the government of the Province of Ontario on your area and your farm, which forms part of the area in question. I am inclined to agree with your views [most extraordinary] and as I am chairman of the legislative committee on resources development [to which I say ‘Ho-hah! This member, chairman of the committee on resources development;’ there’s one to conjure with] and I chaired the meeting at which Bills 128, 129 and 130 were gone over clause by clause, I have some knowledge of your predicament. I feel quite confident that it is not the intention of the government of the Province of Ontario to cause any undue hardship to landowners like yourself, and I am sure that a formula will be found to take care of like situations. Should you wish any further information, turn to Paul.”

On July 3, after replying to them, Bernice replied to me. I shouldn’t really put it on a first-name basis but there is such an inherent charm in it all that I have to:

“Dear Mr. Lewis:

“Thank you very much for your letter of June 25. We certainly appreciate your concern. While this sweeping legislation will cause extreme hardship to many people, once they realize what it has done to their rights, we are in the very unhappy position of actually having two transactions in the works.

“The first one, which we use as an example, consists of approximately one-half acre orchard and one-half acre meadow.”

This is a pastoral speech I am making. This is one which is verdant and touching and I want the members to feel it that way.

“The orchard area is in sod on a very steep slope and is extremely dangerous to spray, with tractor and sprayer, and to cut the grass. The grass cutting generally requires both of us, one to drive a smaller tractor and the other to hold said tractor steady. Not a very safe operation for two women.

“The buyers want this little orchard for their dream home because of the view. They are good neighbours of ours, of 20 years standing; we have co-operated in ventures in the past. We know they will respect our wishes regarding the remaining area and thus will not upset dad, aged 91, more than necessary. Also, since we hope to retire in a few years, adjoining the site is a lot which has our barn storage on it; this they also want to buy when we cease farming operations.

“Negotiations have been most amicable but it has taken since February to fulfil all the demands of the town of Burlington. We did clear it with the Halton Conservation Authority, who have no interest in this little orchard; the Board of Health -- there is municipal water available -- and it has the required frontage on a public road.

“If these people aren’t allowed to buy this property, we would have difficulty selling it in the future as not everyone would see the possibilities of it. These people wish the quietness and the panoramic view over the valley; thus we are extremely anxious to complete this particular sale. At the moment, they have the means to proceed with the building but we cannot expect them to wait forever.

“We had another lot surveyed last July. I won’t bore you with all the details but we were told when it passed the committee of adjustment, town of Burlington, in October, that we had one year to complete the transaction. We agreed verbally to sell to a small local builder. But when he took a heart attack early in the winter, we didn’t press him to finalize the sale and two months ago, settled on a July 10 takeover.

“On May 23, we took the legal documents in and paid the required park dedication fee, $650. On June 21, we were advised we also needed a description for the remainder of our property. This was a complete surprise to us and to our lawyer and surveyor but we complied.

“Although we have not heard officially, we were left with the impression that even this loss might not be stamped as ‘severed’ because of the land freeze.” They were right as events proved.

“Meanwhile, the builder’s customer sold his house on June 20, unaware of the freeze, and is most anxious to have his new house built.

“A 3 1/2-acre apple orchard should not be considered a farm in the true sense of the word, but 18 years ago we sold the larger part of our farm and we retained about 4 1/2 acres which also contains our house and barn. We are actually a little island of orchard in an otherwise residential area. We have looked after it to the best of our ability but no one could ever buy it as a paying farm. We have really been caretaking it, knowing that as the area was rezoned for residential development, as it has been for years, eventually it would supply the means for our retirement.

“No doubt we all agree there should be some control on land held for speculation, but vast areas of rundown farms don’t do much for our country either. We are not speculators. Our families worked hard on this land for over 60 years. The time has come when we must change part of it from a well-kept orchard to a well-kept residence and it will still be green.

“If something cannot be done to permit the finalizing of these two transactions, we will be out of pocket a total of $3,000 for necessary surveying, legal fees, town park dedications, etc., which to us is a lot of money. In addition, the one purchaser has invested in architects’ and surveyors’ fees for a house designed only for this particular site.

“Of our property remaining, we hold an acre of ravine land and at some time the government could conceivably want it. Because we are concerned about conservation, we would be quite reasonable to deal with on this portion of land provided we are not blocked on the cultivated portions we must sell.

“Neither Mr. Davis nor Mr. White has taken cognizance of our predicament. We have had letters from Mrs. Margaret Birch, Rene Brunelle, Harry Parrott and Paul Yakabuski and I am sending you copies. Unfortunately, they do not seem to realize the urgency of the situation, that buyers won’t wait forever.”

They appreciate receiving the Hansard.

“I must apologize for the length of this letter but we have been completely discouraged and frustrated by the whole affair and nobody seems to give a dam. The press have treated the land freeze very sparingly. To my knowledge it was only announced on the air once; we missed it. Our surveyors attended a meeting in Toronto last Monday, supposedly on the matter, and learned absolutely nothing.

“You said to let you hear from me again. Bet you’re sorry you asked. Thanks for your concern and help. Bernice Anderson.”

That was in July. I went away for a while last summer, as others do.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member has read numerous letters and --

Mr. Lewis: I have read two letters.

Mr. Speaker: -- they have been quite lengthy.

Mr. Lewis: Agreed.

Mr. Speaker: I believe he realizes our rules do not permit reading at length from documents. He is quite enabled to make his point by quoting from a letter, but I don’t think he should read a long series of letters.

Mr. Cassidy: Some members couldn’t make a speech without reading, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: Well, I will try to cut it down. Most of the other letters aren’t as long. I must say I am one who very, very rarely abuses the reading laws of this House.

On Sept. 10 I wrote Bernice Anderson and asked her whether, with the passage of the summer, matters were resolved. On Sept. 12 Bernice Anderson replied slightly shorter, and it will seem even shorter because I am going to read it with great rapidity.

“Dear Mr. Lewis: Thank you very much for your letter of Sept. 10. We do appreciate your concern and now bring you up to date.

“We have got no clearance yet. A hearing was scheduled July 24 by the committee of adjustment, town of Burlington, for approval of the severance of the proposed lot. We knew it would be turned down flat because of the parkway freeze so on July 22 we went to Toronto to see what we could do.

“We were sent to two senior planners, which sounded pretty good, but honestly they just sat there and told us the land was frozen, which we well knew. They didn’t know for how long. The bill wasn’t signed by the minister yet, but when it was it would be backdated to June 4 and the forms of appeal weren’t designated yet, nor did they know when they would be.

“You know, Mr. Lewis, a Scotsman gets riled slowly but when he does. We were quite upset with their couldn’t-care-less attitude so we decided to go as far to the top as we could. We stormed over to the Treasury department.” Really, two women in their late 50s storming over to the Treasury department!

“Fortunately for him, Mr. White was out, but Mr. Meen saw us. He was more helpful and suggested we try to get the committee of adjustment to approve the separation with the proviso that we could get the site released by the province.

“We went to the committee of adjustment and they agreed to the separation on that basis. They mentioned specifically that this was really an infilling, that there had been houses on both sides for about 25 years. The site met all the very stringent requirements of the town of Burlington adequately and there was no problem except the parkway freeze.

“In Burlington, after a committee-of-adjustment approval, there is a three-week waiting period for any local resident to object. This expired Aug. 16 and there were no objections raised. The neighbours are for us.

“The forms for amendment were available from Burlington Aug. 13. For your information, they are almost identical to the original form filed with the committee of adjustment so we felt we were back at square one. These go to Burlington council who were to forward them to Toronto. We sent them in on Aug. 21. Since then, there has been a complete dead silence.”

They filed separate appeals for each lot.

“We have gone ahead with our lawyer to get the legal ends tied up because we do not want to hold up the transaction. Naturally, these people are buying property to build on and until they can get a building permit, we get no money. We are now out of pocket approximately $3,000 on the two lots for required surveys, etc., which were done in good faith.

“The freeze was put on with no thought for people caught mid-stream in a transaction. Our buyers are naturally greatly concerned because of the rapidly rising building costs and we are losing money each day, but time seems to mean absolutely nothing to the officials in Toronto.

“Hopefully, if we keep stirring the pot, we will eventually come up with the required releases but we really don’t know where to go from here. Again, thanks for your interest, etc.”

That was on Sept. 12. On Sept. 25, Mr. Speaker, I wrote to the provincial Treasurer and I apologized for dealing with a smallish matter but mentioned what had happened to Eloise and Bernice Anderson and sent him the material. I said:

I wonder if you could take a moment to see exactly where things stand and what precisely Eloise and Bernice Anderson can expect and when they can expect it.

On Oct. 22, 1973, I received a reply from the Treasurer. It said:

Dear Stephen:

This is further to your letter dated Sept. 25 regarding the sale of part of the above noted property. My staff have made inquiries regarding the progress of the Andersons’ application and I understand that their application to amend the Parkway Belt Land Use regulation under the Act is presently with the municipality.

When council has made its recommendation within the next week, the application will be forwarded to this ministry for a decision. I am sure that once the application has reached us, it will be dealt with as quickly as possibly.

Yours truly,

John White.

That was Oct. 22, 1973. I heard nothing. I assumed things were resolved. I got hold of the file one day and on Dec. 3, 1973, I wrote Bernice Anderson and I said:

Where do we now stand? The last letter I had from John White at the end of October said that the council recommendation on your application would come to his ministry early in November and when is reached him “it will be dealt with as quickly as possible.” Are matters therefore resolved?

On Dec. 7, 1973 -- Bernice Anderson and I and our collected correspondence, which will be published months hence -- her letter said:

Dear Mr. Lewis:

Thank you for your letter of December 3. Unfortunately we stand exactly where we stood six months ago except for developing ulcers, grey hair and some debts. I can’t call that real progress.

Shortly after I last wrote you, we found that the town of Burlington held the appeals for amendment which we filed on Aug. 22, for almost seven weeks. However, they did pass the newly set up development committee on Oct. 9 and the Burlington council on the 16th.

They were forwarded to Toronto on Oct. 18 [This letter is Dec. 7.]

As you can understand this has been a most frustrating experience. My sister simply must cut down on her workload for health reasons. She is actually working a 60-hour week with no vacations possible due to dad’s extreme age. We have also had to spend close to $3,000 on these lots for surveys, park dedications, committee of adjustment hearings, lawyers fees, etc.

Mr. White, in the press, keeps saying that the freeze won’t affect development already under way and we were certainly well along in the transactions when the freeze was cracked on. There is no way we can fulfil the requirements of the town in mere days.

We are not trying to make a killing in real estate. Rather, we are trying to take steps to assure that property we have owned, loved and farmed for over 60 years doesn’t go unkempt and uncared for when physically we cannot work it properly.

We also hope to retire on a modest return for the family’s investment of money and labour over the last 60 years. Thank you for concern and effort.

On Jan. 11, 1974, I wrote to the Treasurer and said: “Dear John” re so and so; I am tenaciously following this little epic struggle through to conclusion.

On Oct. 22, 1973, you assured me that the Parkway Belt land use regulation would be dealt with by your ministry as quickly as possible once it had reached you. It was, in fact, forwarded to Queen’s Park on Oct. 18. By Dec. 7 last, the Andersons still had no word. Perhaps it was provided as a Christmas bonus or perhaps it is still in process or perhaps it’s all surreal. What are your views? Cheers.

Stephen.

All right. On Feb. 28, 1974, Eloise and Bernice Anderson get from the Ministry of Housing the following letter signed by Miss J. A. Darrell, senior planner, official plans section, plans administration branch:

“Dear Misses Anderson” -- that is Misses, M-i-s-s-e-s; not the same sensitivity as the hon. member for Renfrew South has to emancipation in the 20th century.

We have completed our review of your applications for exemptions from the land-use regulations made under the Parkway Belt Planning and Development Act, to permit the construction of single-family residences on certain lands in the city of Burlington.

These properties are located within the design area of the parkway belt system west. The construction of single-family residences in the parkway belt on parcels of less than 50 acres in the design area is considered contrary to the intent of the land-use regulations.

Based on a site visit, we must advise you that we do not consider the subject properties to be logical cases of infilling -- situations where existing dwellings on the same side of the street are located no more than 300 ft apart -- and we are therefore not prepared to recommend an exemption to the regulations at this time.

That’s Feb. 28; the law was announced on June 4.

The Parkway Belt Planning and Development Act provides for public hearings to be held on the parkway belt plan by an officer appointed by the minister. While the dates of these public hearings have not yet been established, adequate public notice of them will be given in advance. If you have any comments or objections to the area to be covered by the proposed park- way belt system west, you may present your objections to the proposal at the public hearings.

Well, let me bring it up to date from there, Mr. Speaker, without reverting to correspondence.

Eloise and Bernice Anderson, women of infinite patience beyond normal human dimension, obviously, couldn’t believe that after all of the negotiating in good faith, after all of the approvals they had sought -- given the fact that they are advanced in years, working the week they described, not in the best of health, a father in his 90s, clearly committed to the property, they couldn’t believe it.

From June 4 to Feb. 28, 1974, not a stitch of progress. Promises, expenditures, frustrations, no progress; and then a letter from the senior planner of the Ministry of Housing, to whom it had obviously been referred, that they would not be approved.

Mr. Speaker, that is called trifling with human beings in order to serve the kind of bureaucratic rigidities which characterize this government. The measure of land-use planning, the measure of the imposition of controls that affect people and families, is the sensitivity with which a government responds to the exceptions.

It is like labour legislation. It is not the 97 per cent of things that are settled amicably in the world of labour relations, it is the three per cent that aren’t settled which measure a government’s sensitivity and capacity. It is easy to slap development controls on land; it is easy to make decisions about priorities, but when it affects human beings in a fashion which is destructive and arbitrary, the test of the government is in the way in which it responds.

Eloise and Bernice Anderson would not take this lying down, they felt they had a case, and on April 29 they blew their top and stormed the citadel again. One doesn’t know how often you have to do this in this life. I would have thought Queen’s Park was a very daunting building at the best of times.

But they went in and they saw a chap called Scott, I guess probably in the Ministry of Housing or in the Treasurer’s office -- I guess it must be Housing because it was transferred at that point to the member for Carleton’s (Mr. Handleman’s) current ministry, the minis- try of which the member for Carleton is the current incumbent -- anyway the man who had done the site plan, etc.; and they were told yet again that the whole blessed thing was impossible.

They refused to believe it; and of course they would refuse to believe it. The basic logic of their case is so compelling and persuasive. Everything they say, everything that is part of their whole life is so obvious, how could they accept it?

So they then saw a gentleman called Morley, and Mr. Morley was rather more flexible than all of those who preceded him. He said maybe if they added something to the piece of land in order to sell it, the size would be considered appropriate and the severance would be permitted. So on April 30 they returned and took down their survey and they were told that if they agreed to a change in boundaries to enlarge the parcel of land, which they hadn’t intended to do, they would get approval in three weeks. That was April 30, 1974.

On May 17, 1974, they got a letter from the Ministry of Housing, who referred to their discussion and exchange with Mr. Morley of his ministry, who wrote the letter in order to allay their fears and indicated that if they made the changes as requested, they would then conform with the plans administration branch.

I want to point something out to you, Mr. Speaker, if I may. If they had been people who are normally intimidated by the workings of government, if these two indefatigable and tenacious women had not thought that the injustice was so keen, when they got this official letter from the plans administration branch of the Ministry of Housing, they would have ended it there, lost their money and said “goodbye.” But they sensed the injustice of it. They went back and they fought; and they got some kind of agreement, so they thought.

I don’t have a copy of the minister’s letter; I heard it read on the phone, but I have conveyed its content. He vetoed the one lot, even though all the trees were cut down, etc., but suggested that the other could be sold if it was enlarged as was indicated to them. That was on May 17.

Two weeks after May 17, Bernice Anderson sent a self-addressed return envelope to Mr. Morley, hoping that might encourage the ministry to get back to her some time, because she again had heard nothing.

On June 3, this month, they went to the land division of Burlington and were told that everything would be passed in 21 days. They went back to Burlington and had conversations with the municipality, which had approved them all the way through from June, 1973, and Burlington said: “It is in process in the ministry again in its legal department.”

The reason I’m making these few remarks -- I’m sorry to take half an hour of everyone’s time when we are all urgently wanting to get out of the Legislature -- is that the three weeks are up today.

I phoned Bernice and Eloise Anderson the night before last, I believe, and I said: “Look, would you bring me up to date!” One of them got on the phone downstairs, and the other one got on the extension upstairs. We had a very friendly conversation, except they are beside themselves at. this epic saga of dealing with government.

I said: “When is it up?”

They said: “Thursday.”

“You’ve heard nothing?”

“No, we’ve heard absolutely nothing.”

“Will you call me on Thursday? Here’s my number. If you finally get the approval, as you were promised, I won’t have to raise it, except, perhaps, privately. But if you don’t get the approval, I want to put it on the record.”

I have received no phone call. And they are the kind of women who would call me at dawn if they had had a special delivery letter from the appropriate ministry.

Mr. Speaker, I guess that puts it in a nutshell. To this day, to this moment in time, the transaction which these two sisters entered into in good faith in the early spring of 1973 has not been completed because of the most incredible bureaucratic morass it is possible to contrive.

For one year, with all the good faith in the world, they have been endeavouring to get a resolution from the government. For one year they have spent more than $3,300- and the people who want to buy the land for a home are clearly out of pocket themselves. Inflationary costs have risen. For none of this will the Andersons or the prospective purchaser be compensated.

They were given the wrong information. They were given no help. They were not dealt with honourably. They didn’t have their letters replied to appropriately. They weren’t phoned on time. Large periods of time were allowed to elapse. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, when you take a piece of land-use legislation and apply it as a freeze to a large area of the province, you have to respect the rights of individual human beings who for one reason or another may have an exception to be made to that freeze.

The test of the freeze is the test of the exception. And if it hasn’t happened in this case, I don’t know what’s happening in all kinds of other cases where people don’t write as willingly to members of the Legislature, who aren’t in such a human predicament and who aren’t quite as resilient in taking the blows from the civil service or from the government.

We don’t object to development controls in this piece of legislation. We’re not opposing it now it’s in place. We thought the whole land use planning for southern Ontario made no sense last time when the minister introduced the bill. We argued with him frontally on the way in which to handle land use in Ontario. We argued with him about compensation.

All right! This is an amendment to an existing piece of legislation. In it’s own way the amendment is minor. In its own way the amendment is the sum of one year’s work in trying to draft precise development controls for the escarpment, let us say. I appreciate all that but I don’t appreciate the inability of a government to respond to the needs of individual families or of a couple of sisters living out on Snake Rd, in Waterdown or having land in the limits of the city of Burlington. That I don’t appreciate.

The lack of responsiveness is massive. It suggests a government so preoccupied with the rituals of legislation that it can no longer respond to the realities of people. Maybe it happens after 30 years. I don’t know. Maybe the sclerosis is cerebral and physical. I don’t know. But it can’t be allowed to continue. The measure of a government that fails is in the measure of individual instances of this kind.

If I do no more in raising this today, I beg the minister, intervene in the case of Bernice and Eloise Anderson and give them the approval to which they’ve been entitled for more than a year. Don’t force two charming, earnest and obviously intelligent sisters in their late 50s living in that part of Ontario to further extremities, to further humiliation and to further stormings of the Parliament Buildings. In the government’s massive apparatus of 70,000 civil servants and God knows how many Tory members loping all over the House from side to side, in its whole massive apparatus, it hasn’t been able to sort it out sufficiently to respond to the needs of a couple of very excellent people who live in this province and who have been subject to the absurdity of its legislation.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York Centre.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Speaker, I’m really pleased to hear the leader of the New Democratic Party take the position he has today with regard to these two ladies. He’s only referring to one case among the problems that have arisen as a result of the way we are imposing controls in this province. I too am, as is our party, in favour of good planning and development, but we’re not in favour of doing it in such a way that a few people who are affected -- and there are, as I say, a lot of people who are affected, though in comparison with the number of people there are in the province it’s a small percentage -- have to pay the penalty for the good of the whole province.

It is absolutely wrong that we impose these ministerial orders, freeze development, cause great hardship in innumerable cases and do not provide immediately for compensation in some form or another to those whose lands are down-zoned.

In my area, I have had the experience of the ministerial airport zoning imposed on March 2, 1972. The minister himself knows of many cases that have been brought to his attention of hardship and difficulty. For two and a half years, they’ve had absolutely no help except in a few cases where the minister has been able to give special relief. There are some cases where people are suffering severe health damage as a result of the stress, the financial strain and the difficulties of maintaining positions that they should not have had to endure if he had proper legislation here to protect these people. When the province imposes ministerial orders and decides to freeze development for the green belt or some other good purpose, it should provide at the same time compensation to those whose rights are being removed.

I would like to cite some cases in Markham and Vaughan in connection with the parkway belt.

People operating small businesses in this country have enough difficulties and in one case a small business sold its property in the city, bought property on Don Mills Rd. and entered into a contract to build a building. The whole deal was done in accordance with local planning zoning. It was industrial land and, of course, this parkway development ministerial order came down. They could not go ahead with their building. They lost the deposit on the contract. They had to move out of their old plant. They had severe losses of many thousands of dollars and the business had no reserves to withstand such losses. That business is just teetering as to whether it can survive today, because of the manner in which we are doing this sort of thing.

We are in agreement with the minister that this type of long-term planning must be done. But the minister must introduce legislation which provides immediately for compensation to those who are affected, whose rights are withdrawn or taken away from them so that we, on behalf of all the people of the province, in effect, compensate them immediately for the losses they suffer.

There is a piece of land at Highway 7 and Highway 400; a movie production firm had entered into an agreement for purchase of property. They had worked out, with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, an adjustment to the property so they could fit in this development. Then, suddenly, the parkway zone comes down and those people suffered considerable loss. Lands that were valued at $100,000 suddenly become worth less than $10,000 and it had nothing to do with their speculating in the land. They were buying land to use it and buying land on the basis of the values it had then because of zoning permitted by the municipality.

I am very concerned about this whole principle of planning and development under this legislation, when we don’t have provided in this legislation proper means of protecting people against this type of hardship. I feel the minister’s legislation is inadequate and I hope the minister will be indicating to us steps he will take to alleviate these cases, to remove the possibility of people suffering hardship to this extent.

I don’t think there is anything more unfair that we have done in this province than imposing this type of planning which involves down-zoning of property and removing the rights people have purchased in so many cases in transactions in municipalities of already zoned properties. People had the expectation of being able to put it to certain uses but we suddenly removed that without compensation. I don’t think it’s fair. In my mind, it’s absolutely equivalent to stealing, and I hope the minister will be providing, in some form or another, proper compensation in these cases.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to enter this debate? The member for Ottawa East.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Mr. Speaker, the matter brought up by the leader of the NDP and my colleague about the rights of individuals which are being infringed upon by this type of legislation is not something new. It should not be new to this minister, even though he was not the minister responsible at the time that these bills were passed last year.

During the end of the session last June, I can recall spending, I think, a whole week discussing these three bills. At the time the amendments were brought in, Mr. Speaker, I recall that the hon. member for Downs- view, the hon. member for St. George and I spent innumerable hours drafting amendments to the original legislation in relation to the hearings. One of the matters we were not able to convince the minister of was that when we affect people’s fundamental rights to land use there should be a corresponding right of compensation.

In other words, the legislation in these three bills is basically the same but limiting my comments to the amendment to the Ontario Planning and Development Act, there was one part I found frightening about the legislation. We had briefs submitted to us at the time we were discussing the legislation and, as was mentioned by the leader of the NDP and my colleagues, some people’s developments were blocked and they had no rights of compensation. Secondly there were people whose land was down-zoned. We had specific cases, Mr. Speaker, of people having land -- some of them happened to be large corporations -- but there were also small individuals, people of this province, whose land, for instance, was zoned commercial. All at once, because of this legislation it was turned into a belt, was turned into a park, was turned into a lower form of zoning. In other words, the common expression used throughout the debate on these bills was down-zoning, referring to people who had, not an expected right; and I might say, Mr. Speaker, that we spent hours trying to convince the Treasurer of the distinction.

I can recall the Treasurer at that time, Mr. Speaker, talking about his grandfather’s farm near London. Apparently it was on one side of the river and he had expectations that as the city developed he would benefit from the accretion in property. But this was expectation, and it so happened that the city fathers in London drew the dividing line short of the grandfather’s farm. It did not affect the farm and, therefore, he did not benefit.

That is expected accretion and that is not something we’ve been talking about. There is a clear distinction between people who have certain acquired rights -- for instance, the sisters that the leader of the NDP was talking about, or some of the matters mentioned by my colleague, or people, in fact, who have land which was zoned to a particular level -- zoned residential, zoned commercial and so on -- which all at once was turned into, let’s say, a park, so they could not develop it.

These people in fact could put a financial tag on the loss that they were suffering. At that point their only right, Mr. Speaker, was simply to pay taxes on the land. Because who would buy this land which was turned into, for instance, part of the parkway belt?

This was patently unfair and we tried to convince the minister that this type of down-zoning is a form, in fact, of expropriation without compensation. I recall the Treasurer spending hours talking with his legal adviser at the time, Rendall Dick, and he was saying: “They’re not losing anything under our system. We’re not changing the law.” But in fact they were.

I give you an example, Mr. Speaker, of the accepted law -- for instance, before the Ontario Municipal Board. If a person’s land is affected through a certain zoning and, in fact, his land is down-zoned, what the Ontario Municipal Board tells that municipal body or otherwise is: “Buy the land. Take it off his hands. Compensate him.” But there’s nothing in this legislation and in the amending legislation, Mr. Speaker, any compensation to people who are affected in that way.

To come back to the point that was made earlier. We are in agreement with the basic principles, but when legislation affects a wholesale number of individuals like that, surely, Mr. Speaker, you will find individuals who in fact have their basic rights affected without any rights of compensation.

And I’ll tell you something. If you had in this province an Ontario bill of rights -- and I’ve always been surprised, Mr. Speaker, at our not having an Ontario bill of rights -- this legislation we are talking about, the Ontario Planning and Development Act -- and there are two other bills to follow, the Niagara Escarpment bill and another -- would be quashed by the courts because they are contrary to the basic rights as afforded by the Ontario bill of rights.

Mr. Speaker, if I may say, it is after that type of legislation that I felt compelled to present to this House a bill called the Ontario Bill of Rights, which states clearly that one of the fundamental freedoms in this country and in this province is the right to property. If I might just read a brief quotation about the question of enjoyment --

Mr. Cassidy: It is the member’s party that believes in an untrammelled form in the right to property above all. That is a Liberal slogan.

Mr. Roy: My friend wouldn’t understand this, so he shouldn’t interrupt.

Mr. Speaker, one of the basic rights under the Canadian Bill of Rights, which as you know has no application to any provincial legislation, is:

It is hereby recognized and declared that in Canada there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely:

(a) The right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law --

That is what we are doing in this bill. Without this type of bill, without an Ontario Bill of Rights, the government is allowed to go in and down-zone people, to affect their lands, in fact to affect their rights and to take away value from their lands without any form of compensation.

I don’t know how this government, which talks about individual liberty, the right to free enterprise and so on, has the nerve to do this. It is obvious, as the leader of the NDP mentioned, that 30 or so years is just too long; this government has lost its sensibility to the rights of individuals.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): They are a bunch of Communists.

Mr. Roy: I might mention again, Mr. Speaker, that this was the very reason that type of legislation, the Canadian Bill of Rights, was brought in.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): A bad lot.

Mr. Cassidy: Certainly for that party. Let’s go back to the 19th century.

Mr. Roy: In fact, if we had this type of legislation in the province, the courts would strike it down. I dare the minister to bring in an Ontario Bill of Rights in this province and see what happens to such legislation as the Ontario Planning and Development Act.

Mr. Lawlor: They brought in a “Bill of Wrongs” a long time ago and have never been able to rectify it since.

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): A great admirer of Dave Barrett.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, we tried to explain to the Treasurer how people were being affected, but I don’t understand him. We convinced some of the committee members from that side of the House. I recall that the member for Prince Edward--Lennox (Mr. Taylor) was extremely concerned about this legislation. Unfortunately, he did not dare vote against the government when this matter was brought up and when we opposed it so strongly.

The cases that are being brought forward today should not be news to the minister. We pointed out last June, in fact, that people were being deprived of their rights without any form of compensation. The fact the government can proceed as though nothing is happening is clear evidence of its lack of sensibility for certain individuals in this province.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York--Forest Hill.

Mr. Givens: Mr. Speaker, we are embarked again on this discussion, which was to no avail when the legislation was originally going through and which probably will be of no avail now. But that seems to be the name of the game around here: We get up and talk about things that affect us very deeply but about which we can do very little.

I really consider this legislation to be vicious, arbitrary and confiscatory, Mr. Speaker, I have said so in this Legislature and I have said so on the public platform. I feel completely filled with consternation that a so-called small-c conservative government would pass this kind of legislation, which I would have thought was furthest from its particular credo, from its principles of free enterprise and the belief of what my friend was just talking about, the fundamental belief in the right to a person’s property.

There is only so far that the government can go. There has been this guffawing from our friends to the left over here, but it amazed me how one can get caught up, as the leader of the NDP was in the case of the two sisters, which will be multiplied in hundreds and hundreds of cases of people who have been caught in the parkway belts and the injustices that are being done.

This is even worse than the confiscatory speculation tax which is now very much in limbo and probably will wind up in the courts and which, I suggest, the government doesn’t have the chance of a snowball in Hades of winning because the federal government will not depart from its jurisdiction on the question of whether the 50 per cent tax will come off the top or not. But time will tell if that will work itself out or not.

This is even more vicious than that tax, and I will tell you why, Mr. Speaker. At least with the speculation tax the government is trying to punish a class of people who were playing Russian roulette with the people of the province by investing a small amount of money in a piece of land and who were hoping, because of the inflamed financial situation with respect to land, that within a short period of time they would make a lot of money and skim off a lot of profit. This is an anti-social act that we are trying to punish by that legislative action.

But in this particular case people haven’t done anything of that nature. They haven’t taken any anti-social action. They happen to be people who are either farmers, or people like the hon. member for Bellwoods (Mr. Yaremko) who thought that buying a piece of Canada was a good thing. They are professional people and business people and, indeed, working people who thought it was a good idea. It was a good hedge against inflation to invest a little money against a rainy day for the future. They might have had a piece of land that they’ve been holding on to for 20 or 25 years in the past -- and what’s wrong with that?

What was wrong with the farmer, or the businessman or the professional man who bought a piece of land and thought that he was putting away a little nest-egg for his widow or for his children? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is certainly in keeping with our concept of society, with our concept and our philosophy of private enterprise.

And this government comes ahead and swoops down from above and says: “Your zoning shall remain forever and a day agricultural.”

The only kind of agricultural activity that’s been carried on has been a holding operation, because everybody knows that as the value for agricultural land in the immediate vicinity was going up to $10,000 or $15,000 an acre people weren’t able to carry on agricultural activity from an economical basis.

So this government is punishing people for nothing. It is confiscating their land.

Now, even in the Land Speculation Tax Act -- and the minister is not listening to me; he is listening to the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Stewart) -- even in the Land Speculation Tax Act, the government has gone ahead and made certain exceptions. The minister went ahead and listened to the Minister of Agriculture and Food and has provided for every passing year a 10 per cent increment allowance for farmers.

The minister doesn’t even allow this in the parkway belt legislation. Let the minister show me where in the parkway belt legislation he is permitting that kind of increment. Doesn’t he think that in order to be consistent he should at least allow an increment?

The minister swoops down on a person from nowhere and tells him that his land is suddenly worth $500 an acre when the day before last June that person thought it was worth $5,000 or $10,000 an acre. At least that person should get a 10 per cent increment a year if he’s been holding on to it for 20 or 25 years.

Where is there that provision? Where is the provision for the other exemptions that are made in the Land Speculation Tax Act? There isn’t any at all.

I say the government is being unfair and I think the chickens will come home to roost. There are so many people who feel that this is such an honourable, such a fair, just and reasonable government, that it is far beyond their comprehension that it would do something that is so outrageous and so vicious. They really don’t think the government is going to do this.

There are going to be people like those two sisters and others, about whom the leader of the NDP waxed so eloquent, who will have to challenge these things in court. People just aren’t going to stand idly by if they own 50 or 100 acres, or the bits and pieces that are going to be left over after the government expropriates some of this land for highway purposes or for service purposes of one kind or another. The government has indicated in various parts of the parkway belt legislation that it is going to have to expropriate for purposes of specific needs.

People are going to challenge the legislation in the courts; and even in the absence of a bill of rights the courts are going to hold that the government can’t do this without compensation.

Mr. Speaker, nowhere in the democratic free world, nowhere in any of the 50 states of the United States, nowhere in Britain can you get away with this kind of legislation.

Everybody knows that the power of the state is supreme. There is this business of the law of eminent domain -- as they have in the United States. The Province of Ontario can come along tomorrow and say: “Givens, we need your property.” And if the government can prove that it needs it for a public purpose for the benefit of the people of Ontario, it can acquire it. The government can take it, but it has to compensate me for it.

There are various formulae that have been worked out over a period of time as to what the basis of compensation should be. But nowhere in the free world can the government come in and steal land from anybody which is what it is doing by virtue of this legislation.

They do it in the Soviet Union, they do it in countries behind the Iron Curtain -- in Poland and Rumania. I’ve seen them do that. But in Britain and the United States and anywhere in the free countries of the world, the government cannot do what it is doing here now.

I really can’t for the life of me understand why there hasn’t been a terrible uprising in this province because of this parkway belt legislation, because the government is stealing property from people. It has the right to take it. I repeat myself again. If it wants to benefit the mass of the people of Ontario by beautifying their province, by putting in this parkway belt, by sowing grass, this government can do that; but by the same token let me say this, that the land lying outside the parkway belt, on either side of it, and the Niagara Escarpment land, has tripled and quadrupled in value while the government has been doing this because it is putting in the parkway belt.

So it was punishing one class of people willy-nilly and it has been benefitting another class of people three- and four-fold. Now if that is right and that is just and that is reasonable, then I don’t know. Where is the conscience of the Conservative Party that lets them sit in caucus and countenance the passing of this kind of legislation. The government will compensate the people three-quarters of their property value or 50 per cent of their property value. Tax the windfall profits of those who are lying outside the parkway belt in order to benefit those who lie inside the parkway belt, whom the government is condemning to penury because it says their land is almost worthless; but don’t steal it from them!

Surely there must be something in what we are saying to the government. Show me a precedent anywhere, Mr. Speaker, in any of the provinces of Canada, in any of the states in the United States, anywhere in Britain or France or Italy, anywhere in the free world, where this sort of tiling is being done in this way, where a government simply comes along and says; “We take your land for the benefit of all of the people, and because your poor unfortunate wretches happen to be in the way of our improvement that we want to improve for the benefit of all the people, thy land shall be expropriated. It shall be confiscated.”

I am not against expropriation. The government has the right to do it, provided that it shows it needs it. But for heaven’s sake, don’t steal it, which is what this government is doing. If this is what it chooses to do, don’t let it make it any worse than this speculative thing. Make provisions for the people that it had pity on, the old people that my friend from St, George talked about. What about those people who are about to go into an old folks’ home? What is going to happen to those who had a few acres of land that they were hoping was going to be beneficial to them in their old age? We were able to convince the government to make a change there, but it is not making any change for them in this particular case.

What the government is doing isn’t right. It made various and sundry promises. It is now over a year since this legislation was promised. The government was going to set up committees. Finally, an announcement was made two or three weeks ago that it is going to set up a lay committee and an expert committee and they are in the process of setting them up now.

So a whole year has gone by and nothing has taken place. Meanwhile, people are dying. The leader of the NDP’s sisters are suffering. Other people are suffering. Transfers have to take place. Sales have to take place. Purchases have to take place. Life goes on. People can’t just sit around on their butts like people sit in this Legislature. Life is dynamic. Changes have to take place. It’s going to take the government five years before it works anything out. Indeed it may take 10 years.

What are people going to do with respect to succession duties or with respect to gift taxes? Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that the federal succession duty department and the income tax department and the gift tax department -- forget about income tax -- have been charging people succession duty and gift taxes on the basis of market values, on the basis of $10,000 or $15,000 an acre prior to the passing of this legislation, which has reduced the value of the land to $500 an acre?

How can one government come along and say that the land is worth $15,000 an acre and this government comes along and says it is worth $500 an acre? I’m rounding out the figures for simplicity. Don’t quarrel with me about $100, give or take a little, one way or another. But that’s what has been happening and it’s no laughing matter. I know that there have been fathers who have gifted property to their children and paid gift tax on the basis of the land being worth $10,000 and $15,000 an acre. The children have shares in these pieces of land and the children own these pieces of land and this land is now worth $500 an acre. How is there going to be a readjustment of this situation the way this government is doing things?

Mr. Speaker, this is unjust. Again, I say, we are going to have the same situation take place here as has taken place with respect to the speculation tax. Somebody is going to get tough enough -- it’s not so much a matter of becoming tough enough -- they are going to become desperate enough that they are going to have to challenge the government in the courts on the basis of common law.

I don’t know how the precedents are going to go on this thing because I don’t think there is any precedent in Canada on this but there is certainly precedent in other democratic countries of the world where the law of eminent domain prevails. A government has the right to take but hasn’t got the right to steal; it hasn’t got the right to confiscate. The minister is stealing under this legislation. I tell the Tory members it’s on their heads. It’s wrong; it’s morally wrong; it’s immoral and it’s amoral. The minister knows it is and he should correct it while he can do so in good conscience before he is forced to do it.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to enter the debate? If not, the hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I think, as it is five to 6 and I will take a few more minutes than that, I’ll move the adjournment of the debate.

Mr. Lewis: Hold on.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, there is a disposition to conclude second readings. I would ask the minister to proceed.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to proceed at this time.

I want to go back to the original bill which I believe is what we are debating now and have been for some while. We are not debating the amendments before us. The amendments before us are to make the original bill more flexible and to clarify certain procedures. As the member for Waterloo North said, in general he has accepted all the amendments we have here because they have clarified what should happen in regard to hearings; who should be notified; how municipalities will deal with the hearings and what notification will go to municipalities; how the hearing officers will be appointed. They certainly will be independent, they will not be ones who are going to be partial to certain people and impartial to others. The appeal to the cabinet. I think, is also something which is most necessary.

Rather than answering all of the members, I think we must say that what we are doing here is not depriving any citizen of any rights. It may be that certain citizens feel their property will be worth many more dollars in the future than it is at the present time. We can’t anticipate that but what we are saying is we want to preserve land for parkway purposes. I think it is acceptable to all parties that we have land for parkway belts.

We are going to proceed to deal with the lands in question. It may be that it has taken longer than it should have. It may be that the Misses Anderson have a case; it may be. I would like to look into that particular case and I will, to find out if there is more than one side to that story. On the surface, from what the hon. leader of the NDP has said, it would seem they have not been dealt with as promptly as they should have been dealt with.

I would like to find out if anyone can tell me -- I think the member for York--Forest Hill should be able to -- what compensation was given to the owners in Toronto when the city put through the 45-ft bylaw?

Mr. Givens: It isn’t through yet. I criticized that and that is wrong.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: What compensation has been given to any owner where there is a change in zoning? There has never been any compensation given and there never will be because we haven’t got enough money to do so, either at the municipal level, the federal or the provincial.

Mr. Givens: Does that justify stealing?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: It is not stealing. We are not depriving anyone, Mr. Speaker, of any right of the lands that they have. They can still use those lands, but we will deprive them of the right of subdividing those lands or using them for a different use than the present one.

Mr. Givens: The 45-ft bylaw has never been applied. It has never been applied.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for York--Forest Hill is talking about two different things entirely. He has been talking about anticipatory speculation. We are talking about giving to the people what rightly belongs to them, but not what they think belongs to them because of some future gain which they felt they should have.

Mr. Givens: Well, they are going to go to arbitration.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: This government will determine as quickly as possibly by the committees we have set up what lands are needed for parkway belts and what lands are not; what we must expropriate and what we must not. Those cases are being dealt with day by day, I can tell the hon. members. They may have been dealt with too late, but we are dealing with certain cases at all times. I can only assure members that we will continue to improve our processing procedures as we are continuing to improve our legislation. I don’t mind admitting that the legislation wasn’t perfect. How could it be? This is a very complex situation. I am delighted to bring in, on behalf of the Treasurer, the amendments that we we have here today.

Mr. Givens: Is the minister promising me he won’t confiscate?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I am saying to all members that this government will deal very fairly with anyone who is affected; I am saying that we have not taken away anything from anyone because of this legislation.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the bill be ordered for third reading.

Agreed to.

PARKWAY BELT PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Irvine, on behalf of Hon. Mr. White, moves second reading of Bill 85, An Act to amend the Parkway Belt Planning and Development Act, 1973.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Waterloo North.

Mr. Good: Mr. Speaker, are we adjourning at 6 o’clock?

Mr. Speaker: I understand we are going through until we finish the second readings. Is that correct?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Yes.

Mr. Good: The one point in this bill I would like to draw attention to is section 2, which says that sections 3 and 4 of the said Act are repealed. This, Mr. Speaker, is a section which does away with payments by the province in lieu of taxes formerly made under the Parkway Belt Planning and Development Act.

The reason for doing away with this under this Act is because the amendments to the Provincial Parks Municipal Tax Assistance Act, which will also be before us, now include the parkway belt and the Niagara Escarpment as being included along with provincial parks -- St. Lawrence park and the Niagara park -- for payments in lieu of taxes under the Provincial Parks Municipal Tax Assistance Act.

Whether we debate the principle here or in the other bill when it comes up doesn’t matter to me. But certainly there is going to be a great concern by the municipalities involved when they realize that the maxi- mum payment they will get for land in the parkway belt which is bought and owned by the province, will be the schedule put forth in the Provincial Parks Municipal Tax Assistance Act. It limits the payments to $5 an acre for each of the first 100 acres and $2 per acre for each acre in excess of 100 acres in each such park up to a maximum of 100 acres or $100, whichever is the greatest.

Now certainly that formula was probably all right half a dozen years ago --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might interject just for a minute?

I want to say to the hon. members that I wish to make an amendment to this bill and to the next one, Bill 86, in the committee of the whole House because of the fact we are not proceeding with the Provincial Parks Municipal Tax Assistance Act. It passed first reading in this session, but we will be bringing it forth in the fall. I expect at that time there will be a change in the maximum set out in the Act at the present time. I believe that is the point to which the member is speaking.

Mr. Good: Yes, Mr. Speaker. We can only debate the bills as they appear, and we seem to run into this so often in this House. We get going after studying a bill and reading out some obscure section of it, finding the implications of it, only to find out then that it is the intention of the minister to amend the bill further after second reading.

Really, what is before the House, Mr. Minister, is the bill as it now appears. And the bill as it now appears says that these sections will be deleted from the parkway belt; that the province will not be making payments in lieu of taxes any more for land held by the Crown in the right of Ontario that’s situated in the parkway belt.

The same principle will be in Bill 86. Land held in the Niagara Escarpment area will also not be receiving payment in lieu of taxes under that particular piece of legislation.

Now the difference, Mr. Speaker, is that under the existing legislation there are no limits on the payment that is made in lieu of taxes. It is an arbitrary amount set forth by the government. The government has over the years very slowly increased payments to municipalities for Crown land held, especially in the more highly populated areas. But by transferring these payments over to the other bill, which would happen as the bill is now written, under the Provincial Parks Municipal Tax Assistance Act the payments are limited to $5 an acre.

Since the minister tells me this will not happen until a later date, at which time these rates will be amended, I will sit down, Mr. Speaker, and await the amendment.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify what my amendment is. The amendment is to take this particular section out and say if the Act comes into force on royal assent. In other words, we will not deal with the maximum or otherwise until this section of the bill has been proclaimed by the Lieutenant Governor. In the fall, we will be debating the Provincial Parks Municipal Tax Assistance Act and we will be talking at that time about whether or not there should be a maximum of 10,000 acres or otherwise. As it is now, this deletes any payment, which we don’t want. We want to make sure that the municipalities receive payment.

Mr. Good: So the government is going to leave this in?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We are just saying it doesn’t come into effect until royal assent. We are leaving everything as it is.

Mr. Breithaupt: I realize this kind of debate is somewhat irregular, Mr. Speaker, especially as we are perhaps dealing with a bill that is going to be substantially changed in a few moments. But my understanding of it is that the minister is simply going to hold this for royal assent on the order paper until we are able to deal with Bill 81, which will set out the Provincial Parks Municipal Tax Assistance Act. When that comes through and is passed or attended to later in the fall, then this bill will receive royal assent sometime thereafter.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: That is right, Bills 85 and 86.

Mr. Speaker: Any further comments on this?

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, the wording of the bill is such that one could debate on almost anything but the parkway belt. I simply want to use the occasion, since the amendment is in fact retained and consequential on the previous bill, to ask the minister if he could give us some kind of a statement on the progress in planning and preparing a development plan for the parkway belt?

Secondly, I want to ask him if we are ever going to see a designation of the parkway belt in the area east of Yonge St. over into the region of Durham; and thirdly when he expects hearings and all the other things that are anticipated in the Act are going to take place? I think this is a proper time to ask for that kind of a statement from the minister, particularly in view of the fact that the Legislature is going to adjourn within the next four or five days -- maybe even tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any further speakers to this? If not, the hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I understand what the hon. member for Ottawa Centre wishes to receive in the way of a commitment, but I am not able to give him that commitment. I don’t know when we’ll be proceeding with a parkway designation east of Metro Toronto or when we’ll be having hearings. I can’t give the member a definite commitment whatsoever.

All I am able to say at this time is that the Treasurer and myself and our staff are determining, along with the other members of our caucus, as to when and how we will proceed with the parkway belt east of Metropolitan Toronto. When that time comes, it will be announced by the Treasurer as to where it will be and when the hearings will commence. I can’t give the member anything.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Do I understand this is going eventually to committee of the whole House?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Committee of the whole House.

NIAGARA ESCARPMENT PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Irvine, on behalf of Hon. Mr. White, moves second reading of Bill 86, An Act to amend the Niagara Escarpment and Development Act, 1973.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Waterloo North.

Mr. Good: The amendments in this bill, Mr. Speaker, are comparable in most aspects to those in Bill 84 and also to the deletion of the payment in lieu of taxes section in Bill 85. I presume this bill will be treated in a like manner for the debate on the provisions of payment in lieu of taxes. Certainly one cannot apply the same formula to land down here in southern Ontario that one would to a less densely populated area, even in the recreational parts of the province, and be fair to the municipalities for payment in lieu of taxes.

I was talking to Mr. McCague, chairman of the Niagara Escarpment commission, a few weeks ago. He indicated as soon as we passed the necessary resolutions here and the bills and amendments then they will be embarking on their development control plan. I suppose the timetable that has been scheduled means it will probably be the best part of three years before we can expect a completed plan with the various consultations, the hearing officers’ need for advertising, the complexities of establishing this plan and what not. I would ask has there been any deviation from the government’s projection of three years to develop such a plan?

The amendments in here, Mr. Speaker, being similar, will also clarify the necessity of the hearings, where the information will be held and who all will be entitled or will be required to have the necessary maps and copies of the plan after it is completed. There is no change in the provisions whereby at the present time the ministry is responsible for everything that goes inside the plan. Once the commission takes over it will be they who will be responsible and, eventually, as I understand it, that responsibility will be handed back to the municipalities involved, once the plan is completed.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: If we can’t get a statement from the minister in the course of the second reading debate, Mr. Speaker, I would hope that maybe we could put this bill into committee and get some statements from him at that time.

I want to elaborate in particular on the declarations made by the Treasurer in the Legislature a few days ago. I can’t remember the exact day but I did take some notes with my copy of the bill. These state specifically that something like 40 per cent of the Escarpment area will be subjected to development controls and I believe indicate that a draft plan for the parkway belt west is in the process and not far from coming forward. They refer to the appointment of a couple of advisory committees for the Niagara Escarpment planning area, as far as I can establish from my notes. One of these would include the regional chairman and Paul Godfrey and would be headed by Lou Parsons of the region of Peel. The other is to be a citizen group.

The final notes I have refer to the fact that the OMB is to be expanded in staff and scope in order that it may provide the people who will act as hearing officers. I think we should get some more information from the minister on that point too, which was not discussed when we considered the same similar set of clauses in the Ontario Planning and Development Act amendments.

This was all read out in the Legislature, I think. The minister is nodding his head. It was in a statement by the Treasurer about two weeks ago. Unfortunately I can’t remember exactly when it was.

I have too little information right now really to go ahead. That’s why I think that probably this bill should be put into committee in order that we can look at it in more detail, and since I don’t think we put the Planning and Development Act into committee, we can do it just as well in this particular Act.

I would just like to raise one other question, Mr. Speaker, and that is the way in which the structure of the division of responsibility between the Treasurer and the Minister of Housing is working out. The Minister of Housing has taken over the responsibility of administration of the Planning Act within the policy framework developed by the Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

When that came to be applied to this particular Act, the Niagara Escarpment Act, that meant that the development control powers, which are essentially a sophisticated form of zoning on a case-by-case basis, which were to have been with the Treasurer, are now being passed to the planning people who moved over to the Ministry of Housing when that ministry was created. That ministry hadn’t been anticipated and certainly wasn’t in existence at the time that the bill was de- bated a year ago.

We have a rather ironic and disturbing situation, Mr. Speaker, where a bill that was ostensibly intended to protect the Niagara Escarpment as a unique place for recreation and for scenic preservation is now going to be partly in the administration of a minister whose major role is to encourage the production of housing and to encourage development. It is the same land of contradiction you have when you have a Minister of Natural Resources whose job it is to encourage the most rapid possible exploitation of our minerals, of our forests and so forth, and who also is responsible for conservation authorities across the Province of Ontario.

It is a contradiction in terms, which we regret, that the Minister of Housing should be put into this role of administering development controls, and it leaves us to feel that there probably should be more safeguards around the development control procedure that is written into the Act, given the fact that, by reasons of the things that he’s in government to do, the Minister of Housing just isn’t liable to be sensitive to the kinds of things that development controls were meant to protect in the Niagara Escarpment area.

It lends a lot more credibility to what we said in this Legislature a year ago, Mr. Speaker, when we suggested that the actions of the government in refusing to acquire land, in refusing to require easement and then in giving these development control powers to the ministry, were just as much directed to the development and exploitation of the Niagara Escarpment as to its preservation. I’m afraid that is confirmed by the decisions of the government in this particular case.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, this bill certainly is much different from the situation that the hon. member for Ottawa Centre referred to before, in regard to the implementation of a parkway belt east of Metropolitan Toronto. We are very much further ahead as far as the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act is concerned. We do expect that we will have a plan published in September and the hearings will start some time around the first of the year.

There is no deviation at this particular time from our original three-year term, as the member for Waterloo North inquired. We do feel that it is quite in order to have the Ministry of Housing implement the provisions of a designation which was made by the Treasurer. The Treasurer decides what areas will be designated and what will be proceeded with in that designation, and I feel that there is no conflict at all in having the two ministries involved in this particular procedure -- the implementation by one and the decision-making by the other. So as far as the member for Ottawa Centre is concerned, I would say it isn’t a concern which I share. I feel that we can work together quite easily.

Mr. Cassidy: I know that. I know the minister doesn’t share that concern. At least we voiced it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I feel that there is absolutely no danger whatsoever. We work together in other matters of planning, whereby our ministry has the input on planning and makes the decisions on planning all over Ontario, and the Ministry of Housing implements that planning.

Mr. Cassidy: But the minister’s credibility on preserving the Escarpment has still to be proved.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I will not go any further with this particular bill at this time. It has to go into committee of the whole House to take care of the section that was referred to before.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: I understand it is to go to the committee of the whole House.

Agreed.

THIRD READINGS

The following bills were given third reading upon motion:

Bill 84, An Act to amend the Ontario Planning and Development Act, 1973.

Clerk of the House: Bill 109, An Act to amend the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton Act.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the motion carry?

Mr. Cassidy: No.

Mr. Speaker: Those in favour of Bill 109 being read the third time will please say aye.

Those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion the “ayes” have it.

Motion agreed to; third reading of the bill.

Clerk of the House: The fourth order, House in committee of the whole.

Mr. Cassidy: Is the House leader going to adjourn?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Yes, right now.

It being 6:20 o’clock, p.m., the House took recess.