Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 10 o’clock, a.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

WATTS FROM WASTE PROJECT

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, early in 1973, the former Minister of the Environment (Mr. Auld) formed a committee composed of representatives of the Ontario Hydro, Metropolitan Toronto, what was then part of Mississauga and the Ministry of the Environment to investigate the feasibility of the use of solid waste in the generation of electrical power. The report of the committee was presented to the minister in November, 1973, and outlined a proposal for the use of processed waste as a fuel in the production of electrical power at the Lakeview generating station of Ontario Hydro. Proposed was a $15-million project to be financed by Metropolitan Toronto and the province. The project would process approximately 1,000 tons of solid waste a day.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce today that I have taken steps which I hope will have the effect of launching what has become known as the Watts from Waste project. In a letter to Metropolitan Toronto Chairman Paul Godfrey, I have offered $1.5 million on behalf of the government of Ontario to assist in the cost of processing equipment for the transfer station planned for Etobicoke, which will prepare the solid waste for use as a fuel at the Lakeview generating station.

The Ontario government has also agreed to contribute a grant of $3.5 million to Ontario Hydro to fund the necessary modifications to the generating station to permit the use of processed waste as a fuel. The total provincial commitment, therefore, is $5 million or one-third of the total cost of the project. I hope, with this commitment by the Province of Ontario, that Metropolitan Toronto and Ontario Hydro will be encouraged to carry this project forward as quickly as possible. The Watts from Waste project is significant, not just to Metropolitan Toronto with its current solid waste disposal problems, but also to the province as a step in developing practical resource recovery facilities.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the contributions made by Metropolitan Toronto, Ontario Hydro and the former town of Mississauga in bringing this project to this stage. As I said before, Mr. Speaker, we are concerned with the volume of solid waste that is being produced in this province. Our aim is to reduce this volume and to recover the useful materials that are now being wasted in landfill operations. This forward-looking approach by Metropolitan Toronto and Ontario Hydro is a large step in that direction.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Look who’s here, look who’s here.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications.

Mr. Roy: That’s because he’s the only one here.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): I know.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downs view): What has he stopped today?

Mr. Breithaupt: In view of the minister’s statement --

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): They have defeated their record of yesterday. There are 19 missing today; there were only 17 missing yesterday.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): It’s a boycott.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): They aren’t the heavyweights, I will say that.

Mr. Deans: And even fewer cabinet ministers.

Mr. Breithaupt: In view of the minister’s statement yesterday --

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Why doesn’t the Minister of Revenue take the morning off; the bill isn’t reprinted.

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): I thought I might.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Why is it taking so long to get it printed?

TORONTO ISLAND AIRPORT

Mr. Breithaupt: The minister said in his statement yesterday, and I quote:

The fact that this ministry agreed to chair this committee should not be misconstrued as meaning that it has the prime responsibility or role, but rather it has simply accepted the job as co-ordinator. This is not a provincial committee; the province is only co-ordinating the efforts of those involved.

In view of this, will the minister please explain the statement in the first paragraph of the draft report on the Toronto Island Airport, and I quote:

Increasing deficits incurred by the harbour commission, coupled with the desire by the Province of Ontario to preserve the airport as the hub of a southern Ontario third-level air network, has forced a reassessment of the potential of this unique waterfront airport, located within a mile and a quarter of the Toronto CBD.

That is the paragraph in the report. Is it correct, that in fact this is a ministerial responsibility and a government decision? Further, has the minister had a chance as yet to see the report; because if not I will be glad to send him a copy?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, yes, I have seen the report. I think it has been obvious, and has never been denied I don’t believe, that there has been an interest in the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in the development of third-level air carrier service in the southern Ontario area. I answered a question on this yesterday by the hon. member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell). I think, of course, that the Toronto Island Airport was the one that was being looked at by the ministry, as it now exists, as a possible STOL site. There has been no decision made; but certainly the fact that we were interested in that airport is correct. And I draw to the member’s attention that there is no question of a second airport.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Riverdale.

Mr. Renwick: By way of supplementary question: Does the minister agree with the lead editorial in the Globe and Mail this morning?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I very rarely agree with the lead editorial in the Globe and Mail -- but I didn’t read it this morning.

Mr. Singer: If he had he wouldn’t have agreed with it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. Breithaupt: I would be glad to send the minister a copy of the editorial, if he would like to have it.

Mr. Roy: Get someone there to read it to him. Send it over now.

STEEL MILL ON NOTTAWASAGA RIVER

Mr. Breithaupt: A question of the Minister of the Environment: I first asked him on March 14, some 11 weeks ago, whether any environmental impact studies had been completed on the $25 million steel mill which was proposed on the banks of the Nottawasaga River in Essa township. Has he as yet completed those studies; and if so when will we receive them?

Hon. W. Newman: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I think as I indicated at that time we would be doing this; and we have done extensive studies on that particular area.

Mr. Breithaupt: Is the minister prepared to table those studies in the House?

Hon. W. Newman: Not at this point in time.

Mr. Breithaupt: When will he be?

Some hon. members: In the fullness of time.

Hon. W. Newman: Reasonably soon.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. Breithaupt: Question of the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch), with respect to --

Mr. Roy: Ah, there she is. She should have stayed away.

Mr. Breithaupt: I think she is the minister we can talk to on housing when the Minister of Housing (Mr. Handleman) is not here; is that correct?

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Housing? That is not within her secretariat.

Mr. Breithaupt: Not within her secretariat! Oh, I will pass then for the moment until the Minister of Housing comes in.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Kitchener has no more questions for the Liberal Party?

The hon. member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, there is nobody here.

Mr. Singer: The Attorney General (Mr. Welch); the Solicitor General (Mr. Kerr) --

Mr. Lewis: Oh, there is somebody here; the Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) is here.

Mr. Renwick: And the House leader (Mr. Winkler) is here.

WATTS FROM WASTE PROJECT

Mr. Lewis: I am going to come to the Minister of Energy in a moment, but may I first ask the Minister of the Environment about this solid waste task force of his? When is he going to table the report on disposables which was promised for, I guess June 1, 1973? Since tomorrow will be the anniversary of when the report was to be tabled, when will that aspect of the task force report emerge?

Hon. W. Newman: As I believe I said in the House before, the solid waste task force report is in my hands and we are still doing some very intensive study on it. I would hope we would table it fairly soon.

Mr. Renwick: Is that intensive study as distinct from extensive study?

Hon. W. Newman: Intensive

Mr. Renwick: Intensive on this topic and extensive on the other topic?

Mr. Lewis: Can I remind the minister that this task force was appointed on Nov. 3, 1972, with the report due in June, 1973? The dimension dealing with returnables or non-returnables was appointed in January, 1973, to report in June 1973. It is now a year later. It has been on the minister’s desk for at least two months; when is he going to table the report in the House?

Hon. W. Newman: The full report has not been on my desk for any more than about six weeks.

Mr. Lewis: I stand corrected. It has been on his bloody desk for six weeks; when is he going to table it in the House?

Hon. W. Newman: The solid waste task report has been there. All the statistical data which came with it is voluminous and we are still studying it very intensively.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is incompetent.

Hon. W. Newman: Thank you.

Mr. Lewis: We would absorb it in three days.

Hon. W. Newman: Would they?

Mr. Lewis: Yes. Why is he suppressing it? Why will he not release that report?

Hon. W. Newman: The member wouldn’t know a thing when he was finished. He wouldn’t know how to read it.

Mr. Lewis: Why won’t the minister release that report to the House?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Renwick: He’s a meandering idiot.

Mr. Lewis: What is it that he is hiding?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. W. Newman: Not a thing.

Mr. Roy: The minister should tell them he can’t read.

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

Mr. Lewis: Six weeks to read a report that is a year late?

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Besides, the NDP would make decisions after absorbing it for three minutes.

Mr. Speaker: I assume that the hon. member --

Mr. Lewis: We would make them before we had the report.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: We don’t need the report to make a decision on non-returnable bottles.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: In view of the fact that the crisis in garbage in the Metro area has been well known for the last four years and in view of the fact there has been well established precedent and practice in other parts of the world, particularly in Europe, for dealing with garbage, why would it take so long for this ministry and its task force to deal with this matter?

Hon. W. Newman: The task force report, as I said, arrived on my desk some six weeks ago --

Mr. Deacon: But he has had a year --

Hon. W. Newman: We are studying it. We are doing some very intensive study on the report and on this whole matter of the beverage container industry.

Mr. Lewis: Keep on stalling.

Mr. Renwick: Just what day was it put on his desk?

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr. Lewis: I have a question of the Minister of Energy. What would the minister’s response be, attitude be, what action would he take --

Mr. Renwick: No. It’s a hypothetical question; don’t let the minister answer that.

Mr. Lewis: I don’t think so.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He won’t get a hypothetical answer, I can tell the member that.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the member will rephrase it so that it is not hypothetical?

Mr. Lewis: This aberration on my left, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Breithaupt: Now we know why the member is always here for questions.

Mr. Lewis: Take that off Hansard, will you?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: If we won’t the member will.

Mr. Lewis: I will begin again. What would the minister do, now, that I am informing him not by means of hypothesis but by means of fact, were he to learn that the 45-day period which the Premiers and Prime Minister and the Ministers of Energy accepted as the period required for depletion of existing stocks by the oil companies, was a deliberate and calculated underestimate on their part and that they have reserves available for a period of between 84 and 100 days, based on National Energy Board figures, based on Statistics Canada figures and based on Interprovincial Pipeline figures? At what point, as Minister of Energy, would he intervene, having that kind of information?

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet, I might draw to your attention that in the gallery there are 80 students --

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): That is what one calls defusing the issue.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- from grade 7 of McNaughton Avenue public school in Chatham. I knew you would want to know that, sir.

Mr. Renwick: It is known as a pause for reflection.

Mr. Lewis: Now that the minister has gathered his thoughts.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, my reaction, I think, would be threefold. First of all I would agree with the hon. member for Riverdale that the question is hypothetical.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Second, I would want to consider the words of the leader of the New Democratic Party with a great deal of scepticism, because I’ve learned that in the past.

Some hon. members: Shame, shame.

Mr. MacDonald: What about the minister’s scepticism about the oil companies and their self-serving statistics?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Third, I would want to ponder on this and think about it before I replied.

Mr. Singer: Those comments are out of order -- rule 27(b).

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, since a careful assessment of all those sources, something that his ministry has not taken, shows that the oil companies in Ontario had an additional 19,361,000 bbl in inventory, over and above what was used for the 45-day period. And since they were receiving $2.70 more for each of those barrels, based on the new price, when in fact they had been purchased on the old price; and since that has given them a windfall gain, uncalculated by this government, of a minimum of $52 million, over and above all of the additional price increases at the pump, is the minister prepared to intervene and take back that money by way of tax?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I remain sceptical, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, Mr. Speaker, since in fact the minister was wrong on the understanding that flowed from the conference in March about the cost at the pump, and there was serious misunderstanding about the value at the wellhead, will he now launch an inquiry into the extent of inventory which the oil companies had in order to take back the additional windfall profits that they’ve made and use that money to offset the increases that have occurred for the consumers of Ontario?

Will the minister not concede that this is yet another aspect of the oil situation which he never even contemplated investigating and on which he simply accepted the word of the oil companies?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, the answer is no, at this moment. Certainly we have been wrong from time to time. We will continue to be wrong from time to time --

Mr. Lewis: They sure have been -- and on this one.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- but I would say this, we on this side of the House aren’t nearly as wrong as my New Democratic friend, who is consistently wrong.

Mr. MacDonald: Come on, the government has been dead wrong all the time.

Mr. Lewis: I’m going to leave it at that, Mr. Speaker, but I’m distributing the figures and I hope the minister will assess them carefully. I assume he will.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I await them with breathless anticipation.

Mr. Lewis: Well, he should. It’s another $52 million ripoff of Ontario consumers which the minister refuses to protect them from!

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, we might well ask, how much of that goes into Saskatchewan, that socialist haven out there?

Mr. MacDonald: Nothing.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Nothing.

Mr. Lewis: Not a penny, because every penny of it is taken by way of royalties!

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Oh, come on! They’re the biggest ripoff artists in the country.

Mr. Lewis: They pay no royalties in Ontario. It all goes into the coffers of the oil companies. That’s the difference.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It’s the socialists’ ripoff.

Interjections by hon. members.

PRICE INCREASES BY CHRYSLER CANADA LTD.

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: Now that Chrysler has indicated a need to raise its prices yet another $35 per automobile, allegedly because of the increase in steel prices, will the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations require Chrysler to explain to him in detail, either in person or in writing, what it is that has justified these price increases, and to set it out so that we in the House can see the economic cause-and-effect relationship?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Mr. Speaker, as I recall, some perhaps two weeks ago the same hon. member asked a similar question; and as I recollect, sir, I wrote to --

Mr. Lewis: That was about Ford.

Hon. Mr. Clement: It was Ford, I’m sorry; quite correct. If my memory serves me correctly, I wrote to Ford within a few days thereafter and, to my best recollection, have not received a response as of this date. I have no hesitation in writing them. Again, I can’t anticipate what the response will be, but I will be more than pleased to write to them if that will serve the purpose.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, I take it in this --

Hon. Mr. Clement: Is the member thinking of buying one?

Mr. Lewis: No.

Mr. Renwick: We suggest the minister communicate by telegram.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): They buy foreign cars, not Canadian-made cars.

Mr. Lewis: The government offered a Chrysler but I turned it down as it happened.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: What did the member get?

Mr. Shulman: A Cadillac.

Mr. Lewis: The minister won’t speak for him I know, but from what the Premier (Mr. Davis) said in the House the other day, will the minister also table this correspondence as it is undertaken by the government?

Hon. Mr. Clement: First, I will speak for the Premier. I saw him a day or two ago and he asked me to express his best to the member.

Mr. Renwick: How is he? Is he well?

Mr. Deans: The minister probably saw him the same time as we did.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Second, I will consider tabling it. I won’t undertake that right now.

STUDY ON FOOD COMPANY PROFITABILITY

Mr. Lewis: All right; I have one last question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

Now that Dominion Stores has experienced a 36 per cent increase in profit in the 52-week period ending March 31, 1974, and they are indicating this was a significant increase in profit for them but saying that any excess profit occurred further down the line, will the minister ask Dominion Stores to document for him the profits taken at the middleman position as they indicated in their statement to the annual meeting of share- holders?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated some weeks ago, my staff will be doing a second part to the food study review. I presume that information, or a substantial portion of it, would be contained in my staff’s comments in that second portion.

I have written to them, and as a matter of fact I have had some correspondence back from many of them.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, that report was scheduled for the third week in June. Can the minister guarantee to have that report available to the House before we adjourn if the adjournment date is, let us say roughly around June 20 or June 25?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Is that when we are finishing?

Mr. Lewis: Well that is the scuttlebutt, but I am using it hypothetically.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I can use all the help I can get, Mr. Speaker. I want to plan a little holiday and it gives me some direction in any event.

No, I won’t guarantee it, but I will do this: Should the House rise and that report be available on that date, or if the report is available some days after the House has risen, I will file a copy of it in the Clerk’s office so that it is available to the members of the House. Should any of the members of the House require copies I will be more than pleased to supply them if they are available. If the report is ready on that date, yes I will certainly table it in the House.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you.

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

ALLEGED BLACK MARKET IN DRIVERS’ LICENCES

Mr. Lewis: The Attorney General is here. He is so seldom here, I would like to ask him a question.

May I ask the Attorney General what has he done with the request from Action Line of the Windsor Star to investigate a possible black market trade in drivers’ licences in the Province of Ontario, which they documented for him some weeks ago and in response to which they have not yet heard anything?

Hon. R. Welch (Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General): The investigation is being carried on, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: I didn’t hear that, it was such a sotto voce response.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Regardless of the vocabulary, if I understood the question --

Mr. Lewis: It wasn’t vocabulary.

Hon. Mr. Welch: -- it was: what was I doing with respect to the request for the investigation. The answer was “investigating.”

Mr. Deans: Was?

Mr. Breithaupt: Is.

Mr. Lewis: If I understand it, the allegations which were made were fairly significant. Does the minister not think he should be making some report rather sooner on matters which may conceivably have involved false imprisonment or mistaken imprisonment because of mistakes in drivers’ licences, which are apparently reproduced and provided to some person other than the owner? Is this not something on which the minister should be reporting publicly rather than taking all this time? The file went to him initially in April.

Mr. Breithaupt: Which year?

Mr. Lewis: April 5, 1974.

Hon. Mr. Welch: When the investigation is complete, Mr. Speaker, I will be very happy to make a report.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

POLICE RAID ON HOTEL

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Solicitor General. Could the Solicitor General elaborate at all on the extent and kind of investigation that is going to be conducted into the affairs of the Niagara district police because of their raid on the Landmark hotel?

Is the inquiry going to be a public one? Which section of the Police Act is it going to be conducted under? Is it going to be conducted solely by the Ontario Police Commission? And would the Solicitor General tell us if he has issued any temporary guidelines or instructions to police in Ontario as to how they should behave in connection with search and seizure procedures, whether they move under the Narcotics Control Act or under any other Act?

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday in reply to questions from the hon. members, we are considering two sections, section 56 and section 57 of the Police Act. Section 56, as I indicated, makes it possible to hold an inquiry under the Public Inquiry Act, to subpoena witnesses and to hold public hearings. As I indicated yesterday, I felt that this section would be adequate in view of the type of inquiry that would be held here. We’re not dealing with an across-the-province type of inquiry. We’re not inquiring into organized crime or the drug trafficking trade in Ontario --

Mr. Singer: That’s the whole problem.

Mr. Renwick: It affects the whole province and the Solicitor General knows it.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- we’re dealing with a specific incident that took place in Fort Erie and that’s where we want to get the information.

Mr. Singer: Yes, that seems to be where it happened.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Certainly, as I indicated subsequent to the question period yesterday, public hearings will be held. I don’t think there’s any real restrictions or inhibitions in that section.

For example, if we use section 57 with the royal commission procedure and the appointments that are necessary and the structure that is necessary under that section, we’re talking about a year or 18 months before we’ll have any kind of a report.

Mr. Singer: We are not.

Mr. Renwick: No we’re not; that’s ridiculous.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: This is what happens with royal commissions. The members know that.

Mr. Renwick: That’s ridiculous and the minister knows it.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s absurd.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I want a report within three or four months.

Mr. Singer: By way of supplementary -- is the Solicitor General through?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: On the other part of the member’s question: I’ve certainly been discussing these events with the chairman of the Ontario Police Commission since the statement yesterday. He is proceeding now to seek out a counsel who would act for this investigation, somebody we hope would be outside the government --

Mr. Roy: Outside the Conservative Party?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- and to proceed to set out the guidelines for an inquiry, the type of subpoenas and the number of subpoenas that would be required; for example whether we would subpoena people from New York State, and this sort of thing.

Mr. Singer: Why would New York State have to participate in the inquiry?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Certainly all that has been discussed. We want to discuss it further with the Premier who is away today.

Mr. Renwick: Oh come on.

Mr. Deans: He was away yesterday and the day before.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): How is he doing?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That will be discussed further with him as well. The machinery is in motion. It will be a few days before final decisions are made.

Mr. Breithaupt: He threw the ball to Stanfield who couldn’t catch.

Mr. Singer: By way of a supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would the minister not agree with me that Elmer Bell has really disqualified himself from any ability to conduct this hearing --

Mr. Lewis: Oh, of course.

Mr. Singer: -- because immediately after the news was published in the Toronto papers he said he could see no reason to investigate? Should the minister not seek someone else to conduct the investigation?

An hon. member: That’s right.

Mr. Lewis: It’s a total conflict of interest.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated yesterday, Mr. Bell was misquoted.

Mr. Singer: He didn’t say he was misquoted.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Bell told the reporter: “There won’t be an inquiry until I have a report.” That is what he said.

Mr. Singer: He didn’t say that. He said there would be no inquiry.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: He didn’t indicate that under no circumstances would there be an inquiry. Why doesn’t the member ask Mr. Bell what he said? He’ll tell the member that.

Mr. Singer: He didn’t say he was misquoted.

Mr. Lewis: He’s got a conflict of interest; that’s why.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, by way of a supplementary question: Was the director of the raid a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the regional Niagara police? Who was in charge of that raid?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, it was a joint operation.

Mr. Renwick: Who was in charge that night?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The Niagara region police were in charge that night.

Mr. Singer: They walked in together, all 50 of them. 50 chiefs and no Indians.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary of the Solicitor General. In view of his comments two days ago that he would approve similar raids, would he state whether he is prepared to approve similar raids in the light of his investigation or whether he is prepared to advise the police to not conduct any further raids until this inquiry is over?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, what I said was that raids of this kind, which are carried out quite frequently, particularly in this area, are something that I don’t object to.

Mr. Singer: Raids of this kind?

Mr. Lewis: What does the minister mean, raids of this kind?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: What I certainly didn’t say was that I condoned the type of activity that went on inside the Landmark hotel.

Mr. Roy: Doesn’t the minister think --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Until I had that report and full information, because everything was assumption at that point -- the degree of the search, for example -- I had indicated that I wouldn’t condone the type of intimate physical search that went on --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- but certainly as regards raids on premises where drug activity is suspected, they are something that is quite common and that I certainly wouldn’t prohibit.

Mr. Singer: That’s right. But --

Mr. Roy: Yes. But probably --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for High Park.

Mr. Shulman: I have a question.

Mr. Speaker: Oh. Supplementary?

Mr. Roy: If I might just ask one further supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary; the hon. member for Parkdale.

Mr. J. Dukszta (Parkdale): Is the minister aware that during the physical examinations of the women conducted by the police officers, only wooden spatulas were used and no gloves, which constitutes a major hazard to the health of the women because of cross-infection by the examiners?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I am sorry. I couldn’t hear the hon. member. Could he turn his microphone?

Mr. Dukszta: During the examinations conducted by the police officers at the raid, no gloves were used during the vaginal examinations.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: As I said yesterday, Mr. Speaker, my information is that the women were not touched by the policewomen.

Mr. Shulman: That is not so.

Mr. Singer: There seems to be a little conflict there. The information that the minister has must be wrong.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, a further supplementary: Following what we have at least heard with respect to the rather crude procedures involved in this whole situation, does the minister not agree this is a matter of greater public importance than just the fact of the raid and the persons who have been involved in Fort Erie? As a result, does he not think that an investigation should be promptly attended to, publicly, rather than waiting again weeks and weeks for apparently more reports and more information?

Mr. Singer: And not by the Ontario Police Commission.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: No, Mr. Speaker. This is one of the reasons why I am now favouring section 56. We can work much more quickly under that section than setting up the structure of section 57 --

Mr. Renwick: No, section 57 is the right one, and the minister knows it.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- where we require a chairman, probably a judge, and all the paraphernalia of a formal royal commission.

Mr. Singer: What paraphernalia?

Mr. Renwick: We don’t need all the paraphernalia.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: By using section 56 we can get some information more quickly.

Mr. Renwick: Only in secret, and the minister knows it.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I agree that there should be public hearings. There certainly should be public hearings --

Mr. Singer: The whole thing has to be done in public.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- and there can be under section 56. I don’t want to wait, as I said before, for a year or a year and a half for a report.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is retreating again. He is changing his position again.

Mr. Havrot: Ah, go on!

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I would ask the hon. members to think of one royal commission that took less than a year to conduct an inquiry --

Mr. Singer: Yes, the Leiner one!

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Lewis: They have all been conducted by the minister’s government. The member for High Park’s didn’t take a year.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: What about the member for High Park’s investigation?

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: There have been five supplementaries now.

Mr. Singer: This is not a supplementary. It’s a point of information --

Mr. Speaker: There have been five supplementaries. The hon. member may convey the information privately to the minister.

Mr. Singer: Dalton Wells investigated the Leiner case in a matter of months.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Lewis: What about the member for High Park’s investigation?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It was a whitewash.

Mr. Renwick: That constitutes an attack on the judiciary. The member is attacking the judiciary.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Let’s have a “Shulman” investigation right now.

Mr. Shulman: Another one?

Mr. Lewis: It completely exonerated him.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for High Park.

NURSING STAFF SHORTAGE

Mr. Shulman: A question of the Provincial Secretary for Social Development: Would the minister agree with me that the policies of her department have resulted in a province-wide shortage of nursing staff?

Hon. Mr. Birch (Provincial Secretary for Social Development): No, Mr. Speaker, I would not agree with the member.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Can the minister then explain this letter which has been sent out from the Toronto Western Hospital to all its staff, which reads as follows: “The impending closure of beds is in large part due to a lack of nursing staff. This shortage of nurses is province-wide.”

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I don’t know how the member can fault the social policy field for that condition.

Mr. Shulman: Is the minister not responsible for health policy?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we are.

Mr. Shulman: As a further supplementary, if the minister is responsible for policy -- let me make it a little more simple -- what policy is she developing to alleviate the province-wide shortage of nursing staff?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, that is under consideration in the policy field.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for St. George is next.

ALLEGED FALSIFICATION OF MATERIAL

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): My question is of the Attorney General: Now that the Attorney General knows, or ought to know, there has apparently been a deliberate falsification of material from a government committee, will he investigate this situation with a view to laying criminal charges and will he report back to this House before we rise at the end of this session?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, certainly the Attorney General will conduct the investigation or the review to which the hon. member makes reference. The amount of time that may require would preclude me from making any commitment as to when I would be prepared to report, but I certainly will take the matter under investigation and I assure the hon. member that we will do it as quickly as possible.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Hamilton Mountain.

HOVERCRAFT SERVICE

Mr. J. R. Smith (Hamilton Mountain): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications.

What is the ministry prepared to do to inaugurate and support a GO hovercraft service between Hamilton and Toronto now that interests have declared there should be a Toronto-Niagara-on-the-Lake hovercraft service instituted this summer?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, to assure the hon. members that this is not a planted question, did he say STOL at the beginning?

Mr. J. R. Smith: A GO hovercraft programme, similar to the GO train programme.

Mr. Lewis: GO hover? Really catchy name.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I can say that the ministry to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t been considering such a thing. We are very interested at this time in expanding and developing new areas for our dial-a-bus service.

Mr. Lewis: GO hovercraft?

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: Why doesn’t the minister first of all provide some sort of reasonable rail transportation from Hamilton to Toronto before he gets into this ridiculous programme?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I think that perhaps after July 8 we will have more input into the Ministry of Transport in Ottawa and perhaps we will get that rail service for the member.

Mr. MacDonald: Dreamer!

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: I believe it is the turn of the New Democratic Party; I will call the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Gaunt) next.

Mr. Lewis: We are going down.

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry; the hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside.

USE OF ETHYLENE OXIDE

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food regarding ethylene oxide, which is often used to sterilize various foods; including flour, cocoa, dried eggs and dried fruits. Is the minister aware of the potential public health problem which has been reported recently by doctors at Columbia University in connection with the use of this toxic and potentially mutagenic substance?

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): No, Mr. Speaker.

An. hon member: Smarten up.

Mr. Burr: Mr. Speaker, as a supplementary: Does the Ministry of Agriculture and Food not subscribe to the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-monthly publication of the American Chemical Society?

Mr. Lewis: Which all of us in this caucus read, every night, every page.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: It may well do, Mr. Speaker; I don’t personally subscribe.

Mr. Germa: Why not?

Mr. Burr: Will the minister consider consulting the current May-June issue and look into this subject?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I will be very glad to.

Mr. Burr: Thank you.

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

TOTALIZER EQUIPMENT AT RACETRACKS

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: What company provides the totalizers for all of the Ontario Jockey Club racetracks in Ontario which operate under the Ontario Racing Commission appointed by this government?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, the parimutuel betting at all racetracks in Ontario is supervised by the federal Ministry of Agriculture. There are five totalizer companies supplying equipment to the various tracks in Ontario. I am advised that each of the five companies has a certain type of specialty in terms of size of equipment or capacity of equipment. For example, there are one or two companies which specialize in supplying totalizer equipment to the class B tracks, that is the smaller tracks.

The companies contract with the operator of each track for the supply of the equipment. The specifications for the equipment are laid down by the federal Ministry of Agriculture for the very reason it supervises the parimutuel betting.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth is next. A supplementary? Yes.

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary: Could the minister inform me if one Lou Chesler is associated with any of the five companies supplying these machines to the racetracks?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I can’t give the answer to that question right now. I’m just not aware of that information.

Mr. Shulman: The answer is yes.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Lou Chesler?

Mr. Gaunt: Could the minister find out and report?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: The hon member for Wentworth.

DISCRIMINATION IN CHILDREN’S SPORTS

Mr. Deans: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Provincial Secretary for Social Development. Will the provincial secretary take steps to ensure that whatever is required be done to guarantee that children involved in sports are assessed on ability rather than sex, and that any child with the ability to play ball or hockey or any other team sport be allowed to play, notwithstanding ridiculous rules that prevail at the local level, for example, keeping young females from playing baseball in the Hamilton Police minors?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: What about wrestling? Best two out of three?

Mr. Renwick: Come off it.

Mr. Lewis: It is good it is in Hansard. We can send it to Laura Sabia as an example of what she has to contend with.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware that this is a widespread practice. I personally sponsor several baseball teams of girls in my own riding and I’m sure that there are many girls playing in organized sports across the province.

Mr. Roy: Is the provincial secretary discriminating against boys?

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question; the minister obviously misunderstands. At the moment it is virtually impossible for a girl, regardless of her ability, to play baseball on a “boys” -- quote, unquote -- baseball team. In fact, I’m asking whether the minister believes that it is proper to discriminate on the basis of sex against people who have ability.

Mr. Renwick: Does the provincial secretary understand it now?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, obviously I don’t believe that it is right to discriminate on the basis of sex.

Mr. Havrot: Is that the best the member for Wentworth can bring up in the House today?

Mr. Deans: A supplementary: Will the provincial secretary make whatever amendment is required to whatever law to ensure that it isn’t done? It was appealed in New York State and upheld.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: Two years ago those people laughed at the thought of a Lieutenant Governor being a woman, or a Clerk of the Legislature.

Mr. Lewis: I wish we could get it all on the record.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. member for Ottawa East.

DOUBLE CHARGES BY POLICE

Mr. Roy: I have a question of the Solicitor General, Mr. Speaker. What possible justification is there for police forces across this province, and especially the OPP, that they are stopping people in relation to the consumption or alcohol and following a breathalyser test are laying charges under sections 234 and 236 of the Criminal Code when, as the minister knows, it’s impossible to get a conviction on both charges? What justification is there for that, apart from the fact that maybe it facilitates plea bargaining?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, I don’t want it assumed that I’m familiar with those two sections the hon. member is talking about.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, by way of supplementary: As the minister probably knows section 234 of the Code is the one dealing with the consumption of alcohol resulting in an alcohol level in the blood of over 0.08. Section 236 of the Code is the section that deals with impaired driving.

In light of the fact that it’s impossible to get a conviction for the same occurrence on both of these sections, what justification is there for the police to lay charges under both these sections for the same occurrence?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member implied I think it is based to some extent in relation to plea bargaining.

Mr. Roy: What else?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I think also that because of the uncertainty of the charge they proceed with one or the other, depending on how the local Crown attorney feels the particular matter should be proceeded with in court.

Mr. Roy: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker, if I might: Is the minister not aware of the fact that if the police should, for instance, lay a charge under one of these sections and not be successful they can turn around and lay the other charge if they were not successful?

Is the Solicitor General saying that he favours the plea bargaining process in some way, especially on the part of the police and on the part of the Crown, in view of the many reports that have been made in this province that are critical of this process of plea bargaining, especially on the part of the police and the part of the Crown in laying excessive or duplicative charges?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, I don’t necessarily agree with the procedure of plea bargaining at all.

Mr. Roy: That’s what he just said before.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: This is something certainly that is being looked at from the point of view of the Attorney General’s department and the Law Reform Commission. There has been a great deal of criticism about plea bargaining across the board, not necessarily in respect to just those two sections. As you know, for example, Mr. Speaker, there are times when the charge of careless driving will be laid along with a charge of following too close or something like that, under the Highway Traffic Act.

Mr. Roy: That shouldn’t be done; that’s an abuse.

An hon. member: It gives options.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: This goes on quite frequently and gives options to the Crown. I don’t think the member should necessarily attach the blame to the police. I think the decision in respect of these charges --

Mr. Roy: It’s an abuse of the process.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- and the question of proceeding with these charges are not really the police’s responsibility. There is the option. I’m not aware of any case in which when there has been a dismissal on one charge the police or the Crown would then proceed with the other charge. I’m not aware of that.

Mr. Roy: They can.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for High Park.

PENSION STUDY

Mr. Shulman: I have a question of the Chairman of Management Board, Mr. Speaker. Is it true he has received a study on pensions which he has read and studied, and instructed his staff that it is not to be released?

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman of Management Board of Cabinet): That is not true.

Mr. Shulman: Has the minister received a study on pensions?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I have several studies within my operation; we are in the process now of making recommendations which we will bring to the legislative assembly.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Does the minister intend to release those studies?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I haven’t made that determination as yet, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Shulman: He ordered his staff not to release it.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I did not order my staff not to release it.

Mr. Shulman: Well, I am going to prove the minister is lying again.

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: The great Sherlock Holmes!

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I don’t think the hon. member should use that expression unless he is prepared to back it up; either that or he should withdraw it.

An hon. member: Withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker: Either that or he should withdraw it.

Mr. Shulman: I will temporarily withdraw it.

An hon. member: Oh, the big hero!

COMMUTER TICKET INTERCHANGEABILITY

Mr. Deacon: I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. The minister will remember that on April 2 I asked him to contact the Railway Transport Committee of the federal Canadian Transport Commission with regard to co-ordinating bus and rail schedules and having interchangeable fares in the area north of Toronto served by CN and CP commuter services ordered by the Railway Transport Committee. What progress has the minister made during the past two months in achieving this important improvement in public transportation, especially in view of the urgency, now that fuel prices for motorists have increased 20 per cent and people are seeking improved ways of getting to and from work?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, as a result of the question by the hon. member, I asked the staff to look into this matter. As yet I have received no report from the contacts that have been made with the federal department.

Mr. Deacon: Supplementary: In view of the fact that the chairman of the Railway Transport Committee, at the final hearings in Toronto before the Barrie service was determined as to rates and schedules, indicated his keen interest in having an interchangeable schedules and fares, would the minister pursue that more vigorously?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, the matter is being pursued. I trust the member recognizes, Mr. Speaker, that indicating keen interest on the part of the chairman doesn’t necessarily indicate any degree of speed on his part.

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

RENT CONTROL

Mr. Cassidy: I have a question of the Attorney General, Mr. Speaker, since he is in the House for a change. Could the minister tell the House whether the government is planning any amendments to the Landlord and Tenant Act; and in particular would those amendments permit some form of rent control or rent regulation or give to tenants the right to organize in negotiations with landlords?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, no, not at this time.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is any review of the Landlord and Tenant Act planned during the current year?

Hon. Mr. Welch: The legislation in our ministry is always being reviewed, but I was answering the specific question. We don’t plan to introduce any amendments at this session.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, would the minister indicate whether he agrees with the comments of his colleague, the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells), who said earlier this week that he favoured some form of rent control?

Hon. Mr. Welch: The Minister of Education, if I read that report correctly, shared a personal opinion, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Roy: What does personal mean?

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

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

The member for York Centre.

PROVINCIAL TRAILS ACT

Mr. Deacon moves first reading of bill intituled. An Act respecting Provincial Trails.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Speaker, I am introducing again this private member’s bill regarding provincial trails in the hope that perhaps the new Provincial Secretary for Resources Development will start to do something about this. His predecessor had a seminar last year at which time the need for expanded provincial trails systems and co-ordination of them was expressed, but there seems to have been no action since the new minister took over.

Mr. Lewis: How about a GO trails system?

Mr. Speaker: Are there further bills?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I would ask your indulgence once again sir. I was not able to rise in time to present a report. I wonder if I may have the permission of the House to --

Mr. Renwick: No, not this morning. We went through this yesterday.

Mr. Lewis: No, I think we were indulgent yesterday.

Mr. Renwick: We were gracious yesterday. Does the government want us to be gracious two days in a row?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: Of course, I am quite prepared to seek the authority of the House to revert to reports. Do I have that agreement?

Mr. Shulman: Not this week.

Mr. Lewis: Of course you do.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, he does.

Mr. Speaker: We do not have unanimous agreement, I regret to inform the hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: This is frustrating the business of the province.

Mr. Lewis: I would have asked for a reconsideration, but the Speaker is very quick.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: A divided House.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Speaker, earlier in the morning in the east gallery were students from the Roman Catholic St. Anthony’s Secondary School of Harrow in the great riding of Essex South. I thought it would be fit and proper to bring this to the attention of the members of the House.

Mrs. M. Scrivener (St. David): Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day I would like to draw the members’ attention to the fact that in a few minutes 35 students from Deer Park Public School will be here with their teacher, Mr. David George.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, I wonder, inasmuch as there was some reconsideration on the other side, if we could revert to the item of reports. I think maybe the circumstances have changed. Am I right?

Mr. Shulman: Not on a request from the House leader, never.

Mr. Lewis: The Minister of Transportation and Communications asked for it.

Mr. Renwick: If he had stayed in his seat we might have got it ironed out.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I certainly wouldn’t want to take advantage of the generosity of the opposite side.

Mr. Lewis: Fratricidal disputes in the NDP!

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: But if the leader of the New Democratic Party is able to bring unity back I would ask again for consideration to revert to reports.

Mr. Renwick: Just be careful and he may get it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I say it very kindly.

Mr. Lewis: I don’t know but it is worth --

Mr. Speaker: I can only say that I did ask for the agreement of the House and I heard a dissenting voice.

Mr. Renwick: Ask again.

Mr. Speaker: Do I still hear a dissenting voice?

Mr. MacDonald: Away we go.

Mr. Speaker: Is there no dissenting voice? Then we may revert.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I want you to compare the authority over here compared with the shambles over there.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Reports.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table the annual construction programme report for 1974-1975 of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications for the information of all members --

Mr. Shulman: We’ve already got that.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- including the one for High Park, with my sincere thanks.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: They already have it.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

CITY OF TORONTO ACT

Mr. Wardle moves second reading of Bill Pr20, An Act respecting the City of Toronto.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, on Bill Pr20 I want to take the attention of the assembly for about 2% minutes on the questions raised by this bill.

When the bill was originally introduced it contained a section 8 dealing with the authority of the city of Toronto with respect to demolition and a moratorium for which the city asked before there could be any demolition of any building, including housing, in the city of Toronto until such time as a redevelopment plan had been discussed and promulgated if that were then necessary. When this bill was before the assembly a year ago there was substantial divergence amongst the Tory members of the private bills committee dealing with the bill and a number of the members supported the city of Toronto at that time. I am speaking specifically of the member for St. David (Mrs. Scrivener); speaking specifically of the member for Don Mills (Mr. Timbrell); and the member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Drea).

Now, the identical provision for practical purposes, and with some sophisticated refinements, came before the private bills committee again this year. I must say, with the greatest respect -- because I have the greatest respect for him -- the mayor of the city of Toronto fell into the trap of negotiating with the Tory government behind closed doors on the question of whether or not the city of Toronto would be granted an authority which was of urgent concern to the city of Toronto. It is of urgent concern in the riding of Riverdale, which is ward 7 and ward 8, and of urgent need in the area of ward 6 in the city. And the private bills committee went through this gyration of the parliamentary assistant to the Treasurer, indicating that, yes, the government was going to bring forward legislation within two weeks, before the end of the month -- and today is the last day of the month. The legislation is not here. The reports in the newspaper and the Treasurer (Mr. White) yesterday indicated that, “Oh yes, it will be in this week.”

An hon. member: That’s what he said two weeks ago.

Mr. Renwick: Now, let’s not fool around. The government of Ontario is not going to introduce the kind of demolition control with the moratorium which the city of Toronto wants, regardless of the discussions which are going to take place.

What I am saying to the assembly, Mr. Speaker, and what I would like to have happen, is that this bill be now not read a second time. Let it be stood down until we know what the government is going to do by way of general legislation in this particular and difficult field.

I did not know until this morning that this bill was going to be called. I am surprised that my friend, the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Mr. Wardle) would introduce this bill for second reading this morning. It is second reading?

An hon. member: It is second reading.

Mr. Renwick: Yes. I am surprised that he would do it this morning in the hiatus which exists between an acquiescence in the needs of the city of Toronto and the government’s policy about this matter, which has never been before us. We have never had an opportunity to discuss it. All we know is that until two weeks ago, the government was adamantly opposed to this kind of legislation.

In all fairness to the city council of the city of Toronto, this bill should not be proceeded with until such time as we have had before us the general legislation dealing with this question of demolition control. It is not possible for the government of the Province of Ontario to fool around with the city of Toronto on a matter of such urgency as the demolition control provision of Bill Pr20; which is now not part of the bill because it was not reported out. It was so close.

And I may say, you know, we all talk to each other occasionally across the barriers to communication between Tory members and New Democratic Party members. I was satisfied that the member for Scarborough Centre was going to vote for that bill and that provision of the bill. It turned out that he didn’t vote for it. The result was that it was a 10 to nine decision in the private bills committee about this matter. Not one single Tory member supported the city of Toronto, when a year ago, on the identical provision, at least three of the Tory members supported it.

It’s all right occasionally for Tory unity -- I know the clerk is explaining to the Speaker now that since the provision is not in the bill, I shouldn’t be speaking about it at all. But, as usual, that’s not going to affect my decision to proceed in my comments about it.

I am simply saying to the Tory members for the city of Toronto in a totally non-partisan sense, they cannot defeat the city of Toronto on this issue. It is crucial to the inner core of the city.

It is a matter of urgent need.

If the government is not prepared to introduce legislation substantially the same as the legislation which the city of Toronto wants, then I am asking the assembly not to proceed with this bill today; to leave it at least open that the matter could with unanimous consent, in the ecumenical spirit that we always exhibit when unanimous consent is requested of us --

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): That’s got to be the biggest joke of the week.

Mr. Renwick: -- be referred back to the private bills committee, so that the city of Toronto will have the benefit in their private legislation of something which is urgently needed.

The game is very nice. The end of the month isn’t here yet, but it will be at midnight tonight. We’re not going to have the legislation by the end of the month which was the commitment, as I understand it, of the government to the mayor of the city of Toronto. The press report and the statement by the Treasurer yesterday would indicate that cabinet considered the matter, but it has not yet been approved by cabinet, and that the cabinet instructed the ministry to go back and discuss it with the city of Toronto. For practical purposes I am prepared to say if a bill is introduced by this government early next week, which is the present commitment of the government -- but, of course, a new month a new commitment, a new ball game -- it will not be the kind of legislation which the city of Toronto wants.

I am asking my friend, the hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine, to acquiesce in a request that this bill be not now read the second time, that he would move on behalf of the city of Toronto that the bill be stood down until this question is finally settled.

Mr. T. A. Wardle (Beaches-Woodbine): Mr. Speaker, the matter of demolition was discussed in this Legislature about one year ago, when at that time it was withdrawn from the city of Toronto bill. I spoke at that time and did suggest the city of Toronto does need some type of demolition authority. It is regrettable that within the past year no acceptable formula was worked out between the city of Toronto and the provincial government.

However, Mr. Speaker, this particular aspect of the city of Toronto bill was withdrawn, and the balance of the items in the city of Toronto bill was passed by the committee. We had the promise of the minister that demolition legislation would be brought forward before the end of May. We did have the statement of the minister the other day that this was quite impossible, but I understand a suggested formula was brought before the cabinet on Wednesday last. The minister mentioned also that he had been in touch with Mayor Crombie of the city of Toronto and they had discussed the matter. While it was not possible to bring this forward before the end of May, I understand the minister’s intention is to bring it forward within the next few days.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I see no reason to hold up the balance of the legislation requested by the city of Toronto while we await this. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, and the members of the House that I too am concerned about the need for demolition authority by the city of Toronto. I will be pushing the minister and will support what is brought forward. I urge the House to pass this section of the city of Toronto bill.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Mr. Speaker, if I may make a few comments in regard to this, I happened, by virtue of a motion of the House, to have the privilege of sitting on the committee on the final day of its deliberations on the city of Toronto bill. My reading of the committee was that there were more than just two Conservative members who supported a form of demolition control. Not only the hon. member for Scarborough Centre and not only the hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine, but other Conservative members recognized that there was a need for some form of demolition control for the city of Toronto. It was only because of the position put forward by the minister that they acquiesced in the defeat, in fact, of that section of the bill. Had the minister not said he would bring forward legislation, that section of the bill would have stood and would have been reported here today.

At the meeting I urged the committee to allow the bill to come to the House in its total form. I urged the committee not to take that section out, but rather to report the bill with the section included, in order that we could await the government legislation. And then, having had an opportunity to evaluate the worth of both pieces of legislation, we could have in this House voted to not proceed with the section dealing with demolition control in the city of Toronto.

I thought then, and I think now, that that would have been a much more appropriate way of dealing with that private bill. And I pointed out that if they proceeded as they finally did, and reported the bill without demolition control, there would be no opportunity for another year for the city or Toronto to get what they needed in the event that the government didn’t proceed.

Now, I have had government promises before; I have been on the private bills committee for something like five years. I have listened to the government talk about its intention to introduce general legislation. I have seen the government defeat other legislation using the same argument; that “we are going to bring in general legislation and, therefore, this isn’t desirable in the particular. We have to have something that affects everyone.”

I am genuinely concerned that the government’s proposals, when they do come in, if they come in -- and I don’t even share the view that they might come in, but if they do come in -- they won’t be adequate, and there will be no opportunity then to do anything with regard to providing the city of Toronto with much-needed protective legislation.

I think that my colleague’s suggestion is a very valuable and valid suggestion. The member for Beaches-Woodbine knows the other sections of the bill, if it didn’t pass until Wednesday next, wouldn’t make any great deal of difference. If this bill didn’t go through until next Tuesday evening, and didn’t receive royal assent next Tuesday evening -- or, for that matter, next Friday morning -- it wouldn’t appreciably alter anything in the city of Toronto, because there is not likely to be a crisis arise in any of the sections that have been reported.

What we are suggesting is, that if the commitment of the Treasurer is a firm commitment, and if the government’s intention is to follow through on the commitment of the Treasurer, then surely it makes sense that the bill not now be read as second time and that it await the proposals of the government and that they be evaluated over and against what was asked for by the city of Toronto. Then, if need be, we could, by the consent of the House, reintroduce the section that the city of Toronto originally asked for, and we could then proceed with the bill in a way which would allow them to proceed.

I want to ask for clarification on a point; I don’t have my rule book right in front of me, but I would like to move that the bill be not now read a second time, but be read a second time this day two weeks hence. I don’t believe that that requires notice, and I would ask the Speaker if he would be kind enough to inform me.

Mr. Speaker: There is no notice required; but I would like to have a motion for it, though.

Mr. Deans: No notice; then I move Mr. Speaker that the --

Mr. Speaker: I should like to have a written motion for it, though.

Mr. Deans: I will do it right now if I can find a pad.

Mr. Deans moves that Bill Pr20 be not now read a second time, but be read a second time this day two weeks hence.

Mr. Speaker: Is there any debate on the motion?

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Mr. Speaker, I too share the concern about putting this bill forward in such haste. When I look through the provisions that have been approved by the private bills committee, I cannot see anything in them that would indicate great urgency for the passage of this bill.

As everyone knows, the key issue concerning the city is related to the rehabilitation of dwellings and structures rather than their demolition, and in clause 4 of this bill there is the ability to make grants for rehabilitation. The city has had considerable success in doing this in certain areas. Not only has it added a great deal to the community, but it has meant that important housing stock of a very desirable type has been restored and improved, rather than allowed to deteriorate and be demolished.

I would certainly urge that the member introducing this bill support the request, because he did not indicate any urgency at any stage of this bill’s progress; in fact, the urgency is that promised general legislation should be introduced as quickly as possible.

It is interesting that only last night the city managed to make an agreement with the developers of St. James Town with regard to development south of St. James Town. They proceeded with that agreement because, although they didn’t entirely agree by any means with the type of development that had been agreed to, they felt that there was urgency to provide some alternatives as soon as possible and to get on with the job.

The city council has been most reasonable and sensible in its approach, and I think we should show them the courtesy, and our recognition of their intelligence and appreciation of how to deal with local needs, of standing this down for the two weeks as moved. In that interim we hope we shall see the general legislation that has been promised to us.

I therefore would indicate our support for the amendment.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to speak to this motion? The hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine had spoken to the motion for second reading. The new motion is before the House; therefore he may speak a second time.

Mr. Wardle: Mr. Speaker, there are two items in this bill which are of some urgency as far as the city of Toronto is concerned, I understand. One is the matter of loans for rehabilitation of dwellings, a very important part of the city of Toronto policy at the moment. The other is the blockage of drains, which is a definite help to homeowners. In addition, there are two or three technical matters.

Two weeks may seem a short time, but two weeks possibly will be a very important time as far as these two items are concerned, so I ask the House to proceed with second reading, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deans: Come on; that is so weak. Two weeks is going to make a difference?

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): I recognize that this bill in all of its parts has a certain degree of urgency for the city of Toronto, but basically the problem is related to that part which is not reported, which is the demolition control section. I am distressed because, having been present at the committee, I am certain that that portion of the bill was not reported because of the very firm assurance given by the minister that indeed there would be general legislation within two weeks.

As we have come to know, two weeks has passed and we still do not have that legislation. This is in keeping with the assurances given year after year to the city of Toronto and its very real and urgent needs.

Because I would be fearful, frankly, that if this bill were to pass today in second reading, and we would then perhaps forget all about that commitment on demolition control, I am supporting the motion for second reading two weeks hence. I regret that has to be my reason for my support of that particular motion.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Mr. Speaker, for a number of reasons -- three -- by way of extension by special permission of this House on two previous occasions, this bill was gone over with a fine tooth comb, and elaborately amended to accommodate the minister. I’m sorry he isn’t here because he is the blockage in the path of the passage of section 8 particularly.

All the rest of the bill went through without any too grave amendments. A number of delegations appeared including the former minister of everything, Mr. Macaulay, who appeared, in this instance, on his own hook as a private citizen. The arguments were splenetic, went to the point and we extracted, in the course of those hearings, some land of understanding from the minister, or so we thought. He reneged on it. He played with it. He circumambulated it. Whatever could be done to offset the bill and put it down was done.

Curiously enough, at the end when the vote came, it succeeded by a single vote. A number of Conservative members, standing on their principles and knowing the intent and needs of their own constituents, felt it mandatory on their part, and in conscience, to move rightly in this direction. The new Minister of Labour turned in the midst of the thing. His vote would have been the nine to eight vote. He reversed it using some kind of specious argumentation in the process. I felt that was unworthy of him in that particular, since he spoke rather well and somewhat vociferously, as is his wont, to the principle of this particular section defending it all along when it was attacked in the course of the hearings; except he didn’t even have the gumption to attend and forfend with respect to the arguments.

The whole committee room was crowded with ratepayers groups and various interested citizens. The case was well made but not well made just on this occasion; it was made on three subsequent occasions before the House and particularly last year. We went through the whole rigmarole, the very same wording. The whole song and dance was performed and the ritual acts taken. Again, the same minister, on the same occasion well over a year ago, made positive statements that he would come forward- -- in the fall session we understood -- with legislation precisely governing this demolition concept.

It doesn’t run counter to Tory thinking or Tory thought or the new image of the Tory party vis-à-vis land acquisitions and what one may do with one’s land. On the contrary, it is right up the party’s own alley. That’s why its own members felt it was perfectly permissible and right in line for them to vote in favour of the section as amended and the repeal provisions in the sections which were not adequate which did not give the proper redress to those who might be hurt in any way.

But that was substantially changed and far more accommodation was made with respect to the builders who would move into the middle of a block. John Sewell appeared with numerous photographs to show what the impact was and what was being done. A whole residential area could be destroyed by simply setting a gaping hole in the midst of the thing, demolishing the particular building in question. It lowers land values so that the sharks may move in and pick up the debris, the flotsam and jetsam, or would stay themselves and create it out of the sea.

All these things were magnificently and adequately handled and, at the end of the day, the minister, feeling the tenor although it was against his own personal grain, conceded and acceded to the requests of the members of the committee, including his own people, and told us he would do certain things.

Why on earth wouldn’t the government now at this stage move in? I’ve stated in committee and will state here in this House again that I’m not wholly satisfied that the product which will be produced by the minister at the end of the day will closely resemble what is being sought after or will be efficacious in this particular regard.

As a matter of fact, I have very severe doubts. If the design of the government is precisely to bring in some watered down malfunctioning piece of legislation because it has some ideological hangup as to what developers’ rights are over against the rest of the citizenry. If that’s the purpose of the thing, then they are effecting it very well this morning, because I would suspect they have removed from contention the more adequate documents over against some unknown and nebulous possible entity.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): That’s right.

Mr. Lawlor: And now we have to wait upon them again. It’s a case again of arbitrariness, high-handedness and a touch of the dictatorial which seems to have pervaded this House of recent days, and hours. I thought that we had seen the demise to it for a while as a result of our standing firm the other night; but no, we start all over again.

Will they never learn? What goes on in their mentality? Have they no concept of the democratic? Do they think mere bulk and force of numbers is going to rule? Well, it can’t rule as far as we are concerned. We shall stand against it on every possible occasion when we feel coerced or afflicted. That is our democratic responsibility. That’s the way parliaments work in the western world, and the sooner a little bit of this heritage becomes evident in this particular chamber then the better it’ll be for all concerned, including that party over there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the members would allow me to interrupt this debate to introduce a group from Unionville, a very fine community north and east of Toronto, which I know very well. There are 30 students with Mr. Chester from Mark II Public School.

Mrs. M. Scrivener (St. David): Mr. Speaker, may I also draw your attention the presence of students from Deer Park. My children from Deer Park Public School have arrived with their teacher Mr. David George.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): What does the member mean, “my children”? She means “the children.” They happen to reside, unhappily, in her riding, but they are not her children, fortunately for all of us.

Mr. Cassidy: This mother image --

Mr. Lewis: “The” children.

An hon. member: The member should be ashamed of himself.

Mr. Speaker: Any further discussion on this motion?

Mr. Lewis: No, one learns after 11 years never to give up.

Mr. Speaker: I must point out to the hon. members that in reviewing the standing orders pertaining to private bills, I do not find that the provision for this sort of motion exists in the standing orders, but at the same time I can find no prohibition.

Mr. Deans: That’s right.

Mr. Speaker: Therefore, in the absence of any standing order prohibiting this procedure, I am going to accept the procedure and I am going to put the motion before the House.

The first question to be decided is the motion whether or not Bill Pr20 shall be now read a second time.

The House divided on the motion that Bill Pr20, be now read a second time, which was approved on the following vote:

Ayes

Nays

Allan Apps Auld Bales Beckett Birch Carton Clement Davis Drea Eaton Evans Ewen Gilbertson Grossman Hamilton Havrot Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton) Hodgson (North York) Kennedy Kerr Lane Leluk MacBeth McIlveen McKeough Meen Morningstar Newman (Ontario South) Nixon (Dovercourt) Nuttall Parrott Rhodes Root Rowe Scrivener Smith (Simcoe East) Smith (Hamilton Mountain) Snow Stewart Taylor Timbrell Turner Villeneuve Wardle Welch Winkler -- 47.

Braithwaite Breithaupt Burr Campbell Cassidy Deacon Deans Dukszta Ferrier Gaunt Lewis MacDonald Martel Newman (Windsor-Walkerville) Renwick Riddell Roy Young -- 18.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Speaker, the “ayes” are 47, the “nays” 18.

Mr. Speaker: I declare the motion for second reading now carried.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, before we proceed, I am rising on a point of order. I should like to know why the estimates of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities did not go on today, in view of the fact that the explanation given to the committee was that it could not proceed because the minister (Mr. Auld) was absent by reason of the serious illness of his wife. I would like an explanation, if I may?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, I would think that that explanation was sufficient.

Mrs. Campbell: It is obvious, Mr. Speaker, that the minister is here, and I should like to have an answer as to why we didn’t proceed.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): What bad taste!

Clerk of the House: The 28th order, House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD

Mr. Chairman: Estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food; does the hon. minister have an opening statement? The hon. minister.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): In view of the fact that it is now 12 o’clock I would suggest that the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, which I take great pride and pleasure in presenting again for the consideration of the members of the House, should be proceeded with. I will have comments to make as we proceed with these estimates and the various matters before us for consideration.

In view of the fact that there has been some delay in proceeding this morning and because of certain commitments which have been made, I would defer now to the agricultural critic of the New Democratic Party who, I believe, will proceed ahead of the agricultural critic of the Liberal Party this morning. I will be pleased to hear him.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): I would just like to explain why I applauded when the Minister of Agriculture and Food rose to introduce his estimates. Unless anybody should misinterpret that applause; it was such an achievement, to finally get these estimates on. I was applauding his arising, not necessarily what he was going to say or what he stands for by way of agriculture.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: You don’t need to spoil it. I thought you agreed.

Mr. MacDonald: I know. I wanted to spoil it at the beginning so we know exactly where we stand.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I think I know where we will be at the end, too.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Now he wants to rise and make a statement.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Chairman, I’d like to express my appreciation to the hon. member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Gaunt). I’ll have to be frank with you; I have other commitments which will take me out of the House early next week. They are unavoidable.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): He’s not a scholar but a gentleman.

Mr. MacDonald: Therefore, if I didn’t get a chance to say a bit of a piece now, I wouldn’t have a chance at all because I’m rather certain that before I get back these will be cleaned off. I will miss some opportunity in the detailed estimates but that per- haps will wait until we get to the eve of the election next year.

By way of some overall comments, Mr. Chairman, I’d like to start out with the contention that the government in Ontario has no long-term policy for agriculture. Its policy is piecemeal; its record is a classic in ad hoc-ery. It reacts to crises and to needs once they become so pressing that there is no alternative but to act. It rarely anticipates those needs.

I would concede there is a general problem in attempting to shape an overall policy and a long-term policy for agriculture not only in the Province of Ontario but generally all across the country. Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that agriculture is an incredibly balkanized industry. For the moment I’m not referring to all of the middlemen who stand between the primary producer and the consumer. I’m focusing exclusively on the balkanized nature of the primary producer sector of the food industry. In the Province of Ontario we have some 20 marketing boards and many other groups and various lands of associations, often with conflicting interests.

We recall some years ago, when we were moving toward consideration of authorizing oleo-margarine in this province, that a fairly sharp conflict emerged between the traditional dairy industry and the vegetable oils industry -- another branch, in some respects, of agriculture -- which is the basis, of course, for the production of oleo-margarine.

We have continuing conflicts, though they often do not surface, between various kinds of meat producers -- beef and pork -- therefore there is the contention that it would be better to have an overall meat board which would be in a position to reconcile some of these conflicts. And indeed, conflicts between beef and/or pork and the poultry industry. More recently we’ve had conflicts in this country, if we lift our gaze for a moment, between western and eastern farm interests. These have been particularly sharp and particularly difficult to cope with.

Finally, of course, in the last two or three years an intense conflict has developed as between consumers and producers, or consumers and farmers, because of the rather unprecedented increase in consumer prices. This has aroused great public indignation, and we have it all illustrated in this government.

I pointed out last year, when we were discussing the estimates, the different kind of thrust -- indeed, sometimes it is almost open conflict -- between two ministers. The Minister of Agriculture and Food champions farmers when he feels free to do so -- and the cabinet is not likely going to restrict him unduly -- while his colleague, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Clement), who has very little appreciation of the many aspects of agriculture, at least for a time posed as a rather vigorous and aggressive champion of consumers.

For those of us who had the opportunity to attend that conference that was called down at the Royal York Hotel a year or so ago, all one has to do is to read between the lines as well as what was written in the lines of the speeches given by the Minister of Agriculture and Food and the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, to find out that there were unresolved attitudes and unresolved policies right within the government itself.

Coming back to farmers -- the primary producer -- I want to suggest that the only person who is in a position, not necessarily to eliminate these conflicts, but at least to reconcile them to the extent that it is possible to reconcile them within the fanning community itself, is the Minister of Agriculture and Food. And my main criticism of this minister is that he makes no real effort in that sense. He tends to be a passive Minister of Agriculture and Food. He doesn’t anticipate needs and move to cope with them before they develop into a crisis.

I want to be perfectly fair, because quite frankly -- and I say this even in the presence of the hon. member for Middlesex South (Mr. Eaton) -- in the ranks of the government forces over there the only man who knows anything about agriculture in any comprehensive sense is the minister. One of the problems is, who in heaven’s name are they going to get if he were ever to step out of it?

I am fascinated when I move across the country to discover some of the new candidates who are being blessed by the Premier (Mr. Davis) to come into the picture, and all of whom are saying locally that they are prospective ministers of agriculture. They are attempting to sort of fill this vacuum. But the minister leads a difficult life. He lives within a cabinet which basically is not interested in agriculture except for political purposes.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Oh, no.

Mr. MacDonald: He lives within a cabinet which has no appreciation of the problems of agriculture --

An hon. member: Does the member think he is the one?

Mr. MacDonald: -- because agriculture is traditionally a victim of those dominant economic interests who are the blood brothers of a Tory party, and whom this government serves day in and day out.

Mr. E. P. Morningstar (Welland): The minister does a good job.

Mr. MacDonald: And it is for that reason that I suppose the minister is maybe being a little bit wise not to rush out and be too aggressive, because if he gets too far away he will be chopped off by his own colleagues back in the cabinet. And that’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing for him, it’s embarrassing for the government. So he takes no real initiative in attempting to reconcile these difficulties.

Now, let me give you one example of the kind of thing I mean. The minister is often very critical of the Liberals in Ottawa -- and particularly of the Liberal Minister of Agriculture up there, who at least has developed a public posture of being a vigorous champion of farmers.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: The member hasn’t heard me criticize him, ever.

Mr. MacDonald: Is that right?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Never. Where did the member hear me criticize him?

Mr. MacDonald: Let that get on the record.

Mr. Lewis: What, Eugene Whelan? The minister doesn’t criticize Eugene Whelan?

Mr. MacDonald: He never criticizes him?

Mr. Lewis: The minister is more a captive of corporate forces than we thought.

An hon. member: Well, there’s really no difference.

Mr. Lewis: The man is impossible. He is a disaster.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): The minister made a few comments on their dairy policy.

Mr. MacDonald: The problem with Eugene Whelan -- and I digress, Mr. Chairman, only for about 30 seconds, so just relax. The problem with Eugene Whelan is essentially the minister’s problem. He would like -- because it’s the nature of the guy -- to be a vigorous champion of farmers. But once again he lives within a cabinet that has no appreciation of agriculture and has no willingness to plan, in a long-term sense, for agriculture. Therefore, we have, for example, the comment of Gene Whelan the other day that we are going to have a milk shortage in this country -- in fact, so much so, that five years from now there may well be milk rationing. Coming from the minister who had just enunciated a dairy policy which has chiselled continuously, and once again now, on the price of milk, so you have a constant uproar among industrial milk producers with regard to the inadequacy of it, it has done nothing to really halt the mass exodus out of the dairy industry. Coming from him, one wonders why on one hand he is enunciating policies that aren’t coping with the situation and then, in the next breath, he is trying to warn the public that we are going to have a shortage of milk five years from now when they have to ration it.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: He was warning his colleagues.

Mr. MacDonald: Was he?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Because that is a problem for Ottawa but not here.

Mr. MacDonald: I wonder, Mr. Chairman, what the minister was doing then when he made exactly the same kind of a comment.

Mr. Deans: Warning his colleagues.

Mr. MacDonald: I have a copy of a speech here that was delivered by the minister to the Elgin-Middlesex Jersey Cattle Club at St. Thomas on March 15.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: A pretty good speech.

Mr. MacDonald: A pretty good speech?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I think so.

Mr. Deans: Who wrote that?

Mr. MacDonald: I don’t know who wrote it but I know who delivered it -- at least, to whom it was credited.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: It is nice to know you read them, that is an enlightening thing.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, we do.

Mr. MacDonald: Let me give you the exact wording, Mr. Chairman. On page 5 of the speech you said: “It is essential there be further increases in the price of milk paid to the producer.”

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Right.

Mr. MacDonald: Good?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Right.

Mr. MacDonald: Where in heaven’s name were you one year ago when you stood along with the Milk Commission and cut back a move of the Milk Marketing Board to increase the price 57 cents and you cut it back to 35 cents? And you were so wrong.

Mr. Lewis: You defended it.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: That is not right, Mr. Chairman. On a point of order, the member sat in the Royal York Hotel --

Mr. Deans: There is no point of order. Nothing is out of order.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- and heard me say that the Milk Marketing Board should come back before the commission with a reapplication for an increase in milk prices, and he says that.

Mr. Lewis: That was after you first capitulated.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: It is interesting that he has retreated to the point of now saying that he asked them to come back. Originally the position he was taking in this House was that they had read the formula unduly and that they had asked for more than they were entitled to. I am told by the people in the OMMB that they always lead the formula a little bit, particularly if you are in a period of rising prices, for the simple reason that you don’t want to be increasing prices every four or five weeks; it becomes upsetting to everybody concerned. The proof of the fact that they weren’t leading the formula very much -- and then you climbed on the bandwagon to save your own embarrassment by saying, come back again -- is when they got a price increase on Jan. 1, cut back by the Milk Commission with your approval from 57 cent to 35 cent, literally within five weeks the formula had caught up and passed them to the point where they had to make another application, which was heard in early March and given approval on April 1, so you had two milk increases within a three-month period.

This is the point I am attempting to make to the minister. If the minister is on top of the job, if the minister is doing long-term planning, he doesn’t chisel along with the Milk Commission, whatever its role. The farmers are mystified and I am mystified sometimes. He doesn’t chisel on a right to get a price increase which would have tucked them into the industry. That was the beginning of a year in which 2,100 dairy farmers went out of business in the Province of Ontario. So it is idle for the minister 12 months later to be getting up like Gene Whelan and trying to warn his colleagues -- if that is what this minister is doing, since he thinks that is what Gene Whelan was doing -- when he was the man who did have that kind of a policy one year ago.

This is precisely the point I make. If the Minister of Agriculture and Food can’t see the long-term interest of an aspect of the industry like milk, if he can’t see more than five weeks beyond the end of his nose, how in heaven’s name can we expect to get an agricultural policy that is going to guarantee the security of any branch of industry, whether it be dairy or any other? That is the problem. And that is one by way of one illustration of a documentation of it.

Now, before I go on to other aspects, Mr. Chairman, I want to briefly discuss some of the general conditions in agriculture at the moment.

When I tried, with the very greatest of difficulty, to find anything that might give up-to-date and authoritative figures, I was fascinated to discover in the back of the Outlook ‘74 document, which was given at the conference last fall, that there are statistics which show the income for 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973 and the forecast for 1974.

I want to remind the House of just how incredible is the condition of agriculture incomes traditionally -- and those incomes are a product of the kinds of policies that I am deploring, of ministers both in Ottawa and here, who have never planned, because they are not free to plan, for the long-term security of agriculture. They are the servants of those who don’t want agriculture to have long-term security. They want them to be victims.

They want them to be in the position that fulfils that classic comment of the late J. S. MacLean from Canada Packers, who said: “We pay the farmers as little as we can. We charge the consumers as much as the traffic will bear. That’s business.” And governments do nothing to stop those middlemen -- we will get to that in a moment -- from exploiting both the primary producer and the consumer.

What’s the net result, Mr. Chairman? Do you realize that in 1971, at the end of what were 20 years of almost continuous depression for agriculture -- because from 1951 on prices were generally level, costs of production were going up, and net farm incomes were dropping? In 1971, the average net farm income in the Province of Ontario was $3,570. In 1972 it had risen to $5,150. In 1973, it had risen to $7,960. In short, there had been a 125 per cent increase over that three-year period.

Still, in the third year, 1973, among what is alleged to be the aristocrats of the farming industry, namely dairying, we had 2,100 dairy farmers leaving, and a mass exodus from agriculture generally across the country, including the Province of Ontario. Why? Because they had no assurance by way of government policies, enunciated or implemented, that they were going to escape from the old tradition of a few years of boom and long years of bust.

If they need any reminder of the danger of that kind of prospect once again, they have it in terms of the drop in certain prices, for beef, pork and other things, after they have had this brief period of prosperity.

There is another reason why they are not so pleased, Mr. Chairman, and it’s fascinating to get this into context. The net income of the average farmer in the Province of Ontario in 1973, $7,960, happens to be approximately $600 less than the income of the average industrial worker, which was $8,600 a year.

An hon. member: Right.

Mr. MacDonald: In short, the farmer who may have had a capital investment of anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000, and in this calculation was likely contributing his labour free, was ending up with a net income that was $600 less than the industrial worker who had perhaps nothing more than a few tools and certainly nothing more than his hands to go and work in the mill.

I am not complaining about what the industrial worker is getting, because with today’s cost of living he’s getting no more than he is entitled to. I just remind you just how incredible the average net income of agriculture has been down through the years. And Tory governments here and Liberal governments in Ottawa have never done anything effectively to cope with that situation.

The burden of my remarks is going to be to take a look at what they can and should be doing, so that we don’t slip back into that old boom-bust cycle. However, let me get into another aspect in terms of the general picture, before I move on to that. I refer to the split in the consumer dollar. Last year I put these figures on the record, and I would like to do so again and try to bring them up to date to the extent that it is possible in getting up-to-date statistics.

Twenty years ago, 60 cents of the consumer dollar -- what the housewife paid for food generally -- went back to the primary producer. In the last 20-year period, the consumer’s share of that has slipped from 60 cents down to 36 cents. That was the figure about 1971, at the end of that 20 years of depression, when we began to move into this period of escalating prices.

That was the primary producer’s gross income, his gross income before he had paid his costs of production. In other words, the income he got at the farm gate. And when you took into account his costs of production, what the farmer was left with was 11 cents of the consumer dollar. So his gross is 36 cents and his net is 11 cents of the consumer dollar.

I think that is rather an interesting figure when you take it in the context of another point that I want to sort of set out by way of basic statistics, so that we can look at some of its implications later. That is, that the average person in the city, the consumer, thinks of the food industry -- our biggest industry in this country -- as being the farmers.

The fact of the matter is that the farmers represent only 20 per cent of the food industry. Only 20 per cent. The rest of the food industry is made up of transportation, of storage, of processing, of packaging, of wholesaling, of retailing. And they are the people who are gobbling up 85 per cent of the consumer’s dollar. They are that great and growing group of middlemen who are in the marketplace and who have the power to do whatever they want, and they do it, so that the farmers at the end of the food chain, in effect, get what is left. That, I would concede, has been checked to some degree by marketing boards and by other methods, but generally speaking the farmer is still the relatively helpless victim at the end of the food chain.

Bear those figures in mind, because I want to come back to some of them. I think they are sort of basic for an appreciation of the position in the food marketing arena today and particularly the farmers’ position in that. I want to move on now to deal with what I describe as four or five foundation stones for a long-term agricultural policy that is comprehensive and isn’t just piecemeal, ad hoc reacting to crises as they are arising.

The first need, Mr. Chairman, is a stabilization plan for agriculture. I know that the minister pays lip service to this, and I know that the government in Ottawa pays lip service to it. In fact, with the prospect of an election coming, they not only paid lip service but they included the promise of a stabilization plan for agricultural products in their Throne Speech. It was interesting that their sense of priorities was such that they spent their time arguing over whether or not we should have another football team in Toronto, rather than getting into the legislation which might set up a stabilization fund. So we’re still waiting for it. It’s still out in the never-never land where those promises for the stabilization of agriculture have always rested down through the years.

I was interested, in attending this year’s meeting of the pork producers, to discover that they have moved rather vigorously in presenting a proposal. They wrote to the minister on March 8 and they drew attention to the fact that they were supporting some national organization, the Canadian Pork Council, for the immediate establishment of a stabilization fund, tied in with input costs, and they asked the provincial government to take some initiative on it. They made some points with regard to the stabilization plan. They said it should be a stabilization plan that would be tied to input costs of today, and not to historic input costs of the average for the last five years or the last 10 years, because those input costs of the last five or 10 years may be completely irrelevant.

Now, interestingly enough, since we’ve got an election on our hands -- and, again, characteristic of the piecemeal reaction approach of the government in Ottawa -- within the past week the government in Ottawa has responded with a stabilization fund. I am interested to discover, as I talk to people associated with the pork industry, that they have reacted to the whole thing with mixed feelings. It clearly is a step in the right direction but it comes up with something of a new concept on how you are going to stabilize and its inadequacies stare you in the face.

It is not really a stabilization plan which provides some incentive for pork producers to expand in the industry. It is a stop-loss kind of approach to keep them at least from leaving the industry. That’s about the best you can say for it.

What it does is to promise that $22 -- if I remember the figure --

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): It’s $22.50.

Mr. MacDonald: Yes, $22.50 will be the margin between wholesale prices and the price they will get for a hog. Presumably if any deficiency emerges because feed costs are too high or the prices the farmer gets are too low they will bridge that gap. They will assure the farmer of that.

That is just covering input costs in terms of feed alone. It doesn’t cover the cost of the weanling; it doesn’t cover the cost of labour; it doesn’t cover the cost of taxes; it covers none of the other costs. I can understand the perplexed reaction of the hog producers and of some other provincial governments which have publicly reacted to it. They don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. I presume the reaction of this government will be a mild sigh of relief that Ottawa has at least moved in some direction and has at least sort of contained the situation.

Surely one can’t come to any conclusion other than this is no long-term solution. This is no stabilization fund of the kind that is going to provide some real security for agriculture in the future.

I want to say to the minister that one of what I describe as the foundation stones for a long-term policy is that I think provincial governments have responsibility to move into this field. I frankly concede to the minister that if provincial governments move too far and begin to create too great discrepancies between provinces, you, in effect, will have your public treasury milked by products flowing in from another province. Therefore, you can’t get too far ahead but I make my point here, as I have made it so many times before: If you really want to get Ottawa to move with vigour, the most convincing way to make it move with vigour is some evidence that you have been willing to move in the field.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: What about Saskatchewan? It sure moved with vigour and Ottawa left it dangling and it is still dangling.

Mr. MacDonald: I refer you to what has happened in terms of a long-term solution, not any ad hoc measure taken to cope with pork or whatever you may be referring to. Take the long-term solution brought in by the Minister of Agriculture in BC. That is the framework, the mechanism, for establishing a stabilization fund which in the first instance is going to be voluntary; any commodity group can vote itself into it.

They expected the first group to move into it would be the fruit producers but interestingly enough -- as far as I know; I am not up to date on the information -- they have completed their arrangements with the milk producers. They got in there ahead even of the fruit industry in the Province of British Columbia. At the moment it is going to be half paid by the farmers and half paid by the was when BC government. There is an open invitation for the federal government to come in so the cost of this will be a three-way split.

I am rather interested, Mr. Chairman, in why the minister feels this kind of thing can’t be done in Ontario. I am even more interested in knowing what the minister’s policy is because the only exposure I have had to what may conceivably be government policy listening to the parliamentary assistant when we shared a platform in Durham about a month or two ago and he was pouring scorn on the proposition of stabilization funds.

Mr. R. G. Eaton (Middlesex South): Now, now.

Mr. MacDonald: You just listen to what I have to say about what you said and if I am wrong you will have a chance later in the debate. What he was saying was that farmers don’t want to get sucked into the proposition of using some of their money now to build a fund to protect their interests in the future. It was the old argument that we operate on a free market and what it will pay now, with none of the kinds of protections for four or five years from now. I was shocked by the proposition and I will tell my hon. friend from Middlesex South there were an awful lot of hog producers at that meeting who were shocked too. They had just sent in a copy of their letter and their request for a stabilization fund and to have the so-called heir-apparent appearing at a meeting in Durham and shooting the whole concept down as being a false thing that farmers weren’t interested in --

Mr. Eaton: I didn’t shoot the concept down.

Mr. MacDonald: You shot the concept down as it is now being discussed at the present time.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Heir-presumptive, not heir-apparent.

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): That is not surprising.

Mr. MacDonald: Heir-presumptive? Heir-presumptive is another term for the most ardent preaching for a call I have seen around this Legislature for quite some time. But there is such a vacuum that if the minister were to move out I suppose he might have no difficulty in moving into the vacuum. Vacuums are filled sometimes by unexpected --

Mr. Breithaupt: Nature abhors them.

Mr. MacDonald: Yes, nature abhors them.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I will tell you over there that there isn’t any. The real vacuum is over there. There just isn’t anything there and there won’t be after the next election.

Mr. MacDonald: I will tell you that that is the kind of idle prattle I’ve listened to from you and your colleagues since back in the 1950s.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: But it is so truthful and so factual.

Mr. MacDonald: When I first arrived you said I was an overnight guest. I will tell you something, years after you have gone back to pasture, I will still be here. So just don’t indulge, when you feel a little bit on the defensive --

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): The member for Haldimand-Norfolk (Mr. Allan) knows what that means.

Mr. MacDonald: -- in some of this political rhetoric. When the minister indulges in political rhetoric, I know that his position is weak. He fills the vacuum with the rhetoric.

Let me move on to the second foundation stone, Mr. Chairman, and that is that we need a stabilization plan for agriculture, which the province should be playing a part in building. In the building of that stabilization plan, we have got to accept the basic proposition that farmers are entitled to an income which will cover their cost of production plus a fair return in terms of capital and labour. That sounds so reasonable that it is almost banal; but it has never happened. We have for years in this country gone through a succession of ad hoc reactions by governments that really didn’t want to do anything fundamental or weren’t freed by the corporate sector to do anything fundamental, such as laying a floor for farm prices.

I remember back in the days of dear old Jimmy Gardiner, God rest his soul, who could never persuade the government in Ottawa to move until the situation had reached crisis proportions, and then of course they put a floor under prices that was far below the farmers’ cost of production. Then we moved into the concept of deficiency prices. Then we played with the concept of forward pricing that presumably was going to be geared to input costs. Then in the Province of Ontario we got all hooked for a time on the idea of incentive prices to give farmers the incentive to stay and produce, because even if we happened to have surpluses, and could solve that distribution problem, there was two-thirds of the human family in desperate need of more food.

The government set up its committee. I repeat what I have said before, and I have said it to the people involved, except for the one who can’t be with us or isn’t with us any more, that committee was a cop-out. It was a cop-out because it wouldn’t come to grips with the admittedly great technical problems in terms of some stabilization of farm prices on the basis of input costs that would involve federal and provincial co-operation.

I would like to have the minister, not up on his podium shooting darts at me -- that’s a waste of time because they usually don’t hit -- but speaking his mind on terms of what kind of a stabilization programme we should be having, and what the Province of Ontario is willing to do for that kind of stabilization programme. I repeat, it’s got to be approved and must start with a clear relationship to input costs.

I was fascinated a week or so ago to go to a meeting -- and, incidentally, Mr. Chairman, where in heaven’s name the Tories were I don’t know. It was a meeting called by the Federation of Agriculture down in the Nepean sports complex on the outskirts of Ottawa, in which 700 industrial milk producers came from throughout the Ottawa Valley. They were bused in from down in Glengarry and they were bused in from down in Kingston; they came across from Wolfe Island -- 700 of them, mad as blazes. They were mad at Gene Whelan and the Liberals for the inadequacy of the assistance to industrial milk. They invited people from all parties to come and speak their piece.

I expected to have a whole sort of a gathering of politicians there in which you wouldn’t be able to get two minutes apiece, and to my utter amazement I was the only politician there. There were no Liberals and no Tories, even in that Tory land of eastern Ontario where you had a field day against Eugene Whelan. There wasn’t a single Tory who was interested enough in the plight of the industrial milk producers to be there and speak on behalf of his party.

Mr. Cassidy: Shame.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I didn’t even know it was on.

Mr. MacDonald: No?

Mr. Cassidy: We’ve tried and tried and tried --

Mr. MacDonald: I can tell the minister that some of the people who organized the meeting used to be Tories and they did their best to get some Tory to be there. However, I just wanted to remind the minister of that little episode, because it was in the context of that that I got some rather interesting information.

Alex Bell, who was the eastern Ontario representative of the Ontario Milk Marketing Board, and some of the researchers, had gone out and they had studied -- I’ve forgotten the exact number of farms now -- their cost of production and they came up with the figure that the cost of production for a hundred-weight of milk was $10.85. That was documented. Indeed, if the minister is interested in the documentation I have copies of it here and I’m sure he can get it from the Federation of Agriculture office.

That was very interesting, because we had just had an increase in the aristocrat of the dairy industry, the fluid milk price, to $10.45. It was an interesting reminder, Mr. Chairman, that the formula by which fluid milk is priced is not an input cost formula, it is an economic formula that includes input costs and a lot of other factors, such as the consumers’ capacity to pay and a number of other things. On the basis of input costs the fluid milk producer was getting 40 cents less than he should be getting, even though he had just had a price increase. As for the industrial milk producer, he’s down about $8 and something, I’ve forgotten what it is now in terms of the inadequate subsidy that Eugene Whelan came across with.

We have got to develop, Mr. Chairman, the kind of thing that I hoped for -- and that’s why I was such an enthusiastic supporter of the minister’s income committee -- a committee here in Ontario, preferably in conjunction with the government in Ottawa, because ultimately the two governments must be involved -- which will develop pricing for agricultural products, which will be geared to cost of production and which will finally make agriculture a small business that will operate like a business; not exploiting their own labour and not living on their own capital, but getting the kind of return that will keep them in there and provide an incentive to stay in business. That’s the second cornerstone or foundation stone which I think we’ve got to have if we’re going to have a long-term agricultural policy.

The third one, Mr. Chairman, is that this government, sooner or later, has got to forsake its ideological, doctrinaire refusal to intervene in the marketplace to the point of establishing some mechanism for prices review, not only for the farmers in terms of their input cost, but also for the producers. I don’t want to rehash what we’ve discussed in this House in many other contexts, the absolute need for the Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) to bring in a bill which will amend the powers of the Energy Board so that it will have the authority and the power to review prices and, when it finds -- as it did, for example, in Nova Scotia -- that the price isn’t justified, the power to roll back those prices. While that’s of general interest for the gasoline consumer, let me say that there is nobody who is more interested in that than the farmers, because 30 per cent of the cost of agriculture, as calculated by some experts, is an energy cost and the farmer is really being creamed by the kind of exorbitant increase that has taken place recently in energy costs. The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations has talked about various things that he was going to do, but he has done nothing effective as yet. The Minister of Agriculture and Food might move, but he won’t move.

I have here, for example, a copy of the report that was produced in the Province of Manitoba on one of the major farm input costs -- namely, fertilizer. I know that the minister found it a very revealing and, in some sense, a shocking kind of document.

Just let me anticipate some interjection from the minister. I’m not one to suggest that what they have found out in Manitoba necessarily applies in the Province of Ontario, nor, when Manitoba moves -- as you can bet your bottom dollar they will ultimately, and I suspect will be very soon moved -- to cope with the situation, that their action will necessarily be the kind of action that should be taken in the Province of Ontario. But nonetheless, what comes out in this report does have general application here.

They found that there was price manipulation. They found that there was price discrimination. They found that the company in Manitoba, which had been financed with public funds to a great extent -- a $23 million loan from the Manitoba Development Corp. and a $5 million loan from the Manitoba government -- was selling its products cheaper to its parent company in the United States than it was to the consumers of the Province of Manitoba. They tried to investigate why the parent company had violated its agreement to supply phosphate for the production in Manitoba.

They discovered that, in a very strange but effective and clearly organized fashion, there was a combine. This fertilizer company in Manitoba, publicly financed at least in part, was part of an arrangement in pricing that not only included the three Prairie provinces, but included a block of the states in the United States bordering on the US-Canadian border. These multinational corporations just span the border. Little wonder, when the premiers met a few weeks ago in western Canada, that the three of them agreed that they were going to set up a mechanism, which they are in the process of setting up, to review and to seek justification for the price of the two major farm inputs, namely fertilizers and farm machinery. And that includes Peter Lougheed of Alberta, because they are approaching it jointly. They have discovered enough information to know that they have got a joint programme.

I began to raise this issue back in early March, and immediately the minister said, “Well, we are doing something. We are holding a conference.” It was held down in the Four Seasons Hotel about March 8 or 10 or thereabouts. This was presumably this government’s answer to it. It was no answer. As I stated later in question period, what happened at that conference is something you could’ve predicted, namely they confirmed what everybody knew: that there was a shortage of fertilizer and the companies were using the shortage as an opportunity to increase prices.

Well, I was fascinated to read in Farm and Country, which sometimes acts as though it were a house organ of the government, but at other times can be critical --

Hon. Mr. Stewart: A very wise paper, a very perceptive paper.

Mr. MacDonald: Very perceptive? You mean, because it acts as a house organ for the government?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No, not at all.

Mr. MacDonald: That’s an interesting commentary on your concept of freedom of the press.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: A very perceptive paper.

Mr. MacDonald: However, on this occasion this could --

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Just because they don’t espouse your philosophy --

Mr. MacDonald: Right. On this occasion they were very perceptive --

Interjection by an hon. member,

Mr. MacDonald: They were very perceptive, Mr. Chairman. They carried a front-page story in which they reported on the minister’s conference. And let me read four paragraphs:

Edward Thompson, a Guelph area cash cropper, fertilizer dealer and active Ontario Federation of Agriculture member, broke up the recent national fertilizer conference with his accusation that the meeting was “a whitewash.”

The speakers had repeatedly told the 180 delegates present that farmers everywhere will have serious problems finding enough fertilizer for at least three years. No farmer organization was asked to present a brief, or even comment on speakers’ statements. Question periods were minimal.

“There is no fertilizer crisis in Canada,” Thompson explained. “I sat at the meeting for a day and one half. I listened to 26 speakers, all from governments and the fertilizer industry, to justify their position.”

After Thompson slammed the meeting for making no real efforts to solve the fertilizer supply situation, he was supported by OFA President Gordon Hill, National Farmers Union vice-president Walter Miller, and Christian Farmers Federation President Martin Verkuyl.

That’s a pretty devastating analysis by a perceptive newspaper, if I may borrow the minister’s description. They certainly saw through his effort, which was a bit of political footwork that did nothing at all about the problem.

I come back to the point I am making: We need to have some capacity for reviewing prices, not only the prices to the consumer, whether it be energy, food prices or across the board generally for things such as automobiles, as we heard this morning. We also need to have some prices review mechanism, such as the four western provinces are now establishing, to take a look at major farm input costs, like fertilizer and farm machinery, so that you will help to build greater security for agriculture by cutting the farmer’s costs as well as by getting him a fair return in the marketplace.

About a month or so ago in this House, the Minister of Agriculture and Food stated that virtually all of the increased costs of food to the consumer today was going back to the farmer. You know, I could hardly believe my ears when I listened to the Minister of Agriculture and Food make that kind of a statement. He knows it isn’t true; but if he doesn’t know it isn’t true -- well, I hardly know what would be the appropriate comment.

Food processing profits went up by some 81 per cent in the last quarter of last year, as compared with a year ago. If I may go back to those basic statistics that I gave: 80 per cent of the food industry is not agriculture. It is crowding that space in the food chain, so to speak, between the primary producer and the consumer; and it is gobbling too much of the consumer’s dollar so that not enough is getting back to agriculture.

There is need for some review, some rationalization of what is going on in the food chain so that the person who does the most work, namely the farmer, will be able to get what he is entitled to get.

We have had studies; we had the Bratten study out in western Canada; a study with regard to the operations of the supermarkets. And Judge Bratten’s report was that there was far too much cost wastage in terms of very splendiferous surroundings, of excessive parking space, of marketing procedures, of gimmicks. And of advertising that wasn’t advertising for the normal purpose, as was pointed out by some of the studies done for your own income committee. It is to confuse the buyer and keep him confused so that he doesn’t know what relative prices are. That’s the purpose of the advertising. Thus, the supermarkets cut into a considerable percentage of the consumer dollar. And nothing is done about this. Nothing is done about it at all. I think it is time for the government to move and to move with some degree of vigor.

I was interested, for example, in some statistics that were presented about a year ago by the brief of the Manitoba government to the special committee on trends and food prices. They pointed out the processors’ margin over producer prices between 1961 and 1972. For example, in 1961 it had been a 22-cent margin on fresh pork loin; by 1972 it was a 39-cent margin and by Feb. of 1973 it was a 53-cent margin. That’s the kind of margin that is growing between what the producer is getting and what the processor is getting.

There are some other very interesting statistics to show you the kind of thing that happens to the farmer. I don’t know whether I can lay my finger on it. The price of bread, for example: The price of bread in the 20-year period from the early 1950s to early 1970, went up by some three or four times; while the price of wheat was going down. The basic product was going down. It clearly shows that the farmer wasn’t in a position in the marketplace to get that to which he was entitled. But everybody else in the marketplace was getting his cut; so that the consumer ended up by paying three or four times as much for his purchase of goods from a raw product that actually was costing no more. That’s the kind of situation that exists in the marketplace.

I draw to the attention of the minister an article that was carried in the early April issue of Maclean’s magazine by Walter Stewart, who I learn is doing a book on food prices which should be out this fall. I think this one chapter from that book on the operation of Safeway will be very illuminating, because he is a very perceptive and incisive writer. Let me read very briefly here:

What all this suggests for the consumer is that the cut-throat competition which supermarkets so anxiously tell us about is not likely in the long run to bring food prices down. In the shuffle for position among the food giants, the chief casualties are the independents. The net result of the price wars appear to be to cripple the independents and transfer the cost of the campaign against them onto everyone’s grocery bill.

And he quotes Prof. R. E. Olley, vice-president of the Consumers Association of Canada, who drew this moral:

Advertising by food chains and price wars are a sign of oligopoly, not competition. These rivalries result in self-cancelling advertising. They result in almost exclusive emphasis on very shiny, well-located retail store premises, where costs are borne by the consumer.

In western Canada, Safeway operates in such a ruthless and, admittedly from their standard, effective way in that they have eliminated many other supermarkets.

I say to the minister that they are moving into Ontario. What is the minister going to do about this whole business? Is he going to leave them dominant in the marketplace with no prices review at all so that both the consumer and farmer are going to continue to be the victims?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Why do you get yourself carried away? What has Manitoba, where you have had this great NDP government that the member has preached about, done about Safeway? Not a blessed thing, and the member knows it.

Mr. Eaton: Manitoba is going into competition with credit unions!

Mr. Morningstar: Answer the question.

Mr. MacDonald: I am glad to see the hon. member for Welland is awake; and I am glad to remind the hon. member over there --

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Why doesn’t the hon. member answer the question; it is directed to him? He can’t answer it because there is no answer.

Mr. MacDonald: -- that if the credit unions aren’t serving all their needs, then the government is going to supplement the effort with something like the provincial bank which you have here but you leave withering on the vine.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: So they are going into competition with credit unions in Manitoba to put them out of business.

Mr. MacDonald: If the minister wants to make political hay out of that, go on. What the minister is distracting attention from is that in the Province of Ontario, with seven or eight million people, with the major headquarters of many of the food chains --

Hon. Mr. Stewart: But not Safeway; Safeway is in western Canada.

Mr. MacDonald: -- with the major manufacturers of automobiles, you have the capacity to grapple with the situation in terms of pricing and its justification, not only to meet the needs of the people of the Province of Ontario but to meet the needs of all of Canada. Moving into one of the western provinces, which represent, in the instance of Saskatchewan for example less than a million people, isn’t going to alter the picture greatly across the country.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: It is no wonder they all left when you fellows were in power out there.

Mr. MacDonald: Oh no, they didn’t leave, they have been coming back.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): They left under the Liberals.

Mr. Cassidy: They left under R. B. Bennett as well.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Chairman, let me move on quickly because my time is fast ending. I wanted to deal with two more of the foundation stones. One of them is the whole question of rehabilitating rural economies. I know that we have an ARDA programme in the Province of Ontario and that the ARDA programme is doing something. But it isn’t halting the exodus off the land.

You have all the social costs of migration and of what happens to a rural community when you have fewer farmers who have to bear the costs. These people move into the city where perhaps they have to be retrained; and where they need housing, so there is more competition for housing. They may have left houses and buildings out in the country that are falling down. They come into the city and they have got to get a new home.

You have social costs at both ends. There is a gradual realization that the proposition of everybody rushing into the cities is not really creating the millennium. It is not necessarily creating the style of life and the way of life that we want in Canada. As part and parcel of it, there is a second look at this whole proposition that small farms are the kind of thing that have to be eliminated. There was the Olson plan, the so-called FARM, or whatever it was called -- back about 1969 or 1970 in which they were going to spend $150 million to get rid of small farms.

There is a recognition by those who are more perceptive that we really need to bolster the way of life out in the rural areas and not chase the farmer off the farm into the cities. Many a farmer, for example, is in his own way a professional. He knows how to do many things. But take them out of the farm environment with their skills, some of which were acquired in the hard school of knocks and some from education and put them into the city, and those skills are wasted. I want to suggest to the minister that this government’s policy is a policy of doing painfully little, too little to cope with this fundamental problem.

I was interested, for example, to have sent to me a copy of a letter that the minister wrote in reply to a young farmer down in Leeds county in eastern Ontario. I know the minister will be interested in this. He was 29 years of age, grew up on a dairy farm and wanted to go into dairying. He wrote to the minister and asked if there was some potential for assistance which might make that possible; for example such as the assistance available under the Farm Start programme in Saskatchewan or the Stay Option programme in Manitoba. What was the minister’s reply, dated Feb. 7, 1974?

This will acknowledge your letter of Jan. 30. To my knowledge there is no financial assistance available to start either a dairy farm or any other type of farm operation. There are, of course, many people who start on a rented farm or start by making an arrangement with a farmer on a shared basis.

There are farmers approaching years where they would like to take it a little easier and yet don’t want to stop farming, who might welcome someone offering help as far as the labour is concerned and gradually working into the business. I personally know of some such cases. Perhaps it would be worth exploring.

Yours very truly,

William A. Stewart,

Minister of Agriculture and Food

Mr. Lawlor: Come on. Is that the best you can do?

Mr. MacDonald: That’s really a scandalous kind of thing. And do you know what makes it ludicrous? I am now back to the earlier point I made. The minister talks with forked tongue, because in that speech in St. Thomas he made a comment:

Frankly I feel we are going to have to develop our own dairymen. This means we must make the industry sufficiently attractive that young people will choose it as a profession.

The date was March 15, five weeks after he wrote a letter sloughing off an experienced, 29-year-old young farmer.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I was not sloughing him off at all. I was simply saying to him that those were the facts of life.

Mr. MacDonald: I am sorry. If the minister wants to find some other word to describe the whole purport of that letter which, in effect was there is no help, go get hired by somebody --

Hon. Mr. Stewart: There are all kinds of fellows who are successful farmers who started out that way; right now.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Chairman, he sounds like dear old Dr. Dunlop of 15 years ago who contended that the best education was in the little red schoolhouse.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: It helps to have some security to put up.

Mr. Lawlor: That was 15 years ago and you are still living in those days.

Mr. MacDonald: We have passed that stage.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Yes, sir!

Mr. MacDonald: We have passed the stage where we are going to have farmers hire themselves out and work in. In some provinces, where they have the right kind of government and where there are Farm Start and Stay Option programmes, there are finances being provided by way of capital from the provincial government to bridge the gap between what is needed to start and what is ultimately available from normal sources. There are enough generous procedures for the payment of it that not only are they encouraging farmers to stay on the land but they are getting new farmers on the land. That’s what you said down in St. Thomas, that we may have to develop farmers. Why in one month do you say you are developing farmers, when five weeks before you wrote a letter and sloughed off a man who wanted to stay?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No; that is not what I said in St. Thomas.

Mr. MacDonald: What you are doing is reacting to a crisis and what I am pleading for is that you should have a long-term agricultural policy that can look one centimetre beyond the end of your nose. As the Minister of Agriculture and Food you must anticipate the problem and bring in the policies. If you have difficulty getting it through the Scrooges of Management Board or the rest of the cabinet, why don’t you come and confess it? Why don’t you confess that the Tory government can’t do it for the farmers and then maybe get out of politics? But say so when you get out of politics because it’s your obligation.

Mr. G. E. Smith (Simcoe East): The member had better clean his boots off.

Mr. Chairman: Would the hon. member keep an eye on the clock, please?

Mr. MacDonald: Yes. Mr. Chairman, I just want to mention, in view of the time, that there was a fifth --

Hon. Mr. Stewart: You have only given us three so far.

Mr. MacDonald: No I didn’t. I gave you stabilization; I gave you the whole cost of inputs related to stabilization; I have given you the question of a price review mechanism for prices in farm costs. Fourth, I have given the whole question of rebuilding your rural economics and the need for some equivalent in Ontario of the kind of Farm Start and Stay Option programmes they have in western Canada. My fifth one was for the government finally to grasp the nettle and do something about land use.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: What was the fifth?

Mr. MacDonald: Land use; 25 per cent of the prime agricultural land has gone out of production in the last six years -- since 1966 -- under a Tory government with no policies. It has been paved over. It has been sat on by developers. As the minister has said many times it has been taken up by city folk who want the homes and who sit, perhaps farming a little but usually not effectively, on the 95 acres out of the 100 they bought. All they need is the five for themselves and their home.

What is the government going to do about this? The minister has complained; he has lamented. He has made speeches every month almost regularly since last fall’s ploughing match, that something has to be done about it. But what are you going to do about it? Is your land development programme the mechanism you are going to use to buy up this land and make it available for production? Are you going to reveal this secret? What is this germ of an idea of a land development programme?

I queried the people in TEIGA before the budget came down as to whether it might be used for this purpose, because I’m intensely interested in it. They said it might be, it could be. I’d like the Minister of Agriculture and Food to be talking about this kind of thing --

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Well, if you are around here next week, instead of out looking after your federal counterparts, you’ll hear what I have to say.

Mr. MacDonald: Is that right?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Yes, but you won’t be here. You will be running around the province trying to elect an NDP government federally, which hasn’t got a snowball’s chance --

Mr. MacDonald: I have been waiting for a long time, and if you could run the business of this province --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. MacDonald: Once again, the minister is doing his usual. When his position is weak, he indulges in irrelevant political rhetoric.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Indeed, it isn’t weak!

Mr. MacDonald: I’ll read what you have to say. Then I’ll take what you have to say out on to the hustings a week or so from now in the election campaign.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: And distort it out of context.

Mr. MacDonald: I’ll tell them about the inadequacies of this short-term ad hoc kind of approach to agriculture.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: You’ll distort it out of context, as you have done in everything you have said this morning.

Mr. MacDonald: Both by this minister and his counterpart in Ottawa. They are both relatively helpless.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. We are over our allotted time.

Mr. MacDonald: You are right, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves that the committee rise and report.

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed, Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Speaker, the committee of the whole House begs to report progress and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment of the House, I would like to say that on Monday, if of course the reprint of Bill 25 is available to us, we will proceed with third reading of Bill 25 and third reading of Bill P20, respecting the city of Toronto; and then we will return to consideration of the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. That procedure will be followed on through Tuesday. If perchance we should finish with the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, we would then proceed to the bills that were announced last evening, including the routine that was announced a week ago last evening. I will announce any change on Monday evening.

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

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 1:05 o’clock, p.m.