Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

OIL PRICES

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): Mr. Speaker, yesterday I met with the Prime Minister of Canada and the premiers of the other nine provinces in Ottawa on the price of crude oil in Canada. As the hon. members know, a new price had to be decided upon by April 1 to replace the $4 a barrel price which had been in effect since September last.

In order to avoid what I would consider a serious confrontation throughout this country at a very critical point in its history, some consensus simply had to be reached yesterday. This was impressed upon me very deeply as I participated yesterday afternoon. In the final analysis, I felt that the only reasonable course of action for a Premier of Ontario was to modify his initial position to accept a somewhat higher price than I would have preferred, bearing in mind the inflationary effects of any increase.

I believe that the agreement finally arrived at recognizes to a considerable degree the very different interests of the different regions of the country and will be to the benefit of Canada as a whole. For that reason, perhaps rather than reasons of eventual price determination, I am not unhappy with the results. The consensus arrived at provides for a wellhead price of oil of $6.50 a barrel, effective on April 1 and lasting for at least 12 and possibly 15 months. Prior to the end of this initial period the price will be reviewed and may be then continued, raised or lowered.

The price will be uniform across Canada, but subject to an equitable transportation cost differential. The federal government will continue to levy an export tax on the difference between this domestic price and that price which our oil commands on the Chicago market. The proceeds of this tax will almost entirely be used to bring down the price of oil for eastern consumers, 800,000 of whom are in eastern Ontario, who now depend on imported oil. Any federal revenues not needed for this cushion, as it has been described, will be applied by the federal government to equalization payments to the “have-not” provinces, which will be increased by a rough estimate by some 10 per cent. The proceeds of the price increase for domestic oil will be divided between the producing provinces and the oil companies as determined by the producing provinces.

This agreed price is somewhat higher than the price advocated by the Ontario government, but is much lower than that originally sought by the producing provinces. After all, $6.50 is some $4 less than the current world price and some $2 less than the average American price. The effect of the agreement will probably result in an increase of approximately seven cents a gallon for gasoline and heating oil, and an increase of somewhat more than one percentage point on the consumer price index. The exact timing of retail price increases to Ontario consumers has not been determined, but we could fully expect the federal government and the industry will be able to maintain existing prices until present stocks are exhausted.

In spite of this cost which will have to be paid by consumers in Ontario, I am convinced that we have preserved for Canadians the benefits of this country’s vast energy resources. The increased price will permit rapid development of new energy resources; the lower-than-world price will maintain a competitive advantage for Canadian industry; consumers in the eastern provinces will be protected from the high cost of imported oil, the western provinces will have a base on which to diversify their economic development, Canadians will have a stable oil price for at least a year while the rest of the world faces uncertainty, and Canada will be spared a potentially divisive constitutional confrontation.

I would hope that our efforts since January to come to grips with a national oil policy will prove to have paved the way for the next steps, which must include arrangements for natural gas, and a more permanent federal-provincial mechanism that will make unnecessary the crisis bargaining of the last few days. In this regard, we will continue to work together with the federal government and our sister provinces.

All in all, Mr. Speaker, I think yesterday was a reasonable solution for this province and for Canada.

BUDGET DATE

Hon. John White (Treasurer, Minister of Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, the budget will be brought down Tuesday, April 9.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Good for the Treasurer!

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): What time?

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Why did the Treasurer have to change the date?

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

OIL PRICES

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): I’d like to ask the Premier for some further information on yesterday’s important conference.

Is the figure of approximately $100 million, which will be Ontario’s share of the so-called cushion, going to be allocated entirely to that area of eastern Ontario directly concerned, or could it possibly be government policy to use that fund or some additional fund, perhaps something from the gas tax fund, to assist in equalizing the price in the northern part of the province, which is not included in the geographic division but certainly is an area suffering from seriously inflating gas prices?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the intent is to provide a cushion, as we have begun to use the term, for consumers in the eastern part of Canada, and that includes the 800,000 in eastern Ontario, who even today are paying something higher than the price in the rest of Ontario, including northern Ontario.

The whole policy, Mr. Speaker, is to have a degree of equality, exclusive of transportation costs, for all of Canada. The funds that will be made available from the export tax by the federal government will be used to offset the differential that has existed for a period of time. It would be very horrendous, I think, if this were not the policy for the 800,000 people in eastern Ontario.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Since I am sure the Premier would agree that even with the unnatural dislocating pricing effects in the eastern part of Ontario, which are going to be compensated for by this cushion, would he not agree that the prices in the north are already higher than those paid in the east and that we should have some provincial programme to provide that sort of a cushion for the good of our citizens living in that part of the province?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, Mr. Speaker, I think it is a very commendable objective, to the extent that it is practical and equitable, to have equalization of prices within Ontario. This government has been endeavouring to come to grips with it. We have done it, as I recall, with beer --

Mr. Deans: It is not a necessity -- not yet anyway.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): You’re kidding!

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, some say it’s almost a necessity.

Mr. Deans: It may almost be in the Premier’s house, but in mine it isn’t.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Rhodes) has been endeavouring to do this with respect to some commodities in the northeastern corridor.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The question of being able to have, shall we say, the same price for other commodities in the north or in other sections of the Province of Ontario, of course, is of interest to the government. But I have to say to the Leader of the Opposition, as it relates to the moneys that will be coming from the export tax, they are to be allocated for the consumers who at present are in the eastern area, and I guess that line will tend to disappear because of the now uniform price. That is the intent of the cushion allowance.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth, I believe, should have a supplementary.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary question: I would like to ask, is the answer then that the government is not going to do anything for northern Ontario? And, secondly, what kind of mechanism does the government intend to set up to make sure that no price gouging takes place in Ontario as a result of such things as heating cost increases, which will be passed on by landlords to tenants right across the province?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member for Wentworth likes to use the term “gouging” whenever he possibly can --

Mr. Deans: Only when it is appropriate.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It makes headlines.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can only say to the hon. member that this government does a great deal for the north, will continue to do so and has a far greater interest than have --

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Try to convince the people of northern Ontario of that!

Hon. Mr. Davis: But I think it is fair to state, Mr. Speaker, that we have demonstrated this rather conclusively, and certainly the contents of the Throne Speech have been welcomed as a very real recognition of what we are prepared to do, even by some of our critics in the north.

Interjections by hon, members.

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

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a supplementary pertaining to the Premier’s statement. I realize the meeting in Ottawa was in private. Can he tell the House whether, on behalf of Ontario, he indicated some concern that under the federal policy an additional $1.5 billion is going to accrue to the treasury of Alberta on the basis of the present circumstances, even though it is going to be shared with the producers on the basis of provincial decision? Is he of the impression that this sort of an allocation of funds is going to be dislocating now, and will be increasingly dislocating? Did he suggest .that we in Ontario were prepared to leave the jurisdiction of uranium resources at the federal level if, in fact, the advantages to the, let’s say, specially-inflated prices of oil were going to accrue to all of Canada rather than just one provincial jurisdiction?

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): A great question.

Hon. Mr. Davis: With great respect, of course, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition has once again not totally appreciated what has happened, or the mathematics of it. The last person to say that the Province of Alberta and the Province of Saskatchewan are not going to do well out of this would be myself. But to say that all of these funds are accruing to the two producing provinces for their resource is just categorically incorrect.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Of course not -- who said it? Did I? I did not!

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, the Leader of the Opposition did.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I did not --

Hon. Mr. Davis: And I would say, Mr. Speaker, that it has to be recognized --

Mr. R. F, Nixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I expressed specifically when I saw the statement that obviously -- and you’ve got to do this -- the funds would be allocated by the Province of Alberta to its own direct consolidated revenue fund or to the producers, as it saw fit. And surely, Mr. Speaker, it is well understood that a half of the budget of that province is going to be met from these extraordinary sources.

Mr. Roy: Right. Did the Premier understand the question?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker -- and I know the Leader of the Opposition would like us to be fair -I would like to point out --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- that while Alberta will receive substantially increased revenues, the total amount of the export tax, which comes from provincial revenues, the provincial resource, all of that tax and it’s in the hundreds of millions of dollars -- is going to cushion many thousands of Canadians in the Maritime provinces, the Province of Quebec, and 800,000 citizens of the Province of Ontario.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That’s the export tax.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, the export tax is on a provincial resource; and I think it is fair to state that a couple of provincial premiers would like to see the export tax funds going to their provinces. That has not happened. The federal government says, “This is ours; we are going to use it.” And the fact remains that as of April 1, hundreds of millions of dollars flowing -- literally flowing -- from a provincial resource will be used to equalize oil prices right across the country.

And I think, Mr. Speaker, this is something that the Province of Ontario advocated some many months ago, and which I think is one of the significant steps forward that this country has made in the past several years. To me it is a fairly basic and a fairly important principle, and I give the Prime Minister of Canada some credit.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: What about the uranium? What about the uranium situation?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Bullbrook: The Premier has a commitment in connection with uranium. It’s the same thing as far as uranium.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): A supplementary, Mr. Speaker, referring to the answer the Premier gave to a supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: Is this a supplementary question?

Mr. Foulds: It is a supplementary to the main question.

Mr. Speaker: All right, proceed to ask the question.

Mr. Foulds: Has the Premier, in effect, said that he and his government are powerless to equalize prices of oil, gas and other commodities in northwestern Ontario -- that 58 per cent of the land mass in the province that lies west of Sault Ste. Marie, which was not mentioned in the Throne Speech and which he has not mentioned today?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I have not said this government is powerless. This government is not powerless. And I have not said --

Mr. Foulds: Why hasn’t the Premier done anything?

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Just gutless, that’s all.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Look who is talking, the island resident.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- that we will not be making an attempt to see if we can’t rationalize certain things in the northwest as well as the northeast.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Speaker, by way of supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: There have been five. I will permit one last supplementary. The hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that fuel oil is going to increase somewhere in the vicinity of 15 per cent and gasoline about 10 to 12 per cent, I wonder if the Premier could tell us if the government of Ontario has any plans at all to enable those people on fixed incomes and on low incomes- pensioners, welfare recipients and so on -- to be able to cope with yet another phenomenal increase to their cost of living? Is the government going to do anything about helping those people to carry on in face of what is going to be for them a shocking increase for absolute basics?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, this government is very cognizant of the inflationary- pressures on people on fixed incomes or low incomes, and if the hon. member for Downsview will be patient -- as I know he is used to being -- the Treasurer has indicated that his budget will be forthcoming and that of course is when the financial programmes of this government will be stated to the hon. members of this House.

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

DENTURE THERAPISTS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Minister of Health if he can dispel some of the uncertainty about the status of the denturists. Is it true that in fact he has decided to reverse the government position and is supported in that by his cabinet colleagues but somehow can’t get the support of the backbench members of his party? If that is true he can look to us for support.

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I am sure that a reasonable member like the Leader of the Opposition would support almost anything that I brought forward. However --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: On the same day that he said he likes Trudeau, Trudeau said he liked him.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I can assure the member that I tried to make my position relatively clear in the fact that I was giving this a great deal of consideration as a new minister, that there were a number of options open to me, if in fact any changes were required at all, that either I should make a change in the near future or I should not, depending upon the conclusion which I may reach.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: Did he swear that oath to answer like this before he went into the Cabinet?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I have not yet reached that conclusion, but I hope to very shortly.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Change if necessary, but not necessarily.

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

COST-SHARING PROGRAMME RE MENTALLY RETARDED

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Minister of Community and Social Services if it is true that the ministry will be implementing a so-called cost-sharing plan for residents of psychiatric institutions, under which the parents of the children in institutions such as Cedar Springs will be required to pay a part of the cost that has so far been met completely from public funds?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle Minister of Community and Social Services): Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to send to the hon. Leader of the Opposition another copy of my remarks on second reading of that bill, where I indicated that no decision has been reached and that there are ongoing discussions with the parents and with the local associations.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: May I assure the minister that I followed the debate very carefully on that bill because it had very far-reaching significance. Can the hon. minister assure the House that it is not going to be a part of government policy that the parents of retarded children are going to have to pay directly the costs, or even a part of the costs, of the care and education of these young people?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Again, Mr. Speaker, I would like to reiterate what I said, that no decision has been reached, that everything is being done in full --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): He hasn’t even considered it.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Sit down and listen.

Everything is being done in full consultation with the parents of the retarded and with the local associations and there will be no decision reached in this area for several months.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Can the minister undertake to tell the House what possible rationale would lead him to say that he is even contemplating such a programme?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, I would be very pleased to make available to the hon. Leader of the Opposition a resolution that was passed by the Ontario Association for the Mentally Retarded and sent to the local associations, whereby they are in agreement with --

Mr. Reid: They are not in agreement.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: They are in agreement that we do consider assistance under the Canada Assistance Plan, with the provision that the money that would be received would be used for enriching and expanding our facilities and our services to the mentally handicapped.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth on behalf of the New Democratic Party.

INCORPORATION APPLICATIONS BY US BOOK PUBLISHERS

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Premier. In view of the statement of the commission on book publishing that additional Ontario-based publishing enterprises owned or controlled by nonresidents should no longer be permitted in Ontario without prior approval, and in view of the government’s seeming reluctance to move in this field, will the Premier order that there be an inquiry into the proposition that Houghton, Mifflin, a US based company, has applied for incorporation in Ontario to establish a publishing firm, and that Allyn and Bacon is in the process of doing similarly? This is not in keeping with either the intent of the recommendation or the stated intent of the government at the time the recommendations were released.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am relatively familiar with the contents of that particular report. I can only say to the hon. member that we will be taking a look at both of those applications. I think we have made it abundantly clear that, certainly to the extent it is practical, this government is very committed to the concept of the publishing industry being Canadian, and I think we have demonstrated this rather conclusively.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: What process is there whereby anyone attempting to set up a publishing firm in Ontario must make application to the government in any event? What process is there that guarantees the government would even be made aware that it was going to be set up until after it’s set up?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I can only assume, not being involved with the legal field any more, that if they are going to do it by way of a new corporation, they will have to get approval. If they were, in fact, purchasing an existing publishing house, of course, there would be certain approvals required, if not ours, certainly of the federal government. I think we are going to be familiar with it and are in a position to deal with it.

Mr. Foulds: A supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Has the hon. member for Port Arthur a supplementary?

Mr. Foulds: Is the minister aware that Houghton, Mifflin has, in fact, applied’ for incorporation in Ontario? What response has the government formulated in reply to the letter sent to the Premier on March 25 by the Independent Publishers Association?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I haven’t checked the records of application but I am aware it has made application.

Mr. Foulds: What response is he going to make?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will tell the member when we decide.

Mr. Foulds: When another firm --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

URANIUM AND ASSOCIATED NUCLEAR FUELS POLICY

Mr. Deans: With regard to Tuesday’s policy statement on uranium I would like to ask the Premier whether, instead of relaxing the degree of foreign ownership that currently is involved in the uranium field in Canada, the Province of Ontario might consider taking up the 10 per cent which is currently permitted to be sold to foreign investors, for the purposes of exercising some degree of control over the use of uranium and the future of uranium as a valuable energy source in the Province of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I thought this would be abundantly clear to the member for Wentworth; the control as to its use is now very much there. That is not the problem.

Mr. Reid: A supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Rainy River with a supplementary.

Mr. Reid: The Premier’s remarks seemed to indicate that it was a problem of exploration and development; would he consider a consortium, perhaps such as along the lines of Panarctic, with the involvement of the Ontario government and the involvement of Canadian mining firms to carry out the exploration and development of uranium in Ontario?

Mr. Foulds: Heaven forbid.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Save us from that one.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, that’s one of the things already under consideration.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: Does the Premier feel --

Mr. Reid: Why doesn’t he at least do away with --

Mr. Speaker: Order! The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: Does the Premier feel, with regard to the discussions he left in Ottawa yesterday, that it’s time we got out from under the private developer in the field of energy and in the field of fuel oil, and that we in the Province of Ontario attempt for the first time to exercise some degree of control so the taxpayers’ money isn’t funnelled through the government into the pockets of major corporations owned almost wholly in the US?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the basic discussion yesterday did not refer to that whatsoever.

Mr. Deans: No, it didn’t refer to it but that’s what happens.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It referred to the price that was to be paid to the producing provinces.

Mr. Deans: And it is going back to the producing pockets of the country.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Those producing provinces make their own determination. I gather the member for Wentworth is saying that because of their great philosophical association the Province of Saskatchewan will use all the funds in the provincial process. I would doubt it. He may even find some of them going to the private sector. It may come as a great shock to him but they just may.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sarnia with a supplementary.

Mr. Bullbrook: By way of supplementary, would the Premier clarify for me, in connection with his statement made two days ago, the following words: “We are not, however, convinced that equity requirements with respect to the ownership of uranium mines and the granting of exploration permits should be significantly different from those that apply to oil, gas and coal.” Does the Minister of Energy concur and does that sentence mean what it says?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think it depends to a certain extent on how one reads it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: He couldn’t claim to be misquoted because it’s all here.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Was the Premier smiling when he said that?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think the Minister of Energy, in discussions with the press both the same day and subsequently, has clarified it --

Mr. Singer: Has clarified what the Premier really meant to say.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- so that the members will understand specifically.

Mr. Singer: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon Mr. Davis: So that there will be no confusion, if the hon member for Sarnia would like to ask the Minister of Energy specifically as to his statement, which I think is in the neighbourhood of 51 per cent Canadian ownership, he would be delighted to answer.

Mr. Singer: The Premier should not make these statements. He should let the Minister of Energy make them for him.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, he would be delighted to do so.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Bullbrook: By way of supplementary, would the Minister of Energy assist the Premier --

An hon. member: No!

Mr. Bullbrook: -- in understanding what that sentence means, and conveying to the House what it means?

Mr. Singer: Yes, what it really means.

An hon. member: Out of order.

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, if there’s anyone in this House who doesn’t need assistance, it’s the Premier of this province.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Bullbrook: I withdraw the question. Let the Premier answer it. He says the Premier doesn’t need any help.

Mr. Speaker: Order!

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: Well, the question has been withdrawn. The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the --

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Supplementary?

Mr. Speaker: All right, a supplementary. The hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside.

Mr. Breithaupt: Supplementary? The question was withdrawn. Supplementary to a withdrawn question.

Mr. Singer: Better get a new statement writer like the Minister of Energy.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, I wrote it. That’s the problem.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): He admits it.

Mr. Burr: Does the Premier feel at ease with the fact that in promoting further exploration and mining of uranium, he is condemning to premature and painful death many of those unfortunate men who will have to do the mining of that uranium?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, of course we’re concerned about the position of miners in any capacity --

Mr. Martel: When did that start?

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- but I think it is fair to state that we are interested-and I make it abundantly clear, and that was the real purpose of the statement on Tuesday -- in having further exploration and development of the uranium resource of this province. We happen to regard it as being one of the major potential energy sources in not only Ontario, but Canada and, the rest of the world. Quite frankly, we think that the rules should be altered so there can be greater encouragement so that we can have this resource utilized for the broad general public.

Mr. Burr: As a supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth. There have been a reasonable number of supplementaries now. The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Laughren: They’re received no answer.

Mr. Speaker: There have been a reasonable number of supplementaries.

COST OF DENTAL CARE

Mr. Deans: Good questions, no answers.

Mr. Speaker, I have one question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Is the superintendent of insurance still in his department?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Yes.

Mr. Deans: Will the minister --

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s a supplementary.

Mr. Deans: -- request that the superintendent of insurance investigate the policies currently in operation with regard to dental care with a number of major companies, such as Dofasco and Steel Co. of Canada, to determine the basis upon which the fee schedule was arrived at, and to find out why dentists are charging more to patients who are insured than they charge for similar services to patients who are uninsured?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, I will make that inquiry to the superintendent.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. member for Wentworth have further questions? The hon. Minister of Health has the answer to a question asked previously.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Reid: Let’s hope he has.

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, on March 8 the hon. member for High Park asked me a question concerning the availability of well-female examinations and our policy on it. There was an OHIP bulletin that went out.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): I have it here.

Hon. Mr. Miller: It’s number 4008, Aug. 11, 1972. It said, as the member knows, that well-female examinations, as such, are not a benefit and should be treated and accepted as office visits. If Pap smears, etc., are necessary, charges should be as specified in the OMA fee schedule.

This simply means that if, in the physician’s judgement, a Pap smear should be done, it will be paid for by OHIP. The previously designated well-female examination, the OMA felt, was an anomaly, as it is exactly the same as any other check of a patient presently without symptoms. There has been no change in OHIP policy relating to payment for Pap smears or for frequency of this test. In fact, our staff have indicated that there are probably more being claimed now than ever before.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Does the minister recall the pronouncement made by his second predecessor back, when he brought in this so-called well-female examination every six months which he said would be a great step forward? Does he also recall the statement made by OHIP at the time that they cancelled this, that in future it would be paid for only once a year instead of every six months, unless there was a medical reason for it? Is he not aware that this is an abandonment of the preventive medicine aspect of that?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I simply reiterate my statement that we are doing these as frequently as we ever did. We have not changed the time limits on them.

Mr. Shulman: I have one other supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker. Will the minister elaborate on who the physicians are to whom he referred in the House the other day, who do not believe in the value of the Pap smear?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I think the member simply needs to do a bit of the research that he’s so good at by looking through the papers.

An hon. member: Pap is back.

Mr. Shulman: Does the minister know of any better way?

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

MAPLE MOUNTAIN DEVELOPMENT

Hon. R. Welch (Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday last the hon. member for Scarborough West (Mr. Lewis) directed a question to me concerning a caution that had been registered under section 48 of the Land Titles Act with the master of titles at North Bay in respect to all unpatented land in the 110 townships in the district of Nipissing. This matter was brought to the attention of the Ministry of the Attorney General, and we have commenced studies in order to have a very careful evaluation of the historical facts and indeed the legal content of the claim upon which the cautions are based.

As the hon. members will appreciate, this will involve a fairly thorough review of the files of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs concerning the Bear Island Foundation. We will be conducting a study of all the relevant constitutional law relating to native rights and treaties in Canada. This would be ail the information which I could provide to the hon. member at this time.

Mr. A. J. Renwick (Riverdale): By way of a supplementary, would the minister be good enough to table a copy of the caution in the House so that we could have a look at it?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Yes.

Mr. Singer: By way of a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, is the Attorney General going to hire special counsel or is this investigation going to be done within his department?

An hon. member: At overtime costs?

Hon. Mr. Welch: The investigation to which I refer will be conducted within the ministry.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of Housing also has the answer to a question asked previously, and then the hon. Leader of the Opposition.

HOUSING PROGRAMMES

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Wentworth asked a supplementary question concerning the status of the OHC holdings in the Saltfleet area and whether or not they could be expedited to be serviced and put on the market within the next two years.

As the hon. member is aware, there has been considerable servicing done in the area in preparation for the start of construction in the first phase of the Saltfleet land assembly and there is currently a tender call out for additional underground services and roads. However, it would be physically and economically impossible to compress the development of the OHC’s 1,600-plus acres, let alone the entire development area, into the two-year period suggested by the hon. member.

Staging of the community has been established in accordance with the official plan for the regional municipality. There are many other bodies, such as the city of Hamilton, the town of Stoney Creek, other local organizations and provincial ministries, which have committed considerable resources to future development on a phased basis.

OHC itself is doing everything possible to accelerate the Saltfleet community consistent with the constraints imposed by other agencies on the rate of growth. Without going into detail on the other agencies’ restrictions, there are a number of them. Some of them are rudimentary and some of them are fundamental. I would add that, in addition to the Saltfleet land, OHC also expects to market something in the order of 800 lots in the city of Hamilton this year.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: Isn’t the minister saying two things: One that the plan conforms with the official plan of the region, because there is no official plan of the region yet; and, secondly, that he cannot find either the money or the will to service that land in order to meet the needs of the people of the area to provide low-cost housing?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: First of all, I suppose I should have said the draft official plan, as our officials know of it in its present stage. Secondly, no, there is no unwillingness on the part of the ministry or the government. It’s simply a question of physical capacity. The number of acres which are normally developed in the Hamilton-Wentworth area in a year are slightly over 1,000 acres. This would, in fact, add about 150 per cent to that, and it’s physically impossible.

If I might just mention to the hon. member, one of the problems that we ran into was the requirement by the town of Stoney Creek concerning underground transformer vaults. That has been ironed out. But it’s just the type of thing that is time-consuming and one of the kinds of things that I am committed to eradicate in the planning and development process.

Mr. Deans: One final supplementary question: What does the minister intend to do by way of compressing the 10- or 12-year time period that has been allocated down to a reasonable number of years in order to ensure that there is going to be housing there, for young people who are coming into the housing market and for those already in the market, at a price they can afford to pay?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I suppose the first thing I can do is pledge my ministry to compress the time period the hon. member mentioned, without having a specific goal in mind. Certainly we want to reduce the time for development and construction. There is nothing that I would like better than to be able to reduce that to the two years the hon. member has suggested. I am told, and I am inclined to accept, that it is physically impossible. However, we will do everything possible to expedite it.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: In view of the minister’s comments that it is physically impossible to accelerate development of those lots, as was suggested by the hon. member for Wentworth, can he assure the House that it will be physically possible to increase the supply of lots by approximately half in Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa and some other centres such as in Thunder Bay, as is proposed in the housing action programme for the next two years?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I didn’t say it was physically impossible to accelerate; I said it was impossible to compress it within the two-year time period the hon. member had suggested.

Mr. Deans: I will give the minister an extra six months.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: As for announcing our production targets under the housing action programme, discussions are still going on with municipalities and developers. I hope to be in a position to make a specific announcement within a very short period of time.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: I think there has been a reasonable number of supplementaries on that question.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

KINGSTON TOWNSHIP SERVICES

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A question of the Treasurer, who has been busily walking in and out and conferring with his friends.

Was he the cabinet minister responsible for ordering the Ontario Municipal Board to reopen hearings and further consideration into the provision of water and sewage disposal facilities in Kingston township after the approvals and the hearings had been completed? And was he motivated in doing so by special advice given to him by his colleague, the member for Ottawa South (Mr. Bennett)?

Hon. Mr. White: Well, sir, I commend the Leader of the Opposition for asking a question of me while I am here and not while I am out of the city.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Treasurer is very seldom here.

Hon. Mr. White: It is the first time this year he has done that.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. White: It shows a certain enhancement of ethical standards or courage -- I am not sure which.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. White: If I did sign such instructions to the OMB, I have forgotten about it. I will double-check and see whether or not I did so.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Is the Treasurer aware that the council of Kingston township feels, and with some justification, that the cabinet has unduly and forcefully interfered with any impartiality of the Municipal Board in this regard to the detriment of the taxpayers in Kingston township and for the unwarranted extension of the time required to provide the facilities that the hon. gentlemen have been working on so assiduously?

Hon. Mr. White: No.

Mr. Roy: He is playing politics.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary? All right.

Mr. Cassidy: What steps is the province prepared to take to compensate Kingston township for the estimated extra cost of $500,000 to $1 million of building the waterworks in view of the fact that at present tenders expire on March 30 or 31 before the final OMB hearing is ordered by the cabinet?

Hon. Mr. White: I have had an instant memo relating to the question from the Leader of the Opposition, saying I gave no such instructions. The OMB is the responsibility of the Attorney General.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: In view of the fact that the question was misdirected or was improper or incorrect there can be no supplementary.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It was very proper.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Cochrane South.

SUMMER EMPLOYMENT AT HOSPITALS

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Health.

What progress, if any, has he made in restoring some of the 52 summer student jobs that were cancelled this year at the Northeastern Regional Mental Health Centre as a result of budget constraints?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I have discussed this matter with the member previously. I requested that the budget be reviewed for that hospital and for other hospitals that had similar budget cuts. I am informed that that review is in progress right now and there is a good possibility of the reinstatement of some budgetary moneys to provide summer employment opportunities.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

OPERATION OF TRAVEL AGENCIES

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

In view of yet another collapse of a travel agency -- Four Seasons Travel Agency I think it is -- is the minister prepared to take any steps to provide licensing, trust funds and control of advance deposits, or to exercise the type of controls that his department presently uses for plumbers, real estate agents, used car dealers, mortgage brokers or people entering into pyramid schemes?

Also, shouldn’t the people of Ontario be entitled to look to this minister for some kind of protection in view of the great series of scandals that has befallen good ordinary citizens who pay their money in advance to take trips, then the money disappears and they don’t even get their trips?

Mr. Roy: And the minister just throws up his hands.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, the association of travel agents, a group representing a substantial number of agents in this province, have advised me that they will be submitting a brief within the next three to four weeks in connection with this, pursuant to my invitation last January -- that is January of 1973 -- to look into this particular matter.

May I point out that licensing of travel agents does not resolve the problem. If travel agents make arrangements through chartered Canadian carriers their deposits are insured under the federal legislation dealing with charter trips. It’s when they initiate charter trips with non-ordinary carriers operating in and out of Ontario, or operating in and out of the State of New York, that the difficulty arises. The licensing does not ensure that the person who makes the deposit will automatically have his money refunded.

Mr. Shulman: But bonding does.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Bonding does if the travel agent --

Mr. Singer: Control of trust funds does.

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- defaults because of his own theft or the theft of a member of his staff. But bonding does not cover inept operators.

Mr. Deans: That frequently has been the problem.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, by way of supplementary, if the systems of licensing and controls and testing seem to work for real estate agents, for mortgage brokers and for several other groups of people the ministry supervises, why can’t it put something on the statute books of the province to protect these Ontario citizens who are suffering because there is no government control whatsoever?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The only way, Mr. Speaker, that something like that can arise would be for a substantial compensation fund to be developed by perhaps the travel agents themselves, and this is the very matter to which we have turned our minds. I am not going to see the Province of Ontario allocate several millions of dollars for a compensation fund for this particular segment of industry.

Mr. Singer: I didn’t suggest a compensation fund.

Mr. Deans: Where does the government come into protecting these people?

Mr. Shulman: Why in the world can the minister not put in legislation requiring a combination of bonding and insurance from every travel agent? What’s so difficult about that?

Hon. Mr. Clement: One of the difficulties is in resolving the problem and defining exactly how it would operate. This is the very question I directed to the industry 14 or 15 months ago.

Mr. Singer: What about qualification tests?

Mr. Renwick: No problem at all.

Mr. Shulman: What is so difficult about that?

Mr. Renwick: They do it in every other market.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. Shulman: Even do it for lawyers.

Mr. Speaker: Did I hear the word “supplementary”?

All right, the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor- Walkerville): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the --

Mr. Foulds: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Point of order.

Mr. Foulds: The previous question was asked by the hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. Speaker: Well I’ll call two members of the New Democratic Party next. The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville.

An hon. member: Besides there are very few members --

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): Mr. Speaker, point of order.

Mr. Speaker: A point of order over here.

An hon. member: Proportionately we have --

Mr. Speaker: Order, point of order please.

Mr. Kennedy: The point of order is, I had asked a supplementary but you couldn’t hear it because of the several members over there speaking.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Got to speak up.

Mr. Speaker: Was that a supplementary to the original question asked by the hon. member for Downsview?

Mr. Kennedy: Yes it was.

Mr. Speaker: All right, I’ll permit a supplementary.

Mr. Reid: Just walk down five chairs and talk to him.

Mr. Kennedy: Could I ask the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, with respect to Cardinal Travel Ltd. and the activities of the fraud squad in investigating that, is the investigation complete or is the minister awaiting further detail, or is that phase of it closed?

Mr. Roy: Tell him to mind his own business.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t think the investigation has been completed in its entirety, Mr. Speaker. I was advised by my staff on Monday or Tuesday of this week that I could anticipate further information with reference to this particular agency to which the member refers. When I have that information I’ll make it available to any member of the House who wants it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville.

REFUSAL FOR CARDIOVASCULAR UNIT IN WINDSOR

Mr. B. Newman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Health. Is the minister aware that a committee of concerned citizens in Windsor raised well over $16,000 more than a year ago to purchase a coronary bypass unit, and that unit subsequently had to be returned to the manufacturer because the ministry refused permission for the development of a cardiovascular surgery unit in one of the hospitals?

Mr. Shulman: And quite rightly so.

Mr. B. Newman: Has the minister now reconsidered the decision of the previous Minister of Health and is he prepared to have the cardiovascular surgery unit established in one of the Windsor hospitals --

Mr. Shulman: Sheer waste.

Mr. B. Newman: -- in view of the fact that Windsor residents must now travel to the city of London for such treatment?

Mr. Givens: Now we know the NDP position.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I will be in Windsor tomorrow --

Mr. Roy: That should help.

Hon. Mr. Miller: -- and I am fully aware of the problem that has just been mentioned by the member. There is no justification --

Mr. Roy: Does the minister mean to say he is presenting his bill tomorrow?

Hon. Mr. Miller: -- for the cardiovascular unit being placed in the hospital of Windsor. In fact, in the opinion of a medical team that was set up to determine where in fact such resources should be available, it could be potentially dangerous.

Mr. Roy: I thought he was presenting a bill here.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Port Arthur.

Mr. B. Newman: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, yes.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, am I correct in stating that there are three heart transplant units in the city of Toronto within two miles of one another?

Mr. Shulman: Oh, that is waste too.

Mr. B. Newman: And is there not need for such a unit in the city of Windsor, rather than have Windsor residents travel to the city of London?

Mr. Shulman: No. They should shut down two of the ones in Toronto; that is what they should do.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I wouldn’t want to try to justify three heart transplant units within two miles of each other in the city of Toronto.

Mr. Shulman: Shut them down.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I can only say that that is one of the major duties I have as the Minister of Health of this province, to make sure that there is not duplication of facilities, or that in fact costly facilities are not put where they should not be. I will try to do that to the best of my ability with the advice I get from within the ministry.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: One more supplementary.

Mr. Bounsall: Yes, Mr. Speaker, of the Minister of Health: Would he consider then as part of his health programme paying at least the travel costs, if not the accommodation costs, of one member of the family being able to visit a patient who is undergoing the use of these units in his centralized locations?

Mr. Roy: What does the member for High Park think?

Mr. Shulman: Good idea.

Mr. Deans: He says that is a good idea.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I am quite willing to listen to that suggestion.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Port Arthur.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Staying out of bed.

QUETICO PARK

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Natural Resources. Has his ministry had any negotiations or conversations with Domtar Ltd. about possible reopening of cutting rights for them in Quetico Park in 10 years’ time?

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): I didn’t hear the first part.

Mr. Roy: Forget it. Go on to the next question.

Mr. Foulds: Has the ministry had any conversations or negotiations with Domtar Ltd. about possible reopening of cutting rights for Domtar in Quetico Park in 10 years’ time?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No, Mr. Speaker, we have not.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary then, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister aware of a statement by Mr. A. S. Fleming, the vice-president of woodlands for Domtar Ltd., that he made publicly in Thunder Bay, that he is optimistic that such rights will be granted to them in a 10-year period? I think his exact words, for the minister’s information, are: “We may have lost the battle but we shall win the war in Quetico.”

Mr. Roy: Just yes or no.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, there is no intention to allow cutting in Quetico Park.

Mr. Roy: Good!

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Now or in the future.

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

KINGSTON TOWNSHIP SERVICES

Mr. Cassidy: A question of the Premier, Mr. Speaker: What steps is the cabinet prepared to take in view of the fact that two appeals from OMB rulings granted by the cabinet have delayed the acceptance of waterworks tenders in Kingston township past the end of March and will therefore raise the cost of the project by more than a half million dollars?

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): The member asked that question before.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There’s a switch.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I have a feeling that question was asked earlier in some other form by somebody.

Mr. R. F. Huston (Essex-Kent): He asked that; the same member.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can only say this, Mr. Speaker, that we are obviously concerned with respect to the problems in Kingston township. I met with some of the councillors there some time ago when I was in Kingston. The member from that constituency has expressed his concern as well.

The problem facing the cabinet, of course, in its determination on appeals, is to deal as equitably with these matters as we can. The cabinet made a certain decision; as to what the effect will be and whether there are any solutions for Kingston township I can’t tell the hon. member on this occasion.

While I am on my feet, Mr. Speaker, I would like, on behalf of the member from the riding, to welcome to the Legislature the reeve and members of Kingston township council who I understand are in the gallery here this afternoon.

Mr. Cassidy: I am glad to hear that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Opposition on a supplementary.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker, of the Premier: Since he is concerned about this, and very properly, would he not undertake to see that the approvals that had been granted are maintained and kept in force so that the time limits are not going to elapse and the cost will escalate further? Is he not prepared to assume that Kingston township has the proper right to go forward without any further delay?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well Mr. Speaker, of course obviously when people wish to make an appeal these things have to be considered. The problem of keeping the question of the approvals open, and I am not totally familiar with the situation, is not the sole issue. The question is tenders have been submitted, and whether one can extend the figures in those tenders is I think another part of the problem. I can only say that we are concerned and we will make an effort to see if we can be helpful.

Mr. Roy: Is the Premier himself concerned?

Mr. Cassidy: I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Can the Premier explain why the only citizens’ group in the province to ever win two appeals from cabinet on the same issue is a citizens’ group headed by Prof. James Bennett, brother of the Ministry of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Bennett)?

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): Oh, get off that stuff.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Shame.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s true, that’s true.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I can’t give the hon. member any record of the number of appeals and who is successful and who is not.

I hate to confess this to the hon. member, because I know it will come as a great shock to him and I happen to be in the cabinet: I had no idea, first, that Prof. Bennett was head of the organization; and second I had no idea that a Prof. Bennett was a brother of the very distinguished member of the executive council, the Minister of Industry and Tourism.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well all right, so I know now but I didn’t know before. I think it is quite improper to phrase a question in that way, quite frankly.

Mr. Cassidy: The Premier knows he has been had now because of the favouritism the Tory party plays.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: What has the member got against professors?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Does the member think professors are all like that?

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

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: When the member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. Nuttall) walked into the restaurant, he wouldn’t say hello to him until the Premier --

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour this afternoon to present to the House two reports of the Ontario Law Reform Commission. The first is the third and final part of their study on the administration of Ontario courts, which was released by my predecessor in January and copies of which were provided to the members of the House. The second is a report on the Solicitors Act.

The third part of the report on the administration of the courts deals with a wide variety of practice-oriented matters relating to the operation of the Master’s office, the rules committee, court interpreters, court reporters, special examiners, pretrial conferences, the role of the legal profession, law reporting and the small claims court.

Like the two preceding volumes which were the subject of a very lengthy statement of government policy to which as Attorney General I am committed, part three will receive careful and considered attention by members of my ministry --

Mr. Singer: Is the government committed to the first two volumes in their entirety?

Hon. Mr. Welch: -- and will be included within the consultative process already underway with members of the judiciary, the profession and the public at large.

As indicated in the Speech from the Throne, we will proceed with the development of a programme of implementation which will result in the establishment of a system of court administration that will accommodate the need for an independent judiciary with an effective administrative structure responsible to the people, to the service of whom it is dedicated.

Mr. Singer: Is it going to be an independent administration?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, the report on the Solicitors Act is of a more precise and limited compass.

Up until 1970, the Solicitors Act contained many rules of general application to a number of different aspects of the legal profession with respect to its internal arrangements and its service to the public. In that year, much of the Act’s content was transferred to the Law Society Act, 1970, leaving a rather fragmented version of the Solicitors Act which dealt only with solicitor costs, collection of fees, and methods of review and control of these, and remuneration practices for professional legal services. The Act was recognized as awkward after being divided and the Law Reform Commission undertook the task of revising and up-dating it.

In this report, Mr. Speaker, the commission presents proposals for clarifying the way in which a member of the public or a lawyer can have an account or agreement for legal services reviewed by an appropriate judicial officer in a way that promises to be simpler, faster and fairer than the system which we adopted in Ontario from the English practice many years ago.

Mr. Singer: Good idea, good idea.

Hon. Mr. Welch: The commission has proposed preservation of the desirable features of the present practice, the modernization of the legislation in line with current legal thought --

Mr. Singer: How about the elimination of the undesirable pieces?

Hon. Mr. Welch: -- and development in case law and the addition of some innovative arrangements which will help to ensure the law maintains an even hand in the financial arrangements between a solicitor and his client.

The report is receiving careful study by officials of my ministry and will, I trust, receive the same from the legal profession and the members of the public. Although this sort of subject matter is sometimes characterized as “lawyers’ law,” it is no less true to say that it is “people’s law” as well. I look forward to a thoughtful public and professional response to this report so that in this area, as in all other areas of law reform, we can ensure that appropriate and timely changes can be made.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, on a question of clarification, there was one phrase in the minister’s statement I didn’t quite follow. He talked about an independent system for administering the courts. Did he mean that the system was going to be independent of his ministry, or independent of the courts; or independent to what extent?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I will simply repeat that sentence. I was referring to the need for an independent judiciary with an effective administrative structure that will be responsible to the people.

Mr. Singer: Does that mean responsible to the minister?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: The question period has expired. We are on reports.

Hon. Mr. Guindon presented the annual report for the Ministry of Labour for the year ended March 31, 1973.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

FARM PRODUCTS GRADES AND SALES ACT

Hon. Mr. Stewart moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Farm Products Grades and Sales Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Mr. Speaker, the bill provides for the licensing under the Act for various persons engaged in dealing in farm produce. It provides for a licence review board under the Statutory Powers Procedures Act and it also provides for a produce arbitration board to arbitrate disputes arising out of contracts entered into in respect to the marketing of farm products.

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES ACT

Hon. Mr. Stewart moves first reading of bill intituled. An Act to amend the Agricultural Societies Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, it has been seldom that I have introduced a bill that I think will provide more interest to the rural communities of Ontario through the agricultural societies than does this amendment. The bill --

Mr. Haggerty: There are not too many left.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Oh, indeed there are; 268 of them to be exact. If the member doesn’t consider that “many” in rural Ontario I think that indicates the lack of interest of his party in rural Ontario.

An hon. member: He doesn’t like the farmers.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Shame, shame.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Among several other amendments to update the Act to modern times, Mr. Speaker, the bill allows our government to provide grants to the local agricultural society to sponsor amateur contests within the orbit of their own agricultural society. We think this is a great opportunity to develop talent among the young people of rural Ontario, and we feel very keenly that this is something that would be of great benefit. The bill also provides for farmstead improvement competitions to be carried out by local agricultural societies. It provides as well substantial grants for the carrying out of light horse shows in connection with agricultural society activities.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Very good.

Mr. W. J. Nuttall (Frontenac-Addington): Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day, I would like to announce the 1974 centennial year of the Ontario Veterinary Association. By the way, this is the oldest association in the Province of Ontario. I would like to introduce in the members’ gallery. Dr. Brian Sorrell, the president of the Ontario Veterinary Association, and his good wife.

With your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I would like to give a little history; I don’t get very much opportunity to give a history on the veterinaries in this province. In 1862 the charter of the Ontario Veterinary College was granted with the first classes held in 1864. The first lecture was in the agricultural hall of the University of Toronto on Yonge St.; the anatomical clinics were held in an old shed on Temperance St. As members know, it was moved to Guelph in 1922 because of the inability to get clinical analysts. On May 8, 1964, the University of Guelph incorporated the Ontario Agricultural College and Ontario Veterinary College and other facilities.

I would like to read the Ontario Veterinary Association’s centennial announcement:

“1974 is the centennial year of the Ontario Veterinary Association. Veterinarians across the province have justifiable pride in their association which has, in large part, helped to foster the competence and effectiveness apparent today in so many veterinary disciplines.

“The Ontario Veterinary Association was founded by 27 veterinarians in 1874, and received its provincial charter the same year. The chief aims then as now were to promote the welfare of animal patients and the competence of practitioners.

“Presently 1,400 veterinarians serve Ontario. Each year they must register with their association in order to practice. The Ontario Veterinary Association includes within its membership regulatory employees working in meat inspection and infectious diseases control, research and diagnostic personnel, veterinarians who have made a career in the care and treatment of pets, livestock or wildlife of every description, and others employed as teachers, in industry and in fields of public health.

“All Ontario veterinarians as well as many colleagues throughout Canada and many foreign countries are proud to proclaim centennial year, 1974. They are pleased and humbled to have your recognition of this milestone as a second century is anticipated.”

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading upon motion:

Bill 7, The Developmental Services Act, 1974.

Clerk of the House: The second order, resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wellington-Dufferin.

Mr. J. Root (Wellington-Dufferin): Mr. Speaker, when I was speaking for a few moments on. Tuesday evening or afternoon, I was paying tribute to the work that has been done in northern Ontario by this government, and the various programmes for future development in that area -- highways through to James Bay and the possibility of a port on James Bay.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Will that be ready --

Mr. Root: As well as a power line through to James Bay. These are just continuations of the programmes that have been followed, as I said, since the Progressive Conservative Party assumed office. I refer to the many highways that did not exist when I first came into this House. We built a new highway all the way from the Soo around the head of the lakes through to Atikokan, to Fort Frances, into Red Lake, into Manitouwadge, Elliot Lake and Hornepayne, just to mention a few, there are many others.

I think it’s a wonderful record of achievement, what the government has accomplished in that part of the province, and it intends to continue those programmes. I mentioned the norOntair air service which is bringing the province really close together as I know myself. I have left Toronto in the morning, been as far as Sioux Lookout, held a hearing and been back that evening. I’ve been to Red Lake and back the same evening.

And so with better roads, a better air service, Ontario is becoming a compact unit -- and we don’t hear this talk about northern Ontario wanting to set up a separate province.

Mr. Haggerty: Tell us about the condition on Highway 3 from Fort Erie to Windsor.

Mr. Root: Mr. Speaker, I am interested in the suggestion that tourist operators, small business and service industries will benefit from improved loan programmes and financial assistance. This is from the Throne Speech. Operators of small business will receive more help and advice in solving management problems.

I know that everyone will be interested in seeing this programme develop. Our smaller businesses are having difficulty competing with some of the large business and industrial operations. It is my hope that more assistance will be given in the way of more incentives for industries to move out of the large urban areas into the smaller centres and make it possible for people to obtain employment and a good living in these smaller centres, instead of being forced to drive into the heavily congested areas of large cities to find employment.

For a number of reasons I feel these smaller centres should be developed. We know that in the large cities great problems are developing with regard to the movement of traffic, at times air pollution, and the high cost of housing -- to mention but a few. I often think that if we ever had a national emergency, such as a war, it would be a great asset to this province and to this nation if we had our industry and population decentralized as much as practical.

I want to make another suggestion, and that is with regard to the collection of the sales tax. I feel the small businessman should receive a reasonable remuneration for his efforts. I think we all realize that he has to keep accurate records, since we have inspectors going around from time to time to see that the tax is being collected and sent on to the government. The people who do the inspection are paid. I realize there may be a problem with the large corporations receiving the lion’s share of any payment that might be made, so I would suggest that payment would be considered on a percentage basis with a ceiling on the amount that any one merchant could receive. In that way there would be a full recognition of this important service that these small businessmen are rendering to the province.

I can never understand why the opposition came out against sales tax. Everyone knows that we have to get revenue somewhere. I think if we look at the fact that some 20 million visitors come to the province annually, most of these people are coming from areas where they have sales tax. So that on sales tax we collect a large amount of revenue that does not come from our own people.

An hon. member: Poppycock!

Mr. Root: I suppose the member wants to collect it from our own people.

We collect revenue from the rent of rooms, for meals over $4, liquor revenue, gasoline revenue -- to mention but a few, and there are many other purchases that are made. So I feel that the people who argue that we should not have sales tax are really saying they feel we should collect all of our money from our own people, and then when we leave the province pay sales tax in other areas. To me that is simply ridiculous. Here is a source of revenue, much of which comes from people who are in the habit of paying sales tax and have no objection to paying it. We would not have 20 million visitors in Ontario each year if they objected to our tax.

I was pleased to see in the Throne Speech that legislation will be introduced concerning negotiations between the teaching profession and school boards.

Mr. Speaker, there has to be a better way of resolving disputes that cannot be settled without closing down the schools and turning the children -- the greatest asset this province possesses -- out on the street.

I think we are all concerned about compulsory arbitration. Perhaps some of the teachers and school boards do not like the thought of compulsory arbitration, but at the same time there is compulsory membership in the teachers’ federation.

I think we have to find some way to resolve these differences of opinion in a fair and equitable manner. The taxpayer has put up billions of dollars to support our school system. Last year we voted over $2 billion for the three levels of education, and in addition the local taxpayers paid over $1.2 billion. Having put up that kind of money to build schools, the people having elected boards, the boards having hired staff and teachers, the public will not tolerate having this system closed down because some teachers and some boards cannot reach a satisfactory agreement. There has to be a better way.

When I look at our budget for education -- last year over $2.2 billion -- and I think back to what the budget was when the Conservative Party took over after nine years of Liberal administration, we can be proud of what we have done for education in this province. When I ran in my first election the total budget for everything in the province was around $100 million. Last year we voted over $87 million for the teachers’ pension fund alone, and over $2 billion for the educational programme.

I am sure that everyone will support the suggestion in the Throne Speech that an income support programme be proposed which will assist in achieving a greater measure of security for Ontario’s older citizens and for the disabled. A proposal also will be made for a prescription drug plan for senior citizens.

I am pleased to know that a health education programme will be prepared, providing information on such health hazards as alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, and to encourage better use of our public health care system. I feel that too often we may have been swayed in our judgement by the clamour of opposition members and others asking for more liberalized liquor policies. We may have been swayed by the smooth advertising that we see on television and in the press. I can only say that that advertising does not conform with what I have in my files when I am trying to help solve the problems that are created by the extensive use of alcoholic beverages.

The Ontario Safety League released information in February this year pointing out that alcohol is involved in approximately 50 per cent of the fatal automobile accidents in Canada. It plays a role in causing other types of accidents -- in the home, skiing, snowmobiling, boating, and so forth. These mishaps bring the total accidental death toll in Canada to some 12,000 each year and injuries to more than four million, leading to an estimated economic loss of $2 billion.

During the discussion of the estimates at the last session I raised the question of the cost of alcohol problems to the health system or programme. The Addiction Research Foundation provided certain information, estimating that the expenditures attributable to alcoholism, about the normal expectancy, were calculated at $89 million in the public hospital system. In the psychiatric hospital system the figure was $16.8 million. Studies among social agencies have calculated, expenditures at $8.5 million attributable to alcohol in the welfare programme under the Family Benefits Act. Under the children’s aid programme, expenditures attributable to alcoholism were $11 million. Some $8.6 million was given to the Addiction Research Foundation.

In other words, an expenditure of some $134 million in the fields that I have mentioned is attributable to alcohol. I think that we should realize that the above costs do not include such items as physicians’ fees, municipal welfare payments, traffic accidents and deaths associated with alcohol use, loss of productivity and manpower in business and industry, jail and correctional institution costs, and a number of other indices that should be calculated to arrive at a reasonable approximation of the total costs.

The Research Foundation confirms the figures of the Ontario Safety League that approximately 50 per cent of deaths through traffic accidents are associated with the use of alcohol. It also points out that approximately six per cent of the employee force of a number of major industries is alcoholics, and the death rate of alcoholics is approximately double that of the normal population.

I put these figures in the record to indicate that health and social costs to our population should be weighed very carefully when matters of policy in regard to alcoholic beverages are being considered. I think that we all realize that alcohol, tobacco and drugs do create a health problem. I can understand when some groups, and I could refer to the Mennonite people, wonder why they are forced into a common insurance scheme to finance the programmes that have accelerated costs because of the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and drugs. This affects not only our health insurance costs; it also affects automobile insurance premiums.

I am sure that everyone will want to support the government in any steps that are taken to make the public aware of the problems and costs that are associated with these matters. I noticed in the Toronto Star on Tuesday, March 19, that teen car deaths have doubled since the drinking age was lowered.

I was quite interested in the suggestion that the Ministry of Correctional Services is endeavouring to have a private business operate the packing plant at the correctional centre at Guelph. I made a lot of effort to have that new packing plant established as a training institution for inmates and as another market for farmers in the area. I will be greatly interested to see how this experiment works out. It seems to me that if we can provide a training for the people who serve time in these centres and fit them to go out and take their place in life, it will be a worthwhile experiment, and no doubt can be carried through into other phases of the correctional institutions programme.

I note that we will be asked to consider provision for mandatory use of automobile seatbelts.

I served on the select committee on highway safety, and at that time it was pointed out that in certain types of accidents, particularly head-on collisions, seatbelts could save lives. But at the same time, in another type of accident where a car is hit broadside and turned over, a seatbelt could be the cause of a fatality. I would suggest that very careful consideration should be given to the suggestion that it be mandatory to use seatbelts. I have had people come to me and say: “If I had had a seatbelt on in the accident, I could have been killed.”

I am pleased to note that we will be asked to approve legislation which will require an environmental assessment of major new development projects. I have always favoured public hearings to inform the public what is in mind and to get their reaction before final decisions are made on these major projects.

During the years that I have served on the Ontario Water Resources Commission and the Environmental Hearing Board, I have sat on over 350 public hearings from one end of this province to the other; and I have found that at the public hearing the applicant is more conscious of his responsibility’ if he has to face the public and explain what he has in mind.

In the main the public want information regarding the project that is the subject of the hearing before a decision is made. Most reasonable people accept sound projects if they at least have a chance to express their views and have the project explained.

Mr. Speaker, to establish a corridor from Bradley junction to the Pickering-Nanticoke line, Hydro held three series of meetings to get the reaction of local people. However, the meeting opened up to include an area from part way across Waterloo county, over Wellington county and over most of the county of Dufferin.

These meetings were held in the first place to get the environmental impact of lines running through the area. The first series of meetings was to get the environmental impact on the whole area, regardless of where the lines might go. The second series was held on the basis of the input of the first series and showed possible corridors. Now, in the third series, they have come out with a pretty definite proposal as to where the power should go through.

I have attended six of these meetings and have watched the reaction of people. In the main, the farm people are reasonable people. Until they had some idea where the lines might go, they had little to say. But on the other hand the environmentalists, who are not particularly interested in the production of food but are more interested in maintaining the ecology, the wildlife, the recreational areas, were quite vocal.

I think that this had some effect on Hydro’s second series of meetings, when they came back with a number of suggestions on possible corridors. When the farm people began to realize that these corridors in many areas were going over good agricultural land, they began to become more vocal.

An engineer in my home township of Erin, Mr. John Schneider, who had given a lot of thought to how best to get the connecting links built, made a suggestion that they bring all the power down in one corridor to join the Nanticoke-Pickering line at Highway 401 and go through the gap adjoining Highway 401.

Hydro objected this suggestion, indicating they did not want all their lines together in case of storm or sabotage, or perhaps an airplane crash, which could really disrupt the whole system. They said they would like to have two lines. A suggestion was made that one line might cross the escarpment at Limehouse instead of bringing all of the power through west of Guelph.

Mr. Schneider made another proposal, that they take the power across from Bradley junction to Essa and bring it down to the Pickering-Nanticoke line on an existing corridor that goes north from Woodbridge and Kleinburg. Apparently at the present time there is space in this corridor for the line. This proposal would have widened the gap between the two lines and provided the protection that Hydro wanted.

Mr. Speaker, you will find the reference to the Bruce to Essa proposal on page 54 of the Solandt commission report. It was argued that the use of this route would greatly increase the security of the power transmission from Bruce to Toronto load centre, and it would make it reasonable to concentrate the rest of the Bruce power and the power from Nanticoke in one corridor parallel to Highway 401.

Solandt goes on to say that this proposal received considerable popular support at the hearings. As far as the commission knows there was no one in the area affected by the Bruce to Essa line at the meeting, so it was unlikely there would have been any opposition expressed. Ontario Hydro looked at the proposal very carefully and discussed the pros and cons in presentation and cross-examination before the commission. They say Ontario had repeatedly expressed its opposition to system R on both security and aesthetic grounds. During the cross-examination they did agree that the proposal -- this is the Bruce to Essa proposal -- would improve the security system for the short-term future, but felt that the Bruce to Essa proposal had no other advantages. Hon. members can read the comments regarding the Bruce to Essa proposal on pages 54 and 55 of the Solandt report.

I am interested in the last paragraph on page 55, where Dr. Solandt says: “Following the close of the commission hearings, the group submitted a final paper on their proposal. Further studies of the proposals convinced me that it would not be easy to find a socially and environmentally acceptable route for the Bruce to Essa line, because it might have to traverse some of the most popular scenic and recreational terrain in southern Ontario. Since Ontario Hydro presented convincing evidence that the Bruce to Essa line would not produce useful improvement in the transmission system, the commission concludes that no further consideration should be given to the Bruce to Essa line.”

Mr. Speaker, that comment really disturbed me. The opposition to the line was because it would traverse some of the most popular scenic and recreational terrain in southern Ontario. I think it is time that the government and Hydro realized that the production of food and good agricultural land are just as important, or in my opinion more important, than preserving popular scenic and recreational terrain in southern Ontario.

On pages 26 and 27, Mr. Speaker, you will read Dr. Solandt’s comments regarding the Limehouse crossing. Keep in mind that to reach Limehouse the power line will have to come over some of the finest agricultural land in Wellington and Dufferin counties. Indeed in the southern part of this line, as you come in to my home township of Erin and go on through into Halton Hills, you will find very scenic recreation areas that will either have to be affected, or the lines in my cases go across class 1 and 2 farm land.

You will note on page 27 where Dr. Solandt says all available alternatives were carefully considered before the commission reluctantly came to the conclusion that on balance this was the route that the transmission line should take. That statement indicates to me that Dr. Solandt had some doubts that on balance the Limehouse crossing was the right crossing. So I suggest, Mr. Speaker, before any final decision is made regarding where the second line will go that very careful thought be given with regard to priorities.

This province has an abundance of recreational areas. It has a limited amount of choice agricultural land. In, my opinion to put the preference on the scenic and recreational areas above choice agricultural land is a wrong decision. And so, Mr. Speaker, I would ask that a very careful analysis be made of the impact of bringing a line from the Bradley junction to Limehouse as one of the proposed routes in Wellington and Dufferin counties, funnelling them to the scenic township of Erin to cross the border into the Halton Hills to approach the Limehouse crossing to join the Nanticoke-Pickering Line.

I can only say, Mr. Speaker, that the farm people of Wellington county are greatly concerned. The various lines that may lead into Erin township cross practically every municipality in the area that I have the honour to represent. I would be remiss in my duties if I did not say the government had better take another look at crossing over on low-grade agricultural land and coming down on the Essa-Kleinburg corridor which we are advised has space for another line. I know that Hydro feel that sometime in the future they may want that space, but with advancing technology and the possibility of underground lines in the future, surely we don’t have to criss-cross over choice agricultural land when there are other alternatives available.

Mr. Speaker, I want to be fair and say that the farm people appreciate what Hydro has done in the way of rural electrification. Hydro has completely changed the rural way of life. One of the reasons that I ran in my first election was that after nine years of Liberal administration we were still farming with the same lamps and lanterns that our parents and grandfathers had used. In Dufferin 81 per cent of the farmers had no power, and 75 per cent in Wellington.

All of that has been changed and we appreciate that. We know it is in the interests of everyone to have this grid system established.

Since we are producing power by nuclear energy, from fossil fuels and from hydraulic power there has to be the ability to move power back and forth, but we are not happy to see the lines go over choice agricultural land if there are any reasonable alternatives. I realize that Hydro is in a difficult spot, having to conduct its own public hearings; and I can see the advantage of having an environmental assessment board looking at these projects instead of asking Hydro itself to hold the hearings.

Mr. Speaker, I hope the explorers of Hydro corridors and other matters affecting the farm people in Ontario will receive very careful consideration in the Natural resources policy field. I would hope the people of Ontario will realize they are going to have to pay more attention to the people who work seven days a week producing the food they consume, or they will find that fewer and fewer people will stay on the farm.

Six years ago, in 1968, members will find in Hansard certain comments I made regarding agriculture. At that time the government had come out for a 48-hour week and an eight-hour day, and the opposition tried to suggest it should be a 40-hour week. I said I was surprised to see the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. member for Brant (Mr. R. F. Nixon), supporting this idea because, I said, we had never developed cows that would stop milking Friday nights and come back into production on Monday. No way can that be done. Hens persist in laying eggs over the weekend; and if a fanner didn’t look after his livestock and feed them he would have the Humane Society breathing down his neck.

The hon. member for York South (Mr. MacDonald), who was then leader of the NDP, ridiculed me and said: “Just try that horse-and-buggy Tory policy in the next election and we’ll see what happens.” I want to say to him that I tried it and I had more votes than the candidate for his party, the Liberal Party and an independent had combined. The farm people want to be fair. They don’t mind people expressing their views --

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): Great stuff.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Root: But they realize that the position taken by the NDP, and at that time supported by the Liberals, would wipe out the family farm and would also wipe out a lot of small businesses. The only way anyone could operate a farm on a 40-hour week would be to have a corporation-type farm with enough labour to stagger the labour force.

I will say this; it is very hard to secure competent labour on a farm today when in many industries there are 40-hour weeks. The farmer has to bid in the same labour pool. And make no mistake about it, young people on the farms today are getting the same education their city cousins receive. Because of the advanced policies of this government, we have open roads 12 months of the year, we have large, fine new schools and buses to deliver the children to the schools.

Now if the NDP members think they are going to get the farm vote with their policies, I think they will be badly disillusioned. However, these policies could create a very serious situation as far as the production of food is concerned. Young people are not going to invest the kind of money necessary to establish a viable farm operation and buy the expensive equipment needed to operate it since labour costs have got so high -- and the cost of money is very high. So the young people are leaving the farm.

In my own area I see farms being picked up by people from the cities -- some of them wealthy -- but the production of food is going down and the cost of food to the consumer is going up. I suggest that unless there is a change in these policies or greatly added incentives are given to the farmers, this whole situation will be aggravated.

I understand the average dairy farmer today is about 58 years old. He can’t find young people to take over the operation so he sells off his herd, sells his farm and goes out of production. The same is happening in my own area with regard to beef farmers, hog breeders and so on.

Many of the farms which two years ago were turning out herds of fat cattle today are growing grass, and some of them growing weeds. They are owned by people who are hoping to see development in the area, by people who are in some form of activity other than the production of food.

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate our Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Stewart) for the many forward-looking programmes he has presented to the Legislature -- including capital grants to help farmers become more efficient; paying half the farm taxes to get the cost of education off land, which will be a great help to legitimate farmers; and the legislation that lets a parent make a $50,000 once-in-a-lifetime gift to make it possible for a son to carry on the farming operation. These are some of the programmes making it possible for some of our young people to stay on the farm.

I want to say, Mr. Speaker, a very serious situation is gradually developing. It was brought home to many of our people in recent months when we saw the cost of meats go up, as well as milk and potatoes. These products used to be produced all around me, and today the same farms are not in production.

The government, and by all means the federal government which controls our international trade, must pay more attention to the welfare of the agricultural industry or the consumer is going to find the pension he thought he could live on will not buy the food he needs.

At the present time we are not producing enough butter to butter our bread; the price of milk goes up as well, and so it goes. We haven’t seen the end of this unless some more positive measures are taken to protect good agricultural land and to encourage young people to stay on the farm.

I am pleased to know that the government is taking a look at the framework of a revised Planning Act. I hope in the proposed changes they will not lose sight of the fact that many farmers could be on a sounder financial basis if they were able to secure a severance for points of land on the farm that are not fit for agriculture. In recent weeks I have had several farmers come to me and say: “If I could just get a severance and sell that point of land that I can’t farm I could get my financing in better shape and continue to farm.” Some of these men have said: “Since I can’t get a severance, I’m going to sell the farm and quit.”

I would say the same about subdivisions in villages and towns, and I would commend the Ministry of the Environment for its programme to help finance needed services. I would hope the subdivisions plans would not be held up, but these smaller towns and villages would be allowed to grow to a point where they could economically supply water and adequately treat wastes. To keep these towns and villages too small creates a situation where they can’t attract the needed services, such as doctors, dentists, lawyers, and small industry.

I am concerned about the size of some of our cities. We are building these cities, in many cases, on some of the best farm land in Canada. They are getting so large we are creating traffic problems, pollution problems and housing problems. But people have to live somewhere, so I would hope that we would make it possible for people to establish their homes in other parts of the province if they would like to live there; and perhaps give incentives to move certain types of industry out of the large centres. Restricting development in some areas plays into the hands of a developer in the unrestricted area. I think the old law of competition, supply and demand, would solve some of the problems that are not being solved under the present Planning Act.

I think it is a good move to get the planning and subdivision controls back to the local municipalities. I am hopeful this will help resolve the problems and congestion in the large centres, allow these villages and towns to become viable units; and perhaps let some of the farmers get on a sounder financial basis by separating and selling, for estate-type homes, points of land on the farm that will never be farmed.

Mr. Speaker, I am interested in the suggestion of a home renewal programme, with grants to homeowners and municipalities for preserving and up-grading the quality of existing housing in rural as well as in urban areas. Many of the fine old homes that were built a century or more ago can be rehabilitated and used. In fact the home my grandfather built in 1865 is where I still live. The bricks were made across the road on the Awrey farm. The Awreys pioneered in my part of Erin township, put a dam on a stream, operated a mill, opened a brickyard and made the brick for five or six houses in the same area.

I am sure that as time goes on we will learn a lesson from the European countries where the older buildings are now a major tourist attraction. So I would say that wherever possible, buildings that are sound and can be renewed should be renewed, rather than knocking them down and putting up some of the newer buildings, which because of the high cost of living and material do not have the same type of material and workmanship in their construction.

Mr. Speaker, I have talked longer than I originally intended, but still I have many more things I would like to say. Perhaps at some time in the future I will put my thoughts on record.

I want to thank you, sir, and the members, for the opportunity of making a few remarks.

Mr. Speaker: I understand by agreement of the House the hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside, who adjourned the debate on the previous day, will complete his remarks at this time.

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you realize, of course, most of the remarks I made on Monday and the ones I am going to make today are addressed primarily to the Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) although, of course, he wasn’t present and isn’t present now. He is the one I must convince. Although I gave a somewhat similar speech during the debate on the establishing of the Ministry of Energy back on June 14 last year, the new Minister of Energy failed to get my message from what I was saying at that time. I summed up my remarks on that occasion with these words: “There are two points I am trying to make. The first is that the nuclear fission system is a controversial, hazardous one and in any event uses an exhaustible source of fuel. The other is that it is unnecessary to resort to nuclear fission because there are so many kinds of power that can be developed and, with a little expenditure on technology, these could be brought into use on a wide scale in a relatively short time.”

This seemed to me to be a fairly clear statement that I wanted nothing to do with nuclear fission. Although the minister was present on that occasion and even made some unusually humble remarks to the effect that he was not qualified to debate the subject with me, nevertheless a month later he concluded a letter to me by saying, and I quote: “As you have said, I believe, nuclear generation must fit into the system in a balanced way.” Mr. Speaker, I have never said such a thing.

Until I became aware in the last couple of years that there were alternatives -- alternative feasible sources of energy; far better alternatives in fact -- I had become reconciled, reluctantly of course, to living with more and more nuclear power. But now that I know that many reliable scientists have assured us of the feasibility of the other sources of energy, I cannot remain silent on this subject. I am sure that my reaction is a normal human reaction: Tolerate what cannot be changed but try to change what cannot be tolerated.

Someone has asked me whether I am expressing official NDP policy. At the federal NDP convention in July, 1973, there was a lengthy discussion out of which a three-page policy statement on energy emerged. Included was the following: “There are serious unresolved problems in nuclear energy production. We believe that the federal government must undertake extensive research into, first, various types of reactors; second, methods of disposal of nuclear wastes; third, thermal pollution, and fourth, radiation hazards.”

Mr. Speaker, as long as we have any nuclear power plants in operation I agree with this position wholeheartedly. But I go further and say: Now that it is no longer necessary, forget the whole thing; phase it out. Under the topic of energy research, the federal NDP convention recommended that the federal government should undertake the chief research role in the energy field, and I quote: “We need research in areas such as, first, new sources of energy including solar, geothermal and tidal power. We should seek sources which are least harmful to people and the environment.” What better description of solar power or wind power could one want than that, Mr. Speaker?

Just a month ago, on Feb. 27, the Montreal Star interviewed Sir George Porter, a British 1967 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. He warned of the perils of going nuclear and said that the sun’s rays could be harnessed to meet man’s needs for power. He was not worried so much about the clandestine making of atomic bombs by unauthorized persons as he was by sabotage of a nuclear plant by the use of a simple conventional bomb. I quote him: “Ordinary nuclear reactors have more than enough plutonium in them to poison countless people. What really worries me is the possibility of sabotage and the fact that the world is as anarchic as it is. We now have more sabotage and terrorism in the world than we have ever had in the past.” Sir George Porter said that if one-tenth of one per cent of the effort in manpower and money already devoted to the development of nuclear power had been allocated for solar energy research, the energy problem would have been solved by now.

An award-winning series of articles began in the Windsor Star of June 25, 1973, entitled, “Nuclear Power: A Blessing or Eventual Curse?” I don’t know whether the Windsor Star or their writer, Brian Vallee, took any bow for this article but I should like to extend my belated congratulations to them both.

This is an objectively written article, presenting as one can tell from the title, both sides of the controversy. I quote:

“When you talk about peaceful uses of the atom, such as power plants, the argument becomes more subtle because there are seemingly intelligent well-meaning people on both sides of the nuclear argument.

“On the one side, you have people in industry and government, hailing nuclear power as the only means of rolling back the impending energy crisis and as a boon to a cleaner environment.

“On the other hand, you have responsible ecologists, scientists and people like consumer advocate Ralph Nader, deploring proliferation of nuclear power plants.”

Later, the article says: “But Dr. Fred Knelman, a prominent nuclear critic, whose department at Montreal’s Sir George Williams University studies the social consequences of technology, says that serious accidents at nuclear power plants are inevitable.

“Dr. Knelman says the Pickering plant is reasonably safe compared to other industrial installations, with one basic exception: ‘The risk involved in an accident is totally out of proportion with the risk in any other kind of plant.’

“He says that a United States Senate committee has estimated that if an airplane hit a nuclear power plant roughly the size of Pickering, or if there were some other major accident which caused radioactive material to be spewed out over a residential area, the cost would be [according to this Senate committee] $5 billion as well as hundreds or even thousands of lives.”

I should mention, Mr. Speaker, that the accident estimates that have been made by the authorities are based on the assumption that nuclear plants are at least 30 miles from metropolitan areas, which accounts for the rather low estimate of immediate fatalities.

The Windsor Star article reported that Dr. Knelman said the United States is having serious problems in two of its plants in the United States itself and in a third built by the Americans in Switzerland. I quote: “The cylindrical materials that hold the fuel have cracked and they don’t really know why. This is terribly serious because they are getting a direct leak of hot fuel.

“Dr. Knelman said there had also been a continuous series of accidents at the large atomic dump where all the waste materials from all the United States nuclear plants are sent. The dump is located in Hanford, Wash., on the Columbia River.

“’The accidents have involved the escape of hot radioactive materials, and the Columbia River is now the most radioactive body of water in the world.’

“Dr. Knelman referred with shock to what he termed ‘the bland statement’ of Dr. Alvin Weinberg, and AEC research director, who ‘hopes that science will have solved the problem of disposal of long-life radioactive waste by the year 2020,’ at which time he expects one nuclear plant to come into operation each day, somewhere in the world.

“’Dr. Weinberg is a technological euphoric who believes that technology will solve all the problems it creates. It’s what I call the theology of technology. It’s pure faith. It has not worked in the past and why he expects it to work in the future, I don’t understand.’

“The Atomic Energy Commission has been forced by independent scientists to eat its own pronouncements so often that I think it must suffer from verbal indigestion.”

Dr. Knelman also said that when strontium 90 was first mentioned, the Atomic Energy Commission said there was no hazard involved at all, unless a person accidentally swallowed a bone splinter which would be highly unlikely. They didn’t acknowledge at all the biological route that strontium takes. When it lands on grazing grass and cows eat it, it gets into milk and then into children.

The chairman of Ontario Hydro made a public statement in the early part of 1973, defending Hydro’s promotional advertising policy. One of his arguments was that if Hydro stopped advertising there would be an acceleration in the demand for scarce fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Now obviously this does not refer to lighting; therefore, it must refer to heating. What Mr. Gathercole seemed to be saying is that greater use of electricity for heating is a desirable goal. If Ontario Hydro produced all its power from water -- that ever-renewable source of energy -- who could disagree? But as it is, any further increase in electricity for heating purposes in Ontario uses up power derived from one of the fossil fuels, all of which are unrenewable.

Because electric heating makes use of only 30 per cent of the fossil fuels that produce it -- in other words 70 per cent of the energy is lost in making electricity from fossil fuels -- we are merely using fossil fuels much more inefficiently when we increase our use of electricity made from those fossil fuels for the purpose of home heating.

It is true that greater reserves of coal exist than of oil and gas, but coal is still considered a dirty fuel at the station where it is converted into electricity.

The great fallacy in Mr. Gathercole’s arguments lies, of course, in the fact that he ignores those alternative sources of energy which are all renewable, and in most instances unpolluting. I refer to solar radiation power, wind power, and the use of wood to create electric power; organic methane gas is a fourth source.

On a continental basis there are also geothermal power, sea thermal power and tidal power. All are 100 per cent safe, all are non-polluting and all are renewable. Ontario Hydro ignores these sources. It hands out to visitors at the Pickering nuclear power plant literature published by the Canadian Nuclear Association. It has these opening words: “Question: Is nuclear power necessary? Answer: In fact there is today no alternative if we are to conserve the world’s resources of fuel.” Now if one can swallow this transparent falsehood, one can swallow everything else one is told by the literature handed out by Ontario Hydro and published by the Canadian Nuclear Association.

Nuclear energy itself is a non-renewable source of energy. Nuclear power might conserve other sources of fuel temporarily but it uses up unrenewable uranium in the process.

Ontario Hydro has a public relations division paid to hand out or produce misleading statements of this kind. Apparently carried away by its own rhetoric, which I have just quoted, it repeats the statement by paraphrasing it as follows: “Only by substituting nuclear fuels for fossil fuels can we meet the increasing demand for electricity.” Then it adds: “And not only preserve but enhance our environment.”

There, Mr. Speaker, is a most remarkable flight of imagination -- to avoid using unparliamentary language.

On the contrary, nuclear power is the one source of energy capable of destroying our environment beyond redemption. The other forms of energy, especially solar energy, and including wind energy -- to avoid repeating a whole list -- are 100 per cent safe and 100 per cent perpetually renewable. Yet the public relations division of Ontario Hydro tells us, and I repeat it: “Only by substituting nuclear fuels for fossil fuels can we meet the increasing demand for electricity, and not only preserve but enhance our environment.”

These are falsehoods, Mr. Speaker, that I shall try to expose wherever the occasion presents itself. It matters not that the PR people attribute these words to Dr. G. M. Shrum. They are manifestly false no matter who says them. The PR men then produce a third gem:

“Question: Does nuclear power pollute? Answer: Nuclear power plants do not discharge smoke, sulphur dioxide, or oxide of nitrogen to the atmosphere and there are no unsightly piles of fuel and fuel handling equipment. The plants require less space than a fossil fuel plant and are more architecturally acceptable.”

As far as it goes that statement is accurate. Nuclear power plants do not produce visible air pollution and they are aesthetically more pleasing to the eye, but this is a very narrow interpretation of pollution. What happens to the spent fuel? What happens to the mountains of uranium tailings at the mine, a byproduct of the process that produces fuel for nuclear power plants? Both before it is used to boil water and afterwards, this fuel is the worst of all possible pollutants.

Nuclear power does pollute. Thermal pollution and radioactive emissions are unavoidable when nuclear fission is in operation. In Par Pond, where the Oak Ridge laboratory dumps some of its low-level wastes, it was found that even when the concentration of cesium 137 was only three-hundredths of a millionth of a millionth of a curie, the flesh of bass caught in the pond contained 1,000 times this amount. Similarly, strontium 90 in the bones of bluegill was 2,000 times the level in the water and radioactive zinc was 8,720 times the level in the water. In the Columbia River, into which the Hanford nuclear plant discharges, larvae of a certain kind achieve concentrations 350,000 times that of the level in the water. Birds also concentrate radioactivity, and being higher up the food chain they end up with correspondingly higher concentrations.

In the United States there are now 30 million tons of sand-like radioactive uranium tailings usually lying in uncovered heaps being washed and blown by rain and wind into various water systems. In Colorado, the San Miguel River was found to contain 30 times the acceptable level of radiation as the result of uranium tailings washed into its waters.

Uranium miners, at least in the United States, according to a publication “The Atomic Establishment,” have consistently suffered almost three times greater incidence of lung cancer than the rest of the population, although the onset of cancer may be delayed from 10 to 12 years after initial exposure often after the men have retired or turned to other forms of employment. So what price the lives of the Elliot Lake miners?

These then are some of the terrible costs we must pay to use nuclear fission. They cannot be figured in cold cash, but we must take them into consideration.

Let us, to avoid further argument, assume that during the boiling of the water -- out of which comes steam and eventually electricity -- there may be no significant escape of radioactive effluent into the environment. In other words, let’s just assume that the operation of the nuclear plants is harmless to the environment.

We come then to the possibility of a major accident at a nuclear plant. Keep in mind that the nuclear fission promoters plan in the next 30 years 100 new nuclear power plants in Canada -- all the size of the one at Pickering. The Atomic Energy Commission in the United States plants to license about 1,000 large nuclear power plants in the next 30 years, a plan that would produce the radioactive equivalent of one million Hiroshima bombs every year -- plus 600,000 lbs of plutonium 239 annually. Just one pound of plutonium -- which has a half life of 24,360 years -- escaping into the environment and inhaled eventually by human beings, could cause several billion cases of lung cancer.

Is it any wonder that many atomic scientists are appalled by the consequences of unsuccessful containment of radioactivity. Dr. Hannes Alfven, the 1970 Nobel laureate for physics, says: “In a full-scale fission programme, the radioactive waste will soon become so enormous that a total poisoning of our planet is possible”. That is in the bulletin of the Atomic Scientist of September, 1971.

Soon afterwards, in the December, 1971, issue of Nuclear News, the director of the AEC’s Oak Ridge national laboratory, Dr. Alvin Weinberg, said: “Technical deficiencies in a plutonium economy, if unremediable, could mean catastrophe for the human race.” In Science, Feb. 25, 1972, the former director of the AEC’s Argonne National Laboratory, Dr. Albert Crewe, after discussion of the medical foresight, the engineering skill and the administrative controls required by nuclear technology, summarized as follows: “Should any of these three lines of defence fail, then the entire population of the world would be in serious danger”.

Mr. Speaker, we spank little children for playing with matches. What should we do to those human beings who are foisting upon us the unthinkable hazards of nuclear power?

Let us return to the consideration of the possibilities of a major accident at a nuclear plant as described by Gordon Edwards, a mathematician at the University of British Columbia, to whom I am indebted for this and some other sections of my remarks. He says: “A single, relatively small, 100 megawatt reactor, after one year of operation contains more radioactive cesium, strontium and iodine than all the nuclear weapon tests ever conducted.” “In its famous Brookhaven report of 1957,” he says: “The AEC indicated what the results of a single major accident at a relatively small -reactor 40 miles from a city might be: 3,000 to 4,000 deaths immediately from radiation poisoning; 50,000 deaths later on from radiation-induced injuries; up to 150 square miles of land contaminated -- not to mention contamination of water supplies and evacuation of half a million people.

“The Brookhaven report goes on to say that the probability of such an accident occurring is so low as to be almost inconceivable. This is a most unscientific statement, as the probability of most accidents is so low as to be almost zero.”

Gordon Edwards asked: “How do you compute the probability of an accident? Do you include or do you exclude the possibility of sabotage? Do you include the possibility of war? Do you exclude the possibility of an undeclared war? What would happen if an old-fashioned conventional bomb were dropped on a reactor? Do you include the possibility of an airplane crashing into a reactor? Remember, Pickering is going to be the site of a huge airport as well as the site of the huge reactor. As recently as November, 1972, we witnessed the spectacle of a band of hijackers threatening to crash a plane into a nuclear installation at Oak Ridge.”

As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, the nuclear installation was evacuated but the hijackers changed their minds for which we should all be very thankful. But it could happen accidentally, too.

“All this does not begin to consider the very real possibility of a large industrial accident occurring within the plant as a result of mechanical and/or human failure. Accidents have occurred at Chalk River, resulting in the release of 10,000 curies of fission products; at the Enrico Fermi plant between Toledo and Detroit leading to a partial meltdown of the core and fears of explosion; and at the Windscale plant in Great Britain which spewed out vast quantities of radioactive debris; and at others.

“In 1970 there was a close call at the huge Hanford reactor and a failure at the Oak Ridge research reactor. The latter involved an almost unbelievable combination of three separate human errors, two installation errors and three design errors.” According to my mathematics, Mr. Speaker, that is really eight human errors.

“There is another danger after the fuel has served its purpose -- the very serious problem of waste disposal. Where this involves transportation to a disposal site, we have the eventual, inevitable railway or highway accident to face. Another problem is that plutonium, the essential ingredient for making atom bombs inexpensively, will almost certainly become a black market item. When one thinks of the possibilities for terrorists and demented persons, this one reason alone should force the abandonment of the entire nuclear programme involving plutonium 239.”

On Oct. 10, 1972, Sen. Mike Gravel, who is leading the call for a nuclear moratorium in the United States, summed up the matter briefly as follows:

“I would point out that nuclear safety involves far more than just the reactors. Necessarily involved are the nuclear fuel reprocessing plants; nuclear waste storage and burial practices; radioactive transport practices; anti-sabotage measures; plutonium processing hazards; routine leakage of radioactive poisons all along the line; plutonium diversion prospects; and the preservation of national security.

“When the radioactive fission products and plutonium are shipped out of the power plants where they are produced, nuclear safety problems spread far and wide. Man cannot get rid of long-lived radioactivity once he has created it. He can move it around but it will always be somewhere. Some of it will have to be kept out of the environment for more than 100,000 years.

“Because humans are fallible, careless and sometimes demented [and he might have added, Mr. Speaker, venal, malicious and stupid] it is unreasonable to assume that we shall achieve a miraculous 99.99 per cent success in the radioactive containment operation, year in and year out. Furthermore it is reckless to count on some special immunity for nuclear facilities when it comes to earthquakes, sabotage or war.”

Because the literature handed out by the Canadian Nuclear Association and the public relations division of Ontario Hydro is prepared by persons skilled in public relations -- which often means in deceiving people or in brainwashing the public -- it is not surprising that the publication handed out in Pickering entitled “Nuclear Power and Our Environment in Canada” should give scarcely a hint of the immense dangers involved. Consider page 12 where we find: “One Canadian scientist’s reply to the question, ‘Is it safe to develop nuclear power?’ was, ‘Safer than not developing it.’ He meant that if we do not use nuclear energy we will have to use other means to provide power and thus compound our pollution problem.

Perhaps the PR men are not really dishonest; perhaps, in fact probably, they are just ignorant of the several other pollution-free methods of harnessing energy without depleting our unrenewable, polluting, fossil fuel resources. Because of their ignoring the alternative forms of energy, they are preparing the public to support politically the dangerous and irrational policies of the relatively few people who have now become the nuclear establishment. The PR men’s job is to build prestige for the nuclear establishment.

Report No. 3 of Task Force Hydro goes about this task with great vigour, especially in the name-dropping passages from pages 17 to 28. First of all it blithely assumes that nuclear power is the only alternative to fossil fuel, and having killed off all the good guys -- that is by eliminating from its terms of reference the genuinely clean and perpetually renewable forms of energy power, namely, solar, wind, wood, geothermal sea- thermal, tidal and organic methane -- it berates the present obvious air polluting disadvantages of fossil fuel power plants and touts, all-out, the nuclear power plant. In other words, it carries out a mock battle with the other bad guys -- the fossil fuels -- and ignores the existence of the really good guys whom I have listed.

In its enthusiasm, report No. 3 fails to mention the huge quantities of energy needed to support the whole nuclear reactor scheme itself, the energy needed to mine uranium, the energy needed to refine uranium, the energy needed to produce heavy water, the energy required in reprocessing spent fuel, the energy required to built the nuclear reactors and to operate the generators, the energy required to transport spent fuel, and the energy required to entomb forever the radioactive wastes.

A part of this speech, Mr. Speaker, was prepared almost a year ago, while we were awaiting the appointment of our Minister of Energy. The following sentence should perhaps be dropped from my remarks today because I have since obtained part of the answer. However, I’ll quote it: “It would be interesting to find out whether all the nuclear reactors in the United States and Canada have yet produced as much energy as they have already consumed to date.”

As I pointed out in the first part of my speech on Monday, March 25, it was not until near the end of 1971 that the United States plants finally produced as much electrical energy as had been used in the uranium-enrichment plants. Of course, if all the other energy costs enumerated above were taken into consideration, it would be many more years before nuclear fission pays off its energy debt to society.

Paragraph 2 of page 33 of the task force report refers to the extra costs of reducing air pollution from fossil fuel generators, implying that economic advantages thus accrue to nuclear plants. Yet paragraph 4 admits to the extra costs that will be incurred in attempting to improve protection from radiation hazards in nuclear stations. So I ask: Where is the saving?

Task Force Hydro does take a brief look at the issue of radioactivity. Paragraph 5 reveals the absurdity of attempting to establish a so-called “safe level” of radiation. The International Commission on Radiological Protection has merely reached a consensus on a limit it is willing to recommend. The last sentence of the paragraph is an honest assessment -- as far as it goes. And I quote: “It should be noted, however, that since there is in effect no safe [in italics] threshold of radiation, there is an inherent difficulty in establishing protection standards.”

That’s what it says. To be completely honest, the sentence should have added the words, “and still remaining in the nuclear reactor business.”

So I shall repeat the basic sentence as amended to give the completely honest assessment. “Since there is in effect no safe threshold of radiation, there is an inherent difficulty in establishing protection standards and still remaining in the nuclear reactor business.”

The propaganda sheet continues, “Is it safe?” and answers: “Nuclear power reactors have been in operation in the United States and Britain since the 1950s and in Canada since 1962. There has not been one single, fatal accident in any of them.”

Now actually, an Idaho reactor exploded in 1961, killing three workers and discharging radioactivity into the atmosphere. Fortunately for others, the reactor was in an unpopulated part of the state.

On Dec. 13, 1950, the Chalk River plant had an accident with an explosion, killing one and injuring five others. Only a small amount of material was involved in the explosion. According to reports, and I quote: “Only through good luck, 45,000 lb of the same material in an adjacent room did not detonate.”

On Dec. 12, 1952, the NRX reactor at Chalk River suffered a “power surge” accident. Very high radiation was involved for workers -- between 20 and 100 roentgens an hour. An engineering magazine said at the time: “If 100 people were to receive a total body radiation of 400 roentgens, at least 50 would definitely have received a lethal dose. For this reason the normal health tolerance is limited to 300 milliroentgens per week per employee. However, had we attempted to apply this standard when working on this accident, we would have very quickly run out of manpower.” One wonders about the health status of these workers now, 21 years later.

On May 23, 1958, an NRU reactor at Chalk River suffered what was called a “power burst” as a result of a fuel rod failure. Very wide contamination occurred inside the plant. It took 600 men, including men from the armed forces, over two months to clean it up. Mr. G. C. Laurence, former member of the Atomic Energy Control Board, said it was very fortunate that no one was hurt or suffered an overdose of radiation in that accident. I quote: “The material damage, however, was an impressive reminder of the latent energy and of the radioactive substances that could be released by accident. I was chairman of a small committee that inquired into the causes of that accident and it made me very dissatisfied with the reactor safety philosophy that prevailed then.”

On May 3, 1973, the Wall Street Journal referred to a recent accident at the Virginia Electric Power Co. atomic plant in which two men were killed. This “recent” accident may be the same one that took place at the Surrey Plant in Virginia in July, 1972. On that occasion, two workmen were inspecting sets of malfunctioning valves when yet another valve exploded and killed them.

So the statement, Mr. Speaker, that there has not been a single fatal accident at nuclear power reactors in the United States, Britain or Canada is simply not true. This propaganda, which I picked up at Information Canada last week, should be withdrawn. It deceives the public, as of course it is intended to do. As long as the public thinks that nuclear power is safe and clean, the public will accept it. When the public realizes that it has been deceived, that may be another story. This government must come clean with the public.

In 1970 Consolidated Edison of New York had a pipe burst in its atomic plant. It took 700 men seven months to repair the pipe. In order to avoid exceeding radiation exposure limits, Consolidated Edison called in every one of the 700 welders in its whole system, its whole empire. A comparable repair in a conventional plant would have taken only two weeks and only 25 men.

The president of Consolidated Edison spoke quite candidly to the Atomic Industrial Forum conference on Nov. 19, 1972. He said: “Nuclear power has not fulfilled its golden promise.” After referring to the exceptional number of delays, defects and breakdowns, he said: “Repairs have required inordinate amounts of time, manpower and money.” And he noted that radiation hazards slow the work.

After this conference there were five cancellations of orders for nuclear plants, followed by at least two more important reversals, while Pacific Gas and Electric Co. seems to have renounced any future nuclear power involvement.

The section on costs in the task force report, pages 39 to 42, contains all the units’ of normal accounting practice in dollars and cents and quotes projections for future performance. But there is not a word assessing the real costs of nuclear fission, which I shall try to summarize briefly:

1. Costs to uranium miners in the threefold increase in incidence of lung cancer.

2. Costs to human health because of the escape of radioactive effluent from uranium tailings into the food chain through air or water.

3. Costs in suffering and lives in the event of a major in-plant accident.

4. Costs in suffering and lives resulting from sabotage of a nuclear plant.

5. Costs in suffering and lives in the event of acts of war or dementia or even acts of God.

6. Costs of dismantling or perpetually entombing and guarding the 30- or 40-year-old, worn-out and abandoned plants.

The list could be continued. For example, we could add the cost of providing poison gas shelters near heavy water plants in case of leakage of deadly hydrogen sulphide, as has been done near the Bruce plant at Inverhuron, near Kincardine.

Task Force Hydro’s report number 3 is, of course, entitled “Nuclear Power in Ontario.” It is a propaganda report of the most blatant type. If it were scientific it would at least acknowledge the existence of the other superior sources of energy -- superior simply because they are non-polluting, non-hazardous and perpetually renewable.

Is it not incredible that anyone is willing to run all the risks and, in the words of worried atomic scientists, “to jeopardize the human race just to boil water”? There are so many good, clean, safe ways of boiling water to produce electricity.

What possesses men to devise such a stupidly clever, polluting, dangerous method called nuclear fission? There must be some reason, but the only one of which I have heard is the oft-repeated explanation that it results from the feeling of guilt on the part of the scientific community and/or those scientists who first split the atom.

Its first use was for war, destroying as it did thousands of Japanese civilians. To appease their consciences, the scientists worked out the theory that splitting the atom, despite its initial misuse, would turn out to be of immeasurable benefit to mankind. In view of man’s well known propensity for justifying his own behaviour, this theory makes considerable sense. It is thought also that man has, in addition to his ability to rationalize, another characteristic, the ability to learn from his mistakes, to admit them, to change his mind and to change his course of action.

Task Force Hydro has issued three reports, all reflecting the sell, sell, sell philosophy of Canadian Tire Corp. I can find no suggestion in any of them that Ontario Hydro should change its policy of selling electricity in favour of a policy designed to save and conserve it. It was more with amusement than with surprise that I reached the last two pages of report No. 3 and noted that the chairman of the steering committee of Task Force Hydro was none other than the president of Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. whose philosophy is sell, sell, sell.

It’s high time that Ontario Hydro got itself some new guidelines, abandoned its blind commitment to nuclear power, cancelled its membership in the nuclear club and returned to the straightforward course of putting the public good first.

Ontario Hydro began with water power, a non-hazardous, non-polluting, perpetually renewable source of energy. Eventually it ran out of convenient hydro sites and turned to the polluting, unrenewable, but only slightly hazardous, fossil fuel. With the advantage of hindsight to guide us, we can see that it was at this point, when water power seemed to require supplementing, that we should have developed such alternatives as solar power, and especially wind power. Unfortunately, we took the easiest path and used coal, thereby adding to the pollution of the air of many cities.

We have again reached the stage at which we feel it necessary to find alternative sources of energy. Again we have looked in the wrong direction, turning to nuclear power with all its difficulties and dangers and the unforgivable risks that are being incurred. The question we must ask ourselves is whether the nuclear establishment is setting policy for this Legislature or whether the Legislature is still strong enough to reverse the policy that is being relentlessly promoted by the nuclear interests.

Just because we can build huge supersonic transports does not mean that we should, and just because we can travel to the moon does not mean that we should. Just because we can build nuclear power plants does not mean that we should. The question of using nuclear power is, of course, partly a technical one but it is primarily a moral one. Are we justified in committing our descendants to almost unthinkable risks when better, safer ways of providing energy are available? It is as simple as that.

Although President Richard Nixon is a great advocate of nuclear power despite his admitted ignorance of the subject, his former science adviser, Dr. S. David Freeman, now head of the Ford Foundation’s energy project, was reported in Nucleonics Week as telling a meeting in Washington: “Plants aren’t all that safe and what worries me especially is that any corporation can own and operate a reactor. I don’t think there is that much specific competence, technical competence. Someone will make the wrong weld and those plants need near-perfect engineering. We have not had much operating experience and inadequate allowance for human weakness is being made.”

He recommended an independent nuclear safety board to study and oversee the whole situation: “If consumers don’t get involved in the fight for a sane and fair energy policy, they will end up victims of undesirable power technologies, high bills and a seriously polluted environment.”

Incidentally, Freeman advocates a $1.5 billion to $2 billion research and development programme so that by 1985 the United States would be developing and operating at least seven new, really clean energy sources.

The Atomic Energy Commission officials are becoming upset by public resistance to the proliferation of nuclear power plants, and at a December, 1972, hearing the counsel for the AEC became quite impatient and said if public health and safety requirements were to be met, there would be no power. That is, for the plant to operate at a level insuring public health and safety, it couldn’t operate economically. Obviously, economies real or imagined are given priority over safety of the environment and man.

Dr. Edward Teller, usually known as the father of the atomic bomb and never known as a timid soul, has stated that nuclear plants should never be built above ground. To this the nuclear establishment replies: “If large nuclear plants had to be built underground, the price would be so prohibitive the utilities wouldn’t buy them.” And those are the words of Mr. Reg Hayden, spokesman for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

Dr. Teller was also quoted in Nuclear Industry in a 1969 article entitled: “Fast Reactors: When Will We Have Them? Maybe Never.” He said: “I do not like the hazard involved.” His special worry is that no one can tell where “a portion of the plutonium will find itself.”

Whose opinion should weigh more with us -- Edward Teller’s or that of our Minister of Energy?

Remember, Mr. Speaker, it takes only 11 pounds of plutonium to make a Nagasaki-like atom bomb. About one ton of plutonium 239 is contained in a breeder reactor core. If released and distributed evenly around the earth, there would be no human survivors.

Yet the proponents “feel sure,” or “are confident,” or “think” that the problems of containment and disposal will be solved at some time in the future. With so many safe, clean and inexhaustible alternatives, the only conclusion one can reach is that some men like to do things the hard way, the dangerous way. If the hazards were to them alone, we might say “go ahead.” But when all mankind has to share the hazard, we must say “stop” with several exclamation marks.

George Weil, a nuclear consultant and former Atomic Energy Commission chief of the reactor branch, and United States technical director of the First International Conference on Peacetime Nuclear Energy, offers a warning in his 1972 article: “Nuclear Energy -- Promises, Promises.” He says as follows: “Breeders will present far greater radioactive risks than we now face. With growth of nuclear fission we are committing ourselves to nightmarish possibilities.”

Nobel prize winner Hannes Alfven, whom I mentioned before, states that “any programme to develop fast breeders should be revised.” That’s in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, May, 1972.

John Gofman, the distinguished nuclear researcher and professor of medical physics, calls the AEC’s plans for a plutonium economy “insanity” and “the ultimate hazard”.

These are harsh words, Mr. Speaker. “Nightmarish”; “insanity;” the “ultimate hazard. But they are the words of men who have deep insight and have had long experience in this field. Is it not folly for politicians such as ourselves to ignore their words and meekly swallow the assurances of the nuclear establishment? Especially when there is absolutely no necessity to run any further risks.

The various forms of solar energy can supply so much energy that we could have far more on tap than we would ever need, and be able to save our fossil fuels, especially oil, for all the special uses that have been invented by the petrochemical industry, which of course will have to disappear when the oil resources of the earth are used up.

The choice is clear. Go nuclear at our peril. Go solar with guaranteed safety, guaranteed cleanliness and guaranteed eternal supplies. Buckminster Fuller has said that wind energy is the most promising form of solar energy by 99-to-1, so when I refer to solar energy, I have in mind chiefly wind power.

Why are our governments ignoring solar energy? Chiefly because of lack of knowledge. Scarcely anyone is yet aware that solar energy could completely solve our energy problems. Very few people yet realize that some day, not too far off, solar energy must be man’s sole source of energy. In the late Fifties there was a world-wide attempt to revive interest in solar heating, solar distillation and wind-generated power. But the rosy pictures then painted of cheap nuclear power left only a small group of hard-core devotees working in the solar energy field.

Technology and industry plunged into the nuclear field. As a society, we forgot about research and development, both for solar energy and for a cleaner method of using coal. Nuclear power was in. All other forms of energy were out. A quarter of a century of research and development in solar energy processes was literally lost for lack of scientific interest and financial support.

Prof. William E. Heronemus, professor of civil engineering at the University of Massachusetts, recently described three solar-driven processes that can be implemented quickly if the public demands them. The fuel establishment, of course, is not likely to show any favourable interest. Only a government, prodded by public opinion, is likely to do that.

First, the photo-thermal method: Briefly, as I, a layman, understand it, heat from the direct rays of the sun is collected in so-called flat plate collectors using air or water as the working fluid. The warmed working fluid is then used to heat buildings and water for domestic purposes. In areas and seasons requiring cooling rather than heating, the warmed working fluid is used to drive absorption-type refrigeration machines.

This low photo-thermal process could be added on to an existing fossil-fuel heating plant. If required to do no more than 75 per cent of the heating task over the course of a year, it would be competitive economically as well as ecologically superior. This type of a building heating system on a rather large scale has been proposed for the new Massachusetts Audubon Society office in Lincoln, Mass., where it will be watched with considerable interest.

The second method, the ocean thermal differences process: This is of no immediate interest to us in Ontario. I shall not describe it.

Third, the wind-power process: Since the beginning of recorded history man has exploited wind power, not only for travelling by sailboats, but also for other jobs the energy from windmills can perform. The efficiency of wind turbines has increased from as little as five per cent to 10 per cent for the Dutch type of windmill to as high as 55 per cent for some modem high-speed propeller-type machines.

In the last three years an entirely new look has been taken at wind power. Wind power is now considered within a total, self-contained system able to deliver electricity upon demand by virtue of including a storage sub-system. Several very large wind-power electricity systems of this kind have been devised and costed.

The most ambitious of these proposals is the offshore wind power system which could take over the entire job of providing electricity for the six New England states. Each element of the system was carried through preliminary calculations and is based on technology demonstrated at that size somewhere in the past. The storage sub-system is based on the generation of hydrogen by electrolysis and on the storage of that gas in pressure-balanced tank farms beneath the sea.

As first presented, the offshore wind power system was a 100 per cent hydrogen gas system to be distributed throughout New England in pipelines. This gas would then be converted at a fuel cell substation in which hydrogen and air are used at the local distribution level to generate electricity. By a later concept, however, capable of delivering 300 billion kilowatt hours per year, the method would be electricity in cables rather than energy in pipeline gas.

Prof. Heronemus has conceptualized wind power systems for the Lake Ontario region off the shore of Oswego, NY, for New York shoals, for the state of Wisconsin, for the state of Vermont, and for the prairie states. These studies have all shown that competitive electricity on demand in vast amounts could be generated by wind power in regions where winds are moderate to strong.

Heronemus says, however, that because winds are much stronger several hundred feet above the surface than they are within 100 feet of the ground, we must be prepared to put our wind generators where the wind is best. If we don’t like the sight of them, then we can put them on floats out of sight on the Great Lakes. This would be a much better solution for Goderich than the building of another dangerous “nuke”.

Heronemus estimates that the United States can harvest at least two trillion kilowatt hours of electricity a year. Wind generator systems could be in action within four years. If Ontario is in a hurry to produce more power to export to the United States, wind turbines could be the quickest and best answer.

Heronemus recognizes that nuclear fusion may eventually be perfected and that it could replace other heat-generating processes. But he realizes also that there is a limit to the amount of global heating and weather modification the earth or man or the environment can tolerate. He says that that limit may be not much higher than that which we have already reached. He warns: “The often enunciated concept that nuclear fusion will bring unlimited energy to man is a very dangerous and irresponsible concept. Perhaps the major tragedy we could sustain from this current energy crisis would be the long-term disadvantages that would accrue to accelerated non-regulated proliferation of fission power plants. The real questions here are far more deeply seated than those of present comfort, profit and loss, or material well-being. They are questions of radical degradation of national security. [That is another way of saying sabotage and hijacking.] They are questions of basic morality. For example, what is this generation’s obligation to all future generations?”

Professor Heronemus, probably the best known authority on the conversion of wind energy, will be speaking in May, a few weeks from now, at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec at a seminar on the subject. At both McGill University and the University of Sherbrooke there are groups of professors keenly interested in wind power conversion. In a personal communication of Feb. 11, Prof. Heronemus refers to Canadian data prepared by T. C. Richards and D. W. Phillips of the Department of Transport, meteorological branch, Toronto, and says:

“Based on these data and our local method of assessing the utility of a wind field we have concluded that the winds in the Canadian portion of Lake Huron and farther to the east over Georgian Bay would be an excellent field in which to place shallow draught, floating wind plants. That same strong westerly persists and indeed intensifies as one moves eastward over Quebec and Labrador. Wind power over Labrador may be one of your richest natural resources. [That’s speaking to me as a Canadian.] There is also an excellent wind field off-shore of the whole of Nova Scotia, of far greater long-term significance than even the richest of gas and oil deposits in that shelf. [He concluded his letter with these remarks -- ] Canada is blessed with one of the most productive wind power resources in the world. You would be well advised to develop its use and save your petroleum for nothing other than a sustained, intelligently-operated, long-lived, petro-chemical industry.

“If you were to move that way, maybe some of the less imaginative members of the United States establishment might start moving, too.”

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I wish to state that, in view of the Minister of Energy’s oft-repeated appeal for citizen input and ideas as well as his advertised need for greater depth and greater breadth of knowledge in areas such as wind power, he should attend this seminar personally, and take with him or send observers who have some expertise in this field.

Here is an opportunity for Ontario to show leadership in this most socially acceptable of all energy fields. Let us seize this opportunity for the benefit not only of Ontario and Canada but of the rest of the world.

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

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise in this Throne Speech debate and, of course, very honoured by the fact that you are in the chair at this point. Together with everyone else, I was very shaken by that experience last December. There are few people around this city or in this province who have earned more respect from the members of the Legislature and others than you, and we are delighted to have you in your position.

I was quite shaken when I read this Throne Speech to see that the government states that although it will employ all practical means at its disposal to alleviate the causes and effects of inflation, “nevertheless it bears repeating that the problem can only be dealt with in a national context with all governments co-operating.”

Surely there is nothing that has been more inflationary, nothing that has added more to the fires of inflation than the housing costs.

Surely anyone will agree that the housing costs in Toronto -- the heart, the capital of the Province of Ontario -- have been rising faster than anywhere else in Canada. What has been happening in Toronto, unfortunately, has also been happening even close to Cochrane North, Geraldton, and other towns all over; even in Smooth Rock Falls. I hear about these costs. We have a shortage of building sites which makes it impossible for the ordinary individual to buy a home even in those parts of Ontario where no one can say we have a shortage of land. As a matter of fact, of course, no one can really say we have a shortage of land even in this area.

Land is the major culprit in the housing- cost rise. I feel there have been 20 years of uninterrupted opportunities for profiteering by speculators which we provided by having the shortage of building sites year after year. Therefore, there was an opportunity for those selling in a sellers’ market to keep on demanding higher prices. That has backed up to agricultural land and, as the member for Wellington-Dufferin (Mr. Root) said, is causing our agricultural land to disappear at an alarming rate.

It’s not just the problem of the cost of producing food today on the farms, and all the expenses related to it, but it’s the fact there is such a temptation to say: “To heck with it all. I’d rather get out and enjoy the revenues from clipping the bonds rather than get in there and work day after day to produce food. When the land prices around me are escalating, why should I carry on slugging it out day after day?”

The government has tried to solve the problem by Malvern -- first of all, Malvern. What success did that have? In the 20 years it took to get Malvern from the original purchase of land in that area to where the first houses were built, land prices in this area have risen at a rate at which they have never risen before. We have not solved a bit of it. And yet we have gone ahead with land-banking -- the purchase of thousands of acres of land by this government -- in the Cambridge area, in Pickering, in the Whitby area; all over they are buying vast acreages. Those who are selling, of course, say: “By gosh, we can make money on land. The best thing we can do is buy some other land.” And so all we are doing is fuelling the fires of inflation instead of dealing with the problem. The problem is the shortage of building sites.

I was interested in the fact that in many counties around the province they have said: “Let us have the right to develop some of our building sites. It would not cause any pollution; it would not cause any strip development; it would not be using any good agricultural land.” In Northumberland county, for example, the planning board there said, “We could give you 2,000 lots and put them on the market tomorrow and not cause any of these undesirable planning results.”

But, no, because of the policies here at Queen’s Park of restricting development to traditional-type subdivisions, such as the one between Cobourg and Port Hope which is using up hundreds of acres of good agricultural land -- because we are restricted to that type of development, we are just continuing to feed the fires of inflation as we are continuing to destroy hundreds of acres of our best agricultural land a day.

There are answers to this and the answers primarily involve servicing the land, I was interested to see that in this Throne Speech there is a mention of the fact that the government is going to increase its activities in servicing of land. But then when I read that it’s moving from around $81 million of capital expenditures to $115 of capital expenditures, I say they’ve got to be kidding. Those people running this government have got to be kidding to think that a $30 million increase will solve the problem.

What is needed is a major programme, a $350 million to $450 million programme for the next year, or two, or three, or whatever is required to beat the shortage, to eliminate the cause of the inflationary fires, to ensure there is an over-supply of building sites available. This is not money that is wasted, because this is an investment in very valuable, revenue-producing construction -- revenue-producing because it is possible for the province to sell the services to the municipalities where the development is going to occur.

It’s important that we recognize that the way it has got to be done is that it has to be completely different from the traditional system of financing, where each municipality enters into a contract so that the municipality pays back the cost of the construction over a certain period of time. Imagine how much development of power we would have seen in Ontario had we had to have each municipality go to the Ontario Hydro and say, “We would like to have you develop and provide power to us,” and if Ontario Hydro had made them sign a contract on a take-or-pay basis over a 30- or 40- or whatever-the-number-of-years basis to fully repay the cost of that development. It just never would have happened.

The reason it wouldn’t have happened is because the municipalities could not have stood that debt burden. And the reason the municipalities today are not entering into large contracts to provide the service in the region of York, the region of Durham, and all these other regions, the reason we are not moving ahead is because they can’t get these projects worked out with the government. They can’t afford them.

But the government of Ontario, were it to undertake a province-wide programme where the cost to each of these municipalities that require services was similar to the cost that Metro Toronto charges its boroughs; no different -- were it to use that standard of rate across the province, we would then not be making a differentiation in cost between easy areas to construct services, such as the southern area where the soil is deep and easy to dig, and the north.

We wouldn’t be differentiating between, say, London and St. Thomas. London is buying its water at 18 cents a thousand; and of course St. Thomas got a little better deal after a lot of haggling, but they were asked to pay 54 cents when their project was put in.

This silly, ridiculous policy of having each project stand on its own feet just won’t work. The other thing that is so silly and so wrong is expecting municipalities to enter into a contract that burdens the municipality and restricts its ability to do other projects, because it’s a burden on its borrowing capacity, when that contract does absolutely nothing for the province in enabling it to borrow money from the market at better prices.

The province is borrowing the money on its own credit, and Ontario Hydro uses the province’s credit; it has nothing to do with the actual revenues that made Hydro -- certainly on the original basis -- the attractive borrowing instrument that it developed’ into. It certainly is possible for the Ontario government to set up a utility concept for water and sewers along the same line, which would then enable the municipalities to really have available to them, without burdening them, the very essential services of water and sewers.

As for the actual annual subsidy that the taxpayers might have to carry to subsidize these rates I talk about -- the uniform rates across Ontario -- calculations we’ve done, on the basis of estimates of what the market demand might be for 120,000 lots a year, show that this might be as high as $30 million a year in the provincial budget o£ $7 billion. But to be sure that this province-wide utility builds up, that subsidy of $30 million a year could save $500 million a year to the home buyer and the tenant. And that is where we, as a government, can really help the economy.

We can decrease the inflationary pressures that have caused housing to go out of sight. We can enable municipalities in areas where the land and the soils aren’t as attractive for buildings as they are in southern Ontario, to get the services they need. And we can do it without putting those municipalities in a debt position that is absolutely without any reason, unnecessary and does no good for them -- and certainly does no good for the province.

I remember well when, as the chairman of the committee of the Markham council I negotiated contract No. 1 with the Ontario Water Resources Commission, what a disappointment it was at that time to Dr. Berry, the first chairman, when he realized that he had to have each of these contracts on a self-supporting, self-liquidating basis, instead of the concept that was originally discussed in 1954 of forming the “Ontario Hydro” of water and sewers.

If the province really is interested in solving the servicing problem of the regions -- they were supposed to do it themselves, but they can’t -- and other municipalities, it should immediately adopt that programme and not with a little increase of $30 million, as it is proposing in this budget, but maybe $300 million or, $350 million -- that’s much more like it.

There is another way that the province can help cope with people’s problems, such as those described by the member for Wellington-Dufferin, with regard to servicing in rural areas. That is, in many of these areas a major problem has been how to service a few houses in a cluster in an area where perhaps the land is not good for agricultural purposes. It’s ideal for some houses but how do we provide the services but not have pollution?

The province decided some years ago that upstream sewage plants weren’t good, even though modern technology has proven that they actually are excellent and, by making use of sprinkling systems there is the potential to recover the phosphates and nitrates and to actually eliminate the need to buy fertilizers.

We can actually recycle the fertilizers that are in the sewage effluent and greatly increase the productivity of our agricultural lands for com, wheat, and grasses. Golf courses, of which we have 90 around the Toronto area, could be irrigated by this means, but instead of doing anything in these modern ways, the government of Ontario through its controlling authorities has been discouraging or has been giving no leadership in these matters.

I was shaken to find that, although three years ago there was supposed to be a new experiment in this sprinkling and irrigation in the Alliston area, nothing has happened, nothing has gone forward. I suppose they’ll blame the municipality but the municipality probably got a little frustrated.

There is a new development in the London area, I was pleased to hear, with regard to septic tanks. In some areas septic tanks just don’t work. The reason they don’t work is because tile beds and certain types of soils just aren’t satisfactory. But if one adopts this system that is being proposed -- and I think it has finally got approval in the London area -- of taking the effluent of septic tanks and treating it, you can then remove it not through big sewers but through pipes that are easy and inexpensive to install. You can treat it in a very, very small building, practically a hut, so 50 or 60 houses can be handled in a very, very small type of installation and very inexpensively.

It would make it possible for us to permit the development of clusters of houses in very, very attractive, very desirable rural settings, giving people the maximum flexibility instead of forcing them to buy in high-cost traditional-type subdivisions close to the urban areas. They are right against each other, covering over the finest agricultural lands of the province with these developments -- easily serviced but very costly for future purposes. The provincial government should take an aggressive and leading role to solve a problem which is of such a serious nature from one end of Ontario to the other, and not leave it up to the municipalities and developers to find some manner of getting their lands into production.

There is a major element of interruption in housing development that has been raised on many occasions by housing ministers. The previous minister at one time made a strong statement saying that we are going to have to do something to force municipalities to accept low-cost housing. Now, if the Attorney General had at that time had much experience in local councils he would realize that the problem is not that they don’t want low-cost housing in their municipalities, but they don’t want the problem of the increased burden of taxes on other residents that low-cost housing brings with it. That is because of the dependence of municipalities on property taxes to pay for people services.

The one way that this can be overcome is by the province providing municipal financial assistance to eliminate the financial drain imposed on existing taxpayers by low assessment housing. Such a programme must assure municipalities that new, small houses will yield as much total revenue on a per capita basis as the established areas of the municipalities. The programme would be of a temporary nature because experience shows that within 10 years of the establishment of low-cost housing, industrial and commercial construction can be developed which will bring previous assessment ratios back into balance. In other words, the per capita income in the established areas will be the same as, or even less than, in the new areas where low cost assessment, low cost housing is allowed to come in.

It’s a real plus for a municipality and there would be no resistance if the province provided a 10-year programme on every low cost house which would ensure that the total revenue on that house was up to the per capita revenue of other residences in the area.

Another point is the government should introduce changes to the Assessment Act to provide for market value assessment on all land on which development is permitted. Many people have had the feeling that speculators hold back land and don’t put it on the market -- won’t put it on the market -- and they in themselves add to the inflationary fires. This can easily be discouraged if the Assessment Act is changed so that it’s possible to assess land at full market value for development purposes if approval can be obtained for immediate development by the municipalities.

Another point is we should reintroduce the system of segregating land from structures with regard to assessment. If we do so, we can introduce a gradually decreasing percentage factor on structures so that there is a reduction in the current penalty we now impose on improvements to property. There are many examples in the Toronto area when buildings are torn down and parking lots established in order to reduce taxes and they can still get a very satisfactory revenue. This is true in other areas when a man makes an improvement to his home and finds his assessment jumps. He says, “Why do I pay more because I have improved my property and taken care of it when my neighbour, who has an identical structure, doesn’t pay attention to it and lets it depreciate?”

If we had segregation in value for assessment purposes in the assessment roles between the land and the buildings, we could apply a factor of maybe 60 per cent or 50 per cent to the improvement to the structure, and have the taxpayers paying full rates on the land but half rates, in effect, on the structures.

Another programme I believe the government should introduce is to eliminate the discrimination now imposed on owners in greenbelt areas or in areas where a ministerial order has been imposed, as it has along the parkway or in the airport noise zones. There is a procedure which I think should be adopted, as is recommended by the blueprint commission on the future of New Jersey agriculture. This provides for the segregation of development rights on all lands, and owners are compensated at market value for the development rights they are deprived of. In this manner, the owner will not be penalized because he happens to be on the wrong side of the road. The programme of compensation has been funded in New Jersey by a percentage tax on real estate transfers which means that those who are getting the benefit of the higher market values are, in effect, paying the cost of the assistance or the compensation being paid to those who are not in a position to benefit from it.

Another thing the government should do is introduce legislation requiring house warranties of a year on all visible defects in a house and five years on other defects. This would eliminate a lot of the problems which homeowners have which add to the inflationary fires.

Still another matter is a provincial building code, modifications to which can be introduced by municipalities to meet special needs, subject to provincial approval. The government should continue its programme, which hasn’t seemed to have had much effect so far, to streamline municipal and provincial planning procedures in order to minimize delay in development approvals. It is really ridiculous for any group coming up with a sound subdivision proposal or a development proposal to have to wait five or six years; it shouldn’t be more than five or six months. It can be corrected by giving assistance to municipalities to enable them to do a better job; perhaps by giving them $50 toward their planning costs for every approved building site, or some incentive which sees that the work is done and done quickly.

The last point I want to suggest in this matter of dousing the inflationary fires in housing is that the government move very quickly into the type of programme of renovation of old houses adopted by the city of Toronto in the Niagara St. community. I thought that was one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of what remarkable achievements can be experienced when a community itself is given the money to carry out -- in this case $300,000 to deal with 600 homes that were considered beyond repair.

At an expenditure of around $400 per home, and by cleaning up the lanes and fixing up the parks, that community looks like a first-rate area. Painted up, fixed up, the community is itself very proud of its achievements because it wasn’t left to individuals.

It wasn’t some grand scheme imposed from on top where some individuals went in to get a grant to improve their houses. No, the community itself was given the money. It decided how to allocate it. It worked out a co-operation scheme for the residents, and as a result a remarkable amount of work was done for very little money. The community itself has strengthened in its own morale and heart, and for people who don’t have large incomes has become a very attractive part of Toronto in which to live.

Those, I hope, are some suggestions that are alternatives to this crazy approach of land-banking that this government has adopted over the last several years -- investing the moneys of this province in land and doing nothing to douse the fires of inflation. Real estate is not a beneficial type of investment. The money is far better put into producing housing or producing goods, but certainly not into buying land in the hope that the land prices will continue to rise. There’s been no reason to doubt prices wouldn’t rise because of the policies of this government -- or lack of realistic policies -- for so many years.

I’ve been wondering just why it is that for year after year, despite the fact we’ve been talking about this different approach, why this government hasn’t taken action. Is it worried about the decline in values of the land it already owns? Surely not. Surely the government isn’t worried about that. Or is it worried about the land investments of the government’s friends and where they’ll get hurt?

Let’s think of the benefit and the real interests of the people of this province and get to the root of the cause of the major inflation in this province, and that is land speculation. Let’s douse those fires and let’s not fiddle around with these little programmes that are suggested in the Throne Speech, because there’s no real action indicated.

A second subject I’d like to say something about, Mr. Speaker, is the environment, and particularly with regard to garbage. I’ve been in on several of these environmental board hearings -- Port Hope, Maple, Pickering -- and I’ve listened to the arguments put forward by citizens who say, “We really don’t want Toronto’s garbage.”

I recall, Mr. Speaker, it was three years ago, I think, when some citizens in the Stouffville area became concerned about the fact that some 50,000 gallons of liquid waste a day were being dumped in an area that was very close to the source of the village of Stouffville’s water supply. The provincial government waste disposal people said: “Well, that won’t cause any problem. You don’t need to worry about those liquid wastes because it’s sealed. The land is clay and it won’t allow any of the liquids to penetrate to the source of the water. You’ll be fine.” It’s also close to the sources of the water for the Holland River.

But the fact that the liquid wastes kept on disappearing, going somewhere, naturally caused some concern to the citizens. Finally the municipality took action and closed it down, after the government failed to do something.

I remember the ministry of the day said to me. “It’s going to cause real problems. Those liquid wastes might be dumped down the sewers in Toronto and go out into the lake.” Of course, it’s a question of whether the government is really worried about the pollution threat, or worried about the number of people who are going to be hurt by the pollution threat.

But they finally acted because the municipality had the right to close down that operation, and when they acted they put up a plant that looks after these liquid wastes. They put up a plant in Oakville and it is operating and it has dealt with the problem. Why can’t the same approach be taken with regard to the disposal of Toronto’s garbage wastes?

There are plants all over Europe and all over North America which are working to recycle garbage. They’re making use of it in a way that the benefits of the garbage are not lost by being buried; they’re being utilized. And the plants making use of it are doing it in such a way that they’re not polluting the air and they’re not causing noise. They’re doing it in a way that is very, very satisfactory.

Why are we trying to take trainloads of garbage out to somebody else and dump it in their area? Why are we going to pollute the land for generations to come to have to put up with? We can be developing problems and that they’ll face that will be absolutely unforgivable on their part because we could have done things in a much better way.

I suggest that this government has to stop considering landfill and must immediately get busy on programmes to deal with garbage recycling. The technology is available. Stop toying with these little programmes which are going on in the Toronto area now. Get into it, because the problem is right on our doorstep and has to be dealt with.

The next item I want to cover, Mr. Speaker, is that of transportation. I was pleased to see that there was at least a token start on northern Ontario’s highway needs -- improvement of the highway between the Soo and Sudbury. Rut that’s only a minor start on a major northern road problem.

It’s interesting that for years some 75 per cent of highway traffic between Winnipeg and Toronto has been moving through the States. Even though the route is longer, it takes less time to cover the distance. When one thinks of the economic benefits that come from movement of traffic -- the meals, the accommodation, the servicing -- one realizes that in itself would be a great benefit for northern Ontario.

When you realize also that of the two major problems that northern Ontario people keep bringing to our attention are those of transportation access and of services, at least we could deal with the first by a major programme for a new northern Ontario highway across the top of Lake Nipigon, through the clay belt, bypassing Timmins and Kapuskasing -- particularly Timmins and major centres such as Timmins -- to be sure that that in itself would be a great benefit for there’s good access between east and west with bypasses around these major centres.

Its construction, together with more north-south links, would attract really effective, important, year-round economic activity, as well as providing the people who are already living there with good access that they really need; good access for their goods and services that they can export, as well as good access for themselves to other parts of the province.

I would also urge that the problem with regard to transportation in the Toronto area and other parts of Ontario would be greatly alleviated were the province, along with the western provinces, to press the federal government to take over the railway rights of way. For years we’ve been having problems with the declining rail service in areas such as Huron, the Bruce Peninsula and the Toronto area. Wherever you go around the province, people are complaining about rail service. In northern Ontario there are fewer and fewer trains, and yet the need seems to be increasing all the time.

The best way to be sure that there will be competition in rail service as in road service is to do with rail what we did with roads, and that is to make the rails common carriers. We make those rail rights of way common carriers so that not just CP or CN have the right to use what are now CP or CN lines. We make it that the government of Canada owns those lines; make it that the government of Canada maintains and improves those lines in the way that the Province of Ontario has the responsibility for maintaining and improving our highways.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Is the member advocating the nationalization of the CPR?

Mr. Deacon: There is a lot of difference between nationalization of the CPR with its trains and nationalization of the CPR with its trains and nationalization of rail lines. I am talking about having the rail lines handled in the same way as our highways. They are available for the use of the CN or they are available for the use of Greyhound or they are available for the use of the Ontario Northland Railway system. The government of Canada maintains the rights of way and charges for their use, but operates them just as it does the airline terminals.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): Isn’t the member sorry he asked that?

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Give him a handcart.

Mr. Deacon: You can nationalize the CPR and all you have done is given us another situation where we have a monopoly, this time a government monopoly, supposedly providing service. We wouldn’t be any better off in having Air Canada as our only airline carrier in Canada. I don’t think that is desirable. I would rather have a choice.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): I think we will nationalize their rolling stock and give them their track.

Mr. Deacon: I like to see free enterprise operate, but free enterprise doesn’t operate in the railways today. They have a monopoly on the lines that they now have and they don’t allow those lines to be used by others who might want to provide service over these invaluable rights of way. It is time that we got that straightened away.

Mr. Bullbrook: Continue to provoke him.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): He is moving ahead.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for York Centre has the floor.

Mr. Renwick: How would it be if we nationalized the airways too?

Mr. Lawlor: Stick around here for another four, five or maybe 15 years and we will all be together.

Mr. Renwick: That’s right, still fighting the Tories.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Speaker, the fourth point I want to bring up is the question that I am sorry the government hasn’t shown in the Throne Speech some realistic approach to deal with increasing confrontation between labour and management. The York county teacher dispute presented a need for a change in our whole basis of labour negotiations and legislation. I think it is important we start to move toward the direction of final offer selection. Even though that was a principle that was suggested by an NDPer, I think we have got to give Val Scott credit for the fact that in this country he was the one who started to talk about final offer selection, though it was already proven just south of the border and other places to be one of the finest approaches one can bring to labour- management negotiations --

Mr. Lawlor: Just because he’s a colleague of ours I’m not going to say anything against him.

Mr. Deacon: -- an emphasis on reason, and an emphasis on justifying positions instead of presenting extreme positions in the hope that some mediator will draw a middle line between two impossible extreme claims.

Mr. Renwick: That’s what mediation is.

Mr. Deacon: I don’t call that mediation. That is just confrontation. I do hope that the government will soon move to improve the whole basis of negotiations and eliminate many of the aggravations that are caused by delays in negotiations, and this can be done by good labour legislation.

The last point I want to cover, Mr. Speaker, is that of ways to increase occupational opportunities and improve the whole system of social assistance that we have in this province. As long as our basic government policy is one of work or welfare, we will never cope with nor will we ever solve the major social problems of this province. We shall continue to frustrate those who would like to work, but cannot afford to work, and those who need workers and can’t afford them. The one way of doing this, and I think the most feasible way, would be to introduce a guaranteed annual income for every individual. It may vary according to the age, but it would be one that is in universal application, and it should replace our present costly and frustrating maze of assistance programmes.

It is time we eliminated a system whereby a parent and three children face a tax rate of 75 per cent on their earnings over $4,500. That is what the situation is today with a mother with three children who is trying to improve her situation. She faces a 75 per cent rate of tax when you see that on anything over $4,500 she loses 75 per cent of what she earns in the form of assistance. In other words, 75 per cent of what she earns over and above $4,500 is taken away from her assistance -- so in effect it is a 75 per cent rate of tax. It is no wonder workers are in short supply and welfare rolls are bulging, because we say it is either one or the other.

Just this afternoon I was talking to a constituent who faces this problem. Really, the only way to solve it is to give up. Stop struggling to work and to cope with the problems -- just let welfare look after it. And this is no way for any society to survive.

If we do this we can eliminate the need for minimum wages, because minimum wages were required to protect workers against being forced to work in sweat shops in order to provide their food and shelter. If we had a guaranteed annual income we wouldn’t need that.

But a guaranteed annual income would provide for their basic needs; and then additional earnings can be received without an onerous penalty -- and many satisfying and useful jobs can be created, which cannot economically warrant payment of the minimum wage.

There are many types of work. Just think of the carvings in this building that we see around us right now. How many people would love to do this fine work, but can’t do it because there is no way it could be paid for -- and yet it is a very, very satisfying form of work.

There are lots of people, including some of my youngsters, who don’t care about a large income. They want to have enough to get by on, but they also want to be sure of doing something that satisfies them and gives them a feeling of contributing something worthwhile to the society around them. I think it is important that we get away from our present system, which kills initiative and frustrates those who would like to contribute to our society.

So Mr. Speaker, with those words --

Mr. Lawlor: At what levels would the member guarantee an annual wage?

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Speaker, with those words -- I didn’t quite get that.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Adequate.

Mr. Lawlor: What level would the member for York Centre set?

Mr. Deacon: You see, these levels are things that would have to change as inflation comes along.

But I do know that the cost of living in Prince Edward Island is a lot less than the cost of living here. I think perhaps we have got to set the cost at levels which are adequate in those parts of the country and make it possible for people to find a place to live in those parts of the country.

This area isn’t the be-all and end-all where people are all piled into this part of the country. I think we can provide much more attractive opportunities, much more satisfying ways of life in other than just the Toronto-centred region. I think it is important in providing a guaranteed annual income that we also at the same time ensure that we are providing opportunities for people to do satisfying jobs -- jobs that will augment their incomes and make it possible for them to do other things.

So, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to present some of these ideas and I hope that the government of this province will start to take some action along these lines, as I’m sure it will result in an improvement in the quality of life in this province.

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: Before we proceed with the debate I beg to inform the House that, in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor has been pleased to assent to a number of certain bills in his chambers.

Clerk of the House: The following are the titles of the bills to which His Honour has assented:

Bill 7, The Developmental Services Act, 1974.

Bill 8, An Act to amend The Municipal Act.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, I basically want to deal only with one topic, but there are two other matter that I do want to briefly refer to before I enter upon a rather difficult topic for discussion in the Legislature.

There were two anniversaries in the last while which, in a sense, have gone unmarked; and both of which are significant for those of us in this party and certainly those of us in the Legislature who have any concern for human freedom and human liberty.

In place of the leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Lewis) I was present at Nathan Phillips Square on March 21, about 5:30 in the evening, to join with a small group of some 20-odd people who were commemorating as members of the Canadian Federation of African Citizens in Canada the anniversary of the Sharpville massacre in 1960. And I thought, as I joined that small group on behalf of the leader of the New Democratic Party, that we really have extremely short memories. On March 21, 1960, as a result of the protest by the Pan-African Congress against the pass laws which are still in force in South Africa, South African police opened up on the crowd, and as many of us will recall, 69 people were killed and another 170 or so were wounded in what has become known as the Sharpville massacre.

I simply mention it because I think, in a House such as this, it does not hurt on occasion for us to recall the kinds of incidents which should have both a double-edged thought that we are indeed fortunate to be free from that kind of violence in our society, and, at the same time, that we should not forget the very humanitarian need to support the peoples in those countries who are endeavouring to free themselves from iniquitous laws in fascist regimes, particularly those countries which are based, in their government philosophy, on the principle of racism.

I simply want to say to the government that I was very proud that in this Legislature the government did move to eliminate the trade missions to South Africa, even though it was perhaps difficult for those who think only in terms of trade to understand the reasons. I was certainly proud of the fact that it was the leader of this party who raised the question in the Legislature which led to the decision by the government to eliminate South Africa from the trade missions of the Province of Ontario.

The other event which I wanted to refer to was the March 25 national celebration of the Greek community about the overthrow of the Ottoman regime in 1821, which has become a national liberation day for those persons who belong to, come from, and live in Greece. It was very strange in the Globe and Mail of that day while people celebrate national celebrations in different ways, Zena Cherry’s column was devoted to the vice-consul of Greece in the city of Toronto and the reception which he was holding on behalf of the government to celebrate that national liberation of the Greek community from the Ottoman rule in 1821. Yet at the same time, in the same issue of the Globe and Mail, there was on page 7 a very brief excerpt from an editorial which had appeared just about the same time in in the New York Times, in which it pointed out:

“A US study mission for the House Foreign Affairs Committee believes Greece is facing its worst crisis since the civil war of 1946-1949.

“’Indeed, a renewal of large-scale civil conflict is one of the real possibilities in Greece today,’ says the mission’s report, presented by Rep. Donald Fraser of Minnesota after an on-the-scene investigation.

“This sombre conclusion, fraught with grim implications not only for the longsuffering Greeks but for Greece’s partners in western defence, seems to be supported by every new action of the obviously insecure military junta that overthrew Col. Papadopoulos last November. The brutal arrest of George Mavros, a former government minister and leader of the Centre Union Party, is only the most recent exhibition of the junta’s instability.

“Military police in civilian clothes smashed in the door of his Athens home with a crowbar at 6 a.m. and hauled Mr. Mavros off to jail after he defended the cancellation by Britain’s Labour government of a visit to Greece by two Royal Navy ships.”

Well. I don’t need to go on any further, but to make the same point that we here are indeed fortunate to be free from that kind of oppression in our society to the extent that we are and the tradition that we live by, but also to remember that there are many Greek people in Canada at the present time, many of them living in my riding, who are supporters of those organizations which are engaged in endeavouring to restore democracy in Greece. I have a letter from one of the men in my area to say that March 25 is Greek National Day, which commemorates the Greek revolution of 1821, which overthrew the Ottoman regime. “Greeks all over the world celebrate this important date in their history in a number of ways. Today, the situation in Greece is not a cause for celebration; a savage dictatorship still exists, as may be observed from the recent wave of arrests and terrorism.” That is a letter to me from a friend of mine, a supporter of our particular political party but a Canadian of long standing and a man of immense personal prestige in the Greek community, Mr. John Limnidis, the president of the Committee for the Restoration of Democracy in Greece.

Having said those two things, I want to turn to a matter of concern to me in the time which I have had an opportunity to study it -- and it hasn’t been all that long -- and, as we now say fashionably, I’d like to share a few thoughts with the members of the assembly on the question of family property rights and family property law.

The report of the Ontario Law Reform Commission, Part IV, dealing with this topic, is a very interesting report. As I read it and tried to understand what the commission was saying and the way in which they were saying it, I found it became more and more confusing. So I took a little bit of time to try to sort out my thinking about the family property law report in the hope that others in the House might have occasion to think about it and give consideration to it and so that it will not become the monopoly of those members of the legal profession who happen to sit in the House when the time comes to debate any recommendations which are set forth as proposed law by the government of the province.

It was quite interesting, and perhaps it would be helpful to members if I could simply point out that it’s a very lengthy report, even in this mimeographed form; it runs close to 500 pages. The interesting part of it is that the last chapter, which sets out seriatim all of the recommendations set out elsewhere in the report, refers to chapter 4 as the first chapter which has any particular recommendations about it. I don’t think it is necessary for anyone, other than a person interested in all of the detailed intricacies of this kind of property law and suggestions of recommended reform, to read anything more than about the first 35 pages of the report and then about 10 to 15 pages around page 100.

What concerned me at the very beginning and led to my confusion in what the report was trying to say, is that the foreword of the report had certain statements of the principles which the members of the commission believed were guiding their deliberations. They stated rather succinctly what they believed to be the conclusions they were going to come to about this whole question. If I may refer just very briefly, Mr. Speaker, to what they had to say: “Few other ideas have so fundamentally influenced civil law during the last few decades as the principle of equality between husband and wife.”

They went on further to say: “More and more, marriage is being recognized as an economic partnership in which both husband and wife have an equal stake. How to give practical effect in law to this conception was the main task of the commission in its work on reform of Ontario’s matrimonial property law.”

They went on to say: “Other areas of western jurisprudence have also been endeavouring to seek a solution to the problem of protecting the economically weaker spouse by their matrimonial property rules.”

They referred to the rather generalized statement that, “The aim has been to combine the best features of a system of separation of property -- autonomy of the spouses -- with the spouses -- with best protective features of a community system -- potential for mutual sharing in the assets of the marriage.”

They then go on to refer again -- and I will advert to it very briefly -- to the new law that came into force in the Province of Quebec on July 1, 1970, and which for practical purposes, with certain distinctions, is what is recommended by the Law Reform Commission of the Province of Ontario.

But then we came to this statement: “We have not only made proposals for reform of Ontario’s matrimonial property law but have made proposals for a radical departure from existing principles; nothing less will suffice.” Further on in the report it is reiterated that, in its family law project generally and in the present report in particular, the commission has tried to adhere to the constant theme of law as a means of achieving desirable ends.

It makes the further statement: “In this report the commission recommends legislative changes in the property relations between married persons that will, at times, involve a radical departure from contemporary arrangements. With respect to the particular subject matter of the report, the commission is convinced that sound law reform requires such departures.” Scattered throughout those first 34-odd pages of the report and reiterated elsewhere, as it comes to the point in law where it is going to make its proposals, are words to substantially the same effect; that in some way or other the Law Reform Commission is recommending something called radical change in the matrimonial property relationships between spouses and proposing changes in the law in the Province of Ontario.

The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that the changes as proposed by the Law Reform Commission are very minor, are not likely to result in any substantial change in the system and appear to result from a strange kind of conceptual confusion which the rhetoric of the report appears to justify as being a philosophy which should be accepted by the province, bringing about some kind of fundamental changes in the property relations between spouses. I may say, one can make the obvious remark that the Law Reform Commission dealing with the family law project, of course, does not have any women members of the commission. I think it is fair to say, without suggesting for a moment that there is any conscious bias in the commission, some of its references with respect to the married relationship, usually of the female spouse to the male spouse -- there are other situations in which it is reversed -- but in the majority of cases they refer to the relationship of the female spouse in language which is a little less than is really acceptable as understanding today what I conceive to be the prime concern of women who are interested in establishing an economic equality in their marriage relationships.

For example, the report states that while the women of Ontario are free to choose whether or not to marry and thereby accept the conventional role of non-earning wife and mother, there is a further reference: “However, when it comes to some of the salient legal results of having accepted such a role within the institution of matrimony, the women of this province will find that they have no further real alternatives. When a woman marries she must accept a legal regime respecting property matters within the marital relationship that is fundamentally the same scheme as was conceived in the middle of the Victorian era as an acceptable means for ending the chattel status of married women.”

The report goes on at some lengths to deal again with the same conception of the role of the woman partner in the marriage relationship in language which would appear to indicate a very deep concern by the Law Reform Commission about the condition, which is not carried out in the proposals which the commission puts forward.

Let me, if I may Mr. Speaker, deal with a couple of further statements in the report, to give the conception which apparently the Law Reform Commission has about the relationship in the Province of Ontario: “The right to property and money amassed during the marriage, following traditional rules of property law, remains solely with the spouse who originally acquired it.”

Of course, if I may interpolate, in most cases that means that the title to that property acquired during the marriage remains with the husband -- I emphasize “in most cases.” There are of course other situations where that is not true.

“Although it cannot be said fairly that the institution of matrimony exists for the economic benefit of one sex to the exclusion or detriment of the other, the usual division of labour within a majority of marriages results in the husband being the breadwinner or primary source of support. This phenomenon is reinforced not only by the obligation imposed by law upon a husband to maintain his wife, but also by the difficulties facing women, who notwithstanding that they are able and willing to work, find themselves facing the very real forms of prejudice and pecuniary disadvantages that exist for women in the modem labour market.

“The acquisition of a substantial separate estate and financial independence during matrimony are now, legally speaking, theoretical possibilities for any married woman the same as for any married man. However, the attitudes and traditions of a culture which for centuries regarded married women as social and economic satellites of their husbands, still make this in reality and in the great majority of cases a practical impossibility. To date, the Ontario law respecting matrimonial property, unlike the corresponding doctrines of many other legal systems, has not been adjusted to cope properly with the harsh realities of the economic aspects of marriage as they affect married women.

“... The entitlement to and management of most of the money and property acquired during marriage is vested in the husband ... The interest of the husband is an overriding one -- the proprietary interest that the law attaches to formal title. In the absence of title [and I want to come back to this point] the wife has no standing to advance a claim to existing assets as she would were she a partner or an equal, but rather can only present a suppliant’s request for maintenance.

“The fact of economic dependency of a wife upon her husband during the currency of a normal marriage is perhaps the surest guarantee that she will have need for support if the parties separate.”

And it again refers to the English report of the royal commission on marriage and divorce. “Two distinct lines of criticism were reported: First, that ‘the law still regards the wife as her husband’s dependant, that is to say as a person of inferior legal and economic status ...’ and that the wife’s economic dependence on her husband was not only doing her grave injustice, it was also “one of the basic and the most insidious factors contributing to the stresses and strains of married life.”’“

The second line of criticism had to do with the questions relating to the matrimonial home and household goods and I don’t intend to deal with those recommendations of the commission’s report, because I assume that they will be ones which are accepted.

I want to deal specifically with the solution which the Law Reform Commission came up with when it said that it was going to treat the relationship of a man and wife in a married state from an economic point of view as a partnership, and the way in which they concluded that this could be accomplished was to make a recommendation -- and I quote from the report: “The commission therefore proposes that under the matrimonial property regime the spouses be separate as to property during the currency of the marriage and be entitled to an appropriate equal sharing in family assets upon the termination of the marriage by death, or divorce, or upon termination of the matrimonial property regime in certain circumstances other than upon death or divorce. Subject to the commission’s subsequent recommendations respecting restrictions on dealing with the matrimonial home and on the making of gifts that are other than reasonable or customary, the property position of the spouses during marriage will be the same as under the present law of Ontario. Each will be free to hold and dispose of his or her own property.” In other words, each will be separate as to property.

Mr. Speaker, without going into the long history of the position which had developed with the introduction into Ontario of the Married Women’s Property Acts in the last century, what the report is saying that during the currency of the marriage there will be no changes in the rule of the separation of property of the spouses and that the only change will take place on the dissolution of the marriage, by death or through divorce or by application to the court in a certain number of ways which are set out.

It seems to me that that is where the Law Reform Commission is flawed in its conception of the problem. If the basic problem is the economic dependence during the marriage of the one spouse, usually the wife on the husband, then it doesn’t seem to me that it strengthens marriage as an institution in the province to say that the only solution to the economic relations between the two will take place upon the dissolution of the marriage.

It’s very interesting that the only aspect of partnership which they talk about, relating it to our conceptions of partnership in the traditional business partnership sense, is on the dissolution of the marriage. Then there’s to be an accounting for the married assets and there’s to be an equalizing claim granted to the spouse who had less of the assets, and that is to be not a claim to title to property, but simply a debt claim. So the spouse who is economically dependent, having come to the dissolution of the marriage finds herself not in entitlement to any assets, but has only a claim for a debt against the economically superior partner, as I’ve said on more than one occasion in the last few minutes, usually the husband.

You cannot really say, Mr. Speaker, that the Law Reform Commission, speaking as it does about giving vitality to the principle of economic partnership, has done anything about the fundamental question of the economic partnership during the marriage. What they propose at the end of the marriage is to say that property acquired during the marriage, other than property which comes to either of the spouses by inheritance or bequest, and income from property that each of them may have as they enter upon the marriage -- the income of that during the marriage will be part of the family property, leaving aside the special considerations related to the matrimonial home. They propose that there’ll be an accounting, an equalizing claim, to be asserted only in debt -- no transfer of title to property; no formal questions of a clear division of the property on an equal basis at the end of the marriage -- only the debt obligation again, which presumably a wife would have to take to a court to enforce.

I want to leave the question of the dissolution of marriage and simply say, Mr. Speaker, that you cannot now talk about an economic partnership in the way in which the Law Reform Commission pretends to talk about it, unless one thinks about the conception of the relationships between the spouses during the whole course of the marriage. It would appear to be perfectly clear that the way in which that is accomplished is to insist that the assets of the marriage and the decisions with respect to their use will be by mutual agreement. The disposition, investment or other use of capital assets or the disposition or use of the income, that is, whether income coming into the family partnership will be used to be turned into capital for investment, will be used for a holiday vacation, will be used for some frivolous expenditure or whatever it’s going to be used for have to be done on a mutually agreed basis. Failing a mutually agreed basis, each of the parties could at that particular point in time with respect to the number of dollars that they’re concerned about and unable to reach agreement about say “We’ll each take ours. We’ll each take ours during the course of our marriage and we’ll do with it as each of us sees fit.”

Marriage, as everyone knows, is a series, I suppose, of mutual reconciliations. That kind of decision, the possibility, the connotation that a man and a wife in a true partnership could discuss and have decision-making authority mutually about the use of the income from the marriage, about the use of the assets of the marriage and about the use of the income from property which had been brought into the marriage, but what was not necessarily part of the matrimonial property, and that aspect of mutuality seem to me to be the very key that the Law Reform Commission should have insisted upon as being an integral part of any change in the law which might take place in the Province of Ontario. It can only be in that way that we can deal with this basic question of economic dependency which, in my judgement and, I think, in the judgement of the philosophy or thesis put forward by the Law Reform Commission, has had a very destructive effect upon the relationships between man and wife under the present regime of married property law in Ontario.

I want to make the point that the Law Reform Commission is under no illusions that the very nature of the institution of marriage is affected in a fundamental way by the property relations which are established in law. If we’re not going to change the property relationships as they now exist during marriage, it seems to me that the institution of marriage is going to be subject to the same flaws which it is presently subject to, so far as that economically dependent relationship is concerned, rather than the kind of equal partnership which it is fashionable, in the language of the day, to speak of when one speaks of a marriage.

What I think, Mr. Speaker, and I am endeavouring to put it before the assembly, is that when you read the report and read the first 35 pages of the report and then, perhaps, pages 90 to 125 -- which only take a very few minutes -- do not be taken in by the rhetoric and the language which is used by the Law Reform Commission to justify what it is speaking about. They are not changing titles of property. They are using, in a specious sense, the conception of a partnership but only in terms of what happens on the dissolution of the partnership, and in no sense has any connotation appeared in the report with respect to the conception of a partnership, economically, during the course of the marriage.

The net result, even on disposition, is nothing but the creation of a debt claim which is certainly not an adequate way to provide for a partitioning of assets at the time when a marriage is terminated. Throughout the whole of the report, it seems to connote that somehow or other the separate property regime, during the currency of an existing marriage, is a good system. It throws out the community of property regime and it throws it out for the very reason which I have endeavoured to express. That is that the community of property regime, which is the community of property regime in the Province of Province of Quebec until July 1, 1970, was subject to the flaw that while both spouses have rights in the community, the husband normally, either in law or in fact, will have the administration and control of it.

Therefore, what they’re saying is wrong with the community of property regime in its traditional sense is that one of the partners in the so-called partnership has the administration and control of it. Instead of discarding the conception of community of property, instead of trying to correct the community of property conception, to establish that there will be real community of property with respect to decision-making control, in a mutual relationship, over assets and income of marriage -- instead of putting that forward as the solution to the problem, they have opted for this rather hybrid version that the separate property will continue during marriage and that there will be some accounting procedure at the end which will result in the wife having something called an equalizing claim in debt in order to equalize her claim when the marriage is over.

What it would appear to me that the committee’s report should have recommended is that if there was to be a radical change, they should have pursued the conception of the economic partnership of the marriage relationship fully and completely during the currency of the marriage in order to analogize it to a business partnership with whatever necessary ameliorations had to be made, because such analogies never fit completely, and also to provide in addition, but not as the primary concern, for what happens on the dissolution of the marriage.

Then they should have set up, in my judgement, that kind of matrimonial property regime we are recommending as the kind of matrimonial regime which we believe the public interest requires -- in the interests of the stability of marriage, in the interests of the improvement of the marriage relationship, in the interests of the equality and mutuality of the relationship.

Then they should have said that if in any particular case a man and a wife want to go before a judge and opt for separation as to property, or some other contractual relationship, they would go and make their presentation to the judge. In certain circumstances it might be very necessary that there be separation as to property, or that there be some kind of a regime with respect to the property relationships.

But to have made it possible to have said that this hybrid will be the keystone of our married property law in the Province of Ontario, subject to the parties contracting out on their own at any time, without any reference to a court or anyone else, seems to me to defeat the very purpose that the family law project in this particular area of law was designed to come to grips with.

I am simply saying, Mr. Speaker, that I would hope that these comments -- and perhaps there will be another occasion to elaborate on them a little bit more -- are to be, as I say, something of a caution and a warning to the other members of the Legislature that it is possible for us in this province to design a married property relationship with respect to family property, family assets, matrimonial home, bearing in mind the true principle of the economic partnership which the report itself says was the object of their exercise.

Until we look at it that way, then it seems to me that we are not really making any significant or substantial change with respect to those relationships.

I make the last comment, Mr. Speaker, that I somehow have the feeling that somewhere in the way in which I have endeavoured to express a conceptionally difficult problem is the core of what in fact is causing a great deal of concern among women in the community -- whether they stay at home and perform a traditional role or whether they are part and parcel of the work force -- that somehow or other during the currency of the marriage and conception of an economic partnership is one which is both in the private interests of the parties and reflects the public interest of the province in the stability of marriage and in the enhancement of the particular relationship.

I would suggest that I would hope that perhaps on another occasion when the Attorney General’s estimates are before the House, we may have an opportunity to pursue this kind of conceptual problem. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. member have further comments in this debate?

Hon, Mr. Winkler moves the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that tomorrow we will continue with this debate.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves the adjournment of the House.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 6 o’clock, p.m.