Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 o’clock, p.m.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE

Mr. Speaker: When we rose at 6 o’clock I believe we were being favoured with a few remarks from the member for Ottawa East.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Yes, Mr. Speaker, when one --

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): The member can take on the government.

Mr. Roy: Yes, I’d love to take on the government.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): Let’s let the crowds in now.

Mr. Roy: I don’t particularly care for the competition, though. I’m one who is sporting and it’s hardly sporting, to me, Mr. Speaker, to be talking to just one individual across the way.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): It’s quality, not quantity.

Mr. Good: There isn’t an NDP member in the House tonight.

Mr. C. E. McIlveen (Oshawa): The member had better turn this way.

Mr. Roy: To my left -- oh, we’ve got one. The next speaker, one member of the NDP.

Mr. N. G. Leluk (Humber): Let the member talk over here.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): We could defeat them tonight if we had a couple more in here.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I think one of the matters the government dealt with some time ago, and I suggest is only giving lip-service to, is the status of women and women’s rights in this province. I think it’s obvious, Mr. Speaker, that women have now established themselves as a permanent and essential part of the Canadian labour force.

The old stereotype of working women as marginal workers -- young, single, and out looking for a husband -- is slowly being shattered. Today women of all age groups, both married and single, are filling jobs in our society at an ever-increasing rate. In 1972, Mr. Speaker, there were 1.2 million women in the Ontario labour force.

In other words, one out of every three workers in Ontario is a woman. This is substantially higher than 10 years earlier when working women in Ontario numbered 692,000 or only 29 per cent of the labour force. The rapid changes that have occurred in Canada since the end of the Second World War have profoundly affected the lives of women. Technological developments, increasing urbanization and industrialization and the progress in science and medicine have changed the way we live and will continue to change our lives. Canadian women have benefited greatly from this progress.

Women can now expect to live longer and healthier lives. Two hundred years ago, Mr. Speaker, the average life expectancy was not more than 35 years, but today a Canadian woman can expect to live almost to the age of 76. There used to be two cycles in a woman’s life; the pre-marital stage and the period given over entirely to bearing and raising of children. Today most women have a third cycle between the ages of 35 and 76 in which time many want to work or pursue their own interests. In comparison with the life span of --

Mr. Sargent: Men do the same.

Mr. Roy: -- our great grandmothers this represents the equivalent, really, of a second life.

Another change in the last 100 years has been the increasing education available to women. Little by little the doors of nearly all educational institutions have been opened to women; yet many areas of educational endeavour are still male-orientated, especially in law, medicine, dentistry and engineering. In Canada we regard these as male professions, yet there are substantial differences in the way these professions are regarded in other countries.

It is interesting that in the USSR the majority of doctors are women. In Finland most dentists are women and architecture is considered as suitable tor women as it is for men. Until the development of obstetrics only women assisted other women in childbirth and it was considered wrong for men to assist. Really there are few feminine or masculine occupations. It just depends on the place one lives and the town in which one lives.

The labour force study by the Ontario provincial government found that generally working women were better educated than men. In 1970 it was estimated that 30 per cent of the female labour force in Ontario had completed high school compared to 18 per cent of the working men. Men overtook women slightly at post-secondary level, since 15 per cent of working men and 12 per cent of working women had some or complete university education. Despite this, average earnings of females are consistently lower than the average earnings of men.

The survey conducted by the Board of Trade, which I intend to go into in more depth, Mr. Speaker, was described as confidential and only for the use of the Board of Trade. It showed gross discrepancies in the average weekly salaries: of male and female employees in various industries.

Briefly, for example, and I intend to go further into depth on this, Mr. Speaker, a senior male clerk in a retail establishment earned an average salary of $145 a week, while the senior female clerk earned an average salary of $115 or 79 per cent of the man’s salary. The junior male clerk in the construction industry earned an average weekly salary of $100, while the junior female clerk earned $84 or 84 per cent of the man’s salary. When these differences are examined it is no wonder they were labelled as confidential.

The Employment Standards Act states: “No employer ... shall discriminate between his male and female employees by paying a female employee at a rate of pay less than the rate of pay paid to a male employee, or vice versa, employed by him for the same work performed in the same establishment, the performance of which requires equal skill, effort and responsibility and which is performed under similar working conditions.” However, it is well known that this type of discrimination still exists in quite a number of Canadian industries.

Some people still use the argument that men should be paid more than women because they are breadwinners and have a family to support. Carrying that type of reasoning to its logical conclusion, Mr. Speaker, you would have to say that a man supporting five children should be paid more than a man supporting one child, and that is obviously ridiculous in our society.

Most people have accepted the idea that a person should be paid according to his or her merit regardless of sex. In many cases women have to work because they are the breadwinners. Thirty-nine percent of all women workers in Ontario are self-supporting because they are either single, widowed, divorced or separated. Among married women, some of them are the sole breadwinners of the family because their husbands are unemployed, disabled or students. Even if the husband is employed, his wife may have to work to supplement his income. The wife’s decision to work often raises the family to a much better standard of living.

In the past, once a woman was married, she was considered as having lifelong economic security. Today, this is simply not true. Many marriages no longer last a lifetime and marriage breakdown is on the increase. As an example, Mr. Speaker, in 1961 there were in Canada 36 divorces per 100,000 population. In 1970 this had increased to 136. Quite apart from those women who are divorced, there are those whose husbands have deserted them, frequently leaving them with children for whom they have to care.

There are those, of course, who are separated. In fact, over a quarter of a million working women, or almost one-tenth of the female working force in Canada, are either separated, divorced, deserted or widowed. Add to these over one million single women who make up more than one-third of the female labour force and the assumption that female employees have no real need starts to crumble.

In the past the family had been the central focus of the woman’s life. However, the position of a woman in relation to her family has already changed enormously if you look back a few generations. Our great-grandmothers spent a great deal of time cooking and sewing for the family. A significant part of her day was involved in the large household and the work required to maintain it. The large number of children that she bore in her short lifespan, all made life for our great-grandmothers very different from what it would be like today.

For the married woman 200 years ago, life was often hard, with little time for leisure, but she would experience a sense of being central to the survival of the members of her family. Today modernization of the smaller home and a flood of goods and services have reduced this work. The size of the family has decreased significantly and women consistently have more leisure time than ever before.

In the past a Canadian woman usually spent most of her adult life caring and looking after six or seven children. Today the average is three children and the woman’s lifespan is much longer.

I firmly believe, Mr. Speaker, that women will have an increasingly important role to play in our labour force. Much still needs to be done to change outdated attitudes toward women who work but this is slowly being accomplished. More women must be attracted to the political world as well, and I am sure I would probably get the approval of the member for St. David (Mrs. Scrivener). In this House of course, Mr. Speaker, we have three female MPPs. Considering the fact that 50 per cent of the inhabitants of this province are women, I feel there should possibly be more female representation.

Just to digress for a moment, Mr. Speaker, I note that one of the outstanding women politicians of this country Agnes McPhail, was in fact the first woman elected to the Canadian parliament. She was well known across Canada and the US for her wit and her compelling demand for social reform at a time, of course, when women’s lib was not all that popular. To a child who was the eldest daughter of a backwoods Ontario farmer born in a log farmhouse in 1890 and educated in a small rural school, nothing could have seemed less probable than a political career. She was elected at age 33 to the House of Commons.

In those days women’s liberation had not yet been invented, but Agnes McPhail sincerely embraced the philosophy of equality for the sexes. Throughout her life she had to consider many times the opposite attractions of marriage and a political career. Politics consumed her life and attention but she felt she could make room for the traditional home, husband and family.

Mr. Speaker, if I might just read something that she said in parliament one day when she spoke on the subject of women’s rights and the difficulty of acceptance by the male, she wrote as follows: “When I hear men talk about woman being the angel of the home, I always, mentally at least, shrug my shoulders in doubt. I do not want to be the angel of any home. I want for myself what I want for other women, absolute equality. After that is secured, then men and women can take turns at being angels.”

Mr. Speaker, I should briefly go into the Board of Trade figures which were published -- these figures came out in 1973. As I mentioned before, the equal pay provisions of the Employment Standards Act, one would think, would correct this situation but in spite of the legislation the figures released -- well, first of all, the figures from the Ministry of Labour, women’s bureau, in 1971 show us, for instance, that with accounting clerks the difference between male and female is; male $111 a week, female $94; bookkeeper senior, male $162 a week, female $124; cost accounting clerk, $137 for a male, $104 for a female; material record clerk, $133 for a male, $94 for a female.

I can go on. For instance, the Board of Trade figures which were released in September, 1972, show the following: In industry, for a clerk the average male was making $120 a week, a female $98; wholesale intermediate clerk, male $130, female $105; and so on. The figures range for all positions, whether we talk about publishing, marketing sales, construction, service trade, transportation. On average, the figures for females, as a percentage of the male salary, range from about 74 per cent to about 86 per cent throughout.

Mr. Speaker, it appears obvious that the Employment Standards Act either is not being enforced or is just being given lip-service. I think it’s going to take some initiative on the part of this government to see to it that this situation is corrected.

For instance, Mr. Speaker, in fringe benefits granted to female employees, I read in a news release dated Feb. 7, 1973, that the Ontario Minister of Labour (Mr. Guindon) appointed a task force to examine the practicality in bringing into force section 41(g) of the Human Rights Code; it read as follows:

“The Ontario Human Rights Code Amendment Act, 1972, does not apply to any bona fide insurance plan that provides life, accident, sickness or disability- insurance or benefits that discriminate against an employee because of age, sex, marital status, until the day to be named by the Lieutenant Governor or by his proclamation.”

The release went on to say that a task force was being formed and said:

“This section is designed to eliminate existing differentials in fringe benefits which today play an important part of the total pay package. Women have been badly discriminated against with regard to pensions, especially in pension plans. This discrimination must end quickly. It has been and is still wrongly assumed that women employees do not need pension plans and that they do not have financial responsibilities for dependants or that a single female employee has no need for any form of pension security.”

Mr. Haggerty: They survive their dependants.

Mr. Roy: In view of the statistics that nine per cent of the female labour force is separated, deserted, divorced or widowed, in view of the dramatically rising divorce rate and in view of the fact that 33 per cent of the female working force is single, there is obviously an imperative need for security for these women that equal pension benefit rights can provide.

Miss Sylvia Gelber, director of the women’s bureau, Canada Department of Labour, said in a speech in February 1973, that it has almost been a tradition to set a so-called normal retirement age for women which was lower than that for men. A 1970 survey, “Pension Plans in Canada” by Statistics Canada, indicated that 23.2 per cent of women now under pension plans are required to retire at an earlier age than men under the same plans. Miss Gelber stated that in many plans a man may have been entitled to enter the pension plan after one year of employment while the woman in the same organization would only be entitled to enter the same plan after five years of employment.

When it is realized that the level of a pension is generally calculated on the basis of the number of years of employment, the extension of the period before entitlement at the beginning coupled with the shortening of the period at the end, when an earlier retirement age was fixed, would adversely affect the level of a woman’s pension.

It would be interesting to know what the Department of Labour has done to change some of these statistics in relation to the pension plan.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, as of February, 1974, statistics from the women’s bureau, Canada Department of Labour, show that in managerial occupations women make up three per cent of the total average earnings, yet the average earnings of men exceed those of women by over 100 per cent.

In clerical occupations women make up nearly 75 per cent of the work force, yet the annual earnings of men exceed those of women by more than 50 per cent. In the service industries, into which much of the rapidly increasing female labour force has been absorbed, women account for almost 60 per cent of the total work force, but the average earnings of men are more than twice those of women.

In sales occupations, as in managerial occupations, women make up a relatively smaller proportion of all employees -- about one-third of the total. The earnings of men exceed those of women by one to 1½ times.

In the professional and technical occupations women make up more than 40 per cent of the total. Teachers, nurses and librarians account for about three-quarters of all the professional women. This category also includes doctors, lawyers and dentists, the great majority of whom are men. The earnings of the men exceed those of women in these categories by something like 66 per cent.

Mr. Speaker, it appears obvious that in spite of legislation which exists here at the provincial level, a more vigorous and enthusiastic enforcement, not only in words but in practice, must be done by the Ministry of Labour so that the women of this province reach equal status with men.

The final thing I would like to say about the problem of the status of women is that the Law Reform Commission recently presented a report in relation to the status of women and their rights in marriage and that type of thing, and we would encourage the government to look at this problem as early as possible.

One of the things I have always found, as a lawyer, to be an anachronism -- something that’s out of the past, something that should no longer exist in today’s generation -- is the matter of dower. Women have been complaining about the matter of dower for some time. As you know, Mr. Speaker, dower relates to a married woman and involves a one-third life interest in real estate upon the death of the husband. Am I right?

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Yes.

Mr. Roy: I don’t handle real estate transactions very much, Mr. Speaker, so I’m just rephrasing something that I learned in my law school days.

Many provinces have done away with this question of dower, and I would suggest that if the government seriously looks at the question of law reform in the area of women’s rights, dower can be done away with as well; the corresponding benefits can be given to women, be it under the Dependants’ Relief Act or another Act involving succession for women and we can do away with this problem.

Every time transactions take place in real estate, they’ve always got to get somebody to sign the documents. It’s a problem that causes difficulty in drafting and executing documents.

If this problem were looked at by the government from a total package point of view, women would be the first to say that this right of dower is something that is a relic of the past, is no longer necessary in 1974, and in fact, probably hasn’t been necessary for the last 25 years.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): How much longer?

Mr. Roy: What’s that?

Mr. Martel: How much longer?

Mr. Sargent: We’re not going to say. We’ve got the women’s vote now.

Mr. Martel: I don’t care how long.

Mr. Roy: If you keep bugging me, I’ll repeat all this in French.

Mr. Martel: I don’t care how long. I just want to know how long the member is going to be so that I have time to go the washroom.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): There’s time.

Mr. Roy: In any event, Mr. Speaker, this party wants to go on record as looking at this question of the status of women and paying more than lip-service to it. We in this party not only have candidates and members of the other sex, we are in vigorous and enthusiastic support of the status of women. We do not simply pay lip-service to it, like some of the male chauvinists on the other side. These are basically my comments, Mr. Speaker, and I thank you for your generosity.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury East.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Mr. Speaker --

Mr. A. Carruthers (Durham): Well, let’s have it.

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): Stand up, Elie.

Mr. Martel: Shall I get on the chair?

An Hon. member: Get under it.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): Is this the same speech as last year?

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): I think he should go and see a chiropractor.

Mr. Martel: It’s obvious, Mr. Speaker, that the chiropractors’ dinner has got to some of my friends across the way.

Mr. G. Nixon: How about you, Elie?

Mr. Martel: I wouldn’t even associate with anyone who was at that type of function.

Mr. Carruthers: Where’s that chiropractor?

Mr. Martel: Let me say that I, like everyone else in this chamber, am absolutely delighted at the recovery of Mr. Speaker, whom all of us know has given this House some of the fairest type of rulings that we have seen in here in many a year. I well remember his predecessor, and I only take my own term in this House in making my remarks, because I wouldn’t want to go back beyond that stage.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): The member can’t talk about the member for Ottawa West (Mr. Morrow).

Mr. Martel: No, my colleague says I cannot talk about the member for Ottawa West who served as the Speaker, and certainly I wouldn’t. I only take it from the time I came here.

Mr. Young: He was a very good Speaker.

Mr. Martel: And I found a tremendous difference in what Mr. Speaker’s approach was. There was a fairness about his rulings that allowed this House to work in a better atmosphere, despite the tense situations that prevail from time to time.

It is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that we in this Legislature, where the inmates are the only people who run the institution, have never really moved to improve the conditions for members. We put so much stress on the members that we, in the last session for example, would have four or five of our members very badly afflicted, all of them ending up in hospital with very serious conditions. It has always amazed me that 117 of us, in fact, could put ourselves through this type of torture when in fact we should be here ordering the business of the House in the best interests of people of Ontario.

That backbenchers in particular would find themselves so underserviced in terms of staff and assistance has always amazed me. I guess it has amazed me because Tory backbenchers are willing to accept it, where in fact the cabinet -- we didn’t see any of the cabinet members collapsing last session, although we saw five or six backbenchers who were understaffed and overworked -- had a great deal of staff to do their research.

Mr. Sargent: They’ll all eventually be recycled in the cabinet, don’t worry about it.

Mr. Martel: Maybe they are so busy trying to get to the cabinet they haven’t got the fortitude to demand what is necessary for a backbencher to carry on his function as a member in this Legislature, but I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the backbenchers in this Legislature are very important. The cabinet minister isn’t short of staff. “Billy the Kid,” with his complement of 90, isn’t short of staff.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Martel: Don’t interrupt me, Mr. Speaker, at this stage. “Billy the Kid” has got about 90. He’s got about 90.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Martel: And I have spoken to nearly every Conservative backbencher in this House, who agree with me; and there isn’t one of them that has the courage to say it. In fact, Mr. Speaker in his present capacity was in Quebec not long ago, when the select committee visited Quebec, and the Quebec members of that Legislature said to Mr. Speaker that if they didn’t have a riding secretary and a secretary in Quebec City they just didn’t know how they could function.

We in this Legislature think we can go on carrying the tonnage for the cabinet, who have all of the services at their disposal; we are willing to go on, and the Cabinet doesn’t even know the problems of the members of this Legislature. They don’t even recognize them. The Camp commission, which was set up to make it possible -- I am not saying to favour the members -- to make it possible for members to work in a meaningful way as members of a Legislature, not ombudsmen, has bombed in totality. We paid Dalton Camp $260 a day or so to come up with that type of report. We might as well have --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: We gave Doug Fisher and Farquhar Oliver $160 a day each and got recommendations a kindergarten class could have come up with, really.

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): I thought it was pretty good.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Who is that cabinet minister over there?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson ( Victoria-Haliburton ) : A good minister.

Mr. Martel: I’m not interested in red herrings. I’m interested in the type --

Mr. P. J. Yakabuski ( Renfrew South ) : Tell us about Manitoba then.

Mr. Carruthers: Tell us about B.C.

Mr. Yakabuski: Fishing co-ops, $50,000 in the black to $50,000 in the red after the socialists touch them.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: This, Mr. Speaker, is precisely what I said a few moments ago when I said the Tory backbenchers didn’t have the guts to say what had to be said. They will now bring in the red herring. Why don’t they talk common sense?

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: The member is a mackerel fisherman.

Mr. Martel: I’m some other type of fisherman too.

Mr. C. E. McIlveen (Oshawa): He’s a frog fisherman.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Watch out, the member for Grey-Bruce says it’s a good speech.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, when one looks at the five or six members of the back bench who collapsed during the last session, including Mr. Speaker, one has to wonder why we get stupid remarks from that side of the House. It reminds me of teachers, Mr. Speaker --

An hon. member: Oh, don’t bring them up!

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: -- who do all of their quibbling in the teachers’ room. Most of those people who have just commented do all of their quibbling in the back alleys, in the corridor or in this chamber. When it comes time to talk about the realities they try to run a red herring into it. There isn’t a Tory over there who doesn’t know I’m right.

Mr. Carruthers: Oh, I don’t agree.

Mr. R. K. McNeil (Elgin): I didn’t think he was, but if the member is right, it is the first time.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted, might I say, that the real Mr. Speaker is very much better and I hope the government --

Mr. Sargent: He is repeating himself.

An hon. member: Yes, he is wandering.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: He was admiring the member for Sudbury East up until a moment ago.

Mr. Martel: The member for Grey-Bruce can call it as he likes, I’m still delighted to see Mr. Speaker is in good health; and if some of the other Tories want to collapse from exhaustion that’s fine. I’m not too sure they are interested.

An hon. member: That’s terrible.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: He is not very kind.

Mr. Martel: Well it is true though. I can’t help it if it isn’t kind, it is truthful.

Mr. MacDonald: It is the truth we want more than kindness.

Mr. Martel: My friend the Minister of Housing makes a comment. The Minister of Housing would support, I know, a riding office so that his constituents who don’t happen to be within the confines of Queen’s Park can phone him daily and would in fact obtain the same type of service in their area as those members from Toronto can provide for their constituents because their secretaries are in Queen’s Park every day. That is in fact what I am speaking about --

Mr. Carruthers: I have no difficulty.

Mr. Martel: -- that my constituents in the riding of Sudbury East are as entitled to be able to be in constant contact with their member as are those constituents of members in the immediate vicinity of Toronto.

Mr. McNeil: The member will have to become more available to his constituents.

Mr. Martel: -- who can phone Queen’s Park daily to talk to a secretary of a member who happens to be here. That service isn’t available to our constituents --

Mr. Carruthers: The member will have to pay some attention to his constituents.

Mr. Martel: -- those of us who live beyond the confines of Toronto.

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak at some length on one specific topic --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: -- but before I do there are three or four minor topics I want to talk about.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: It is contagious. He sits right behind the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy).

Mr. Martel: I want to talk about my friend the Minister of Financial and whatever it is -- they change that name so frequently I can’t keep up with the changing of the name.

An hon. member: Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Clement).

Mr. Martel: Well, whatever it is.

An hon. member: His memory is not very good.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Sometime ago I presented to the minister two catalogues --

Mr. Yakabuski: Eaton’s and Simpson’s

Mr. Martel: -- from Sears -- one catalogue from Windsor and one catalogue passed out to the residents of northern Ontario in the Sudbury district. As I looked through those catalogues I found great price differentials for the people of the city of Sudbury and in the area of Sudbury.

It used to be that we were told that it was freight rates that made the difference to northern Ontario, but I remind this House that in fact the distance from Toronto to Windsor is approximately the same distance as the distance from Toronto to Sudbury, about 265 miles, and I have to ask myself why is there article after article that ranges from a difference of $1 to $40 for the people of the city of Sudbury.

Mr. McIlveen: More expensive going through the snow.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: They make more money up there.

Mr. Martel: Is that it? I would suspect the Minister of Housing is right.

Interjection by an hon, member.

Mr. Martel: Whatever the traffic can absorb, that’s what you charge them. I guess that is the free enterprise concept. When we questioned the minister he was not really able to justify the price for his corporate friends. And in both catalogues, even on motors of the same size, the same weight, we had a differential of anywhere from $5 to $10 to $15. But I can only suggest that it’s a corporate ripoff.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Young: Just see how the tie and dress go well over there.

Mr. Martel: Yes, right; that red tie yes. My colleague draws my attention to that red tie and that flaming red dress across the way.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for

Resources Development): Is the member in trouble again?

Mr. Young: That’s what you call harmony.

Mr. Martel: Well, I just wanted to make sure the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman) was awake.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Well, with the member for Sudbury East speaking he’d have to make sure.

Mr. Martel: Well, right; because with the minister sitting there I am not sure much penetrates.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Watch that language.

Mr. Martel: Well, I’ve got the seven-year itch.

Well. Sears rip us off and I would suspect if this government were interested, one might check the other groups of dealers and find out that Eaton’s and Canadian Tire, and all these corporations in fact, do the same thing.

And what really bothers me is one point: I have listened in this House for five years and we have always been told it’s transportation; but when you find that there is no difference in distance, now what the hell is it --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, watch it.

Mr. Martel: -- that allows them to charge us S25 more per item --

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): It is government buying.

Mr. Martel: -- except that the corporations know full well that this Tory government doesn’t do a thing to equalize prices; except equalize the price of beer, and that is a farce.

Mr. Yakabuski: Working man’s drink.

Mr. Martel: Well it might be the working man’s drink.

Mr. Yakabuski: You see, the member for Sudbury East has no regard for the working man.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Haggerty: The member for Sudbury East is not a working man, is he?

Mr. Martel: I want to address to my friend, the minister, some remarks about Morrow, Wickett and Ross A. Shouldice. I spoke in this House two years ago about that holy triumvirate of three Tories.

Mr. J. P. MacBeth (York West): “Triumvirate,” there’s a good word.

Mr. Martel: The Tory bagman for the Sudbury area, Ross A. Shouldice, has been charged by Ontario Housing Corp. And within the next 13 days, Morrow and Wickett, because no charges have been laid against them by the Ministry of the Attorney General or by the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, will apply for another licence to go on their merry way to continue to ripoff the people of the Sudbury area.

All the evidence was gathered in that investigation two years ago. Morrow and Wickett were allowed to surrender their licence without having it taken away from them for real estate purposes. They will be in a position as of April 13 or April 15 to ask to have their licence reinstated.

In another 12 or 13 days we will have that Tory hack group -- and they are all well known Tories -- continue to sell houses in the Sudbury region, fleecing people left, right and centre; as they did in the member for Algoma’s community of Blind River. They will be able to go on their way ripping people off. This is despite the fact that every investigator from the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations has felt there should be charges laid. There will not have been a charge laid by this government, not a charge.

Mr. MacBeth: Triumvirate!

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): They won’t get away with it.

Mr. Martel: And those thieves, those thugs, within two weeks will be back selling real estate --

Mr. Gilbertson: There’s going to be no ripoff in my riding.

Mr. Martel: -- with the blessing of the former Attorney General, who was the former Minister of --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: -- Municipal Affairs, the member for York Mills (Mr. Bales).

Mr. Yakabuski: Does the member for Sudbury East allow ripoffs in his riding?

Mr. Martel: So far we can’t catch up to them.

I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that it’s a disgrace that this government would not have laid charges against those groups; and I want to tell you that it’s my intention again at some later date to bring a good deal more new material to this debate on these things.

I make that charge here as I would outside this House if someone doesn’t think I would. As members know, they have already sued me once for $100,000. Within the last six months I have been threatened with another law suit by a close connection of that group but when we start putting our lawyers on to testing the validity they immediately back off. I suspect their case isn’t very strong.

Mr. MacDonald: It’s what one calls a bluff.

Mr. Martel: Yes, that’s right. They want to keep us quiet. It’s interesting, though, that every time a Tory cabinet minister --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Imagine making the member shut up; imagine that.

Mr. MacDonald: What a dreamer.

Mr. Martel: Every time a Tory cabinet minister came to Sudbury, Mr. Morrow was out to pick them up. That might tell members why.

Oh, yes. Every time Mr. Lawrence -- remember the white knight of Ontario, when he was the Attorney General? -- every time he came to Sudbury Mr. Morrow was there to pick him up at the airport. He ferried him around the city. All the Tories in that area now disclaim any acknowledgement of Morrow, Shouldice and Wickett, but in fact, every cabinet minister from the former Attorney General down, when they came to Sudbury, were picked up by Mr. Morrow.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s wrong.

Mr. Martel: No, it’s not wrong.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I don’t think I’ve ever met Mr. Morrow.

Mr. Martel: Well, I’m telling the minister he is dead wrong.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There must be something wrong with me.

Mr. Martel: There is. Senility has set in

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I must be way down.

Mr. Martel: Yes, but I don’t think the minister ever came to the area.

An hon. member: We weren’t going to say anything about that.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Are we supposed to let the member know when we are coming?

Mr. Martel: Some do.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Why doesn’t he pick us up?

Mr. Martel: I have picked the occasional cabinet minister up. Mr. Speaker, I have --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: -- one last point I want to talk about before I get into the major topic.

An hon. member: We thought he was on it.

Mr. Martel: I was just fencing here a little. It’s the announcement by the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) who, some time ago in a press release, said “Ore Search to Receive Tax Breaks.” In other words, we are going to give more tax concessions not only for mining companies but for anyone else who might want to explore or try to discover the natural resources in northern Ontario.

An hon. member: That was in September last year.

Mr. Martel: No, this was within the last month.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: I don’t know when they are going to give it to them but that’s what the minister wants to do. That flies in the face of everything the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism has been studying. The select committee on economic and cultural nationalism --

Mr. Sargent: Did they go to Europe?

Mr. Martel: Yes, we went to Europe and we found out that no European country allows its natural resources to be developed by outside interests.

Mr. Sargent: Is that right?

Mr. Martel: That’s right. The member might learn that, but his Liberal friends have been giving it away just as the Tories have. The minister wants --

Mr. Haggerty: What is Barrett going to do in British Columbia, a sellout with Japan?

Mr. Ruston: They are going to take it over.

Mr. Martel: I understand --

Hon. Mr. Handleman: He has taken everything else over.

Mr. Martel: I suggest the minister might read what Barrett has advised the mining industry on what they are going to do. In Ontario we are going to give more tax concessions. I’m just wondering --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: How did the member get into Europe?

Mr. Martel: The minister should have come with us.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): He doesn’t get to go anywhere.

Mr. Martel: It’s interesting, Mr. Speaker, that the select committee discovered the main reason the Americans were here was the cheap source of natural resources for American production. And here we have the Minister of Natural Resources in Ontario suggesting we should give more tax concessions to allow the Americans to come in and take more out.

I hope the Minister of Housing, when that comes before cabinet, prevents that, because he happened to sit on that select committee. He should be in a position to take on the Minister of Mines over this nonsense of his to give more tax concessions to more outsiders to exploit and discover the natural resources.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He is going to have a hard time finding a Minister of Mines.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: No, that’s right, he didn’t. That’s what I’m saying -- I hope my friend the Minister of Natural Resources is taken on by my friend, the Minister of Housing.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: He is far tougher than I am.

Mr. Martel: He is tougher than the minister? Not with the mining companies he ain’t. He’s right in the hip pocket of those boys. An interesting article on mining appeared at the same time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Sargent: How long is the member for Sudbury East going to speak?

Mr. Martel: Does the member want to leave? I won’t miss the member for Grey-Bruce at all.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: There is an interesting article in the Sudbury Star.

Mr. Sargent: That’s the same speech the member made last year.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: There was an article in the press recently, Mr. Speaker, with respect to why people weren’t exploring or out to explore. This article by Richard Anco said: “Is it an oversimplification to blame NDP governments and stiffer taxation for the marked drop of exploration dollars spent in Canada? Or have the boom years accounted for most of Canada’s easily accessible mineral deposits?

“The Prospectors Association was told that exploration expenditure for all mining companies declined 22 per cent in 1972 and 30 per cent in 1973.”

Despite record-making profits by most of the mining companies in Ontario in 1973, their exploration dropped by 30 per cent. The stupidity that comes from this government is that we had better give more companies, not even those involved in mining, more tax concessions to explore. They reduced it.

For example, my friends at Falconbridge’s profit was up 1,100 per cent. At Inco their profit was up at over 100 per cent. We have the minister responsible for mining in Ontario saying we have to give more tax concessions so they will explore. Well that is a lot of garbage.

If that is all the Tories have for policy, then I say they are bankrupt. If the mining companies simply have to reduce their exploration year after year to extract from this government more in the way of tax concession, then I say that the government is sick.

What, my colleague, the hon. member for Wentworth and I have been trying to get in the select committee is a development corporation sponsored by the government, a Crown corporation. I don’t think we have to buy these beggars to come in here to exploit our natural resources. I don’t think we have to give our shirt away and we are doing that today.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: This government is so enamoured of the corporate people like Powis. There are some interesting statements that come from Powis, the head of Noranda. They recently said that workers don’t want to work in the mining industry. Members will recall about a month ago the mining association said that workers were lazy and didn’t want to go to the mining communities.

It is obvious why. They say the people are lazy. That has nothing to do with it. When they cut back the mining industry is never hurt; but cut back and guys lose their jobs and their homes. We have had a reduction of 5,000 workers at Inco alone in the last 18 months and Inco’s profits doubled during that time. We have Powis and representatives from Inco saying, the workers are lazy and they don’t want to go work in a mining community.

But would you, Mr. Speaker? Would you go into a mining community and buy a home with the type of boom-bust economy that these beggars play around with where they hire and overhire and overproduce and then layoff up to 5,000 men because of attrition and so on? One can’t expect workers to go in and face that type of crisis. But Powis makes those statements.

There was an interesting statement by William Mahoney recently about the reaction of Powis. In fact I will tell members whom he was talking to; Boise of Quebec Cartier Mines and Norman Wadge. We had a good deal of experience with Norman Wadge. He used to be with Inco until they dumped him. Now he is with the Ontario Mining Association and he is making all kinds of platitudes on their behalf. Dome Mines and Kerr-Addison have never worried about a community they were in. My colleague, the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) and my colleague the member for Sudbury (Mr. Germa) and myself were at a meeting recently with Inco and Falconbridge and we said to them: “Look, you have got to tell the regional council and the local municipal councils about your layoffs and your over-expansion so that in fact the municipal councils can make ready for these sort of conditions.” The PR man from Falconbridge, Norman Green, said to us: “You people don’t have a right, nor do the city fathers have a right, to know when we are going to over-expand or when we are going to hire or when we are going to lay off.”

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: We reminded him that those natural resources belong to us and not to Falconbridge. And if this government had any courage, it would insist that Falconbridge and Inco tell the municipal fathers, who have to put in the new subdivisions and who have to add onto the new schools and who have to make all the arrangements. This can’t be tolerated, because in Sudbury in 1971 we had the highest number of people looking for housing in Canada.

Mr. Sargent: That’s right.

Mr. Martel: The vacancy rate was zero. It’s 22 per cent today in the apartments and in total it’s 9½ per cent in the city; and everybody is losing their shirt except Inco and Falconbridge.

The municipality put in new subdivisions. They put in new sewer and water systems, as we did in my municipality of Capreol, to allow for this expansion. And when Inco got finished and Falconbridge got finished, they laid off and we have moved from 19,000 hourly-rated men in Copper Cliff to less than 14,000.

And who has suffered the hardship? Inco? They doubled their profits last year, from $109 million in 1972 to $227 million. I am right. The minister, the think-piece over there, doesn’t believe me. He can ask his friend the Minister of Housing.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I have an idea that wasn’t a parliamentary remark even though I didn’t hear it.

Mr. Sargent: That’s the way it is supposed to be.

Mr. Martel: It’s the municipality that picks up the pieces, and the local taxpayer who picks up the pieces, and it doesn’t cost Inco or Falconbridge a cent. It’s the federal government that pays to bring workers in and then pays to take workers out.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): But their contributions to the Tory party go up.

Mr. Martel: Yes; and you know, our type of municipality can’t support that, and that’s why people don’t go into mining municipalities to work, regardless of the irresponsible statements by Powis and Norm Wadge. Because if they go into a municipality like that and they buy a home and there’s a reduction in staff, these people lose their shirt.

The company doesn’t lose a cent. They never have, and this government has never had the courage to say: “Wait a minute, let’s get some rationale in the development of these natural resources. Let’s get a handle on the way we will produce and the amount we will produce, in a steady continuous growth pattern but not boom and bust.” We from the north have experienced the boom-bust economy for years and the Tories have never had the courage to say to industry: “Now wait a minute gentlemen. That type of operation and that type of performance simply cannot be tolerated by those communities any longer, because it’s the general taxpayer who pays the shot.”

Mr. Laughren: No guts.

Mr. Martel: That’s right.

I want to say that I was delighted to hear that the government was considering a Crown corporation. Hopefully next week we will see it in the budget.

Mr. Laughren: I can imagine.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): That will be some Crown corporation.

Mr. Martel: I have a suspicion that all the Tories will do is do the exploration on behalf of the mining companies and then turn it over to them.

Mr. Laughren: That’s right. They are giving them serviced lots and they develop their serviced lots and make more money.

Mr. Martel: Right. In fact as one planner told me, he said with serviced lots it won’t go down one cent. They won’t pass the saving on to the consumer. Just increase their profits.

Mr. W. Hodgson (York North): Who told the member that?

Mr. Martel: A planner told me that within the last week.

Well the real topic I want to talk about --

Mr. W. Hodgson: Come on. The member has to back up these statements.

Mr. Martel: I suggest that if the member wants to take pen in hand he should write one Mr, Herb Akehurst, who is the regional engineer for the regional municipality of Sudbury. Would the member do so?

He asked me to put it on the line and I put it. Would he check it out now? No.

Mr. Laughren: No, of course not. He’d rather not hear the truth,

Mr. Martel: No. He shoots his mouth off!

What I want to talk about really at some length, is this government’s response to the community-based services.

Mr. W. Hodgson: The member has come a long way, but now he’s spoiling it.

Mr. Martel: Why doesn’t the member leave? If he has nothing positive to contribute, why doesn’t he leave?

Mr. Laughren: He’s a flannel mouth,

Mr. Martel: I want to talk about the community-based services at some length. These emerging services are not only in Metro Toronto or in my community, my colleague from Wentworth has a question tonight of the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Brunelle). The deception which has been perpetrated on those groups by this government is something to behold.

For three years information services have been waiting for a reply. It’s being studied; three years and no answers. That’s what my friend and colleague, the member for Wentworth, is going to speak to the Minister of Community and Social Services about, so I don’t want to get involved in that.

Mr. Ferrier: Is that the government there?

Mr. Martel: Community services started developing a good long time ago. They depended on the United Fund --

Mr. Laughren: Is that the government there? Is that what represents the Province of Ontario over there?

Mr. Martel: They did it through the Red Feather --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Laughren: They’ve got to be sick.

Mr. Ferrier: It was a disaster.

Mr. Martel: They did it through private --

Mr. Laughren: Why don’t they whip the government members into the House? It’s ridiculous. How many cabinet ministers? There are only three cabinet ministers in the House tonight for this debate.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We have three cabinet ministers, the member has only six members there. What does he want?

Mr. Laughren: How many members has the government got?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Laughren: It should have at least as many cabinet ministers.

Mr. Ferrier: It should have 25 members!

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please!

Mr. Laughren: The Tories have no respect for the legislative process.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We have one minister for every two NDP members. Come on now; that’s not bad.

Mr. Ferrier: The minister’s colleagues are still up at the chiropractic do.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. member for Sudbury East has the floor.

An hon. member: We’ve got more in our rump than the NDP has in the whole party.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Ferrier: Get that rowdy member under control, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Where’s his leader? He can’t even be here.

Mr. Martel: Where’s the minister’s?

Mr. MacDonald: Where’s his leader?

Mr. Martel: Where’s his?

Mr. Ferrier: Where’s his leader?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I asked the member first.

Mr. W. Hodgson: If they haven’t got Donald MacDonald, they’ve got nothing I

Mr. MacDonald: Thank you.

Mr. Ferrier: Is this the government, really?

Mr. Laughren: Is this the government? What a bunch.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Laughren: Come on, get us some government members over there. Get us some cabinet ministers.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Laughren: What a pathetic representation!

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, these various groups started to develop because the government failed --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Isn’t the member glad I came in? I woke everybody up.

Mr. Martel: -- to meet the social needs in certain fields of service to people.

Mr. Laughren: In all fields.

Mr. Martel: We saw the Metro emergency shelter come into development. We saw the community information centres come in. We saw the drop-in services come in. We saw the daycare services come in. We saw the church groups come in. All were trying to pick up the pieces of the delivery of social services to people and this government failed in totality --

Mr. Laughren: The Band-Aid government!

Mr. Martel: -- to develop the types of services for people. We saw volunteer groups try to pick up the pieces all over. The minister -- the think-piece -- knows full well that he met with an information group last week which is providing a tremendous service in his community.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: At first I thought he was saying pink piece.

Mr. Martel: That might have been closer to the truth, but I don’t want to insult the minister.

Mr. MacDonald: Don’t be self-conscious.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Isn’t the member glad I gave him a line? It’s the brightest line he has had all day.

Mr. Mattel: Right. Most of the services which developed were volunteer in nature. They had no funding.

Mr. Laughren: No thanks to this government.

Mr. Martel: They had no permanent funding and their staff wasn’t on a continuity basis, so that although they realized the necessity for services, they just couldn’t provide them. This government certainly wasn’t; and if the Ministry of Community and Social Services is saying it’s meeting the needs of this community, that’s a lot of bunk! There isn’t a person in this Legislature who doesn’t realize that. The Ministry of Community and Social Services is so full of holes and so full of an inability to deliver the needs of the people in this community, in this province, that it’s sick.

Mr. W. Hodgson: He isn’t nearly as good an actor as the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds).

Mr. Gilbertson: Wrong again.

Mr. Martel: Wrong again?

Mr. Gilbertson: The member is wrong again.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I only suggest to the member for Algoma --

Mr. Gilbertson: He is wrong again.

Mr. Martel: -- if he were to pick up the report-

Mr. Gilbertson: Wrong again.

Mr. Martel: -- and I’m sure he never reads it -- from the northern affairs officers he would find that of the complaints and problems which come to northern affairs officers by far and away the largest number are in the field of Community and Social services. Now, I suggest he reads the report.

Mr. Gilbertson: Same old jargon.

Mr. Martel: I suggest the member reads the report before he shoots his mouth off.

Mr. Laughren: He doesn’t care.

Mr. Martel: He’s never read a report in his life.

Mr. Laughren: The member for Algoma doesn’t care about that.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Don’t strike that man!

Mr. Laughren: He needs striking.

Mr. Martel: Would the minister tell him to read something? Just for once?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He knows more without reading than with all the reading the member has done in his life.

Mr. Martel: He knows zilch.

Mr. MacBeth: What has the member for Sudbury East read recently?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: It said, Mr. Speaker, these in fact were volunteer groups who lacked funding and didn’t have the permanent staff and couldn’t provide the continuity of service that was necessary. Those who did, in fact, were providing services very sincerely, but the community didn’t know that the services were available in many instances. I’m going back a number of years now as I pick up the chronology of this problem.

Mr. Sargent: The member is not communicating.

Mr. Laughren: The member for Sudbury East is right again.

Mr. Martel: The churches, for example, catered to their own particular congregation, but in fact the people beyond that congregation didn’t know that the services were available, so that they weren’t meeting a community need. I’m not being critical of the churches; I’m saying that they tried. They just didn’t know. They didn’t have a permanent staff. It was all voluntary.

The services often became very inflexible, very tightly knit around any particular religious denomination.

An hon. member: Why was that?

Mr. Ferrier: A lack of funding.

Mr. Martel: What occurred, despite this, was that the need continued to escalate with the lack of funding.

Mr. Ferrier: It was the lack of funding.

Mr. Martel: The attitude of these people was genuine, if somewhat paternalistic, but they were attempting to fill the void created by the failure of this government, through Community and Social Services, to be able to deliver services to people.

Two or three years ago the federal government panicked. They had a high unemployment rate and they really didn’t know what to do to prevent these people showing up on the unemployment insurance rolls so they provided Opportunities for Youth funding and they provided LIP funds.

But interestingly enough, the criterion laid down was that people could only go into the field of delivering services, because what the LIP people were faced with was that they couldn’t compete with the business community. That was one of the guidelines laid down by the federal government, that if you got a LIP fund you couldn’t, in fact, compete with the free enterprise system. So where in fact could they go? They were actually forced into services to people.

Having that happen really started to show the loopholes, or the total lack of programming by the ministry. Contrary to what Tory cabinet minister after Tory cabinet minister has said, those who attempted to obtain the funding were not young people. In fact the people who made immediate use of LIP grants were people like the YMCA, the settlement houses, the multiple service centres which had developed, such as the Woodgreen community centre. The Metro Social Planning Council --

Mr. Laughren: Good example.

Mr. Martel: -- immediately started to pick up the funding that was available for LIP. It wasn’t the youth that the minister responsible for the Youth Secretariat (Mrs. Birch) talks about, not at all; in fact, it was those long-established community services, the YMCA and so on. They knew how to apply, and they were aware of the needs of the community.

What most of them did, of course -- the YMCAs and the YWCAs in Toronto -- was they sponsored all kinds of groups; they helped them to fill out the forms and to obtain the LIP grants that were necessary in order to get federal funding, because for the first time there was funding to provide services to people.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member would allow me to interrupt to tell you about the election results in Nova Scotia tonight?

Mr. Martel: Oh, that would be great!

Mr. Singer: Thirty-one Liberals, 12 Tories and three NDP.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: How many did the NDP win?

Mr. Singer: Three.

Mr. Martel: Well, that is an increase!

Mr. MacDonald: They’re on the way up.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, that’s a 50 per cent increase -- greater than any other party.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Imagine -- another 35 years and they’ll be right in there.

Mr. MacDonald: There was a 50 per cent increase in members and a 100 per cent increase in popular vote.

An hon. member: They gained one seat, one lousy seat.

Mr. Martel: Well, I would prefer to win an extra one than lose one.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s brilliant.

Mr. MacDonald: That’s what the Tories did

-- they lost.

Mr. Martel: How many did the Tories lose?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We lose all the battles and win the wars.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sudbury East has the floor. I suggest that he continue.

Mr. Martel: I am trying to, Mr. Speaker.

I want to make the point very clearly that contrary to what a number of Conservative cabinet ministers have attempted to portray, it wasn’t the young people who went out initially and got the grants from LIP. It was, in fact, the long-established community services in Metro Toronto that were able, because they knew how to get the funding. They were the people who made use of the LIP grants. It wasn’t the youth, as was implied by the minister responsible for the Youth Secretariat, the Minister of Community and Social Services and a few more over there. It was the long-established services.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I don’t think they implied anything of the kind.

Hon. D. R. Timbrell (Minister without Portfolio): What has the member got against young people?

Mr. Martel: I have nothing against them; and I’ll come to that. The point I make to my friend across the way is that the attack on the LIP programme and the government refusal to fund it have always been directed against the youth --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Who said so?

Mr. Martel: I’m going to quote -- and I hope the minister is here in a few moments when I quote some of the statements of the minister responsible for the Youth Secretariat --

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Go ahead:

Mr. Martel: I just hope he stays around.

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): He’ll be around longer than the member.

Mr. Martel: Well, he has got to catch up by four years -- and I don’t think he had 55 per cent of the vote last time.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I only had 51 per cent, it was my first election.

Mr. Martel: That’s all right. Eat your heart out.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: It will be 65 per cent next time.

An hon. member: Oh, 75 per cent.

Mr. Gilbertson: He’ll be the Premier of the province some day. Mark my words.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: That’s what is called overkill.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I am never overconfident.

An hon. member: What did you get in by last time?

Mr. Martel: Fifty-five per cent.

Mr. Speaker: Would the hon. member for Sudbury-East address his remarks to the Chair?

Mr. Martel: I am saying that the longest- established groups provided the basis on which the emerging services obtained their expertise to gain funding.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member means the Conservative groups. Why doesn’t he say it?

Mr. Martel: No, no. Is the minister saying that the YMCA is a Conservative group?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Yes, of course.

Mr. Martel: Why don’t the Conservatives fund them, then?

Mr. Laughren: Why don’t the Conservatives channel some of their election funds to the YMCA in that case?

Mr. Martel: In any case, Mr. Speaker, maximum use was made of LIP to obtain funds and, for the first time, there was developed a whole range of social services that had been missing before -- services which the government was not able to fund and will never be able to fund because, as I said during the minister’s estimates because it calls on volunteers, although they need full-time workers. For the first time these services developed -- and I am going to list some of them. They included such things as the free interpreter service for immigrants -- for the Chinese, the Italians, the Greeks, the Portuguese, who make up a third of this city -- and to which this cruddy government puts $100,000 for the total province, $100,000.

Mr. Laughren: Cruddy. Hear that? Cruddy.

Mr. Martel: Cruddy. I’m going to come back to that, too.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s unparliamentary.

Mr. Laughren: It’s appropriate, though.

Mr. Martel: I don’t care whether it is parliamentary or not. The trick that this government laid on these young people and the other groups in avoiding funding them is something to behold and that is what I am going to document.

Another group was Adjustment into Society Inc. The former one was dealing with immigrants; the next one deals with health. It is a community-supported programme -- no support from the Tories -- which takes people out of 999 Queen and is an intermediate step in getting them back into the community. The funding from the Ontario government to that group is zilch.

That is in Health. I just want to point out that there are seven fields which are involved here. Daycare centres -- one of the few daycare centres in Toronto is one of these, which in fact provides daycare service beyond 4 o’clock. It provides daycare service at night -- not funded by this government; no way. But that is just a third of the seven types of services provided.

The birth control and the VD information centre -- do the members know what is done there? They are asked to go to the hospitals to provide translation services to the ethnic community. They are asked to go to the high schools and so on. They work in the ethnic community. And unlike the former Minister of Health with whom I used to argue all the time -- maybe that is why he was canned -- they believe in family planning. The former Minister of Health didn’t agree with family planning. He said that should be left entirely to the family physician. He didn’t believe in community clinics to help people plan their families; he said the family physician did that. Well, that’s a lot of gobbledegook. This group was trying to provide that service in the high schools, in the hospitals and so on -- no funding.

Eastview Neighbourhood Association is a multi-service centre. This government has now started another study, after three years. They are going to study multi-service centres. That was in a recent statement by the think piece for social services. These people deal with children after school and in the evenings, and they deal with senior citizens; but there is no funding.

There is another group called Smile: It is a cultural group made up of 11 people and they go into hospitals for the aged and the crippled and so on. This group of 11 provides entertainment. I have their schedule for the next couple of months. It is interesting that this government will willingly fund the Toronto Symphony, the opera, you name it. For whom -- the wealthy? Who else can go to the O’Keefe Centre?

Mr. Taylor: The member would be surprised.

Mr. Martel: These groups of professional actors are playing for only the poor people but they can’t get funded. We provide all kinds of funding for 11 or 12 programmes down at the minister’s favourite bastion, Ontario Place -- free concerts.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: No, my favourite place is the Brunswick Hotel.

Mr. Martel: I wouldn’t be surprised.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It is the greatest place in the city.

Mr. Martel: This group called the Smile cultural group play for senior citizens, they go into homes, they go into schools and a whole range of things; no funding. For example, on March 4 they were at the Leisure World Nursing Homes; on March 5 they were at the Young at Heart, another nursing home; on the sixth they were at the Centre for Creative Living on Bathurst in the afternoon and the Hilltop Acres in the evening; on the seventh they were at the Cliffcrest Friendship Club; on the eighth they were at the Edgeley Apartments; on the 11th they were at Falstaff Community Centre; on the 12th -- it just goes on and on as they provide a type of culture that most of the people we are talking about would never obtain. Yet the government is constantly willing to pour funds into recreational facilities, into the Royal Ontario Museum, and so on, that many many people can never get to see. Many people in senior citizen homes could never get out to see these things

Mr. Laughren: Right.

Mr. Martel: We won’t fund them; but we’ll fund the bloody Toronto Symphony where every rich banana can get down to the O’Keefe Centre to attend.

Mr. G. Nixon: Shame.

Mr. H. C. Parrott (Oxford): How can the member say that?

Mr. Martel: What?

Mr. Parrott: How could the member say that to us.

Mr. Martel: Well.

Mr. G. Nixon: Discrimination.

Mr. Martel: Listen to the troglodytes.

An Hon. Member: Oh, the member should not be so crude.

Mr. Martel: Right out of the dark ages. I wonder how those people in the --

Mr. G. Nixon: When did the member attend his last symphony?

An hon. member: Did he ever attend?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Yes, I have been at a symphony. It’s interesting, you know, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. MacBeth: The member knew what they were doing, did he?

Mr. Martel: I wonder how the people in the senior citizens’ --

Mr. MacBeth: Did he know what they were doing when he went there?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: How does he spell it? He is the teacher.

Mr. Martel: I don’t know how.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: I just made up a new word.

An hon. member: Did he enjoy the play?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I think he tried to pronounce an old one,

Mr. Martel: What bothers me, Mr. Speaker --

An hon. member: The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Martel: -- and what my friends don’t want to recognize is that people in the senior citizen communities cannot get out. Many are incapacitated and they can’t get out to see these things. And surely if we are going to fund the Toronto Symphony, surely if we are going to fund them, we could fund a group like this to go in and provide entertainment for groups.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: No wonder kids can’t spell.

Mr. Martel: And if the government is that stupid that it can’t see the need --

Mr. Parrott: Some senior citizens do have these opportunities.

Mr. Speaker: Order please, order.

Mr. G. Nixon: Control yourself.

Mr. Martel: And shut up for God’s sake.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacBeth: The member for Sudbury East shouldn’t get uptight.

An hon. member: What’s the matter with him?

Mr. G. Nixon: Can’t he take it?

Mr. MacBeth: Can’t he take a little heckling?

Mr. Martel: I can take more than any of the members opposite can give.

Mr. G. Nixon: He’s the greatest.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. MacBeth: The member doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Mr. Martel: Well, I suggest I know a good deal more of it than the member for York West.

An hon. member: Ah, I’ll say that.

Mr. Martel: In fact, I suspect I’ve forgotten more about it than he’ll ever know.

An hon. member: We sure appreciate his remarks.

Mr. MacBeth: Not the way he is talking now.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I think we’d better find a cultural mission for the member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Speaker: Would the members please keep order. Let the speaker for Sudbury East have the floor and let him say his little piece.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate that.

An hon. member: Listen to him.

Mr. Martel: Well, the other --

Mr. Yakabuski: He is wandering all over.

Mr. Parrott: He has just started.

Mr. Martel: Couple of hours. I’ve just started, that’s the first sheet.

Mr. Leluk: Just warming up.

Mr. Martel: I’m just warming up.

Mr. MacBeth: Why doesn’t he say something?

Mr. Martel: Well, Mr. Speaker, we also have information centres. And the government has been sitting on information centres --

Mr. Laughren: Right.

Mr. Martel: -- for three full years.

An hon. member: We know that.

Mr. Martel: They have been devising a policy now for three years. That is in --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s not true; that’s not true.

Mr. Martel: Well, would the minister get up and challenge me on that then?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Well’, in the first place, Mr. Speaker, the government has had, through the Ministry of Labour, in my riding alone, an information centre that has been in existence for years.

Mr. Speaker: The minister is out of order.

An hon. member: Order, order.

Mr. MacBeth: He was asked to respond, Mr, Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He asked me, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections by hon members.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I’ll come to how much funding the government has given to them. They have been devising a policy for information centres across this province --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member has got it all confused. Have a talk to me after the session; I’ll tell him what he is trying to talk about and make it clear.

Mr. Martel: No, no.

An hon. member: Put him straight; put him straight.

Mr. Martel: No, no.

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: The member for Sudbury East is reading it all.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, the government has been developing a policy on information centres for three years. They have funded the odd one in Toronto. In fact, I tell the minister that they funded $18,000 last year, but they have not got a policy on it yet.

Mr. MacBeth: It obviously hasn’t reached the members.

Mr. Martel: What? Well mine has the highest --

Mr. MacBeth: It obviously hasn’t reached the member.

Mr. Martel: I want to tell the member for York West that the information centre that got one of the highest grants last year was the one in Sudbury. Now the member can put that in his pipe and --

Mr. MacBeth: Why doesn’t the member for Sudbury East go to it and find out something?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: They always get the biggest investment in Sudbury. They get the biggest investment in everything.

An hon. member: He should check it.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, they have not been able to devise a policy regarding information centres in three years.

Mr. Laughren: Right. No policy.

Mr. Martel: They have misled every group that has appeared before them; and the minister who just spoke had a group into his office last week.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, last week.

Mr. Martel: Right. And they are concerned, as the minister knows, that there is no policy. There might have been some funding, but there is no policy.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Now the member for Sudbury East is changing.

Mr. Martel: No, I am not. That’s what I said in the beginning. The minister had better check Hansard. The minister is wrong and now he has admitted it. There is funding but there is no policy; and that’s what I’ve said.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I don’t get it, when --

Mr. Martel: Three years, no policy. And what does the Bloor-Bathurst group do? They have a walk-in service.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: They do a very good job.

Mr. Martel: They have a legal assistance clinic. They have a free clothing store for the poor, and they have English-Spanish staff to assist the group.

Mr. Laughren: More than the Tories have ever done.

Mr. Martel: But unfortunately, there is no policy yet on how the government funds it.

An hon. member: It’s ad hoc.

Mr. Martel: The Minister of Community and Social Services has been sitting on it for three years, and every time he is asked he gives the same statement as he gave to the member for Wentworth today -- “We are looking at it.” For how long?

Mr. Laughren: He’s looking at it through closed eyes.

Mr. Martel: How long? Well, most of the programmes in those seven areas that deal with health, information centres, culture, immigrants, and so on, are supportive in nature, they are preventive in nature, and they handle crisis cases. And these groups have pointed out beyond a shadow of a doubt the great number of loopholes in the government programme, over and over again in area after area, and have pointed out the total lack of a programme by the government.

Unfortunately, despite delivering these valuable services, this group has had to spend most of its time looking for funding. They have had to scramble for two years at least in an effort to obtain funding. Interestingly enough, at the same time that they are begging this government for funding --

Mr. Laughren: They are bailing it out.

Mr. Martel: -- they are bailing it out. Yet this government’s agencies continue to send people who need services to the centres developed by the LIP funds.

For example, when people are leaving the Vanier Institute, when the young ladies are leaving Vanier to return to Toronto, they are given the name and a card to contact the information centre in Toronto. Not a government-funded one; not one that the government even puts a cent in; but they tell the young ladies and give them the card saying, “Please go and see this group if you run into snags.”

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Anything wrong with that?

Mr. Martel: Except if the government would fund it.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Anything wrong with volunteer groups doing these jobs?

Mr. Martel: No, no. Yes, there is, if they don’t have the adequate funding to continue at least with some regular staff permanently, then there is something wrong with it.

Mr. Laughren: They are doing the government’s job.

Mr. Martel: Because it’s ad hoc. Doesn’t the minister see that?

Mr. Taylor: Is it working?

Mr. Martel: No, it is not.

Mr. Taylor: It is not working?

An Hon. member: That’s a great recommendation.

Mr. Martel: The Children’s Aid Society in Toronto continues to send children to the West End Parents’ Association, which is a daycare centre to help mothers and children when a crisis situation occurs. But the government funds the Children’s Aid Society and has the Children’s Aid Society sending people who are in need of help to a volunteer organization which the government refuses to fund on any permanent basis. In fact, this government even refuses to fund it on a short-term basis.

It has the free interpreters’ service. The hospitals continually draw on this service.

I just have two quick examples to show what’s happening. There was a Chinese woman who was to have a caesarean section and they didn’t have anyone in the hospital who could tell her what was happening, what they were doing. They went to the interpreters’ service, a free voluntary service, and they found someone to come into the hospital to tell the woman what in fact they were going to do. They didn’t have anyone to tell her.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Which hospital?

Mr. Martel: I can find out all the details if the minister wants.

Mr. MacBeth: The member doesn’t know?

Mr. Martel: Oh, don’t give me that garbage.

Mr. MacBeth: He doesn’t know. He is just talking.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Which hospital?

Mr. Martel: I’m not going to name the hospital here. But if the minister is sincere in wanting that information, I will obtain it for him. I will write it down right now, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Please do-

Mr. Martel: I want to put this down --

Mr. MacBeth: Put it on the record.

Mr. Yakabuski: First, go ahead and finish this speech.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: -- because in the Chinese community we have the Mount Sinai Hospital, which has a great many Chinese on staff.

Mr. Martel: I am talking about Metro Toronto, Mr. Speaker. I am not talking about one area; I am talking about Metro Toronto-

Mr. MacBeth: Whereabouts in Metro?

Mr. Martel: -- and I will provide the information.

An hon. member: I’m sure he will.

Mr. Martel: We also had the case of another woman -- if the member doesn’t believe me, he can phone Kay Brown of immigration services.

Mr. MacBeth: The member is the one who is doing the talking, Let’s have it from him.

Mr. Laughren: It is the member’s government.

Mr. Martel: There was a woman in a Toronto hospital whose child was born prematurely, which meant they kept the child in the hospital when the mother was released. But there was no one there to tell the mother what was happening. They again called on the free interpreter service to come in and explain this to the mother, because she thought they were taking the child away from her.

It’s no secret that the Don Jail also uses the services of this group. The courts use the services of this group, as do the public health nurses, the VON and the police. And if my friend wants to check it out, I suggest he does so. If he is so obtuse as to not believe it, then I suggest he check it out and come into the House and tell me I am wrong.

Mr. Laughren: He is hypocritical too.

Mr. Leluk: He’s not questioning the service --

Mr. Martel: Because, like most of the Tories, Mr. Speaker, he doesn’t want to accept that this is happening in Metro Toronto today.

Mr. MacBeth: I think they are probably providing a pretty good service.

Mr. Laughren: Ignorance is bliss, John MacBeth.

Mr. Martel: You hide it, John.

Mr. Laughren: Ignorance is bliss.

Mr. Martel: Another group that calls on these groups of volunteers, Mr. Speaker, are the birth control centres. I have a case -- and I am going to read some of the cases for my friend before I am finished tonight; I will read the specific cases. I hope he stays around.

Mr. Leluk: Oh, we’ll be around.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: The hospitals in Toronto are requesting the birth control centres to go into counsel immigrant people in Toronto with respect to preventing unwanted families and so on. They are calling on a volunteer group, without government funding, which is providing a social service that should be provided by the government of Ontario. They are calling on this group, because as I say Ontario puts in $100,000 towards the total immigration service for the whole province -- $100,000 for the immigrant community in Ontario. The government members should be ashamed of themselves.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Are you sure?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There are hundreds of thousands more that they have.

Mr. Martel: A hundred thousand dollars.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There are hundreds of thousands more.

Mr. Martel: Nonsense, nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It is not nonsense. I happen to be involved in it.

Mr. Martel: Well, I am coming to it. I will explain my case, and when I am finished, the minister can get up and explain his government’s position. Okay?

Mr. Laughren: They haven’t got one. They haven’t got a position on that.

Mr. Martel: Another group that is called upon, Mr. Speaker, is the senior citizen voluntary group. For example, most of the transportation for senior citizens to get to and from hospitals is arranged by the voluntary entities. Again, they don’t have funding.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: The real problem is that we have these seven areas where, as I have demonstrated, government agencies turn to these voluntary agencies, which are not funded, to provide services which the government is incapable of providing or doesn’t want to provide.

How in God’s name does it go on? If the government is going to provide services to people, how in God’s name can it do it without funding?

Mr. Laughren: For a Tory, it is easy.

Mr. Martel: I guess it is. Now, as to the salaries -- and in a few minutes I am going to come to some of the statements of the minister responsible for the Youth Secretariat. The group that has been working for the last couple of years worked for $85 a week in take-home pay. They have no holiday pay. They have no fringe benefits. They have no job security. There is no permanent funding. They do it as a service to people. And the government asks them to continue to provide those types of services without an adequate remuneration.

Mr. Taylor: Why does the member want to institutionalize everything?

Mr. Martel: Don’t institutionalize it. Fund it. That is all I’m asking. Fund it.

Mr. Taylor: He wants everything institutionalized -- like US Steel.

Mr. Martel: God, he is right out of the dark ages. How can a young man be so obtuse and so much in the dark ages?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Parrott: Wrong on both accounts.

Mr. Martel: He is one whose education was provided by and was paid for by the federal government, and he shoots his mouth off like that.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: So was the member’s --

Mr. Martel: No, I paid for it myself. I paid for my own.

Mr. Parrott: So did I.

Mr. Martel: No, you didn’t. No, that was funded, Harry.

An hon. member: You’re not kidding -- out of the public purse.

Mr. Martel: You’re bloody well right it was. You’re darn right it was, buddy. You guys --

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. member for Sudbury East turn around and address the Chair, please?

Mr. Martel: Ah, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. member wants the floor, he must turn around and address the Chair.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, don’t get so rangy-tang on me.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Are you going to take that?

Mr. Martel: Well, last May the crisis came -- and this was just the beginning-

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, we have all of these voluntary organizations which developed, which the government of Ontario’s agencies call on to provide services, but which the Ontario government has refused to support in any way, shape or form.

Last May the crisis came. The federal government decided that they were cutting off LIP funding at that stage.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Why?

Mr. Martel: Well, they figured the unemployment crisis was beaten.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: The Ontario government had refused to contribute all along, even though all the services which were developed were in the field of community and social services -- which is a provincial responsibility, by the way, if the minister isn’t aware of it. I have seen so many discussions in this place about whose responsibility under the constitution this field is or that field is. Well, social services is this government’s responsibility. It doesn’t come under the federal government. Maybe this government should start to look after that field, but it has never ranked very high with this government.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: How many millions did we spend on it?

Mr. Martel: This government spent $241 million last year.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s practically nothing?

Mr. Martel: That’s right, in terms of what the total budget was. In fact last year was the first time that this government matched what the federal government’s contribution was in this province to services to people -- for the first time.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Not bad considering --

Mr. Martel: Not bad. Not bad considering what?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Considering how much money we had.

Mr. Martel: That it ranks lowest on the totem pole? That Tom Eberlee who used to feel that he was a powerful civil servant left this jurisdiction because he couldn’t get the necessary funding in that field?

An hon. member: Not true.

An hon. member: The member doesn’t believe that?

Mr. Martel: When that crisis came the number of agencies fell from 258 to at most 160. The government of Ontario was really delighted, Mr. Speaker. It really was. It was hoping they would just all die out and that would eliminate the problem, but that hasn’t happened. In fact, despite the difficulties, they continue to spring up.

Remember the former Minister of Revenue, he used to talk about the faces of the crowd? Well, these people are the same way. They continue to spring up. They continue to be faces in the crowd as they see the pressing need for services to people in so many areas that this government will not even try to recognize.

There were staff cutbacks and there was a whole host of problems, but out of this there developed in Metro Toronto a work group. And do you know who is on that Metro work group? Let me tell you the agencies: Community Care Services Incorporated; community daycare committees; Inter Agency Council tor Services to Immigrants and Migrants; the Metro organizations of LIP; Project 73; St. Christopher House; the Social Planning Council of Metro Toronto; the University Settlement House; the YMCA; the YWCA. You know, Mr. Speaker, a pretty responsible group developed and what it was developed for, of course, was to find permanent funding.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Is the member suggesting they don’t get any funds from us?

Mr. Martel: Very little.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Oh, what is he talking about?

Mr. Martel: Well, the provincial secretary will have his day in court.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: University Settlement House alone got thousands.

Mr. Martel: Not thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions -- millions, not thousands of dollars. Tell me about the millions.

All of these groups came together to form a Metro work group to try to get the Ontario government to contribute and I have indicated the groups involved. Because of the pressures of the necessity of funding, it led to a demonstration in Queen’s Park. There was a meeting with the present Attorney General (Mr. Welch) -- who used to be the think-piece in those days -- and he took them up to the fourth floor in the building at the back. I happened to be in attendance and when the minister got all finished conning them I said to them, “You know, friends, you’ve just been seduced. They won’t give you a cent.” They said, “Oh, no.” And I said, “Yes. They don’t intend to give you a cent. They intend to mislead you. They intend to bring you on in the all-embracing arm of the Tory, but they’re seducing you. They won’t fund you.”

I think some of them were sceptical of what I said on that day.

An hon. member: I don’t blame them.

Mr. Martel: Well, I’m glad the member said that, because we’re going to find out what the government did give them. I hope he stays around for that, too.

Mr. G. Nixon: Don’t forget what you’re talking about.

Mr. Martel: At that time, the minister said, “We’ll take from our existing funding, the existing programmes, to assist.” Well, let me tell you what the existing funding is in those areas that I mentioned. Community development grants -- the total amount for the entire province, $84,000. The entire province. Immigrant services in the budget, $100,000 for all of Ontario. Do you know where most of that is spent? I checked with immigrant services today before I came in. Do you know where the majority of that is spent? In nice little ethnic cultural programmes.

But in the needs to the people in the community, the permanent funding promised by the government of Ontario is $100. Permanent funding, $100. That’s what immigration services gets in Ontario in the way of permanent funding. The other $100,000, I’m told by the ethnic community, is in fact for cultural demonstrations and so on. But to help the people in their translation problems and so on there is virtually nothing.

In fact, my friend the member for -- oh, I forget where he’s from -- Mr. Leluk.

Mr. Leluk: Humber.

Mr. Martel: Humber. We were in Quebec recently and he was amazed to learn that in the city of Montreal alone there was three- quarters of a million dollars for the ethnic community. At least three-quarters of a million they said?

Mr. Leluk: I think so.

Mr. Martel: Yes. Ours is $100,000 for all of Ontario, through the Minister of Community and Social Services’ department; $100,000.

Grants to community-based senior citizens’ services in Ontario, $900,000. Information centres, Metro got $18,000 last year -- and this is for the minister from Toronto -- but no programme after three years. Daycare services; there’s limited use of the Canada Assistance Plan. The federal government has made provisions which would allow this government to make use of the Canada Assistance Plan for daycare centres, but, in fact, this government has refused. Social art services, there’s no meaningful allocation. Oh, we’ll get from the ministry that UPOCA gets the money and that’s used but, in fact, the greater amount is not to meet community needs.

In August of last year -- you will recall, that meeting was held in June with the then Provincial Secretary for Social Development, and for the next two months nothing happened -- then on Aug. 15 this group finally managed to get a meeting with “Billy the Kid,” and he listened very sympathetically to them and he told them that he thought he would see the then provincial secretary to see if, in fact, funding could be provided. In fact, he said, the government of Ontario wasn’t concerned with the short-term funding, but in fact it was concerned with the programme over the long haul, which would cost the Ontario government on an annual-basis funding.

From that meeting with the Premier they were told that one Mr. Bruce Fountain would set up another series of meetings. They thought that was going to go ahead, the Metro work group, and they talked to a Mr. Sirman from the Social Development policy branch. They had received a letter from Mr. Sirman saying that these meetings would go on.

But, unfortunately, when Mr. Sirman found out they had the letter he said, “That letter should never have gone out. That was an unauthorized letter, and we really weren’t looking at that sort of thing at all. Some secretary sent it out inadvertently and therefore we’re not sure.”

Well, after a lot of harassment and calling of various ministries the group finally got a series of meetings. They were to meet with people under the jurisdiction of one David Cole and a group of civil servants from the daycare department, the citizenship department, the senior citizens’ department, information centres and social services. Sure enough, these meetings with respect to permanent funding started to transpire in November. However, at the same time that these meetings were going on the then Minister without Portfolio who certainly by her reactionary statements deserved a full cabinet post started on her merry way. And in November, the member for Scarborough East (Mrs. Birch) indicated -- I just quote from an article in the Globe and Mail: “Mrs. Birch Denounces LIP as Game for Non-jobs.”

I want you to take very careful note of that “non-jobs,” Mr. Speaker, because some time later the minister also made a statement about youths who didn’t want to take jobs that were dead ends. She wants it both ways, but she’s critical in November of non-jobs. Here is what she says: “Ontario’s cabinet minister responsible for youth yesterday denounced Ottawa’s opportunities for Youth and Local Initiatives Programmes. They have created large groups of professional grant-getters -- “ I want to remind you, Mr. Speaker, that the grant-getters were the very volunteer organizations which have been in your community and my community for years, such as the YMCA and the Social Planning Council of Metro Toronto. These were the people who went out and got the funding. To continue: “ -- who have become very skilled at writing briefs to the government, at getting more funds to create more non-jobs.”

And as I said, there’s a statement by the Minister without Portfolio later on, about January, about the youths who refused to take dead-end jobs. She wants it both ways. I think she was trying to qualify for the cabinet by these statements and she certainly did; she got a full cabinet post. She’s a think piece now.

“These people are active all across Canada playing what really looks like a nice shiny new game invented by the federal government, a game called ‘Invent the Social Service’ or ‘Find a New Need’.”

Well, my God! You know, that that woman who now holds the rank of a cabinet minister in this province could make a statement like that is irresponsible, because one only has to work in the field of the needy in this province to find the total lack of services available to the needy. And she got a full cabinet post for that statement, I’m convinced. Find a new need!

If this government started to fund the social programmes necessary to provide the services to people, or accept its responsibility under the constitution of this country, we wouldn’t have that statement. We wouldn’t find people trying, on a shoestring of $85 a week, to provide services to the needy in this community and in the rest of the communities across this province because there is such a void, there is such a need for services under the Ministry of Community and Social Services, that its absolutely almost to a point that one can’t believe that it’s so devoid of needy programmes.

But the new Provincial Secretary for Social Development was, in fact, the patsy. She was the patsy for the government of Ontario which, in fact, eventually wanted to say no to LIP funding or those groups of LIP programmes which had developed. She was going to become the person who was going to tell the public that all of these services were not necessary, were useless, and so on. And she was willing to do it, obviously.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member doesn’t believe that?

Mr. Martel: She said: “Ottawa made a number of basic mistakes with the OFY and the LIP grant programmes. The money handed out in grants was never adequately managed by the federal government. There was never adequate supervision of accountability within the project. Without clear accountability, the money paid out resembled allowances more than it did salaries.” I want to tell this House that she lied to the public. Because it happened and I am saying --

Mr. Taylor: Well, the member shouldn’t.

Mr. Martel: I happened to be on a programme with the director of --

Mr. Taylor: She can’t reply to the member tonight.

Mr. Martel: No. She is deliberately deceiving --

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): That’s unparliamentary.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member can disagree with her but he doesn’t have to call her a liar.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member cannot call any other member a liar.

Mr. Martel: I didn’t call her a liar, I just said she was deceiving the public. Well, I want to tell the members why. Would they listen long enough so I can tell them why?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He doesn’t have to call her a liar.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: If he has something to say to her let him tell her.

Mr. Martel: Don’t give me the nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: She was entitled to her opinion.

Mr. Martel: No, not that opinion. Because in fact it was a distortion of the facts, and she knew it.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Retract it.

Mr. Martel: I was on a radio programme with Cam Mackie, who is the director of the LIP programme from Ottawa, and the federal government and the provincial government of Ontario have a right to say no to every LIP programme in Ontario, and they in fact are asked that information.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. If the hon. member would care to check with the federal authorities he would find that the Province of Ontario has the right to comment -- just to comment -- not to have the final say.

Mr. Martel: What in fact Mr. Mackie indicated to me and to the bright new young minister was that if Ontario criticized the programme or indicated that Ontario did not want that programme to be funded, that is what in fact Ottawa would do.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: What’s that got to do with lack of accountability?

Mr. Martel: And the minister said that Queen’s Park had no input, and that was a distortion of the facts.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: What has that got to do with lack of accountability which the member says doesn’t --

Mr. Martel: No, no, I’ll go back.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): The government has power over it and then it turns around and says it has no responsibility.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Our government has nothing to say about the way they accounted for it.

Mr. Lawlor: It had some veto powers.

Mr. Martel: It had veto power over the programme.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s nonsense.

Mr. Lawlor: Name me one programme that went through that this government put its thumbs down on.

Mr. Martel: They can pretend that it didn’t occur and that the Provincial Secretary for Social Development didn’t make these statements, but I was on a programme with Mackie when he said that if Ontario did not want that LIP programme to be funded, that in fact Ottawa would recognize that request by Ontario and turn it down.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member is squirming around.

Mr. Martel: And the government had the provincial secretary go out and say that programmes -- in fact, I will quote her again. “‘Invent the Social Service’, or ‘Find a New Need’.” “The moneys handed out in grants were never adequately managed by the federal government.” That would mean to say that they weren’t managed by the Ontario government either because it had veto power.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Oh, nonsense. The member had better apologize.

Mr. Martel: There was never adequate supervision or accountability within the projects.

Mr. MacBeth: The member doesn’t believe that. Who told him that? What is he reading from?

Mr. Martel: The director of the programme.

Mr. MacBeth: Well, the member doesn’t necessarily take that as gospel, does he?

Mr. Martel: Would I take what emanated from her mouth as gospel?

Mr. MacBeth: The member is pretty gullible.

Mr. Martel: Oh, and if I accept her statement that makes me less gullible, is that right?

Mr. MacBeth: Far above yours.

Mr. Martel: Oh, right. Your gullibility is more --

Mr. Taylor: What is the member quoting from?

Mr. Lawlor: A pure piece of blandishment on the provincial secretary’s part.

Mr. Martel: Yes.

Mr. Taylor: What is he quoting from?

Mr. Martel: What in fact she was doing, Mr. Speaker, that she made these statements --

Mr. Taylor: Newspaper comments.

Mr. Martel: No, she made the statement; the member can check it out.

Mr. Taylor: What is the member quoting from?

Mr. Lawlor: She did very great harm.

Mr. Martel: She accused all of these groups of being professional grant-getters. Most of them came from long-established community services.

Mr. MacBeth: Does the member endorse all the LIP programmes? Does he endorse them all?

Mr. Martel: If I had the veto power I would veto those I didn’t want, and Ontario had that power.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Nonsense.

Mr. Martel: Yes, they did.

Mr. MacBeth: Come on, does the member endorse them all or not?

Mr. Martel: And they were non-jobs, Mr. Speaker. Two months later Mrs. Birch will make the statement, in January, that all these young people don’t want to take jobs.

Mr. Speaker: I’d like to remind the hon. member that he should refer to the hon. minister either from her riding or her portfolio.

Mr. Martel: I am quoting from the press. Well, the new think-piece then. Two months after that statement the new think-piece, when she’s decrying these non-jobs, will come out with statements to the youth, she says, who don’t want to take dead-end jobs. So she can’t have it both ways, can she? But these two statements made her a prime candidate for the cabinet. What she was doing in fact was setting the stage for the Ontario government’s refusal to fund emerging services.

That this minister could even suggest, in the same article, which I could read, that there were no gaps in the social services in Ontario, is nonsense. It is nonsense. There are so many gaps in the Ministry of Community and Social Services it looks like a sieve.

An hon. member: He doesn’t mean that.

Mr. Martel: There is no rehabilitation to speak of, there is just nothing. It is just so full of loopholes it’s pathetic. If some Tory cabinet members would at least read some of the reports prepared by Swadron, the Senate report on poverty and so on, instead of going back to preconceived notions about what people on welfare are all about, then in fact we might have a different attitude in the cabinet with respect to that ministry. In fact a couple of young aspirants to the cabinet who didn’t quite make it said to me, “That’s the last ministry I’d want, because it has got such low priority in government circles.”

Mr. Taylor: Who said that?

Mr. MacBeth: Who were the young aspirants who said that?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: A couple of members of his party.

Mr. Martel: No, no.

Mr. Ferrier: The member wouldn’t want to embarrass them.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It has not a bad budget for a low priority.

Mr. Martel: It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, that as I said, the minister was really preparing the way for the province to opt out. We spoke to Mr. Mackie on a programme called the “Alan Anderson Show,” an hour-long programme on the CBC in which Mr. Mackie commented -- you can check it out -- that Ontario could effectively prevent a grant. She then made another statement some time later about youth. What the hon. minister failed to recognize, Mr. Speaker, is that it isn’t youth that’s primarily in those groups. That’s the intriguing part. The government hasn’t really looked into that.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, in the Alexander Park group the age range is from 25 to 54. If one looks into the Smile company, the theatrical group I spoke about that was going all over, the average age is 32. That hardly sounds like a bunch of irresponsible youth. But that’s what the game has been played on.

That was the same game played by the former Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Wells) when he made the statement that all long-haired young people don’t want to work. The Swadron report totally cut that to pieces and said that the people who wouldn’t take jobs in the long-haired group that the minister was speaking about at the time were the exception, not the rule.

The Swadron report, which the government set up, which not a cabinet minister has read, said that these are the myths and the misconceptions that decisions are made on, and it said it is the exception to the rule who doesn’t go to work between the ages of 16 and 24.

Mr. Lawlor: And that government deliberately spawns them.

Mr. Martel: In 1971, prior to that election, that is exactly what the government was doing; it was taking on the youth. And now, to avoid getting out of funding in the area that is totally its responsibility, social services to people, it allows her to come out with statements in November that they are parasites and they are only interested in professional grant-getting and the services are dead end.

Mr. G. Nixon: No. The member is wrong there.

Mr. Martel: The member for Dovercourt should read the paper once in a while.

Mr. Leluk: Don’t believe everything you read.

Mr. G. Nixon: That garbage is off base. Somebody is telling the member this. He doesn’t know himself.

An hon. member: I think he believes everything he reads.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That is what we call NDP hyperbole. Or exaggeration, other people call it.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

An hon. member: That’s right.

Mr. Lawlor: The minister should see his fan mail. Every blue-eyed reactionary in the province has written congratulating him.

Mr. Martel: When I speak to Cam Mackie and he tells me, “You have input,” and the minister says, “Oh no,” well the minister could have vetoed any of them. This was stated categorically on radio.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order if I may, the member is misconstruing my words. We have --

Mr. Deans: What is the point of order?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: We have input and we have the right to comment, but the decision properly is made by the federal administration whose budget is being spent.

Mr. Martel: Right on! But the minister of the day, the former youth minister did not say that in her statement. In fact, she deliberately misled by indicating Toronto had no input whatsoever. The minister knows it and I know it.

Mr. MacBeth: No, we don’t know it. Retract.

Mr. Martel: I won’t retract it.

Mr. MacBeth: No, we don’t know it.

Mr. Martel: Interestingly enough, Mr. Speaker, at the same time that she was taking off on these information centres and so on that were a dead end, she was also responsible a number of years ago in the establishment of an information centre in Scarborough. Do members know the type of funding for her information centre?

Mr. MacBeth: No.

Mr. Martel: Well, would they be interested in knowing?

Mr. MacBeth: No, not from the member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Martel: Would they be interested in knowing where the funding came from for the information centre in her riding?

Mr. MacBeth: Nope.

Mr. Martel: LIP.

Mr. G. Nixon: She’s pretty smart, eh?

Mr. Martel: Yes, the government takes on the LIP programme left, right and centre and is helping the group. She’s a very dainty lady. The government goes out and gets LIP funding and then takes on the rest. But her information centre receives LIP funding. Isn’t that intriguing?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: And they did that many years before.

Mr. Martel: They shoot off from both sides of their mouth at the same time, because she was preparing for the day the Tories would make their final statement, which was made on March 15, and which I will come to in a little while.

Well, anyway, from the meeting, I’ll just show you, Mr. Speaker how the government was preparing itself to say no in the public’s eye. The Provincial Secretary for Social Development, as she is now, made the two statements. She took on youth in one breath and she took on the LIP in the other, because the government thought they were all youth which they aren’t, and she covered the whole waterfront. The government was really trying to find a way to say no. They really were. They have been trying to find a way to say no since last June. I advised the group last June they wouldn’t get a cent out of this government.

Mr. G. Nixon: How does the member know?

Mr. Martel: I am coming to that. I hope the member stays around. I knew from the meeting with Cole and company. Those were the various groups that met with the Metro work committee. Cole drew up a list of recommendations. To his credit, he recognized, as the Minister of Community and Social Services is well aware, that most of the programmes in Toronto that were providing services were indeed needed and providing a valuable service in the field of delivery of services to people.

Mr. Taylor: Why is the member knocking it?

Mr. Martel: The government hasn’t funded it. That’s why I am knocking it.

The minister is well aware of it, because David Cole in the ministry’s department drew up a set of recommendations which the now new Attorney General (Mr. Welch) accepted, recommendations that David Cole submitted to the former Provincial Secretary for Social Development who was then the think piece. Cole’s recommendations are as follows:

“It is recommended that the Provincial Secretary for Social Development request that the senior citizens’ bureau examine the Elderly Persons’ Centres Act and other programmes of assistance currently available with a view to making immediate alterations which might enable these programmes to more effectively meet community needs.

“It is recommended that the Provincial Secretary for Social Development request that the Ontario Council for the Arts develop a submission dealing with the question of programme assistance to what are here termed as social service art projects, and which was loosely known as community theatre, for special consideration by the cabinet committee on Social Development before March 31, 1974.

It is recommended the Provincial Secretary for Social Development ascertain the status of the community information centre proposal currently before Management Board, [Currently? It’s been there for three years] and urge quick action to resolve this long-standing policy and programme question.

“It is recommended that the Provincial Secretary for Social Development inquire delay in the completion of regulations for Bill 160 and seek assurance that these regulations will enable direct funding assistance to be made available to community daycare centres, or services such as those in question, by April 1, 1974. [Mr. Cole is from the Minister of Community and Social Services’ staff.]

“It is recommended that the Provincial Secretary for Social Development request that the citizenship bureau submit a proposal for consideration by the cabinet committee on social development which would enable direct financial assistance to be made available for special immigration and migrant services at a reasonable level and on a sustaining basis beginning April 1, 1974.

“It is recommended that the Provincial Secretary for Social Development request the establishment of a Social Development policy field committee on multi-service centre support to be immediately convened by the Deputy Provincial Secretary for Social Development for the purpose of co-ordinating response to all such requests for programme and funding assistance within that policy field, and to report to him on their activities and make whatever appropriate recommendations as seem required on this subject within six months.”

What that means is that Mr. Cole and representatives from six different agencies went out in Toronto and looked at the programmes offered -- as I attempted to outline them at the beginning -- in the health field, in the community and social service field, in the immigration field and so on.

Mr. Cole and the group of civil servants met with the work groups from Metro Toronto, who are just a representative group, really, of what is going on in the province.

Over a number of months Mr. Cole, who works for the Minister of Community and Social Services, presented this to the provincial secretary, who accepted it as his proposals, not something the group asked for. Those were the proposals the then provincial secretary would take to cabinet. He agreed with them. Based on the assessment by Mr. Cole, of the minister’s staff, the then provincial secretary accepted them as valid and necessary to the delivery of services to the residents of Metro Toronto. As I say, they are just a representative group for the total province.

Mr. MacBeth: The member has been dreaming.

Mr. Martel: I am sorry, if the member doesn’t believe me, he can walk across the floor and ask the Minister of Community and Social Services if I’m right. That is, if the member has the courage to do it; he’s flapped his gums long enough.

Mr. Leluk: The member sounds like a denturist.

Mr. Martel: Would he go across the floor? Maybe the minister would allay the fears of the member for wherever-it is as to whether or not Mr. Cole did make those six recommendations; and did the then provincial secretary not accept them as his own? Would the minister indicate for the member if that is correct or not? He is going to have a nightmare tonight. He might have something else besides but I’m not sure.

Mr. MacBeth: I’ve already had three or four of them listening to the member.

Mr. Martel: Would the Minister of Community and Social Services assure him the facts are right so that he doesn’t develop a case of ulcers or something like that?

Mr. MacBeth: I could very well do that if I listen to him much longer.

Hon. R. Brunelle (Minister of Community and Social Services): Mr. Speaker, the member must know that the Social Development policy committee is an extension of cabinet and all matters are most confidential.

Mr. Martel: That’s called verbal gymnastics.

Mr. MacBeth: How does the member know so much of what goes on in cabinet?

Mr. Martel: The minister knows the then provincial secretary told the committee, “We accept those as our recommendations.” I’m not asking what went on in cabinet. I’m asking whether the then provincial secretary did, in fact, accept those because a member of the minister’s staff recommended them? It went that far. That’s all I want my friend to know.

Mr. Stokes: He presented them to cabinet.

Mr. MacBeth: How does the member know that?

Mr. Martel: Because he is having fits of grandeur over there.

Mr. MacBeth: How does he know that?

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. MacBeth: He has no idea at all He is just talking.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, we know that the then provincial secretary accepted them.

Mr. MacBeth: How does he know?

Mr. Martel: They weren’t the same requests by the --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: They have a good relationship with Xerox.

Mr. Martel: Has the minister of -- well whatever it is --

Mr. G. Nixon: Think about it.

Mr. Martel: What is his new portfolio? Whatever it is?

Mr. Stokes: He is Provincial Secretary for Resources Development.

Mr. Lawlor: He is the minister who heads Natural Resources -- with human resources.

Mr. Martel: There is a spy -- he has got those guys whose faces always appear -- you know, some of his staff.

Well it wasn’t what the group asked for, but after 6½ months of trying to get funding, they were willing to go along with what Mr. Cole recommended and what the former Provincial Secretary for Social Development said he would take to cabinet.

Mr. MacBeth: How does the member know that?

Mr. Martel: Well, we know.

Mr. MacBeth: He has no idea. He is just talking to hear himself talk.

Mr. Lawlor: We know what goes on in the government party. Even the way they look in the morning tells us a lot of things.

Mr. Martel: Well, Mr. Speaker, it was difficult, I expect, for the member for Lincoln and the Minister of Community and Social Services to accept that. You have to recall at the same time that these are being accepted, the new think piece, the Provincial Secretary for Social Development, was going around taking on the various programmes. Everything she said really flew in the face of what Mr. Cole discovered as he -- having been sent out by the Minister of Community and Social Services -- made an analysis of the programmes. He was reporting back to the minister that the programmes were necessary and were needed. And the new “think piece” over there, she is taking the programmes on. Now there is a kind of conflict and the staff finds one thing. And the hon. member for Scarborough East, she without even knowing --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: Without even knowing, she carries on with her terrible statements. After the member for Lincoln --

An hon. member: The member for Sudbury East hasn’t been called a think piece in his life, has he?

Mr. Martel: After the member for Lincoln accepted these --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: -- as his proposals, he indicated that maybe they should have some more discussion; and that maybe he should take them to cabinet for cabinet approval. Once cabinet approved, there would be a series of ongoing meetings with the work group and there would be discussion at cabinet. If the two forces came together, then the whole problem would be resolved -- and another series of meetings were scheduled. Now, we have had a series of meetings since last June to get funding. Well, the member for Lincoln was supposed to take this to cabinet on Feb. 15; however, cabinet didn’t apparent have time to discuss all the recommendations, all six of them --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member is keeping better track of the cabinet than I do. I can’t remember all the time.

Mr. Martel: Well --

An hon. member: Isn’t the member going to go to cabinet?

Mr. Martel: They didn’t have time to discuss all the recommendations, so it was suggested to the groups that they would have to postpone the other set of meetings.

Mr. MacBeth: Where did the member for Sudbury East hide? Under the carpet?

Mr. Martel: I have a link in the cabinet.

Mr. MacBeth: I think he must hide under the carpet with other people.

Mr. Martel: The member can eat his heart out. I know more about what is going on than the member for York West, and he only belongs to the Tory party.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: What the member for Sudbury East doesn’t know he invents.

Mr. Martel: He won’t be able to take on one statement I’ve made. Why doesn’t he take his little lawyer beagle inquiry kit and go around to see where I am wrong.

Mr. Taylor: That wouldn’t be difficult.

Mr. Martel: Try it. Try it. Play Sherlock Holmes of the Legislature, okay?

Mr. Ferrier: He is Dr. Watson.

Mr. Martel: Well, anyway, the cabinet was supposed to meet on Feb. 15, and decided it couldn’t. So the meeting with the Metro group had to be postponed and that was the first of yet another series of postponements -- as the Minister of Community and Social Services is aware.

Mr. MacBeth: Come out from under the rug.

Mr. Martel: They started in June of 1973 and by Feb. 15, 1974, they haven’t been able to reach a consensus. Well, David Cole phoned the Metro work group and he said, “Why don’t we cancel this meeting from the first week of March, which is very close to us, to the second or the third week of March?” And the group said, “Now wait a minute. We have had a number of postponements already and we want to meet with the minister who is responsible before the budget is struck.”

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Isn’t that a long story?

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Yes.

Mr. Martel: It has been a lot longer for those people who have been working without funding, I want to tell the minister -- a lot longer for those people who have tried to provide services the government hasn’t been able to provide and do it without funding.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I think the member has made his point.

Mr. Martel: They objected to the meetings. David Cole went back to someone and they agreed to meet with the provincial secretary on March 7. Members will recall that about that date a great number of aspirants were deflated -- those aspirants to cabinet posts who didn’t get them had their alter egos totally destroyed and they sulked for two or three days.

Mr. MacDonald: Their real egos not their alter.

Mr. Martel: Their what? Their real ego?

Mr. MacDonald: Not their alter.

Mr. Martel: A number of them didn’t show up for meetings for three days after the announcement. They didn’t show up for three days at select committee meetings. They were a little upset with “Billy the Kid.”

Mr. Lawlor: Talk about being in the rump.

Mr. Martel: What happened to the Metro group was that in the process there had to be a further delay. With a cabinet shuffle, they had to delay it and the reason, of course, was they were going to have to meet with the new think-piece.

The new think-piece for social development should really have been familiar with it. She shouldn’t have needed any type of delay, Mr. Speaker, because she had been making pronouncements about those groups back in October, November, December, January and February. She didn’t need any time -- she had her sights set on shooting them down in the beginning. But that is what the Metro work group was told -- “We have to let the provincial secretary have time to adjust to the new portfolio.” I found that a bit amazing because the statements she had been making on the LIP groups and so on indicated to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that she knew all there was to know about it.

Mr. Lawlor: No, there was a maladjustment there.

Mr. Martel: That’s right; it was mal, all right. Be that as it may --

Mr. Lawlor: The ministerial responsibility changes a person.

Mr. Martel: It rests heavy on her, does it?

Mr. Lawlor: Yes.

Mr. Martel: Yes, she has to move from irresponsible statements to total --

Mr. Lawlor: To ministerial statements.

Mr. Martel: Right, to ministerial statements. The March 7 meeting was scheduled. We have had a whole series of dates with the Minister of Community and Social Services and the think-piece for that field, who were going to advise the Metro work group about funding. This has gone on from June, 1973. We are now down to March 7, 1974, almost a year. On March 7, they were advised that they would be granted a hearing on March 15.

Mr. MacBeth: His own members are leaving him.

Mr. Martel: I don’t need my members to support me. I want them to go and feel free. I think I can take on the others. It doesn’t really matter.

An hon. member: In what way does he mean that?

Mr. Lawlor: Talk about being in the rump. Mr. Martel: Relating the facts as they are.

Mr. MacBeth: There are two members beside himself.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, they finally got a meeting on March 15. Before I go into what was announced on March 15, I told the group when they came to see me on March 7 that I could predict again, as I did in June of last year, what the government would give them. It wasn’t hard to predict; one only had to look at what they were doing. I want to indicate what other groups have done for the emerging services in Metro Toronto, Mr. Speaker, if I can just find it here. I must find that.

Mr. MacBeth: Did he lose his date book?

Mr. Martel: No, I just lost a piece of paper and I think I have to find it. Here we are.

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting -- if you recall, I indicated how much the Ontario government had contributed to immigration services and so on. Well, here’s what the groups in Toronto have done to fund the Metro work group.

The United Fund provided $23,000 in interim support in 1973 for 20 services, and has anticipated an additional $294,000 for 1974, for one staff member on each of 35 services.

The council of Metro Toronto provided $130,000 as interim support for 59 services in Metro Toronto during the months of November and December.

Recently the Department of the Secretary of State announced an allocation of $99,500 for immigration services. The Ontario contribution up until that date? Zilch. I want the member for Dovercourt to be proud of himself, because it’s his community that we’re serving.

Mr. MacBeth: Is this a provincial matter? Immigration?

Mr. G. Nixon: More services there than any place in Toronto.

Mr. Martel: Right. It’s the members’ community that we’re serving.

Mr. MacBeth: Since when did immigration become a federal-provincial matter?

Mr. Martel: Well, the Tories managed to tax them to death.

Mr. MacDonald: The government opened a welcome house to welcome the immigrants.

Mr. MacBeth: To help the situation, yes.

Mr. Martel: Yes, right.

Mr. MacDonald: So they assumed some responsibility.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, before I get into the final statement on March 15, I want to spend some time with this material just outlining the various services being offered in Toronto. I intend to take a little time doing that.

An hon. member: Well, don’t let us rush the member.

Mr. Martel: There are seven groups -- don’t go away mad, boys. Just stay around.

Mr. MacBeth: It’s all right for the member to punish his own party, but not us.

Mr. Martel: Well, I want to punish the government members for the way they’ve responded to the needs of the emerging services and the people of Metro Toronto.

There are seven services; information services are one. Most of the centres have received grants from their area municipalities from Metro, or from both levels. Their function “has been built upon the basis of local community support; to in fact assist people to obtain information which the government of Ontario is not in a position to provide.”

Well, that’s unfortunate, eh? They’re not in a position to provide.

I want to just show a couple of cases to my friend, the hon. member from somewhere. I can’t use his name, so I have to say --

Mr. Ferrier: York West.

Mr. Martel: The member for York West. I hope he stays around.

Mr. MacBeth: The member for Sudbury East is the member for nowhere.

Mr. Martel: Here are a number of cases provided assistance for by an information centre. These can actually be documented; I just asked for summaries. They can actually be documented if the government of Ontario wants them.

A call came into a centre from a woman who was calling from a phone booth. Her husband had just thrown her and her four children out on the street. Her husband was an alcoholic, she was a woman who had never been on welfare and who had been used to being on a secure income until this year when her husband’s problem became worse. She had no place to stay and now had to get emergency assistance.

Well, you know it’s interesting, if one were to try to turn to any government agency after 5 o’clock at night in Toronto, or in Sudbury or the Soo, it becomes almost an impossibility to find a Community Social Services office open, or a general welfare office.

Mr. G. Nixon: That’s wrong. We have them in the city of Toronto.

Mr. Martel: Oh, I’m saying there are one or two, but --

Mr. G. Nixon: Well, all right. Let the member make up his mind. One thing or the other.

Mr. Deans: He said it was almost impossible.

Mr. Martel: Well, how do people know?

Mr. G. Nixon: Well, an agency will tell them.

Mr. Martel: What agency?

Mr. G. Nixon: The police can tell them.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Well, it’s interesting, Mr. Speaker, that the member for Dovercourt would make that statement that “the police would tell them.”

Do you recall the case of a young girl just about a month and a half ago, who was held over in jail and who ultimately committed suicide? The judge said that he didn’t know any other place to send her, a girl of 16. There are five or six centres in Toronto which she could have gone to, but the judges and the police didn’t know about them. And a 16-year-old girl committed suicide. A disgrace, a total disgrace, because there are no real linkups of the information which is available -- and that’s why information services are important.

Mr. MacDonald: Touché.

Mr. Martel: They’re important and we have stupid remarks that are never checked out. I hope this member can tell me why some judge in a court in Toronto didn’t know that there was some place other than the Sally Ann, or the local jail, to send a girl of 16 -- who ultimately committed suicide in her cell -- who was a ward of the Children’s Aid Society. Maybe others can rest easy with that, I can’t. I just can’t.

There are no information centres. This is just a typical case. Most government agencies, as all of us know -- there’s the exception -- work from 9 o’clock on Monday morning until 5 o’clock on Friday afternoon. And the real problems, the crisis cases, develop on the weekend or at night. You try to find assistance and you can’t.

Does a young person in Metro Toronto even know where to turn to find assistance at night? Or on the weekend? But these information centres are manned by people for a measly $85 a week. There’s no holiday pay. The government has had a study for three years and it .still doesn’t have a programme. It still doesn’t have a policy.

In the second case, the centre received a call from a family who was in arrears in rent and was being evicted. The husband had been at work for three months, but had been unemployed for a long time previous to this. He was having difficulty in getting caught up in paying his rent. No agency in the community was able to help. We’ve all come across this type of problem.

The man did not want to give up his job and there was his fear of garnishee, and so forth. And so, with the help of the centre the family was placed in Metro emergency shelter. It wasn’t done by a government agency. This is the point I make. This is done by volunteer agencies and the government could never even start to fund the great number of people involved in these volunteer groups. Certainly they have permanent staff, but an overwhelming majority of their staff are volunteers.

What they need is funding, permanent funding, for the permanent staff who help to bring in the voluntary staff who then in fact will provide the service. But if the government of Ontario had to pay for all of the staff to provide the services that these groups are providing, it would bankrupt the province.

There must be permanent funding for the permanent staff which is ongoing and then they can, in fact, draw in the volunteers. Not the same ones all the time, because you can’t expect the same volunteers to do it. But with permanent funding, where they didn’t have to spend all their time looking for funding, we might be able to intermesh the services offered by the Ministry of Community and Social Services with those that are partially funded and work in conjunction with the bulk of the people who are willing to do it -- some of it on a volunteer basis.

If there is no permanent funding, the whole thing is going to collapse. You can’t expect people to spend 90 per cent of their time trying to find funding. And community and social service is a provincial responsibility. It is not Metro Toronto that is responsible. It is not the federal government’s responsibility. It’s a provincial responsibility.

This government can’t simply dump it on the municipality, or the federal government and opt out, and that’s what it has done. It has allowed the volunteer groups, the community-funded groups, the federal government and the municipal governments to fund these across the province, and this government has opted out of its commitment in totality.

Let me tell the members of another case. The centre received a call from a woman, a widow who had a difficult nine year old son. She had called 14 places -- and you tell me it’s available -- she had called 14 places to find a list of private schools that might take the boy. A worker at the information centre suggested that that might not be the best solution and suggested that the woman contact the counselling agency, the Big Brothers organization. The woman said she wanted to try this first solution and so the worker gave her the information. They tell me that there was no arguing. She called 14 places -- 14 places!

Another case: The centre received a call from a hospital. The hospital was referring to a volunteer group a former patient who did not have money and didn’t have a place to stay. It was up to the information centre, on the release of this individual, to find a place for the person to stay. Why didn’t a government agency pick it up? Why wasn’t there a government agency that the hospital could phone and say, “Find a place for this individual to live until he gets re-established in the community”? Why wasn’t there a government agency? Well, that’s information centres. If members want to read them I have nine cases here which were submitted to me by one information centre alone. Just one. And it goes on. Well, I will continue, Mr. Speaker.

The second field of service, of course, is the immigrant centres, and I want to list, Mr. Speaker, if I might, the immigrant centres that have developed with LIP funding: Arab Community Centre, Centre for Spanish-Speaking People, Italian Centre, Chinese Information and Interpreter Service, Eastminster Community Service, Greek Information and Social Services, Greek Free Interpreter Service, Information Centre for West Indians, New Canada, North York Birth Control and VD Information Centre, Portuguese Information and Interpreter Service, Toy Lending Centre, West End Assistance, and Working English. Then there are those which didn’t start with LIP funding, the immigrant services, but, in fact, which are now receiving LIP services. They include the Filipino Association in Canada of Toronto, Grange Community Storefront, Indian Immigration Aid Services, Italian Immigrant Aid Society, Inter Agency Council for Services to Immigrants and Migrants, Mobility Counselling Services, St. Christopher House, St. Caspar Community Centre, University Settlement, WoodGreen Community Centre -- this is a Chinese outreach programme -- the YMCA and the YWCA have used LIP funding. These are all ethnic service centres and this government’s contribution on a permanent basis is $100 a year. Just $100 a year permanent funding. And for all of these groups, which desperately need help, the total commitment by the Ontario government is $100,000 and most of it, I am told by the people who are actually working in the field, goes for little soirees of cultural development and so on. The basic understanding, the basic translation and the basic rules of communication are totally avoided, are totally neglected, and most of the funding has come from the federal government, from the Minister for Cultural Affairs, and Ontario’s contribution on a permanent basis is $100 a year.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps in view of the hour the hon. member would like to move adjournment of the debate?

Mr. Martel: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I would because I’m --

Mr. Laughren: He’s just warming up.

Mr. Martel: -- just warming up really.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Sounds like he was burning up.

Mr. Martel moves the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: In accordance with the provisions of standing order 28, I now deem that a motion to adjourn has been made. In accordance with the provisions of standing orders 27 and 28, the hon. member for Wentworth has filed proper notice with me that he was dissatisfied with the answer given to a question by the hon. Minister of Community and Social Services. He may now debate that matter for a period of five minutes. The minister may then reply if he so wishes.

The hon. member for Wentworth.

INFORMATION SERVICES FUNDING

Mr. Deans: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Because there are only five minutes I want to get directly to the meat of what dissatisfies me. The minister seems unaware of the fact that over the last three years he has procrastinated with regard to permanent funding for information services centres. The one in Hamilton, as I tried to bring to his attention during the question period, has run out of funds. The funds they currently have will not allow them to continue this very valuable service beyond the end of April.

If it were the first time it had been raised with the minister I could well understand his answer. His answer to one part of my question was, and I quote from page 563-3 Hansard of today, Mr. Speaker, our policy will be announced in due course.”

I want to point out to the Minister of Community and Social Services that is exactly the same answer he gave in a letter of Oct. 13, 1972, to the information services centre which I’m asking about, in which he said: “Pending an Ontario government decision as to a possible ongoing role for the government in the organization and operation of centres such as the Hamilton and district central information service,” he had sent them a cheque for $6,665 which he called a non-recurring grant.

That was Oct. 13, 1972. On March 20, 1973, he wrote again to the same group and said “I’m pleased to enclose a cheque for $8,300”. He went on to say: “It is a non-recurring grant from my ministry to Central Information Services, Hamilton and district, pending an Ontario government decision as to a possible ongoing role for the government in the organization and operation of centres such as Central Information Services.”

On Dec. 14, 1973, he again wrote to the same group, saying: “I’m pleased to inform you that a non- recurring grant totalling $6,000 has been approved for the Central Information Services, pending [again] an Ontario government decision as to a possible ongoing role in the organization and operation of centres such as yours.”

It has a familiar ring. Today, when the minister stood up after having brought to his attention the fact that this extremely vital service is going to have to be discontinued at the end of April because this government has been unable or unwilling to come forward with an ongoing programme of financing, he has the gall to stand in his place and say, “Our policy will be announced in due course.”

An Hon. member: He didn’t even give the member a cheque, did he?

Mr. Deans: No.

Mrs. Campbell: He didn’t give a cheque?

Mr. Deans: Let me tell the House something. This is a project in Hamilton which not only I consider vital. The member for Hamilton West (Mr. McNie), the minister without portfolio, wrote to that service and said he wholeheartedly endorsed their efforts and would bring to the attention of the Minister of Social and Community Services the value of their project and the need for funding.

The member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. J. R. Smith) said he, too, supported their request for funding and would bring the matter to the attention of the Minister of Community and Social Services.

I have supported the efforts put forward by the group. The group dealt with 1,500 requests for information in January; 1,300 in February, and 1,300 in March. There is a need which is being filled; it is a need which ought to have been filled by government, but which has not been filled by government.

Let me go on to tell the minister that even though he wants to disregard the support of the member for Hamilton West, the member for Hamilton Mountain, my support, and perhaps that of my colleagues and other colleagues from Hamilton, let me read to him what the Premier says about this group.

On Jan. 25, 1973, he said: “I am well aware of the valuable service that agencies such as yours provide for the citizens of Ontario and I look forward to a continuing harmony between government and non-government information agencies.”

Hon. Mr. Grossman: What’s wrong with that?

Mr. Deans: I am going to tell the minister something -- it is going to be pretty damn hard to have a continuing harmony with this agency after the end of April.

Mr. Lewis: He is not kidding.

Mr. Deans: Because unless the government is prepared to say something concrete about the way in which it is going to be funded there will be no agency with which to have any harmony.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has expired.

Mr. Deans: I say to him, that as a minister of the Crown, if he is prepared to back up his Premier it is time he came out and made a statement to the effect that he is either going to fund them or is not going to fund them, and let them know where they stand.

Mr. Speaker: The minister may now reply and may take five minutes to do so if he wishes.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, I entirely support what the Premier said, that the community information centres do provide very worthwhile services.

Mr. MacDonald: Let the minister’s actions match his words.

Mr. Ferrier: Actions speak louder than words.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The figures I have, Mr. Speaker, are a little different from the hon. member’s; maybe his are more accurate. The figures I had been given show that in the fiscal year 1972-1973 we provided funding to 11 centres for a total of $55,000. Out of that amount Hamilton centre received $15,000. In this year 1973-1974, we provided a total funding of $42,300, and out of that amount Hamilton received $6,000.

Mr. Deans: What’s that going to do at the end of April?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I’d like to say to the hon. member that certainly, it’s all very well for him and his colleagues to be able to say that money is no object, because they haven’t got the responsibility to provide it. But this is a very expensive programme and, therefore, we must establish criteria and we must have controls.

Mr. MacDonald: How long?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I’d also like to say to the hon. Member --

Mr. Ferrier: What about human needs?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- that we have reorganized our ministry. As the hon. member knows, we sent them copies of our task force reports and this is an ongoing procedure. We feel that in our reorganization of our districts, the main purpose is to provide more information, more decentralization and more authority to the district. We want to make sure that the implementation of this community information services programme is integrated with our district offices. And also what about northern Ontario? The northern affairs branch provides a very important information service in the north.

Mr. Deans: What happens at the end of April?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Therefore, we must have as much as possible a uniform programme. In conclusion, I would like to tell the hon. members that our policy is under very, very active review and sometime in the near future it will be announced.

Interjections by hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: In the meantime, we are not standing still. We are funding several of the centres. The member for Wentworth’s centre received $6,000 a few months ago. Therefore, they should not be in that dire position.

Mr. Deans: But it runs out. What is the minister going to do at the end of April?

Mr. Speaker: I should point out to the hon. members that the other debate of which I have received notice is that from the hon. member for Scarborough West, in which he notified me that he was not satisfied with the answer given to his oral question which had been directed to the Premier (Mr. Davis) regarding gasoline and fuel oil prices.

I was not aware of any other arrangements, and I have been informed that the hon. Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) is present to deal with this particular question and this particular debate. There is nothing in the standing orders, I must say, that permits another minister to respond.

Section 27(i) says: “A minister may in his discretion decline to answer any question.” Section 27(j) says: “A minister to whom any oral or written question is directed may refer the question to another member who is a member of a board of commission.” But it does not apply, in my opinion, to another member of the ministry.

Therefore, if the hon. member for Scarborough West wishes to take his five minutes, and there is nothing that I can find that would prevent his doing that, I point out that at the same time there is no provision that would compel the minister, in this case, the first minister, the Premier, to reply.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member for Scarborough West just looked dissatisfied. He was really satisfied.

Mr. Lewis: It is the Minister of Energy’s ministry we are discussing, although I am discussing a kind of governmental approach that flows from this. I obviously don’t mind a debate, and obviously the Minister of Energy could reply. I am a little concerned about the precedent that we are then establishing, I don’t really know where to go, because it means that one minister can step in for another minister on almost any count if he is so surrogated.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: May I interject? With respect, Mr. Speaker, there is precedent to cover this particular point, I believe, in the last session, and I think I participated myself.

Mr. Lewis: Is there?

Mr. MacDonald: I think there might be too. If I may say, Mr. Speaker, I think there is legitimacy in the minister dealing with the topic which falls within his portfolio when the question had gone to the Premier. It’s one thing to shift from one minister to another minister in a different ministry. It’s another thing to shift from the Premier, who speaks for the whole government, to the minister in whose jurisdiction that issue falls.

Mr. Lewis: Okay.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The circumstances were exactly the same.

Mr. Speaker: I am informed that there is, in fact, a precedent. I was not aware of that precedent. If there is a precedent, we are bound to follow that precedent.

OIL PRICES

Mr. Lewis: Good. That’s just fine. Mr. Speaker, the Premier’s answers to my questions this afternoon were unacceptable on every conceivable ground. Let me try very quickly to set the context.

The mere act of negotiation which the premiers of Canada and the Prime Minister of Canada entered into last week is recognition of the need to control prices in the area of oil and fuel and gasoline costs. The mere act of negotiation presupposes that. Now, during the negotiating process, the oil companies were well looked after by the increase to $6.50. Who then protects the consumer?

That leads me to the second point. Was there a need to protect the consumer from exorbitant or additional costs levied by the oil companies? Their record in this area, Mr. Speaker, speaks for itself. They are not to be trusted. They abuse the consumer. They appreciate inordinate profits without justification.

Immediately after the conference was over the suggestion was that the increases to the consumer in Ontario would be approximately seven to 7½ cents per gallon of gasoline or home fuel oil. Forty-eight hours later it was announced authoritatively, both by the industry and by the federal government, that the increase would be up to 10 cents. Who is to protect the consumer against the additional increase of 2½ cents per gallon?

Mr. Speaker, during the course of the day the NDP research department at Queen’s Park has compiled certain interesting statistics, certain figures in terms of what it will mean for individual oil companies in Ontario if we apportion a certain share of the market to them based on previous years. For Esso, using their share of the market in 1973, it will mean an additional $3.3 million from the consumer. For Gulf, an additional $19 million. For Texaco, an additional $14 million. For Shell Oil, an additional $21 million. For those four oil companies alone, an additional $87 million from the consumers of Ontario, out of the total package of about $116 million additional paid by the people of this province to the oil companies.

Mr. Speaker, I point out to you that that $87 million to those four companies alone would be enough to provide the provincial share for a minimum income scheme for everybody in Ontario over the age of 60. When the Premier is asked why he will not intervene to prevent this happening he has a variety of arguments.

The first argument he uses is that it is a federal matter rather than a provincial matter. Well, it may have been in the national interest to set a wellhead price, but then it’s in the provincial jurisdiction to protect the consumers of Ontario.

That is why Saskatchewan is lowering the price. That is why Alberta is lowering the price and that is why Nova Scotia independently had a commission of inquiry into the oil companies. And the default on the part of the Province of Ontario to protect the consumers is a default on the agreement which the Premier entered into with the federal government, because there they were setting national wellhead prices, with the provinces to look after their own consumers.

Then, Mr. Speaker, the Premier goes on to argue that it is all right to regulate the public sector in Ontario, but not the private sector. Because Ontario Hydro is a Crown corporation it is all right to govern its rates, but it’s not all right to intrude on private multinational corporations in the private sector.

Well, let it be pointed out, Mr. Speaker, that Ontario regulates Consumers’ Gas and Union Gas. The government requires them to come before the Ontario Energy Board for a rate application. They are in direct competition, particularly in the home fuel business, with the multi-national corporations.

Now, isn’t that the irony of ironies? We discriminate against our own Canadian-owned companies. We prejudice their position by forcing them to take rate applications to the Ontario Energy Board while we will not force the multi-national oil companies to justify their rate increases. It conforms with the government’s policy on the invitation to further control and ownership of the uranium industry, but it’s an absurd anomaly and inconsistency in the Province of Ontario.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the Premier of Ontario says that this government fights inflation generally in overall terms and he talks about constraining the public sector. Well, that’s all a matter of looking at the way in which the public sector is used. If one looks at the amount of money the government is going to spend on GO-Urban transit or the consequences for the hospital workers of its hospital ceilings, then we say to the government that its constraints on the public sector are invalid on one hand and perverse on the other and that, in fact, in the area of cost of living and inflation -- whether it is food, whether it is housing, whether it is automobile insurance or whether it is increases in gasoline fuel oil and diesel fuel --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member has had five minutes now.

Mr. Lewis: -- there is absolutely no evidence on the part of the Province of Ontario of protecting the consumer. The attitude is, the consumer be damned. It has abdicated in total, and frankly that is a betrayal of the public trust.

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, I must say that having been dragged away from a very pleasant performance at the theatre tonight to come here --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: He might have stayed there.

Mr. MacDonald: If he had answered this afternoon he wouldn’t have needed to be back.

Mr. Stokes: Please accept our humble apologies on behalf of the people of the province.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- I was delighted that you followed the precedent and I am able to reply to this question. One comes to the conclusion that the NDP don’t want answers to questions; they want to go on grandstanding, they want to make statements and they don’t want to hear the facts. They sit there in their smugness and they don’t want the answers.

Mr. Lewis: We are waiting for the facts.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Does the minister remember some of his statements about the money-grubbing companies? Remember his statements about them ripping off the public?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Well, Mr. Speaker, having sat quietly and trying to be as unprovocative as I normally am, I would just like to review certain facts.

First of all, the price of oil was frozen by action of the federal government on Sept. 4 last, at $3.80 at the wellhead and at $4 at Edmonton, which is determined to be the frozen price. The agreement last Wednesday raised that frozen price from $4 to $6.50 at Edmonton and we would have translated that, and do translate that, into about a 7½ cent increase.

It is well to remember that during the last six months while the freeze has been on, to my knowledge east of the line because of imports and to some extent west of the line, prices have risen or have been adjusted at least three times. Because of variables other than simply the cost of crude oil, because of the cost of shipping, because of the cost of transportation there have been adjustments. There have been adjustments during the last six months. The history of those adjustments was that in each case the companies went to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and to the National Energy Board and asked for certain adjustments, as they have now.

They have now asked, as I understand and read the papers, for another two, 2½ or three cents, depending on which paper you read, and I suppose that there is a variable between the companies. I think it is reasonable to assume that during the last six months, and I am not justifying what they are asking for --

Mr. Lewis: The minister certainly is.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: During the six months I am assuming that it is reasonable --

Mr. Stokes: Is he going to intervene?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- to assume that there have been increases --

Mr. Lewis: One half-cent per gallon. Their figures.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I am assuming that it is reasonable to assume that there have been increases in transportation costs, in labour rates, in refinery costs, in the costs of goods and services.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: What an apologist for the oil companies the minister is. What an apologist for the oil companies.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr, Speaker, I am not justifying one-tenth of one per cent. That is not my job.

Mr. Lewis: It certainly is his job.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It is the job of the companies to go to the NEB --

Mr. Lewis: No, it is the job of the companies to come here.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Well, Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wants an answer I will carry on.

Mr. Speaker: There are 60 seconds remaining.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: .Mr. Speaker, it is symbolic that the Minister of Energy is situated in the Sunoco building.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Forty-five seconds remaining.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It lost the member for York South his job as leader of that party and he’s destroying the new leader.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: The minister spent five minutes justifying the actions of the oil companies and I think it’s more than symbolic that he is situated in an oil company’s building.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: That’s a cheap shot

Mr. Speaker: Time has now expired. In accordance with the provisions --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. House leader have some comments before the House is adjourned?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No, Mr. Speaker; except to say that on Thursday we will continue the debate on item No. 2 on the order paper.

Mr. Speaker: I deem the motion to adjourn to have been carried.

The House adjourned at 10:50 o’clock, p.m.