Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce a group of students from Dubreuilville, Ont. I wish that the members would welcome them at this time.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Speaker, could I introduce to you, sir, and members of the Legislature 74 grade 10 students from Madonna High School accompanied by their teacher, Mrs. Murphy. May I say that Mrs. Murphy, who is in charge, I think, of four classes of Madonna High School, regularly brings her students down here and gives them a wonderful background in the basic democratic principles.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to the Legislature this afternoon some grade 7 and 8 students from the Gogama Public School who are accompanied by their principal, Mr. Quinn. I hope the members of the Legislature will give them a rousing welcome.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I think perhaps we should not overlook the fact that the new Minister of Labour is in his seat. We welcome him and wish him well and we suggest perhaps that he shouldn’t have missed prayers.

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, I realize I shouldn’t have missed prayers. I need them. The Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Clement) has suggested to me that this greeting will not go on for long and I had better enjoy it while I could.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): We thought it ended last Friday morning, as a matter of fact.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

NORTH YORK TRAFFIC TRIBUNAL

Hon. R. Welch (Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise you and the members of the House of this week’s inauguration of a pilot project, the North York traffic tribunal, where new concepts relating to the handling of some traffic offences under the Highway Traffic Act and municipal bylaws will be tested.

Many of these new concepts and new approaches to the method of dealing with such offences are the result of the recommendations contained in the report of the Committee on Alternative Forms of Trial and Disposition for Offences under Provincial Statutes and Municipal bylaws.

This committee, you may well recall, Mr. Speaker, was created by my predecessor (Mr. Bales), who appointed Chief Judge F. C. Hayes of the criminal division of the provincial court to be its chairman.

Members will appreciate that at present most of the traffic offences which occur in the borough of North York are tried in the provincial court criminal division at 5200 Yonge St., Willowdale, with criminal matters also tried in the same premises. As the committee recommended that there be a gradual removal of the trial of provincial offences from the criminal process and from association with criminal trials, it was decided that separate facilities would be made available.

For the purpose of this pilot project, facilities have been acquired at 1300 Don Mills Rd. These facilities designed by the committee will allow for a more flexible, less formal, more conversational approach to the trial of minor traffic offences. It is expected that the new procedures to be adopted at the pilot project will reduce the length of time between the laying of a charge and its disposition.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Welch: In an attempt to create a more relaxed and less formal atmosphere for the disposition of minor traffic offences, a number of experienced justices of the peace for Metropolitan Toronto have been chosen to sit as hearing officers.

I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that the members will agree in many instances an offender may feel that, although he or she has committed an offence, there were extenuating circumstances surrounding the commission of the charge which should be rightfully brought to the attention of the court. Under the present system there is no alternative but to plead not guilty and proceed to trial. That is why for the pilot project only, an alternative -- a plea of guilty with an explanation -- will be introduced and made available to offenders.

The offender choosing to adopt this plea can drop in at the hearing room designated for such pleas at the North York traffic tribunal at his or her convenience, during business hours, at any time after seven days of receipt of the ticket or summons but at least one business day before the trial date. This will provide the offender three weeks to re- solve the matter at his convenience.

The pleas of guilty with an explanation will not, at the outset of the pilot project, be available to those charged with parking offences, careless driving, and traffic offences resulting from accidents.

The physical facilities at the North York traffic tribunal are notably different from those of a provincial court within the criminal division.

The proceedings will be recorded by electronic recording equipment. This equipment has been proved both reliable and accurate through its use in other courts of the province.

An offender’s driving record will be available to the North York traffic tribunal through the use of a computer connection with the driver information files at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications at Downsview.

The offender’s driving record will be shown upon conviction and not before on two video screens which have been installed in each of the hearing rooms at the Don Mills facility. A personal copy will be provided the offender.

It is hoped, Mr. Speaker, that by having the personal driving record of the offender available for discussion, the offender might better understand the possible need for a change in his driver attitude.

In the hearing rooms in which minor traffic offences are heard there will be no prosecutor. There will be no cross-examination by the Crown in these cases; of course, an offender or his counsel will be able to cross-examine Crown witnesses. The hearing officer may ask questions of all witnesses in order that he can fully understand the circumstances of the alleged offence.

A one-hour driver improvement programme, designed by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, will be implemented as an integral part of the whole sentencing process.

The on-premise driver improvement centre will be staffed by four lay driver training instructors, each of whom has considerable experience in this field.

At the outset, a convicted offender will be offered the option of attending the driver improvement programme on a voluntary basis. Attendance will be taken into consideration at the time a fine is assessed.

As the project proceeds, consideration will be given to making the driver improvement course a mandatory part of the sentencing process so as to further move away from the concept of penal consequences and to move toward rehabilitation of the offender.

However, I would like to emphasize, Mr. Speaker, we are confident that this very positive, constructive ingredient in the sentencing process will serve as one solution toward lessening the ever-increasing number of senseless deaths of automobile drivers and passengers in Ontario each year.

In response to a continuing demand from the community, the North York traffic tribunal will offer a more flexible schedule of sittings than is now available.

Pleas of guilty with an explanation may be given from 9 o’clock in the morning until 9 o clock at night, Monday through Thursday; and from 9 o’clock in the morning until 4 o’clock in the afternoon on Fridays.

In the four hearing rooms for pleas of not guilty, there will be five sessions each day at 9; 10:30; 2; 3:30; and 7, except on Friday when there will be no night sitting. Each session will be of 1 1/2 hours’ duration.

It is hoped that the longer hours and increased number of sessions will allow the public earlier and more convenient trial dates.

Mr. Speaker, the mechanics have been established to conduct a fair and objective evaluation of this pilot project. People attending at any of the hearing rooms will be requested to complete, anonymously, a questionnaire designed to reflect the effectiveness and the acceptance of these new changes. I shall report to the hon. members of the progress of the pilot project as it develops.

Careful consideration will be given to the results obtained from a careful evaluation of the project with a view to the desirability of applying some of its principles to other areas of the province.

I really wish to acknowledge at this time, Mr. Speaker, the co-operation and support extended by Chief Adamson and members of the Metropolitan Toronto police force with responsibilities in the borough of North York. Each of these officers has toured the facility and become acquainted with the aims and the objectives of this programme. And through the driver improvement programme and other fresh concepts being implemented in this ambitious pilot project, it’s hoped that drivers will accept a more positive approach toward the serious effects of failing to follow our community’s highway traffic laws.

I can assure all members of the House, sir, that this pilot project represents an effort to respond to the public’s attitude to court procedures, and to couple them with a new enlightened approach to sanctions for the breach of provincial statutes.

Finally, I would like to invite the members of the House, Mr. Speaker, to tour the facilities at the Don Mills Rd. location tomorrow afternoon, beginning at 4. The members of the North York municipal council have also been invited to attend on this tour as well.

ASSISTANCE FOR FLOOD VICTIMS

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Mr. Speaker, there have been some questions asked in the last week as to the nature of the investigation to be carried out in respect of the Grand River flooding. I would like to advise the House that the investigation will not be an internal one. It will be carried out by people outside of the ministry and the hearings will be held in public.

Mr. Singer: I wonder if the Solicitor General (Mr. Kerr) heard that?

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Well said! That’s the best thing the minister has done this session. Him personally.

Mr. Speaker: Are there further statements by the ministry?

Mr. Deans: The best thing he has done this session.

Mr. Lewis: That’s co-ordination.

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

ASSISTANCE FOR FLOOD VICTIMS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Further to the brief statement from the policy secretary, is he prepared to name those who will have the responsibility for conducting the investigation and when it will begin?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) will have that information, perhaps by tomorrow when he is in the House.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Since there is still a considerable feeling in the community -- and it is not going to disappear -- that the method of assistance to those damaged by the flood waters is inadequate, both provincially and federally, can the minister now report to the House if he has had any communications with the government of Canada whereby it might be brought into an assistance programme on a more generous basis than that provided under the present legislation?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, that really is not a supplementary question, it is a separate matter altogether.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It is on the Grand River problem.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: However, while I’m on my feet I might tell the House that the assistance to the municipalities is not just confined to the Grand River area. It is for anyone in the province who has suffered as a result of those floods. They weren’t just in the Grand River area. However, in respect to whether we’ve heard from the federal government, I have had no reply. It may very well be that my colleague the Treasurer (Mr. White) has, and I would suggest that perhaps if we haven’t had a reply by tomorrow, we’ll find out why. I don’t really know the amount of assistance that has been applied for to date, because that’s being handled by Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Mr. Deans: One supplementary question, if I may: Will the terms of reference of the inquiry include the opportunity for persons who suffered damage as a result of the flood to make representation?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I would think that it would be advisable to wait for the exact terms of the inquiry to be announced to this House when the minister, who is absent on government business at this time, appears in the House, which will probably be tomorrow. I would just as soon avoid making any comment on something which may pre-empt the investigation to be carried out by the board of inquiry, or whatever it may be.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Since it is a matter of policy, can the minister advise if the federal authorities have been approached to provide funds other than under the present agreement, which, of course, requires the damages to be at least equivalent in dollar value to the population of the province, before they participate? Is there any other programme that they may be prepared to consider, or does the minister have any knowledge of other procedures that could be followed to ensure that federal assistance is possible?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, all we’ve done is to ask the federal government to participate in giving some assistance to those people who have, unfortunately, suffered as a result of the flood. Now any kind of assistance would be welcome, whether it be under our existing legislation or perhaps the federal government may be as free as it has in other instances and just hand out a few cheques here where it is very, very sorely needed.

POLICE RAID ON HOTEL

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A question, Mr. Speaker, of the Solicitor General: Can the minister confirm the story in Saturday’s Star that he has announced that he is looking for an outsider to head the investigation into the Fort Erie raid circumstances? It probably should be called the Landmark raid.

Mr. Lewis: No, Fort Erie raid. It conjures up 1812.

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Mr. Speaker, I would assume that is in reference to questions that were asked in the House on Friday morning. I had indicated then that we were attempting to hire counsel and we hoped that would be done within the matter of a few days. I don’t recall if I used the word “outsider” or not, but certainly we want to hire counsel immediately and then have him assist in setting up the machinery.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Would the minister not agree, having thought about the situation over the last few days, and presumably having discussed it with his colleague, the policy secretary, that the situation does demand an outside investigation -- particularly the chairman of the investigation should be an outsider -- rather than leaving it entirely in the hands of the police commission? Has the minister given any further consideration to that?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I can’t help but feel that this is one of the reasons the Ontario Police Commission was set up in the first place and the Police Act was amended just a few years ago to provide for this type of procedure. Really, if we haven’t got some faith in that commission to carry out one of the main functions of the commission, the commission should fold.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: But the chairman has indicated there should not be an investigation.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I answered two questions on that point on Thursday and Friday. Certainly the chairman has two assistants on the commission with him. There are staff within the commission to conduct many of the investigations that will have to be conducted. We will call on assistance, for example, from the OPP and things like that. So I think the inquiry can be directed by the commission.

Mr. Singer: By way of supplementary, wouldn’t the Solicitor General believe that it would be in the best interests of all of the people of Ontario if he didn’t have policemen investigating policemen, and that to guarantee impartiality in an investigation of this kind, the least the minister can do is to call on a judge of the Supreme Court of Ontario or the county court, or someone of equally impartial views, to conduct the investigation so there is no way the government can be accused of whitewashing this horrendous tragedy that took place at Fort Erie?

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, by way of supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. minister would answer the first supplementary?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, I have indicated that I want the police commission to direct the inquiry generally. Whether or not there should be a judge appointed is something that can’t be ruled out at this time nor necessarily has to be ruled out at this time.

Mr. Lewis: The Solicitor General said a judge last week.

Mr. Singer: Backing up again. No wonder everybody calls for the minister’s resignation.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): The member for Downsview is the only one who calls for his resignation.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Even the young PCs have disowned the minister.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The proceedings, as I have said before -- the conduct and the whole machinery dealing with this inquiry -- have not been finalized yet, that is the point I am making. I have indicated that I want the Ontario Police Commission, under the provisions of the Act, to conduct this inquiry and generally be in charge of this inquiry.

I have also indicated that there will be open hearings, public hearings, and I think that --

Mr. Singer: Fully open or partially open?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- as far as gathering information is concerned, certainly people who are attached to the Ontario Police Commission are in a good position to ask the necessary questions of the various people, either the police or patrons who were involved in that particular incident.

Mr. Singer: Why can’t a judge do it better?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Riverdale is next.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, surely the minister must recognize that there are two public interests which require to be resolved and understood by the public? One is the public interest in the police activity with respect to the suppression and control of the narcotics trade. The other public interest is with respect to the individual liberty and freedom from police harassment.

Surely the minister must understand that it is equally in the interests of the police as it is of all members of the public, that the decision and the investigation be carried out by a person who is fully impartial, such as a Supreme Court judge or a county court judge, so that we will be able to resolve very difficult questions of the conflict between those two public interests.

Mr. Cassidy: Certainly not by the minister.

Mr. Lewis: That was perfectly put. How does the Solicitor General answer it?

Mr. Singer: It has been perfectly put for three days now.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, again, as I refer to the section of the Police Act, there is a section that provides for hearings under the Public Inquiries Act. It is quite possible, at that stage, as far as the conduct of the holding of those hearings is concerned, that somebody other than a member of the Ontario Police Commission could share those hearings.

Mr. Singer: When is the minister going to decide? How long is he going to delay?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. Breithaupt: Does the minister not agree that the unfortunate comments, apparently made by the chairman of the Police Commission, surely would mean that that gentleman could not serve on this inquiry?

An hon. member: That’s the point.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I have answered that question twice now.

Mr. Breithaupt: Perhaps the minister might answer it again.

Mr. Singer: The minister’s explanation that he was misquoted doesn’t even coincide with the denial by him.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Stand up and be recognized.

Mr. Singer: I will speak any way I want.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Stand up!

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scar- borough West.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Stand up!

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: Am I to understand the answer of the minister to mean that part of the inquiry, presumably in camera, will be conducted under the aegis of the Police Commission, and that the other part of the inquiry, presumably external and public, may be con- ducted under the aegis of a judge appointed by the minister, and that this is the Jekyll-and-Hyde way in which he intends to handle something of this consequence?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: No, Mr. Speaker. My understanding of the particular section of the Act is that there will be a lot of investigatory processes that will be conducted by the commission; at the same time, or during the course of this investigation, there will be public hearings. It is quite possible, at that stage --

Mr. Singer: There will be hearings if necessary but not necessarily, eh?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I have indicated that there will be hearings. The Police Commission have indicated to me that they are prepared to hold hearings.

Mr. Lewis: Well, who will govern?

Mr. Singer: All the hearings are private.

Mr. Lewis: Who will govern the investigation, the judge or the Police Commission?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: All I’m saying, Mr. Speaker, is that some time this week I will be making an announcement in this House as to the name of counsel and the general structure and conduct of this hearing.

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

HOUSING PROGRAMMES

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Can the Minister of Housing explain to the House why, once again, we are getting specific information about the implementation of housing action, so-called, in the weekend press? Specifically, can he give information, in addition to what was in the weekend press, about the agreement that evidently has been signed with Mississauga? Has he worked out the previously expressed objections from Mississauga, that they were not prepared to accept, let us say, reduced planning facilities in order to enter into this special programme? Can he indicate how many houses would be built and what their cost would be, and what developers have signed an agreement, or are prepared so to do with tie ministry?

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am pleased that the mayor of Mississauga considered it appropriate to make an announcement over the weekend. There has been no agreement signed. I think the Mississauga council is to be commended for accepting, in principle, the housing action programme. But until such time as there is an agreement on the price of houses, the income groups which will be served by those houses built under the housing action programme -- and there is a clear indication that this is an accelerated programme and not simply lots that were due to come on to the market anyway -- there can’t be an agreement. However, I do hope, within a week, to be sitting down with the mayor and his council and ironing out these details. But until that time, I don’t believe an announcement is appropriate.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Then there is no agreement that has been entered into and, as far as the minister knows, nothing has been done to dispel the objections previously expressed strongly by Mississauga, that they were not prepared to go forward if the amenities of the communities that were to be built under the accelerated programme were going to be reduced?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, in response to the first part of the question, obviously I can concur that there has been no agreement signed. As far as the second part of the question is concerned, I have not received any indication whatsoever from Mississauga that there is any question about social amenities which they may be deficient in now being supported by the housing action programme. If that position is put to me, obviously it will be considered; but that position has not been put to me recently.

Mr. Cassidy: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Could the minister say just how many additional units, or accelerated units, he hopes to achieve in Mississauga under the programme and when that acceleration, if any, will take place?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, until such time as an agreement is signed with Mississauga, I believe it would be premature to start playing the numbers game with the hon. member.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): A supplementary: Is the minister making available details to the members of councils, where the housing action programme is being implemented, to show them why the financial support proposed by the minister will ensure that no existing property taxpayer will suffer as a result of the low-income housing being developed?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, we have put before the councils a proposal for an interim unconditional grant. We have also proposed to the councils that we help them finance housing action studies. If, in the process of making those studies, it is indicated that the financial impact is greater than the interim unconditional grant, we would be quite prepared to consider an additional grant. I think I should point out to the hon. member, however, that this will vary from municipality to municipality be- cause of the wide range of lot levies which different municipalities impose on developers.

Mr. Deacon: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Does the minister not have gross figures from a study by TEIGA that could be made available to them and to the rest of us so that we can understand the basic costs that are involved, regardless of lot levies?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I believe that the figures TEIGA gave us were developed very quickly and probably without the kind of intensive research that would make them completely accurate. They are an interim indication of the financial impact of accelerated development. That’s all they are. This is what we have committed ourselves to as a ministry. As I said to the hon. member in reply to his previous question, if more intensive studies conducted by the municipalities themselves, in conjunction with TEIGA, should indicate that the grants which we are now making available are not sufficient, then we are prepared to enter into further negotiations with them.

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

The hon. member for Scarborough West.

PRICE DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN CANADIAN, U.S. CARS

Mr. Lewis: Yes, Mr. Speaker. First I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Is the minister aware that on many models of automobiles the difference in the factory list prices between the United States and Canada ranges from 11.5 per cent to 15.3 per cent higher in Canada? Since that violates the spirit of the auto pact, does he intend to undertake corrective action, either by getting to the companies themselves for an explanation or by approaching the federal government?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Mr. Speaker, I was aware that there is a substantial percentum per automobile attached to the price. I have also been under the impression that this was primarily attached to the automobile as a form of federal tariff for the introduction of automobiles into this province.

I recall reading an article not too many years ago, which stated, I believe, that the Maverick automobile, manufactured in or near St. Thomas, Ont., cost more to the Canadian consumer than to the consumer in the United States.

I have no intention of writing at this particular time. I will point out once again that if I felt any purpose was served, I would certainly be the first to do so.

I am also aware of tariffs that apply in other areas, particularly relating to my own area, the tender fruit industry; their complaints for reduction of tariffs so far have resulted in a negative response in any meaningful way. It’s a matter of great concern in that particular industry in my own home area.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, since the workers in the industry on both sides of the border, having carefully analysed the subject matter, have come to the conclusion that the price differential is unjustified and not attributable to tariffs, and since it ranges from $339 to $823 on various automobiles, who then protects the consumers of Ontario from whatever the automobile companies think they can make additionally?

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): It’s the same way consumers are treated in Manitoba.

Hon. Mr. Clement: As I have pointed out many times to the hon. member, my charter, as I understand it, is not one of economic management of this province, but one of trade practices. I suggest --

Mr. Lewis: It is consumer protection, though.

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- I suggest, Mr. Speaker, and the hon. member knows perfectly well, that economic management of that type of product would certainly appear to me to be seated in the federal government, not only as to the people of Ontario but to all of the consumers in Canada.

Mr. Renwick: Consumer protection is in the minister’s department.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Whatever is good for GM is good for Ontario.

Mr. Renwick: It is his responsibility.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Under what legislation?

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, since the minister is engaged in studies of rates of return, for example, in the food industry, clearly considering it within his province, can he explain why the rate of return for the entire corporation of Ford Motor Company is 14.6 per cent in the United States but 26.5 per cent in Canada, primarily the Ontario-based operation therefor? Again I ask the minister, who protects the consumers of Ontario from what may be price gouging, what some of us think clearly is price gouging, on the part of the automobile companies?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, the hon. leader of the NDP has pointed out that I have now presumed that I am seized with the responsibility and he analogizes by using the food industry.

Mr. Lewis: He used the tender fruit industry.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I will tell him this -- and I have said this in this House, too -- we did the food study and we did the seminar last fall as a method of an educational undertaking for the people of this province, to put the facts and figures before them hopefully in a meaningful and accurate way.

It appeared to us and to my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture and Food, last July and August that many of the articles read were created and regurgitated through the media and the facts and figures were not correct. By having the seminar in Toronto on Sept. 18 last and inviting over 400 members of the media to attend -- and it was well attended --

Mr. Cassidy: The consumers were absent. And the industry -- to give its side of the story,

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Why not?

Mr. Cassidy: The minister is just a captive of the industry.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I notice the member didn’t attend. Why doesn’t he shut up? If he is talking, let him say something he knows; otherwise he should listen and he might learn something.

Mr. Renwick: The only way the minister deals in consumer protection is to act as an apologist for the industry.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I suggest the cars manufactured in this province and most of the cars manufactured in this country are sold throughout Canada. I submit it is a matter of federal monitoring and a matter of federal taxation.

Mr. Lewis: It is not federal.

Mr. Renwick: Most of the automobiles are sold here and the minister knows it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scar- borough West.

UNION GAS

Mr. Lewis: A question, Mr. Speaker, of the Minister of Labour, if I may: Would he undertake to involve himself directly, as the new Minister of Labour, in the Union Gas dispute in the hope that he might bring to that problem a perspective which no one else has been able to bring thus far?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I thank the member for Scarborough West for the question. I did expect it or a question along that line.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Did the minister put him up to it?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: No, I didn’t put him up to it, Mr. Speaker. It is a problem; it gives our mediation services great concern.

On Friday evening they briefed me not only on the Union Gas situation but on some other labour problems throughout the province but this is the one at the top of our list. I feel at this point in time it is in good hands and it would be a mistake for me to intervene personally other than by our mediation service. As members know, these things can’t be done in the public eye. Progress is being made. It is serious and I am going to keep in touch with it but I will not give an undertaking to intervene at the present time.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scar- borough West.

Mr. Lewis: I presume the applause was for the attitude of the minister’s response rather than its content.

CONDITIONS AT BROCKVILLE CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES

Mr. Lewis: Can I ask another question of the Minister of Labour? Was another matter on which the minister was briefed the question of health and safety conditions at the Brockville Chemical Industries Ltd. in Cornwall? His predecessor did virtually nothing about this even though there is a letter on record, dated April 5, from the industrial safety branch of the ministry indicating that the complaints of the men were justified, that corrective measures were ordered but they have as yet to be implemented.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, I do not have any information on that but I will try to obtain it for the hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you.

LICENSING OF LANDFILL SITES

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of the Environment. I notice that quietly -- that is, without his announcement -- Disposal Services Ltd. received the increased extension of dumping on the 20-acre landfill site in Vaughan township. What has happened to the 900-acre site for which it has also requested authority from the ministry to proceed?

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): As far as the larger site is concerned -- I believe it is a 700-acre site -- there are applications on two parts of it for an environmental hearing. There has been no date set for that as yet.

Mr. Lewis: No date at all?

Hon. W. Newman: No date.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary: Is the minister satisfied in his own mind that the further wanton abuse of that 20-acre site -- I don’t know how else to describe it; some of us have seen it -- is justified by this private firm?

Hon. W. Newman: As the member knows, we put a control on it and there are certain things they had to do on the site. When the Environmental Hearing Board made its report back, it made certain recommendations of things that must be done at the site.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary.

Mr. Deacon: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister’s reason for approval of this purely the desperate situation in Toronto for garbage disposal? Or is the minister also concerned about the potential contamination of the headwaters of the Don River; the sources of water supply for both Maple and Richmond Hill? What will the minister do if further development of landfill disposal sites in that area contaminates these important sources of water for the areas north of Toronto?

Hon. W. Newman: Before they will be allowed to go ahead on the 20-acre site, the technical studies will have to be completed; and they are being done right now.

Mr. Deacon: By the hydraulics branch?

Hon. W. Newman: By the hydraulics branch, yes.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scar- borough West has further questions?

Mr. Lewis: Just a last question of the same minister on a related matter. In the case of York Sanitation Co., another American firm, which has applied to the minister for expansion for the so-called Bremner dump, four miles west of Stouffville, which involves great concern to the community about the possibility of leakage into the wells, why is he considering a further hearing on this dump when there is such consolidated elected municipal antagonism to any further disposal on that site?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious the member for Scarborough West isn’t up to date.

Mr. Lewis: That may be.

Hon. W. Newman: I issued a control order last week setting out 12 conditions for that particular site -- the one known as the Bremner dump. We cut down the amount of tonnage that could go in there and we gave them certain clean-up instructions. I will also be meeting with their representative, the member for York North (Mr. W. Hodgson), who has requested a meeting with the council. I believe we will be meeting next week on this matter.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary: The minister is saying, I take it, that if the control order is adhered to, he will continue to allow the site to be used for dumping purposes, despite the behaviour of the company in the past?

Hon. W. Newman: As I said, we issued a control order and set out 12 points to which they must adhere.

Mr. Lewis: No further questions.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Rainy River I believe was first.

STRIKE AT ARTISTIC WOODWORK CO. LTD.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Thank you

Mr. Speaker: I have a question of the Solicitor General. What answer is the Solicitor General going to give to the Canadian Liberties Association in regard to Miss Vickie Trerise and the action of the police during the Artistic Woodwork Co. strike?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, I just received a letter late last week from Mr. Borovoy, who I believe is counsel to the Civil Liberties Association --

Mr. Renwick: Director.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- or the director -- and had a chance to read it. There are one or two things that concern me before I reply to the letter. One is, of course, that this matter was the subject of a court case; and also apparently the main complaint by Mr. Borovoy is the complaints bureau operated by the Metro police commission or the Metro council. In other words, he’s suggesting that there be a province-wide complaints bureau.

Mr. Singer: Yes; the minister must have heard a bit about that in his estimates.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Yes, right. Now one of the things also is the fact that the Metro council has appointed Arthur Maloney, QC, to look into this whole matter of the complaints bureau. I wouldn’t want to prejudge his findings or make a decision as to the necessity of a province-wide bureau until we have the advantage of his particular investigation. Also, of course, the OPC looks into complaints in respect to actions of municipal policemen. So having said that, I’m still not satisfied I have enough information to reply to all the points, particularly in relation to the individual Vickie Trerise. I want to find out more about that, and then I’ll reply.

Mr. Reid: Supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker: Does the minister not feel in view of this particular situation -- and the Landmark situation -- where the young lady was found innocent and acquitted, that the time has come for a different mechanism to deal with this so the public can be satisfied that justice is being done?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: There is not too much of an analogy between this situation and the Landmark situation really. This is a matter of charges that were laid against a young lady about whom the civil liberties group is now concerned.

Mr. Reid: The point is that people can’t get any redress.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Whether there was, for example, police brutality in this particular instance is something that is requested of me by the director.

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

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: In the same vein, Mr. Speaker, when will the minister take action to remove judges from police commissions in order to remove the conflict of interest that was first outlined by the McRuer commission three or four years ago?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, this was also subject to consideration and recommendation by the task force on policing. A recommendation was made there.

Mr. Singer: They recommended it on a split vote.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: There was a minority report.

Mr. Singer: All the policemen were in favour of retaining the judges.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: This is one of the recommendations I hope to deal with first.

Mr. Cassidy: Interminable is the word.

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

Mr. Stokes: That is two questions from that party.

Mr. Speaker: No, I think not.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the question from the hon. member for Ottawa Centre was a new question and not a supplementary question.

Mr. Speaker: I think perhaps the hon. member is correct but I did not rule it out of order on that basis. I felt there was some area of similarity and I therefore permitted it as a supplementary. Therefore, to correct the situation, the next member will be a member of the New Democratic Party.

An hon. member: Unfair.

SALE OF GOODS AT CNIB STORE

Mr. Stokes: I have a question of the Minister of Government Services. Is the minister aware that in the boutique operated by the CNIB downstairs most of the material is made outside Canada? There are things from the Republic of China, from Taiwan and

Japan.

Mr. Breithaupt: Even a Bill Davis doll.

Mr. Singer: The Bill Davis doll comes from Taiwan.

Mr. Reid: Wind it up and it does nothing.

Mr. Stokes: Will the minister undertake, in co-operation with his colleague, the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Brunelle) who pays a young lady full time to promote the sale and the marketing of Indian crafts and gemstones, which is becoming an important industry in the Province of Ontario, to have those articles sold that are of such great interest to the people and which are receiving wide acclaim from the people in the province?

Mr. Singer: How about a model of the CNR private car?

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Mr. Speaker, I think I could certainly agree to that suggestion. I think we could encourage the CNIB Cater Plan people to sell souvenirs made by the native peoples and other such articles. I don’t think I can forbid the CNIB from selling items other than what might be made in the Province of Ontario.

Mr. Stokes: Supplementary: Will the minister undertake to co-ordinate such a plan with his colleague, the Minister of Community and Social Services, who actually has people on his staff doing precisely that thing?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Yes, I think it would be an excellent idea and I will certainly discuss it with him.

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

HOUSING PROGRAMMES

Mrs. Campbell: A question, Mr. Speaker, of the Minister of Housing: In view of the editorial in this morning’s Globe and Mail, has the minister decided that 10 per cent of the housing product under the Ontario action programme should be public housing, that is, rent-geared-to-income units rather than units sold under the HOME plan?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I could give the hon. member a very short answer and say no. The housing action programme contains the provision in it that 10 per cent of the units made available will be under the HOME plan. We are studying the implications of including some type of rent supplement programme within housing action.

It should be borne in mind, however, that the majority of the products will not in fact be rentals. They will be for home ownership. Inasmuch as there may be some rentals built by developers under the plan, we are quite prepared to consider including in the plan rent supplement units.

Mrs. Campbell: Supplementary: Mr. Speaker, will the minister give this Legislature a breakdown of this figure so that we understand precisely out of the 31,100 units how many may be rent-geared-to-income housing?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, the initial statement which was tabled in the House last Monday indicates this quite clearly: The only part of the 31,000 which will not be public housing will be the 12,000 units built under OHAP, and of course a portion of those will be included in the HOME programme, as I have just said.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s not true. The Globe is too kind to the minister anyway.

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

SPADINA EXPRESSWAY

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation and Communications, in the absence of the Premier (Mr. Davis) since today is the third anniversary of the scuttling of the Spadina Expressway, which has been replaced by nothing, what message of hope and expectations does the minister have for the people who live in my constituency and who have been strangling on the traffic and transportation congestion in my area? Or are they to be as disappointed in the future as they have been in the past three years?

Mr. Lewis: There will be another announcement about this time next year, I would think.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that I don’t have any message at all to pass along to the hon. member’s constituents.

Mr. Reid: Oh, we know that.

Mr. Lewis: That just about sums up the minister’s policy.

Mr. Cassidy: Right.

Interjections by hon. members.

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

DISPUTE AT BORDEN CO. LTD.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): A question of the Minister of Labour, Mr. Speaker: Can the minister inform the House about the extent of involvement, if any, of the mediation branch in the dispute with Borden’s at Belmont, Ont., where the company has in fact locked out the workers and is now advertising for and hiring additional help?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t catch the name of the party involved.

Mr. Bounsall: Borden’s at Belmont, Ont.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: No sir. I have no in- formation on that, Mr. Speaker, but will do my best to obtain information on the situation there and pass it on to the hon. member.

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

RAILWAY RIGHTS OF WAY

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. As railway rights of way in many communities are located in the core areas, holding core area urban land, and as many communities wish to redevelop the lands on which the railways are now situated, what financial involvement is the ministry prepared to take with the federal authorities so that these lands may be expropriated and municipalities may develop them for other uses?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, there has been no policy developed along those lines. We have been awaiting, of course, the passing of the legislation at the federal level, and now that that is passed we will have an opportunity to enter into discussions with the federal ministry. I can assure the hon. member that if there is some way that we can co-operate to help develop these unused rights of way then the ministry would certainly be interested in doing so.

Mr. B. Newman: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Will the minister report to the House after he does meet with the federal authorities, so that we know exactly what the policy of the ministry will be at that time?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I would be most pleased to, Mr. Speaker. Of course, the hon. member realizes it will be sometime after July 8.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside.

STUDY OF VINYL CHLORIDE

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of the Environment arising out of today’s report of new cases of liver cancer in the vicinity of vinyl chloride plants in the United States: Since this raises the possibility that vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride manufacturing processes present an air pollution hazard outside the plants -- therefore, not only to the workers on the inside but also to those who live in the vicinity of the plants -- can the minister tell us how many such plants there are in Ontario and whether emissions from such plants are being or will be monitored?

Hon. W. Newman: No, Mr. Speaker, I can’t tell the hon. member how many plants there are, but I can certainly tell the hon. member that we do keep an eye on all plants that are creating air pollution problems, and I will get the hon. member a fuller report as soon as possible.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary, if I may: In view of the astonishing evidence that is emerging in the United States about the effects of vinyl chloride and polyvinyl chloride -- I guess associated with B. F. Goodrich, is it not, as one of the companies -- has the minister himself yet initiated a survey of whether or not such processes are being used in the manufacture of plastics in the Province of Ontario --

Mr. Renwick: Such as Esso Chemicals in Sarnia?

Mr. Lewis: -- whatever the plants may be -- in order to avoid the kind of crisis that we now see in lead, in asbestos and in uranium?

Hon. W. Newman: Of course, we are dealing with a health problem as well as an environmental problem.

Mr. Lewis: Right.

Hon. W. Newman: I can assure the hon, member that we are very much concerned about any problems that affect our environment.

Mr. Lewis: But has the minister initiated a study --

Hon. W. Newman: I assume that our people are looking at it. I am not sure of it, no.

Mr. Lewis: Will the minister report back?

DIAL-A-BUS

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. Can he tell us the amount of current expenditure, capital expenditure, and the amount assessed to staff work in relation to the disastrous dial-a-bus experiment?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, anticipating that the hon. member for Downsview has a great interest in this particular project, I am having all those figures put together for him. Rather than simply presenting one lump figure, I am having it broken down exactly the way he would like it and I will present it to him here in the House.

Mr. Speaker: Yes, there are a few minutes remaining.

Mr. Cassidy: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

HIRING OF LIQUOR STORE EMPLOYEES

Mr. Cassidy: A question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: Is the minister aware of any sex discrimination in hiring and employment practices at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Am I aware of any --

Mr. Cassidy: Sex discrimination.

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I am not aware of any sex discrimination practices at that board. I am aware that --

Mr. Breithaupt: This is not a two-part question.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am aware that there is a difference and I often have toasted to it.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, would the minister inquire into the employment practices of the board in view of the fact that it has only two full-time women employees at its retail stores compared with 2,200 men; --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Cassidy: -- in view of the fact that only one woman at the board earns more than $15,000 a year compared with 257 men; in view of the fact that only two women earn between $10,000 and $15,000 a year, compared with 1,253 men; and in view of the fact that part-time female cashiers are being paid at a rate of $107 a week, if they work full-time, compared to about double that rate for men doing comparable work in the same stores?

Will the minister conduct an inquiry?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, the figure I am aware of is that there is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 80 female employees at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario at this particular time. As the board swings into its self-service stores programme entirely across the province, this figure will necessarily increase as they are employing females as cashiers.

I was asked the other day if we would hire women in any other capacity. To my knowledge we have not had any apply, but there are some difficulties, particularly in the manual work that’s involved at the stores in loading and unloading trucks. As far as I am aware no women have ever made application for that type of employment.

Mr. Cassidy: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister aware that women are actually discouraged from seeking those jobs, and is he also aware that the weight of a case of liquor which they might be possibly required to lift on the job is about the same as the weight of a nine-month-old baby?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That’s a good parallel.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t know whose --

An hon. member: That’s a big baby.

Mr. Breithaupt: Does the case leak?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I would like to know who is actively discouraging the ladies from making application. That I don’t know and I would welcome that information.

Mr. Lewis: Well, when one doesn’t invite it, one discourages it.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Second, they don’t raise them as big in Niagara Falls as they do in Ottawa Centre because a case of 40-oz bottles weighs about 30 lb, so they must have a lot of big babies up there in Ottawa.

An hon. member: One of Pierre’s.

Mr. Cassidy: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville, with a supplementary.

Mr. B. Newman: A supplementary to the minister: In the hiring of ladies as cashiers in the liquor stores, would the minister consider ladies who have physical handicaps so that we can have another avenue available for those who are handicapped?

An hon. member: That’s a good question.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, the board has followed a pattern in certain stores of hiring people who are somewhat handicapped so long as they can complete and carry out their function. The type of function that the member describes I would suggest could be carried out by someone who had a bad leg or something of that nature.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): All their employees are handicapped. They are all Tories.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Perhaps they appear to be handicapped to the member when he goes in but it’s three times in one day, you know, Mr. Speaker. It isn’t fair for him to comment after his third trip.

Nothing personal; I admire his capacity, sir.

Mr. Breithaupt: In that as in other things.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I would be glad to obtain a definitive statement from the board. I have had discussions with the chairman and as far as I am concerned and aware, there is no discrimination in this type of hiring.

I should point out that I think a number of people, particularly members of this Legislature, are approached constantly by people in their own communities, and properly so, for an opportunity to obtain employment in liquor stores and various outlets. I have followed this up, and I know that in my own riding I think there are some 200 applications from people who have indicated their interest in working in this particular capacity.

It has just been pointed out that two women did apply for jobs in the warehouse. They were accepted, but they didn’t turn up on the day that they were to commence work; so that’s the only thing I know.

An hon. member: They were NDP.

An hon. member: NDPers.

Mr. Cassidy: A final supplementary?

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

Mr. Cassidy: Briefly, Mr. Speaker?

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

Mr. Lewis: That’s a very gratuitous note to end on.

Mr. Speaker: Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table copies of the contract between the consortium and my ministry, relating to the Haldimand-Norfolk purchase.

BRANTFORD JAIL BREAK

Hon. R. T. Potter (Minister of Correctional Services): Mr. Speaker, on May 16, the Leader of the Opposition asked if I would table information in connection with an escape in April from the Brantford jail. I am pleased to table the information regarding this occurrence.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

SPEAKER’S RULINGS

Mr. Speaker: Before the orders of the day, I should like to deal with two matters that were raised, I believe, on Thursday, of last week; one was raised by the hon. member for Scarborough West and one by the hon. member for Wentworth. I have now had an opportunity to look into these two matters and my findings are as follows.

Firstly, the point made by the hon. member for Scarborough West with respect to the reference of boards and commissions is valid up to a point. It is perfectly true that on Wednesday, March 6, when the standing committees for this session were authorized by the order of the House, it was ordered that, and I quote: “All boards and commissions are hereby referred to committees Nos. 1 to 4, in accordance with the policy areas indicated by the titles of the said committees.” Therefore, all boards and commissions coming within the Resources Development policy field stand referred to the resources development committee.

However, before any such board or commission can be called before the committee there must be a decision by the committee, at least by a majority of the members of that committee, that the committee wishes to hear that particular board or commission. Moreover, should the committee decide to call the Workmen’s Compensation Board, any discussion of the silicosis problem would have to be confined to matters within the jurisdiction of the board.

The schedule of meetings of any standing committee is the responsibility of the chairman. The vice-chairman, who is at present acting as chairman, takes the position that as the board comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Labour, the estimates of which have not yet been considered by the committee, there will be ample opportunity to question the board at that time. As the committee has already taken up a great deal of time, this inquiry should be conducted in that way.

Those are my findings in connection with the matter raised regarding the standing committees.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, you’re simply giving findings rather than an opinion, I take it.

Mr. Speaker: No, my opinion is based on these findings and this is my ruling in connection with the situation.

Mr. Lewis: Well, may I ask you, Mr. Speaker -- I didn’t quite understand the final observation. Because the chairman of the committee believes that the appropriate place to discuss the Workmen’s Compensation Board may be at the end of the Labour estimates, which may come some time in October, November or December, rather than calling that board before the committee now and discussing something that is currently actively under discussion, are you saying that the opinion of the chairman on that must therefore prevail over the views of the committee, or over the responsibilities of the House?

Mr. Speaker: No. What I had really said to the hon. members of the House is that the chairman does schedule the meetings of the committee, and the committee meets and hears those boards or commissions decided upon by a majority of the members when they vote.

Now, the chairman, in this case the vice- chairman, is acting as the chairman, and I am reciting to the House the position taken by the vice-chairman.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I hear; but it contradicts the position taken by the committee.

Mr. Speaker: Well, this is the position taken by the chairman and the chairman does schedule the meetings of the committee.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of --

Mr. Speaker: Just one moment, please. If the hon. members of the committee decide that they should, in fact, by majority vote, summons any board or commission, it would be my position that they can do so.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I don’t know whether it is a point of order or a point of privilege: As someone who sat through the entire committee hearings, the committee on two occasions decided to summons before it, or request to appear before it, representatives from the board to deal within the capacity of the board, precisely as you have described, with the questions of miners’ health at Elliot Lake. I don’t in any way incriminate the Speaker in it, but your findings today effectively destroy the possibility of having any outside testimony, contributions, submissions, on matters at Elliot Lake. I see it as a deliberate effort on the part of the government to suppress what should be legitimate public information. It is worthy of none of the government members. And I am sure I am right; because that kills it.

Mr. Renwick: He is right and the government knows it.

Mr. Lewis: It has been killed dead today.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order: I, too, was in the estimates when this whole discussion took place. And, as a matter of fact, I was just rereading what I consider one of the most shameful pieces of interchange that has gone on in this Legislature in regard to the democratic process.

It was agreed by all parties in that committee, sir, that they would follow the course of action as outlined and the vice-chairman -- I can’t think of his riding offhand) --

Mr. J. P. Spence (Kent): Lanark.

Mr. Reid: The member for Lanark (Mr. Wiseman) agreed that he had made a commitment and was prepared to follow that through. And if this matter does not go through as was promised and was indicated -- and it had the approval originally as well of the Minister of Natural Resources -- then I would say it is a subversion of the whole democratic process in this chamber.

Mr. Lewis: Absolutely. Quite incredible.

Mr. Breithaupt: Might I ask a question, Mr. Speaker, with respect to this matter? Can the Speaker advise us as to how members of the committee can bring this kind of a problem before the House if the chairman of the committee does not call a meeting at which the matter can be discussed?

What is the alternative open for members of committees to bring this point forward so that something that may have been decided in committee can be proceeded with in the absence of the co-operation and leadership of the chairman of the committee?

Mr. Speaker: I think perhaps there is some misunderstanding on the part of the members as to what I said.

For their benefit and clarification, I think perhaps I should re-read part of the comments that I made:

“Before any such board or commission [And I was referring there to the Workmen’s Compensation Board in this particular case.] can be called before the committee, there must be a decision by the committee, at least by a majority --”

Mr. Lewis: There were; there were two decisions.

Mr. Speaker: The information that I found was that there was no such majority decision.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, absolutely. On a point of order that is a categorical fabrication --

Mr. Speaker: All right; just a minute.

Mr. Lewis: -- if that is what was conveyed to the Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I wasn’t at the committee; I am just passing on the information that was passed on to me. And if the committee --

Mr. Lewis: Then the Speaker has been misled inadvertently by that member.

Mr. Speaker: If the committee passes a resolution by a majority vote that they summon the Workmen’s Compensation Board, they must so summons the Workmen’s Compensation Board.

Mr. Lewis: They will not do it. I don’t know why; it is quite innocent.

Mr. Speaker: The last part of the comments I had made was simply reciting to the House the position taken by the vice-chairman; and I take no responsibility for that.

Mr. Lewis: I appreciate that.

Mr. Breithaupt: Then, Mr. Speaker, in furtherance to the point I raised, if at this stage the members of the committee are of a mind to summons the board, and the chairman does not call a meeting of the committee, what recourse do the members of the committee have to get the matter dealt with --

Mr. Lewis: Reopened? No way. You have killed it; not you personally. Generically, it is destroyed.

Mr. Speaker: No, I think not. I think that if this takes place, and the members by majority vote approve a resolution to summon the Workmen’s Compensation Board, that it is incumbent upon the chairman or vice-chairman to arrange such a meeting.

Mr. Renwick: You can’t do that if you can’t have a meeting.

Mr. Lewis: You can’t do that without a meeting.

Mr. Speaker: Then I think the chairman is obliged to call a meeting. If this is not done, I think the hon. members should report it to me as Speaker, and I will look into it.

Mr. Breithaupt: So that if a majority of the members wish to have a meeting of the committee and it is not called, Mr. Speaker should be advised?

Mr. Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, we will request such a meeting to reinstate the decisions that were taken. But we know, by virtue of what has been read to the House today, that a decision has been made over there to prevent the committee from hearing --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It has nothing to do with the government.

Mr. Lewis: Absolutely. A calculated decision has been made over there. A calculated decision for no reason.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Didn’t the member say the minister agreed to that? He is contradicting himself.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I must say to the hon. members that there was no such information passed on to me. Neither the government nor any persons within the government passed on to me any decision they had made. I based this purely on my findings.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, one final word, if I may, on this matter. Could I suggest, sir, that you make yourself acquainted with the Hansard for Thursday, May 23, I believe, and the conversation or dialogue which took place between the members of that committee between approximately 9 and 10:30 at night? I’m sure, sir, I think it’s incumbent upon you to protect the rights and privileges of this House. I’m sure you will do so once you have read Hansard.

Mr. Speaker: I’m sure the hon. member realizes that I, as Speaker, fully realize what’s incumbent upon me as Speaker and what is not incumbent upon me.

I am referring now to the point raised by the member for Wentworth. As I said previously, Wednesdays are sessional days even when reserved for committees. Non-sessional days during the sessions are, of course, Saturdays and Sundays, public holidays, and any day on which this House is actually adjourned and recessed for such things as funerals, etc.

A sessional day reserved by order of the House for committees, therefore, is nonetheless a sessional day. The suggestion that because a certain committee is sitting on another matter, for example, a bill, on a certain Wednesday and not on estimates could not be interpreted to mean that it was therefore not a sessional day. In accordance with what I’ve already said, and I’ve ruled on this before, sessional days are such regardless of what may be the agenda of any committees which may be sitting on such days.

Orders of the day.

THIRD READINGS

Clerk of the House: The second order, third reading of Bill Pr20, An Act respecting the City of Toronto.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, if I may comment on this bill; we had a debate on second reading of the bill on Friday and we asked that the bill be put over until the government’s intentions were known with respect to general legislation in this whole area of demolition control to meet the very legitimate and needful requests of the city of Toronto to protect the inner core of the city principally.

Now the minister is in the House today; he was not here on Friday. I want to know why it is not possible to hold this bill until the minister introduces his legislation? The strange conjunction in time is very odd in that we should be forced to put through the City of Toronto bill when we now understand that the mayor and the minister have talked about the demolition control legislation. I have no idea whether the mayor of the city of Toronto is in agreement with the province’s legislation. My guess is he’s not. My guess is that the government’s legislation, when it’s introduced, will be substantially defective in accomplishing what the mayor of the city of Toronto wishes to accomplish.

I don’t quite know how to proceed. I don’t particularly wish to move another hoist for this bill and force a vote on a pleasant summer Monday afternoon in the Legislature when we have other matters, such as that fascinating Bill 25, to deal with on third reading as well. To be spending all our time on the third reading of bills rather than dealing with other matters seems to me to be perhaps a little bit wasteful.

Is it conceivably possible that in the course of this debate on the third reading of Bill Pr20 the government could tell us the exact day on which the bill is going to be introduced? Will that exact day of the introduction of that bill be today, tomorrow, the next day? Will it be during the course of this week? Have the discussions taken place with the city of Toronto? Are the officials of the city of Toronto and the elected representatives of the city of Toronto in agreement about the nature of the general legislation; or are we going to find that Bill Pr20, by reason of the motion as moved by the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Mr. Wardle) will be a fait accompli and a dead issue as far as its being recalled into the Legislature on our finding that the actual legislation as proposed by the government is inadequate?

It’s an exasperating situation. I can’t conceive of anything other than ill motivations that would lead the government to force a man like the member for Beaches-Woodbine to be in complicity with the government in this method of defeating the legitimate wishes of the city of Toronto. I am afraid my friend, the member for Beaches-Woodbine, is being used by his own party for this purpose.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Mr. Speaker, I would like to know how a person who is not a member of the private bills committee, in a procedure that allows a bill to go from second to third reading without going to committee of the whole House, can make any comments on individual clauses of a bill or make any motions for amendments in the clause-by-clause consideration of a private bill?

Mr. Speaker: The private bill, of course, has been referred to the private bills committee for full consideration. It does not go to the committee of the whole.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister without Port- folio): Mr. Speaker, if I can make a few comments at this time --

Mr. Speaker: As the hon. member was wanting to speak, I’ll deal with this question later if necessary.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I’d just like to clarify for the member for Riverdale the situation that we have at the present time. I was away on Friday, otherwise I would have spoken to the point on second reading of Bill Pr20; however, the matter in Thunder Bay was quite important to northwestern Ontario.

Specifically, what we have done is we met with Mayor Crombie of the city of Toronto and his staff on Thursday. We have told him we would wait until today to receive his written comments as to the proposed legislation. There were two points which, in our opinion, were not too difficult to resolve, but I wanted to have in writing their exact position. As I had indicated to the members of the private bills committee, I wanted that before we introduce legislation.

We have meetings scheduled for later on this afternoon to discuss this bill further. We will be meeting in cabinet on Wednesday to refine the proposal of last week, which the Treasurer (Mr. White) indicated to the members of this House we did discuss last week in cabinet. It is our intention, if all goes well, to bring the proposed legislation to caucus on Thursday and to introduce the legislation to the House this week. I am sure that the city of Toronto does not want the other phases of its bill held up because of this proposed legislation, which I have indicated, and the Treasurer has indicated will be brought forth in this session.

I would only say to you, Mr. Speaker, and to other members of the House, I would deem it very appropriate that we go ahead with the bill before us for third reading.

Mr. Renwick: Is the minister committing himself to introduce the bill this week?

Mr. Deacon: On a point of order, could I get clarification of this matter of clause-by-clause consideration by a member?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York Centre has asked in what manner a private bill may be sent to the committee of the whole House. At second reading, if any member asks for it to be sent to the committee of the whole House, it may be sent. No member did ask.

Does any other member wish to participate in the debate on third reading? The hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine.

Mr. T. A. Wardle (Beaches-Woodbine): Mr. Speaker, I merely make the same point I made on Friday morning. The six remaining items in the city of Toronto bill were all approved at the private bills committee. I don’t think there is very much discussion on any of those six points. It seems to me, seeing they were discussed fully at that point, there is no reason to hold up the bill on account of the demolition section that was withdrawn before it went to this House.

It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, and I have made the point on several occasions last year and again this year, that I do feel the city of Toronto requires demolition permission in certain forms that are agreeable to the city and to the government. So, Mr. Speaker, I am most anxious, when this comes forward, to debate the issue and to take the appropriate action. But I see no reason to hold up the balance of the Toronto bill while this other matter comes forward.

The following bill was given third reading:

Bill Pr20, An Act respecting the City of Toronto.

Clerk of the House: The third order, third reading of Bill 25, An Act to impose a Tax on Land in respect of certain speculative Transactions affecting the Control or Ownership of Land.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Speaker, this bill has been before this Legislature and debated for as long a time as any bill I have seen in my 15 years of service in this Legislature.

I have never seen a bill that has been more badly drafted, more confusing, more lacking in clear language, or more difficult to understand than this one. It’s small wonder that so many weeks were taken up in debating in committee of the whole, section by section, the meaning and significance of this statute. It’s small wonder the ministry has been forced to retreat, cover up, reverse itself, to present originally 22 or 23 pages of amendments and then amendments to the amendments. It is sad that the bill, while in theory good, its principle having logic and appealing to my party because we believe that people who just push pieces of paper around and make inordinate profits should be taxed, has been so badly presented, so badly drafted and so badly advanced by the government.

The answer of the minister has been: “Well, don’t worry. Don’t worry, because if in the process we find that the bill is not going to work properly, or not work the way we intended, or if the net is cast so wide that it catches the barracudas and lets the minnows sneak through” -- or is it the other way around? -- “we are going to take unto ourselves by regulation powers that will allow us to correct it.”

He has forgotten, Mr. Speaker, the principles of taxing statutes. He’s forgotten that they should be precise. He has invented new law as he has gone on. He’s indicated that persons who might take advantage of sections of the statute as written have every right to do that. He’s forgotten the difference between avoidance and evasion. He’s forgotten most of the taxing principles that have been established by decisions of our courts, and he presents us with a bill that the editorial writers in the Globe this morning describe in an editorial in one section as “an incentive to cronyism.” What else could one expect when the minister takes unto himself the power to amend any of the provisions of the bill in any way he wants by order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, or to allow taxes to be avoided or forgiven or forgotten if they are inconvenient.

Those things are bad enough by themselves; but, Mr. Speaker, the most serious flaw in this bill is that no one yet knows whether or not this tax is going to be allowed as a business expense by the government of Canada. If it is going to be allowed as a business expense by the government of Canada, one rate of taxes will apply. If it is not going to be allowed as a business expense by the government of Canada, another rate of taxes would apply.

We have asked the minister, we have urged the minister, we have begged the minister to bring us some land of an authoritative opinion from someone saying there is reason to believe that the government of Canada would I allow this as an expense of doing business. But all we get are mysterious little memos passed from the -- well it is only the wonderful two now, it is usually the wonderful three who sit under the gallery, who present the minister with arguments from time to time.

We have had no opinion from any of the known or accepted or accredited tax authorities, either lawyers or accountants. We have asked the minister if he couldn’t refer to people like the present treasurer of the Law Society, Stuart Thom, who is well known and well regarded as a tax lawyer; Mr. Stikeman, who is a partner of one John Robarts, who is well known for his tax expertise; or Wilf Goodman, another outstanding tax lawyer who practises here in the Province of Ontario. We have asked the minister if he couldn’t seek the opinions of some of the outstanding accounting firms. He hasn’t done that.

An hon. member: Clarkson Gordon.

Mr. Singer: Clarkson Gordon, for instance.

It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, particularly referring to Clarkson Gordon, that when the minister was pinned down in the hall one day by the press, he said: “Yes, there was one firm. Peat Marwick, that seemed to think that the tax would not be allowable. However, Clarkson Gordon had said that there was no reason why it should not be allowable as an expense.”

I found that very interesting, because if the minister had ascertained that kind of information, I wondered why he hadn’t presented it to us in the House, because it has been a great concern to many of us as to what outside opinion there possibly was. It became obvious the minister consulted none of the federal people. It became obvious there was no opinion from Mr. Turner or from his deputy, or from Mr. Gray or his deputy in Ottawa. In fact Mr. Turner, in a recent interview given to the Toronto Daily Star indicated he had grave reservations as to this bill.

There are a whole battery of federal civil servants whose opinion could have been sought. There are a few groups up in Ottawa who give opinions about taxing matters; none of those were referred to. The Tax Foundation is another one.

None of those people did the minister call as his witness or as his authority. Instead, he refers to these notes he gets passed from under the gallery by his own civil servants. None of those, Mr. Speaker, am I prepared to accept as authority, particularly in view of the very bad drafting of this statute; and the bad drafting is obvious in the myriad of amendments that we’ve seen.

But back to Clarkson Gordon: If the minister was correctly quoted in an article in the Star, Clarkson Gordon had given him some indication there is no reason why the tax should not be deducted. Mr. Speaker, I made it my business to inquire of Clarkson Gordon as to whether or not they had been retained by the government of Ontario to give them an opinion. I was told definitely by Clarkson Gordon that no such retainer had been entered into; that, in fact, Clarkson Gordon had given no such opinion to the government of Ontario; and that, in fact, Clarkson Gordon, in its letter to its clients, said something quite entirely different from what the minister implied in his interview with the press.

I have in my hand, Mr. Speaker, Clarkson Gordon’s memorandum to its clients, headed: “Ontario’s Provincial Tax Changes, 1974”. On page A-2 of that opinion -- and this is on their own letterhead; this is authoritative and was widely distributed to the clients of Clarkson Gordon -- this is what they had to say:

“It is not clear how the land speculation tax and income taxes interrelate.”

Quite contrary to what the minister implied in his interview with the press.

“In presenting the new tax, the Ontario government has assumed it would be treated as a cost of disposition and hence a deduction in computing the gain for income tax purposes. While the tax is payable by the transferor of the land and calculated by reference to the gain he realizes, it is structured as a tax on the land itself; as such, it appears to be a tax on property rather than a profits tax.”

This is the key sentence of that paragraph, Mr. Speaker:

“The federal government has not yet indicated whether it will accept this position for income tax purposes.”

A far cry, Mr. Speaker, from that last sentence to what the minister misleadingly told the press, presuming he was correctly reported; and in the event that he was not correctly reported, and since the report was in the paper several days ago, one would have thought the minister would have been the first one to stand in his place and say he had been incorrectly reported.

I’m not going to read the whole of this report, but down at the bottom of page A-2, Clarkson Gordon sets out, in table one, the prospects for a taxpayer in the upper brackets. It has two columns; one says if the land tax is deductible and the other says if the land tax is not deductible. If the gain is income and the income tax rate is 50 per cent, 75 per cent would be the total tax; so if the income tax rate is 61 per cent, 80.5 per cent would be the total tax.

That, Mr. Speaker, is only if the tax is deductible; but then move over to the next column. If the tax is not deductible and the income tax rate is 50 per cent, the tax would be 100 per cent; if the income tax rate is 61 per cent, the tax would be 111 per cent.

Now that’s what Clarkson Gordon said in its letter. That is the Clarkson Gordon opinion and that is what the minister wasn’t prepared to tell the House or wasn’t prepared to tell the press.

The table goes on to say if the gain is capital, with the income tax rate at 50 per cent the total tax would be 62.5 if it’s deductible and 75 per cent if not deductible. If the rate was 61 per cent the total tax if deductible would be 65.5 per cent; or if not deductible 80.5 per cent.

Again, it’s a far cry from anything the minister told either us in the House or through the press outside the House.

Just let me quote one more sentence from the Clarkson Gordon letter, on page A-3:

“No attempt has been made to integrate the new tax with the Ontario gift tax and both might apply to the same land at the time of a gift.”

That’s something we really haven’t touched on before and I think it is, again, significant. I don’t know the consideration the government has given to that but if we are going to embark, Mr. Speaker, on a new tax surely we should know, we must know, we have to know, what the incidence of that tax is going to be. It is not sufficient for the day to say: “Don’t worry; if there is something wrong we’ll fix it up.”

Mr. Speaker, we would urge the Treasurer to get into this argument; but the Treasurer chooses to ignore by and large most of this debate. He did get quoted in the press one day and said he was sure his good friend, Mr. Stanfield, would allow this item to be deductible as a business tax. “Whether or not his good friend, Mr. Stanfield, is ever going to be in the position to make that kind of a decision remains yet to be decided. A lot of people in Canada don’t think he will.

Whether or not Mr. Stanfield will ever be in that position, it’s interesting that the Treasurer refused to answer whether he had such a commitment from Mr. Stanfield; and the Treasurer is not bashful about coming forward when he’s got a point to make. If he did have such a commitment from Mr. Stanfield, I am certain, knowing the Treasurer as we all do, he wouldn’t have hesitated to tell us there was such a commitment. It was interesting that when the Treasurer was asked about this in the House, his rationalization in this regard was Mr. Stanfield knows full well the problems Ontario has in raising adequate finances and he should be or would be one of the first to say that Ontario should have greater sources of revenue.

Let’s examine, really, what the Treasurer meant by that or must have meant and how his words have to be understood. What the Treasurer was saying was that the Province of Ontario has too few sources of revenue and it should have an ability to tax at greater rates and not have to go cap in hand to Ottawa. What the Treasurer was saying was that the Province of Ontario should be able to undercut the federal taxing power.

Now if that was ever allowed, Mr. Speaker, the whole federal taxing power would go down the drain.

Mr. Renwick: I don’t understand this argument. Will the member try to make it clear to me? I have never understood that from the beginning.

Mr. Singer: All right, the hon. member for Riverdale says he doesn’t understand. Let me explain it this way.

If a province, any province, is able to levy whatever tax it chooses in whatever amount and set it off as a deductible item -- and changing the title of this statute from being a tax on income to a tax on land really doesn’t change the effect of the Act -- the Province of Ontario is levying an additional tax claiming it is deductible and shortening thereby, or lessening thereby, the ability of the federal power to use its taxing power.

The Province of Ontario then grabs unto itself a substantial number of dollars -- and this is the point that the Treasurer was making -- which are not accountable to the federal treasury, which the federal treasury will not be able to use in equalization payments and for the general good for the whole of Canada.

If Ontario so taxes that its taxes are of such a high incidence, and those taxes are not available to Ottawa, then the whole taxing power of the federal government is thereby reduced, and in my opinion, Mr. Speaker, the whole structure of federalism is partially destroyed.

Mr. Renwick: The member’s argument has nothing to do with the law; it has to do with political economy.

Mr. Singer: Well it is about the effect of the law.

I say that when the Treasurer wanders into this kind of thinking and says that Mr. Stanfield, as an intelligent man, would agree with this kind of a tax, then I say he avoids the realities of the financial structure of the government of Canada. There is no way that any federal government, no matter what stripe it has, could possibly allow this tax to be deductible. Mr. Turner was asked about it; and he didn’t answer completely, but he certainly gave no indication to the Province of Ontario that it should expect this as a deduction.

The fact that the minister has been unable to summon to his assistance any tax authority -- the fact that the minister has refused to retain any tax authority who would give him an opinion to back up his position -- speaks volumes.

As I say, Mr. Speaker, the difficulty that we face in this statute, even though we are in accord with its principle, is that we believe that the people of Ontario have to know what the incidence of taxation is going to be. Is the incidence of taxation going to be in certain instances as high as 111 per cent, as Clarkson Cordon say in their letter to their customers? If that is so, to use the words of the minister, the tax is going to be confiscatory, and the minister says the government of Ontario could not allow confiscatory taxation.

Surely, before this bill goes through third reading, some finality to this very serious problem must, in fact, be arrived at.

Mr. Singer moves that the motion presently before the House be amended, and that all the words in the motion for third reading of Bill 25 after the word “that” be struck out, and the following substituted therefor: “the bill be not now read a third time but be referred to the standing administration of justice committee so that that committee may determine whether or not the tax imposed by this bill is, in fact, deductible as a business expense under the federal taxing statutes.”

Mr. Speaker: Is the House ready for the question?

Hon. J. White (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): I want to speak, if I may, to this matter. A number of points have been made by the hon. member prior to offering this amendment and I’d like to touch on some of them.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): This is very interesting to see the Treasurer in this at this point.

Hon. Mr. White: First of all, the hon. member has placed an amendment which would move this land speculation tax bill not forward into law but sideways into a standing committee. I think this would be most unfortunate. The criticism has been offered by members of this Legislature, and no doubt elsewhere, that the delay in enacting a statute is making it difficult for business transactions to go ahead; and to once again postpone a determination of the issue I think would be unfair to those affected by the law.

I suppose I am out of order in saying so since it ascribes motives but it seems to me that the hon. member doesn’t want further debate and consideration in committee, he simply wants to filibuster this law to death. This must bring some joy to the hearts of land speculators. I can’t think of anybody else who would be satisfied to see this course of action decided upon.

Mr. Renwick: I think this perhaps comes as close to imputing motives as I have ever heard.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Yes, I think so.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He said it apologetically, so he didn’t mean it.

Hon. Mr. White: Without knowing what the hon. member’s motives are and without even caring, I do observe that the only people this move could make happy are the land speculators in this province who, funnily enough, have found themselves allied with the Liberal Party on more than one occasion in the last 13 or 14 months.

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

Mr. Singer: That didn’t go over, try the next one.

Hon. Mr. White: Now, sir, the hon. member in presenting his case has made reference to several distinguished jurists. I have in my hand a memorandum which one of those lawyers -- I’m sorry I used the wrong word -- sent to his associates. He was good enough to put this memorandum in the hands of my colleague the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen), and while I don’t mind revealing his name to the hon. members, I think it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so in this place without getting prior clearance from the author of this work.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. White: I do say it is one of the names that was mentioned by the hon. member for Downsview. This is what the memorandum says in part. In his opinion, “the Ontario tax must be regarded as an expense which is deductible in computing income for federal income tax purposes.”

Mr. Singer: Certainly there is no greater authority than an anonymous one.

Hon. Mr. White: The memorandum goes on:

“Section 2(1) of the Ontario Act imposes a tax upon the land itself. While the measure of the tax is 50 per cent of the excess of the proceeds of disposition over the adjusted value, that is to say the cost of the land, there is a considerable difference between a tax on land which is measured by the profit realized on sale and an income tax on the vendor in respect of the profit.

“This difference is well illustrated by the decision of the Privy Council in Esquimault and Nanaimo Railway Co. vs. AGBC, 1950, AC 87.

“In that case British Columbia imposed a tax on timberlands which was calculated by reference to the amount of timber cut from the land. The railway contested the tax contending that it was an indirect tax which would be passed on to the purchasers of the timber and that it was therefore ultra vires to the province.

“However, the Privy Council held that any tax on land must be regarded as a direct tax, irrespective of the measure of tax liability, and that it was therefore a valid tax. Similarly the Ontario tax, however measured, is simply a tax on land. The Ontario tax is, by virtue of section 5, subsection 1, a lien on the land until it is paid. Accordingly the proceeds of the sale which belong to the vendor are reduced by the amount of the tax.”

Mr. Singer: It is not a lien until it is paid. That is what the section says.

Hon. Mr. White: It continues:

“In computing the profit on the sale for income tax purposes it would be absurd to include in revenue more than the net proceeds of sale after deduction of the Ontario tax.”

Mr. Singer: The statute says the lien can be removed, but the liability for the tax goes on.

Hon. Mr. White: The memo states:

“I see no reason to treat the new Ontario tax as any less deductible for income tax purposes than, say the export tax imposed on oil exports under the Excise Tax Act; both levies reduce the vendor’s revenue.

“I do not consider that this result is affected by section 2, subsection 3, which provides that the Ontario tax is payable by the transferor of the land. This is purely procedural. In fact, if the transferor is a non-resident of Ontario it is doubtful that the tax can be recovered from him except by exercise of the lien under section 5, subsection 1.”

The lawyer’s section 2:

“Income tax is imposed on persons resident in Canada in respect of their taxable income for the year. It is quite possible for a person to make substantial profits from the sale of land which is subject to the Ontario tax but to have no taxable income for federal income tax purposes.

“For example, if we are dealing with a real estate development corporation, its land profits may be completely offset by capital cost allowances in respect to buildings held for investment. By virtue of regulation 1100 (1, 2), it is not subject to regulation 1100 (11) which limits most taxpayers’ claims for capital cost allowances to their rental income.

“Since the Ontario tax is payable on each land sale, whether or not the taxpayer has any taxable income for the year from all sources, it cannot really be regarded as an income or profits tax.”

[The lawyer moves to his third point.]

“In any event I do not consider that there is no invariable rule that any tax which is measured by the taxpayer’s annual income must be non-deductible for the purpose of computing income for the purpose of some other statute. For example, in Harrods Buenos Aires Ltd. versus Taylor-Goodby, 1964, 41TC1450, it was held that an Argentinian tax which was levied on an English company which carried on business in Argentina and which was measured by its company’s capital, was deductible for British income tax purposes. The court emphasized that this was a franchise tax imposed for the privilege of carrying on

business in Argentina and that if it was not paid the company would be unable to carry on business and earn its profits.”

Mr. Cassidy: The minister is really scraping when he goes to Argentina to find this.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Cassidy: Sure he is.

Hon. Mr. White: To continue:

“In the court’s view this was sufficient to constitute the Argentinian tax a deductible expense for British income tax purposes.”

Mr. Singer: What’s the name of the counsel?

Hon. Mr. White: I’d be glad to give that to the member privately.

Mr. Singer: Why doesn’t the minister do it publicly if he is calling him an expert?

Hon. Mr. White: Or after I get his permission to reveal it publicly.

Mr. Cassidy: Why didn’t the minister ask him before he came into the House?

Mr. Singer: He must be quoting from an anonymous authority.

Mr. Cassidy: He comes into the House and can’t reveal the name of the man.

Hon. Mr. White: I didn’t realize I’d be using it, and would not have used it had the hon. gentleman not used this man’s name among the parade of experts he thought might have been consulted.

Mr. Singer: Use it.

Mr. Cassidy: Use it then.

Hon. Mr. White: It’s pointed out to me by the law officers and by my Deputy Treasurer, himself a distinguished lawyer, that there is no constitutional impediment --

Mr. Singer: Yes.

Hon. Mr. White: -- and that no one would claim there was an objection based on constitutional grounds. The question revolves around whether or not there is some contractual impediment, in that there is a contract in existence between the government of Canada, signed by the Minister of Finance for Canada, and between Ontario, signed by the Treasurer.

This enables me, Mr. Speaker, to make reference to a red herring which was drawn across the face of this debate last week by the member for Sarnia (Mr. Bullbrook) who was very critical that the correspondence relating to this problem was undertaken by me and not by the Minister of Revenue to his counterpart, the Minister of National Revenue. The fact of the matter is that this is a contractual agreement; the signing parties are Mr. Turner for the federal government and myself for the Ontario government. It’s entirely natural -- in fact essential -- that matters relating to the contract signed by us for our respective governments be entered into by us.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Is that the collection agreement?

Hon. Mr. White: This is acknowledged, at least by implication, in the response I’ve had from Mr. Turner, because he does say: “I will consider this matter when the legislation is passed by the Ontario Legislature.”

That brings me to the next point. The hon. members opposite, who are the handmaidens of Ottawa --

Mr. Cassidy: But the minister never sought it in advance.

Hon. Mr. White: -- I suppose someday they’ll realize this is not a source of strength but a source of weakness for them here in Ontario -- at any rate, the handmaidens of Ottawa have had some fun with this and have wanted to insert a section in our legislation which would have given Ottawa an automatic excuse for not permitting this as a deduction.

When we go into these negotiations on this particular point --

Mr. Breithaupt: What section was that?

Mr. Singer: What section was that?

Hon. Mr. White: -- the section which would automatically --

Mr. Breithaupt: Is that the one the minister’s suggesting?

Hon. Mr. White: -- have reduced our tax at the slightest sign of a no from Ottawa -- that’s the section I am talking about.

Mr. Singer: Which section was that?

Mr. Breithaupt: The one the minister’s suggesting?

Hon. Mr. White: How absurd it would be to go into negotiations with Ottawa, which may or may not be difficult, which may or may not be protracted, which may or may not be tough -- in the sense that the other part of the contract is intransigent -- how ridiculous to go into such a situation having provided in advance an escape route for the federal government. Whether this was suggested to my hon. friends elsewhere by their allies, I have no way of knowing, but --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Actually the suggestion came from the minister who carries the wood and draws the water.

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): That’s not true.

Hon. Mr. White: -- I do know, as a businessman, a politician and a person who has had some experience in the ways of the world, that it would have been absolute folly.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It came from the minister.

Hon. Mr. White: Failure would have been made inevitable. That’s the Liberal stance, of course. Why didn’t it occur to me before? Failure preordained is what they have asked us to accept. We will reserve that for Liberal federal and provincial leadership contests.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Treasurer has had better days. He should take off his sweater.

Hon. Mr. White: The fact of the matter is, notwithstanding any reports in the Toronto Star, the federal Minister of Finance has made it very clear to me -- and his officials have made it very clear to our officials -- they are not prepared to come to a decision in this matter until the bill has been passed by the Legislature

For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I would expect the legislation to go forward now. If defects reveal themselves in the weeks and months to come, these will be improved upon; the deficiencies will be eliminated.

This is landmark legislation, as our Premier (Mr. Davis) had occasion to say in Niagara Falls over the weekend. It breaks completely new ground. In his view and in mine, it will be adopted by other jurisdictions in Canada, and perhaps in other countries of the world. Land is unique in that it cannot be increased in supply. Mark Twain pointed this up with his quaint comment: “You had better buy land; they ain’t making it any more.”

The economic analyses presented by Logan and Inman in their book “Economic Principles,” published in the late 1930s or early 1940s, set forth completely different diagrams for the supply and demand of land and the effects of speculation therein, with the speculative activities and the consequences for all other goods which can in fact be increased in response to speculative purchasing.

It is made very clear from the analyses that the effect of speculators in most markets is that of taking off the peaks and filling in the valleys. And it is contended, and I believe it, that this has the effect of smoothing out the price curve.

Exactly the opposite economic effects are observable with respect to land. The quantity cannot be increased appreciably and the speculators increase the peaks while deepening the valleys, and in this way have a destructive influence on the market.

So now we have for the first time here -- maybe it is the first time anywhere -- legislation which will diminish the prospect of profit and will dampen the appetites of erstwhile speculators. It will enable land prices to be stabilized or lowered and will enable working people in this province to buy a decent home for themselves at a price which is in keeping with their income.

Mr. Cassidy: The Treasurer is really hoping, isn’t he? It isn’t going to be “decent” quality; and he knows it.

Hon. Mr. White: And which will, hopefully, as a byproduct, divert economic resources from this destructive speculative activity and into equity stock and other constructive investments which are to the benefit of the people in this country and society as a whole.

Now sir, we have had a number of cranky letters to newspaper editors and others. I venture to say that every such letter and every such objection springs from somebody with an obvious vested interest in the subject at hand.

I do know that we have had objective commentary from a wide variety of sources, from citizens and groups of citizens. And the most recent, I do believe, was the municipal liaison committee representations last Wednesday, which unanimously endorsed this bill while recognizing some of its legal complexities.

I think, sir, we have had very long debate on this matter; as the member for Downsview has pointed out the longest in his memory. To accept this motion would be to defeat the purpose of this legislation. To move it sideways into committee would prolong the uncertainty which exists with respect to transactions affected by this legislation; and I venture to say give some new impulse to the speculators and to the rising speculative profits which this legislation is designed to prevent -- which I do believe will prove to be successful.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Riverdale.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I want to spend just a few minutes on the third reading of the bill. The bill has been before the assembly on second reading and in committee for a long period of time, and I think it does deserve certain comments.

I want to make our position clear for one reason, and that is that the Liberal Party has now proposed a reasoned amendment to the bill, which has just recently been read into the record and will undoubtedly be voted upon by way of division; and therefore I want to state what the position of our party will be, since we discussed this matter at some length in our caucus a week ago.

On second reading of the bill we opposed the bill in principle, but after the debate which has taken place and the length of time the matter has been before the assembly and the questions that have been raised with the government -- and they’re the ones who now have the responsibility for the carriage of the bill -- we can see no useful purpose in adopting the recommendation, as set out in the motion for reasoned amendment by the member for Downsview, for having the matter referred to a standing committee for the purpose of determining whether or not the tax is deductible.

The reason for that, of course, is that the basic question of whether or not it will be deductible for federal income tax purposes by individuals or corporations, or for federal capital gains tax purposes, will depend upon the determination of the ministries in Ottawa and not upon any determination which may be reached by a standing committee of this assembly.

Of course the country is engaged in a federal election with the new Parliament not elected and no one knows at what point in time that Parliament will assemble for the purpose of giving consideration to the kind of governmental operation in Ottawa that may permit its deduction. Further, obviously none of the ministers in Ottawa is prepared to make any decision on the matter, because if it is not an expense deductible for tax purposes, then presumably it will have to be done by way of an amendment to the Income Tax Act of Canada for the purpose of making it deductible. The federal Parliament will not sit for some time, and there is nothing to indicate that this proposed tax can be brought within the framework of a deductible business expense under ordinary accounting principles applicable for the purpose of determining profit. On this there is obviously divided opinion. Then the only way in which this exception can be made to permit the deduction of this kind of tax would be by a legislative change and not by a change in any regulation which may emanate from Ottawa.

Our position with respect to the reasoned amendment is that persons who are going to be subjected to the tax and must come to a conclusion with respect to its deductibility, are going to have to come to the conclusion on whatever advice they can get. If the advice is that it’s deductible, then undoubtedly it will be tested at some point. If the advice is that it’s not deductible, then it will also be tested at some point. If necessary, an amendment will be made to the Income Tax Act of Canada, if the government of Canada decides that is the way in which the deduction will take place.

Mr. Singer: Is that the way the member thinks a taxing statute should work?

Mr. Renwick: I just want to reiterate that absolutely no useful purpose can possibly be served by referring this bill out to a standing committee on the administration of justice for the purpose of determining a matter which cannot be determined within the legislative competence of this assembly and can only be determined in Ottawa. The procedural result is that when the question is put to the assembly as to whether or not this bill be now read a third time, we in this party will be voting against the reasoned amendment and, therefore, would appear to be supporting the government. That’s one of the anomalies of the kind of decisions which are made with respect to the way in which the votes take place.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): That is what is called a flip-flop.

Mr. Renwick: All right, it could have been easily said we could have made the same distinction, that we would vote for the reasoned amendment. We would then vote with the Liberal Party on the resolution that the bill be now read a third time and appear then to be adopting the position of the Liberal Party. If there’s one thing that we in the Province of Ontario in the New Democratic Party try to guard against at all times is that of adopting the position of the Liberal Party.

Mr. Breithaupt: We appreciate that.

Mr. Ruston: We are glad to hear that.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, there is just no way that you can adopt the position of the Liberal Party without being engaged in changing your opinion from week to week.

Mr. Breithaupt: We don’t want the member’s party to go changing its opinions.

Mr. Renwick: We want to make it perfectly clear to the assembly that we voted against the bill on second reading. We do not agree with the principle of the bill as it was enunciated by the Treasurer in his budget and as it was debated in the assembly.

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s why the member’s party is going to vote for the bill.

Mr. Renwick: That is our position.

Mr. Ruston: Yes; a flip-flop.

Mr. Renwick: There comes a point in time in parliamentary procedure --

Mr. Ruston: A somersault.

Mr. Renwick: -- when one has to decide; and the time to decide is at second reading, and not at third reading, whether you’re for it or whether you’re against it. We’re going to go on the basis that we think --

Mr. Ruston: We’ll give the member a month to change his mind, that’s what we’ll do.

Mr. Renwick: If I may adopt a phrase I used during the course of the Land Transfer Tax Act, referring to my own particular argument in a matter, the Liberal reasoned amendment is a fatuous one at the present time.

If I may, perhaps I should deal with some of the matters which I think are of immense importance to us in this tax. There has been a statement made -- and the member for Downsview made it during the course of his remarks on the third reading of this bill; and I asked him if he would explain it to us -- that somehow or other the taxing legislation of the Province of Ontario, both in this bill and in other bills, might in some way erode the capacity of the federal government to carry out whatever the federal government decides its initiatives may be in the revenue field.

I happen to believe that the aggressive nature of the federal government in its erosion of the taxing base of the provincial government over a period of time, is a matter which does not give me any concern for us to say that we may be eroding their tax base. There is no doubt whatsoever that there is constant pressure from Ottawa, disguised as the use of their taxing authority, which gives them the authority to raise money by any mode or system of taxation. That wide and all-embracing taxing authority is being used by the federal government, and has been used by the federal government over many years, to erode the legislative authorities of the province in many fields and to prohibit the provincial government of the Province of Ontario from carrying out its own policies in a way which would be satisfactory.

That is not to say for one moment that that approach is by nature evidence of a belief in the federal system of government; because the federal system of government is a belief that there are legitimate constitutional roles for the provinces to play; that we must not allow a centralist form of government, as evidenced by the long time during which we’ve been under legislative control from Ottawa, until just this last year or two, in a way which would prevent the province from doing what it wishes to do.

I find that, either as a legal matter or as a constitutional matter or as a matter of politics, I find that particular argument to be fallacious and erroneous and having no logic to support it in any way.

The province is the place which has the limited taxing base. It is limited to direct taxation within the province in raising moneys for provincial purposes; and that’s quite different than the power of the federal government to legislate and to tax by any mode or system of taxation.

Therefore, it would appear to me that whether or not the bill stands constitutionally as it is now before the assembly is not nearly as important a question as it was with respect to the constitutionality of the Land Transfer Tax Act of 1974. I am inclined to agree with the constitutional aspects of that letter which was read by the Treasurer into the record a few minutes ago, which appears to have been a letter having its origin -- and until the Treasurer corrects the impression that he created -- probably having its origin from the hand of Mr. Howard Stikeman, to whom the member for Downsview referred.

Therefore, that part of his opinion which indicated that yes, the province could impose the tax; and yes, they could impose the tax on land and have it referable to certain transactions with respect to land; would lead me to believe on the basis of any number of the traditional constitutional law taxing statutes that this is a constitutional tax. That does not, of course, as I have said, resolve the question as to whether or not it is a deductible matter for federal income tax or whether it is a deductible matter for the purposes of federal capital gains tax under the Income Tax Act of Canada.

The unusual anomaly, of course, in which the Minister of Revenue is leaving us, is that he has not laid before the assembly, and he has given no indication that his advisers have advised him about it, as to whether or not this tax, if levied under this taxing statute, is a deductible tax for the purposes of those corporations which are subject to the corporations tax of the Province of Ontario. That is a very significant question, because the Corporations Tax Act of the Province of Ontario, in most of its clauses and in the import of the way in which the tax is levied, mirrors the same basic principles on which the federal Income Tax Act is laid.

On a couple of occasions during the course of this debate, we asked whether or not this tax was deductible, in the opinion of the Minister of Revenue for the Province of Ontario, under the Corporations Tax Act of the Province of Ontario. I would hope that in the minister’s comments on third reading he would categorically state that it is the government’s opinion that it is deductible as a business expense, or on whatever other basis it is considered to be deductible, for the purposes of the Corporations Tax Act of the Province of Ontario.

I assume that that opinion will be on the basis of a careful study of the implications of the tax and not for any self-serving purpose, because it does not lie in the mouth of this ministry to make an exception under the Corporations Tax Act that is not rigidly and correctly an exception for the purpose of the deduction of that tax. They can’t do it just to bootstrap themselves in relation to any argument they may want to make to the federal government.

I was interested, of course, in the letter read into the record by the member for Downsview -- the tax letter, presumably to the clients of the Clarkson Gordon firm. I was interested to note that it was certainly opposite to the impression which had been created, intentionally or otherwise, by the minister and reflected in the media as to Clarkson Gordon’s position.

As the minister will remember, Mr. Speaker, I had read into the record the reservations of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co. on April 15.

I happen to have had also the Price Waterhouse memorandum. I don’t know what their present views are, but this was obviously the release which Price Waterhouse and Co. had issued. They are extremely careful about the whole question as to whether or not it will be deductible or not; they don’t even face up to it in a direct way. I can well understand, when a new tax is introduced in this way, the hesitancy they would express.

I want to quote one paragraph from the Price Waterhouse and Co. tax bulletin, issued immediately upon the tabling of the 1974 Ontario budget in the Legislature. This is under the heading, “Taxes on Real Estate Transactions” and under the particular subheading, “Land Speculation Tax,” in the second paragraph.

“The cost basis of land, and therefore the profit on sale for purposes of the land speculation tax, will likely be different than for federal and Ontario income tax purposes. In addition to possible differences in the amount of deductible costs in determining the amount of a gain, only gains accrued after April 9, 1974, will be subject to the Ontario land speculation tax.”

They go on to refer to other matters, but for practical purposes Price Waterhouse are extremely cautious about creating any impression among their clients that they have any firm view as to whether it would or would not be a deductible expense as a business expense within the framework of generally accepted accounting principles.

I think it is now worth commenting that after all these weeks -- and it is only because of that that I dare take up the time of the House with respect to this particular bill -- now I can’t find the bill.

Mr. Singer: Bill 25.

Mr. Renwick: Yes. I was looking for the reprinted version of it, which I don’t seem to be able to quite lay my hands on. I have it now, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Singer: Good.

Mr. Renwick: We must go back, of course, to what the Treasurer said when he first brought to light of day this particular aberration of his with respect to this form of taxation, and the purposes which he enunciated. The bill has been flawed from the very beginning because of the enunciation by the Treasurer in his budget, because of what he had to say at that time. He is trying to accomplish, as we stated on second reading of the bill, two things: “To reduce the escalation of land and housing prices and to recover for the public a major share of windfall gains from land speculation.”

It is all very well for the government to take a piece of the pie by way of a taxation of windfall profits, but to suggest for one single moment that that is consistent with or can be reconciled with the stabilization of land and housing prices in the Province of Ontario, poses for us an impenetrable conundrum that we do not believe can possibly be achieved. Of course, there was that equally ridiculous remark made by the Treasurer, that the success of this tax will be measured by the extent to which a minimum amount of tax is collected by the province.

So we are going to have the opportunity of a test being applied to this taxing statute which has never been applied to any other taxing statute, and that is that the less money raised the more successful the tax will have been. Which of course leads me to one of the major criticisms which we had of the bill throughout.

If there is ever a thrust and a drive that this party believes in -- and in this case we share with the members of the Liberal Party -- it is that a taxing statute in its very terms, and not by regulation or by ministerial discretion, should impose the tax and that the object of the tax and the persons who are to pay the tax and the incidence of the tax should be clear. Scattered throughout the bill are all of the causes which grant the minister a degree of discretion which we have never seen in an Ontario taxing statute. It is a degree of discretion which is unnecessary, having regard to the basic, simplistic nature of the tax which he is proposing within this framework.

We have drawn attention to the particular clauses in the bill as it has gone through, and the areas in which we object to the exercise of his discretion.

An hon. member: He’ll regulate changes as he goes along.

Mr. Renwick: Right; the minister insists that’s the way he is going to have it.

I was interested this morning to read the editorial in the Globe and Mail and to note that that particular clause of the regulation-making power, which was the object of the lead editorial, was a clause on which I spoke at some length during the course of the debate when we were dealing with that particular regulatory section of the bill. I share the very concerns, as I tried to express them then, as are expressed in that editorial in the Globe and Mail this morning.

Another area of concern -- but one which, strangely enough, while it poses substantial problems, is not of as great concern to me as it was to other members of the assembly, and as it was to my colleague the member for High Park (Mr. Shulman) in particular -- is the focus of attention which came to its height in that meeting of the lawyers in Toronto dealing with this bill, with respect to what I could distinguish from the other comments on the bill as about its workability.

I am inclined to think that when the matter settles down the procedural steps will be worked out. I think they are going to be awkward and difficult for a substantial period of time. I think of course that the point at which workability verges over onto principle, and that is with respect to the way in which the ministry is going to determine the valuation of land in the Province of Ontario as of April 9, 1974, is a substantial matter of concern and one in which there can be considerable equity. I just do not believe that programming a computer in the Province of Ontario, no matter how it is done, can in fact get away from the point made by the member for Downsview that, after all, valuating land, buildings and other improvements on land requires a very special form of qualification. And the art of valuation here has not yet reached the same height it has been brought to in England, where that special tradesman or professional known as the quantity surveyor has a high degree of expertise and competence in valuation.

Maybe over a period of time we will develop that kind of competence. I have a feeling that kind of competence does not necessarily reside in the traditional assessment departments of either our municipal or provincial governments in assessing real estate for value purposes. We are very much in the initial stages of developing an adequate, consistent and intelligible system of assessing land, buildings and improvements for real property taxes, let alone for the purpose of the imposition of the tax proposed, to be imposed by Bill 25.

Mr. Speaker, those are basically our remarks. We do not consider that this bill will assist the housing programme of the Province of Ontario; and as you know that was the major thrust of our criticism at the time, because it was foreshadowed by the remarks of the then new Minister of Housing (Mr. Handleman) when he started to chastise the speculators in the Province of Ontario by rapping them on the knuckles, as though that had something to do with his capacity to provide houses for people in the province. This particular tax, as imposed by the Treasurer, will not, in its ultimate effect in the foreseeable future, result in assisting the development of an adequate housing programme for the Province of Ontario.

The very fact that the housing statement made by the Minister of Housing a few days ago as the definitive statement of the government was so minimal in its objectives and targets, and so hazy about the way in which those targets would be reached, it was obvious he certainly didn’t take this tax into account as in any way easing the problem for him.

Mr. Speaker, as I stated at the beginning, we continue to oppose the principle of the bill. We cannot find ourselves at this point in time wishing to support the reasoned amendment of the Liberal Party when the bill comes to third reading.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Say that again.

Mr. Renwick: I want to make one further comment which I still cannot possibly understand. I think the position taken by the New Democratic Party on the transfer of farm properties from agriculture was the proper position to have taken with respect to that particular problem.

Strangely enough, we found ourselves, as so often happens now, in the middle ground of opinion in the Province of Ontario, with the Conservative Party on one side and the Liberal Party on the other side of what are reasonable solutions to problems.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The member wanted the problem to go away without dealing with the speculators involved.

Mr. Renwick: The strange situation was that the government of Ontario has decided in this bill that whether land stays in agriculture or doesn’t stay in agriculture is not the definitive factor. The definitive factor is whether or not it stays in agriculture within a very small family group.

Now my friends in the Liberal Party wanted it the other way -- that to the extent that land was transferred by a person engaged in farming to anybody, they would be entitled to retain the profit on that transaction under the exemption.

We proposed in the amendment at that time that the basic criteria that should be established was is the land going to stay in agriculture. And if it is going to stay in agriculture, then we think the farm com- munity in the Province of Ontario should be free to sell their farms for whatever proceeds they can obtain, for whatever sale price can be obtained for that purpose.

But for reasons which I have not been able to fathom, the minister accepts that for other commercial and industrial enterprises in the Province of Ontario, and accepts it for tourist operations, but does not accept that principle insofar as it applies to the farming community.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. I think the hon. member is speaking to the principle of the bill rather than to the content of the reasoned amendment. I think that he should conclude his remarks or restrict them to the content of the reasoned amendment.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Oh no; he is speaking right to the content.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I think you are right; and fortunately I am about at the end of my remarks. I interspersed my comments on the other aspects of the bill by referring from time to time to the Liberal amendment. The fact that I referred to the Liberal amendment on two or three occasions is not to be taken as giving any added credence to it. It is as fatuous as when it was conceived in the mind of my good friend and colleague, the member for Downsview. We cannot possibly conceive that the purposes of the Province of Ontario --

Interjection by hon. member.

Mr. Renwick: -- would be served any longer by having this matter debated as a tax matter by those who are not skilled or able to do it. The basic responsibility lies with the Minister of Finance in Ottawa and the Minister of Revenue in Ottawa, who even though Parliament is not in existence at the present time, have the authority to make the statement -- if they want to make it -- that it is deductible or it’s not deductible; and they haven’t chosen to do so.

The fallacy, of course, of the position of the Province of Ontario, which the Treasurer cannot escape, is that they could very well have had a reasonable indication from the federal government as to what the federal government’s position was, and they have failed to ascertain that position. Well that is their problem, not our problem. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I think it is true, dealing with what the hon. member for Riverdale has said, that the problem with the bill brought forward and emphasized in the reasoned amendment was put before this Legislature first by the member for Downsview.

Mr. Renwick: That is not correct; not true.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The problem that is obviously going to be faced by this government is going to be a serious one indeed, if in fact the government of Canada is not prepared to exempt the costs of the payment of this tax as a legitimate cost of doing business, and therefore as being deductible.

Mr. Renwick: We raised it first. The record will show that we raised it first.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I think, Mr. Speaker, that the matter is very worthy of the reasoned amendment that is before us and certainly is worthy of acceptance, since the action would do much to clarify a situation which is going to be troublesome in the extreme for the minister who has the duty to administer this bill.

Obviously, Mr. Speaker, as a member from a constituency yourself, in receipt of mail from people concerned, there are going to be many other problems. The Treasurer was at his fatuous best when he indicated that all of those letters were simply from cranks; in other words people who did not agree with him.

As a matter of fact, I would just say that there is some sort of a virulence in the contribution that the Treasurer makes to these debates. He slips in for a moment to unload his pearls before his fellow members of the Legislature, and then vanishes to go about making more bills for us to peruse and to work on in the Legislature. It really does not befit his high office nor the concern he should have for the Legislature as a whole.

As a matter of fact it concerns me, that he, in his glassy-eyed subservience to the Conservative Party of Canada, is prepared to indicate to the people that as long as the Conservatives are elected federally there will be no problems with the administration of this bill, or in fact any other.

Before you call me to order, Mr. Speaker, let me just say one thing to the minister, who is paying attention as he always does. Surely the argument put forward by the Treasurer, that even if we recognize the problems that the government of Ontario is going to have -- actually, the taxpayers of Ontario are going to have -- in attempting to deduct these payments it will mean that it is game over in any court case in the future, is ridiculous and completely unacceptable.

The Minister of Revenue himself will recall that he has made statements, duly recorded on the official record of this chamber, that there would be no way whereby the government of Ontario would impose a tax which would be at the level of about 111 to 115 per cent on a transaction in the province. He himself indicated that perhaps an amendment indicating this as part of the law would be acceptable. Then overnight he got advice similar to the view expressed by the minister that this would simply give the government of Canada a loophole for not allowing that as a deduction.

I would submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that we are well on our way toward some sort of court case in which the comments of the minister, although he did not include them as amendments to the bill, could very properly be put before a judge. I refer to when he has said that in the event that the tax is not allowed as a deduction, he would certainly see that it was not charged beyond the range alluded to in the bill here before us today.

It seems to me that it is eminently sensible to refer the bill to the committee pointed out in the resolution for the kind of professional advice the Treasurer did attempt to put before the House today, although he was not prepared to give the name of the learned person who had given the advice to the Treasurer himself.

It is interesting to see the progression in the information available to the government in this regard. The minister first said he would have nothing to do with it whatsoever because the rules of the game indicated that it would be deductible and that no government of any political stripe would tamper with, quote, “the rules of the game” -- whatever they are. I suppose they are the rules which the Minister of Revenue for Ontario would apply if he were Minister of Finance for Canada.

Then the next thing we were assured the matter had been put to the government of Canada by no less a person than the former Provincial Secretary for Justice, Al Lawrence, who is of course running for a seat in Parliament in the present election campaign. But even the minister realized that was a very weak reed upon which to lean. He did not in fact indicate, either to the opposition members or to his own supporters, that the government had done its duty in putting before the government of Canada the problem that undoubtedly will come before the government of Ontario and the taxpayers of this province because of the irresponsible way they have dealt with this matter since the beginning.

The Minister of Revenue has examined the provisions of the federal budget which went down to defeat three weeks ago, or I suppose longer than that now. If one were to examine them with some reference to the problem that faces the Minister of Revenue now, it should be apparent that more and more the policy of the Canadian government is not to allow impositions of tariffs, royalties and other charges as expenses of doing business from the payment of federal corporation and other taxes. The changes in the most recent budget bore that out even further.

I am not a tax expert and neither is the hon. member for Riverdale, although I would accept his opinions on tax matters ahead of some others, I must admit.

Mr. Cassidy: He’s very versatile.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: But it would appear that even though the minister originally said the rules of the game are going to allow this to be deductible, he must have his doubts. As a matter of fact, it appears almost a certainty, when you look at the professional opinions expressed by the various investment houses read into the record of this chamber, that the minister is going to have a tough legal battle on his hands; or else he should provide an amendment for this bill before it goes any further, that is by referring it back to the committee which would obviate the problem that stands before us.

Obviously it is not the policy of the government to tax the transference of land under these circumstances at 111 per cent. The minister should provide an easy amendment saying, notwithstanding any other provisions, that no tax beyond 87 per cent, or whatever the top level is in the regulations that he envisages, would be collectable under these circumstances. I would say this is no more giving in to an argument that is yet to be raised at another jurisdiction than what the minister has already been on record as having said. Surely this would be responsible, because the purpose of the bill is to moderate, control and stop speculative land transfers and not to be a major source of revenue for the province. If it is a source of revenue, all to the good; but its purpose, a purpose which we support in principle, is simply to tax the unconscionable profits made by speculators in this province.

It is not my intention to debate the principle any further but simply to put to you, Mr. Speaker, the obvious reasonableness of the amendment that is before us. For the Treasurer to indicate that this is some sort of an obstruction, of course, is ridiculous, because the bill now has gone on in debate for many days. It would be a simple matter, if we wanted to obstruct, simply to add further amendments, and to continue to do so if there was any purpose in so doing.

This is a reasoned amendment, and, I say to you Mr. Speaker, a reasonable amendment. The minister in not acceding to it is losing the last chance for bringing some reasonable order to the bill in this particular matter, which is obviously going to cause a great deal of hardship for those who are called upon to pay the tax and a great deal of embarrassment and trouble to the minister who is called upon to administer its provisions.

I just want to say again that for the Treasurer, through the innuendo that he uses so freely in this House in his completely unacceptable remarks, to leave the debate at this time is really a serious negation of his responsibility. Too often for the last three years we have seen the now Minister of Revenue having to carry the ashcans for the policies of his seniors -- certainly not his betters -- in the ministry opposite.

I would think the Minister of Revenue must be getting sick of this, because it must do something to his soul to have to put forward principles, and in particular the aspects of administering in such an unworkable way as has been put in his hands on the basis of the policy first enunciated by the Treasurer. I see him moaning and groaning and waiting for this to get over. It is almost like another regional government bill where, if only we would shut up they could get on with the business of governing. This is an attitude that I must warn the minister against, because it is unacceptable. More and more he is getting to sound like and even to look like the Treasurer, who now with great dignity assumes his place as the policy czar in all these matters pertaining to taxation in the province. He is coming to join his junior minister, presumably to vote; “Ready, aye ready,” which is his method of showing how strongly he is in support of the Conservative Party and to continue his glassy-eyed support of his federal leader.

Hon. Mr. White: No, I am going to vote against the Liberal amendment.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It really is ridiculous, when we hear some of the things that he has said across the province and in this House in this connection.

Mr. Speaker, I draw to your attention the reasonableness of our amendment and I hope, sir, that you and other members of the House will see fit to support it. If not, so be it, so let the records show, because we are right in this and the rest of the members are wrong.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I must say I am struck with the self-righteousness of the leader of the Liberal Party on this particular matter, given the --

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): How about that?

Mr. Cassidy: -- connotations of this particular reasoned amendment as far as the Liberal Party’s stand on this particular bill during the course of the last four or five weeks. As I recall, somewhere along the way, before they began the arabesque in which they are now engaged or possibly the flip-flop in which they are now engaged, they said that they actually --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: What is the member doing? I hear his party is somersaulting.

Mr. Cassidy: If the hon. member chooses to call it a somersault, all right. The Liberals are somersaulting in this particular issue, Mr. Speaker, because they have now finally found the key by which they can vote against the government on the bill, having said at one time that they thought they supported the principle. We don’t know where they stand and I don’t think the public knows where they stand on the bill either.

It’s very reminiscent of Bill 274. How many other times and on how many other occasions have the Liberal Party in this Legislature not known where they stood until the last minute, when they changed their minds yet again?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Explain again why the member’s party is changing its position and supporting the government. Explain that to us briefly one more time.

Mr. Cassidy: Let me just say, Mr. Speaker, that what we witnessed during the course --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The member didn’t even know his party was supporting the government until now.

Mr. Cassidy: I may wind up not supporting the government.

Mr. Breithaupt: So much for caucus solidarity.

Mr. Cassidy: I may wind up not supporting the government, Mr. Speaker. One of the points that needs to be made about this is that when we voted against the government on second reading, it was because we rejected the way in which the government was dealing with the question of land speculation. We felt that a bill which simply hit three or four per cent of the transactions in the province was unworkable and simply was not the way to do it. Our credibility was never at question in this, though, Mr. Speaker, as is me credibility of the official opposition in this Legislature.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Not by the member himself.

Mr. Cassidy: It was only a few weeks before the Treasurer introduced this proposal in the Legislature that I suggested, speaking on behalf of the party, that the tax ought to be at a rate of 75 per cent, that it ought to be retroactive to Oct. 21, and that it should cover all transactions, rather than the very narrowly defined kind of thread of transactions the Treasurer and his sidekick were able to find in the Land Speculation Tax Act.

What’s bothered the Liberals, though, and the reason they brought in this reasoned amendment -- this unreasoned amendment -- is that they find that too many of their friends are being hit by the tax. Their friends have been getting to them and have been suggesting that the performance they put on during second reading was not reasonable if they wanted to have campaign contributions and support and that kind of thing in the coming election --

Mr. Breithaupt: That is completely false.

Mr. Cassidy: They have suggested that it was not in truest traditions of Liberalism to support the government on this particular tax. Now the traditions of Liberalism that are upheld by the Liberal opposition date from about 1850 or 1854; classical Liberalism --

Mr. Speaker: Order please. I do believe the hon. member has now had a few minutes to express his views about the Liberal Party, as the others have been permitted --

Mr. Breithaupt: It shouldn’t take him too much longer.

Mr. Speaker: I think, really, he should now get down to the content of the reasoned amendment that is before him; so perhaps he would return to that.

Mr. Cassidy: I appreciate your position, Mr. Speaker. The point I wanted to make was that for a party that says it supported the principle of the bill, the performance of the Liberal opposition has been quite astonishing. They have disagreed with every clause of the bill; they have offered a number of the amendments. They have fought the bill tooth and nail; in fact, one would have thought they disagreed with the principle of the bill from the very start, because that is the tenor of the debate they put forward; and they are continuing this right through to the third reading, where they are changing their stand completely.

I’d like to make one or two other comments, though, in reference to the reasoned amendment, Mr. Speaker. The first thing that really bothers me is just the fact that during the course of the whole debate on the bill -- now that it’s possible to reflect on our decision to oppose the government on second reading and on the course of the bill and so on -- it seems to me that the bill really won’t do anything that it was claimed to do. Just during the period of six weeks or so since it was announced in the Legislature, we have seen the price of property in Toronto go up by something like 14 per cent.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The hon. member is not speaking to the reasoned amendment that is before the House, and I must ask that he refer to that amendment only.

Mr. Cassidy: Yes, Mr. Speaker, the question before the House is whether the bill shall now be read for the third time.

Mr. Speaker: No, that is not the reasoned amendment.

Mr. Cassidy: Pardon? That’s the question before the House.

Mr. Deans: It is.

Mr. Speaker: That’s only part of it.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): That’s the question you put.

Mr. Deans: That’s the question.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s the question you put, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: All the rest of the reasoned amendment indicates that the --

Mr. Cassidy: -- and I am simply speaking in the same vein as the other members who have spoken --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I have been listening very carefully and I have permitted some remarks which would stray from the reason for the reasoned amendment, which is to send it back to the standing administration of justice committee to determine whether or not the tax imposed by the bill is deductible as a business expense.

Now that is the motion before the House, and it seems to me we have permitted some members to stray. I have permitted the hon. member for Ottawa Centre to stray somewhat from that to get some of his points across, the same as the hon. members. But

I do believe he should get back to that particular amendment. That’s the motion before the House.

Mr. Cassidy: I appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that I was permitted to speak for 3 1/2 minutes when I predicted 2 1/2 minutes before my colleagues; and I think you’ll appreciate that the rules that apply to me on third readings differ from other members of the House --

Mr. Speaker: No, I don’t agree with that at all.

Mr. Lewis: Don’t be bitter. Don’t be bitter.

Mr. Cassidy: I am surely the one who is best qualified to know that, Mr. Speaker, because, I enjoy the experience completely, whereas you deal with 116 other members of the House as well.

I’d point out, though, that the point that has been raised in the reasoned amendment is, in effect, acknowledged by the Treasurer in his rather unusual intervention; because he has confirmed that as part o£ the mishandling of the bill, not only did the government fail to go to Ottawa, not only did they not seek to sit down with the federal government, not only do they rely on anonymous advice from unnamed tax experts, but he acknowledges that there may have to be negotiations with the federal government. In effect, he accepts the point that is made by the member for Riverdale, that the whole question is moot.

It seems to me that had the government really intended to strengthen its position before the federal government in negotiations, then it should have outlined its strategy before the House, rather than misleading the House in the way that it did.

The Minister of Revenue, who speaks as the Charlie McCarthy to the Treasurer’s Edgar Bergen, seemed to indicate that he thought it was all right. And he was skating there, on the basis of his knowledge of the statutes; on the basis of God knows what else, nobody knew. In fact, I talked to one or two of the senior officials in the department; they shared the sublime confidence of the Minister of Revenue, which was based on no information at all.

They all danced to some kind of a tune that was called by the Treasurer, and the Treasurer in turn tried to stay as uninvolved as possible.

If it was desired that the Minister of Revenue bring in this bill in order to strengthen the government’s hand in negotiations with Ottawa, then you should have said so. You should have said: “We don’t really know what the position is, but it will make our hand stronger because we are going to have some negotiations with the federal government.”

But that has only emerged as the government’s position over the period of time of debate of this particular bill. It certainly wasn’t the position before, because you just didn’t know. You were as uninformed as the Premier was when he went to Ottawa for that tête-à-tête with Peter Lougheed and with Prime Minister Trudeau to talk about oil prices, where it emerged that he wasn’t sure just how or where or when the price of oil was fixed. Now that simply is an unacceptable way for the government to carry out tax legislation in this very important field.

I point out as well, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Finance -- and the Minister of Revenue is shaking his head for reasons that are rather beyond me -- that there are powers put into the bill which I suppose it will be said are to protect the speculators --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member is out of order.

Mr. Cassidy: No, this is in reference to this particular section.

Mr. Speaker: In my opinion, the hon. member is out of order.

Mr. Cassidy: There is an amendment that calls for this to be referred to standing committee in order to find out whether the tax is deductible under federal law. The Minister of Revenue will shortly argue that the power to remit or reduce the tax substitutes for that particular provision of the reasoned amendment. We find those sections are unacceptable, are an unacceptable alternative because of the fact that you should not give these kinds of exemption powers to the Lieutenant Governor in Council or to a particular minister.

A tax statute is a tax statute. It should say what it is going to do and people should be able to rely on it. They should not have to be dependent on the whims of a particular minister or of this cabinet as a whole.

The lack of certainty is one of the very serious weaknesses in this bill, apart from the fact that on the principle of the bill the dam thing isn’t stopping speculation, it is simply a means by which the government intends to cash in on speculation. The government has bought -- I hate to say it -- but they have bought the support of municipalities by offering them one-half of the proceeds.

What a pretty pass we have come to, Mr. Speaker, where we have a government that wants to profit from speculation, to the extent it gets the municipalities into it, but it continues to allow its friends, if they are developers, if they are in commercial areas, if they fit into any one of the other 9,700 loopholes in the particular Act, to speculate as merrily as before.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, that pretty well sums up the points I want to make. I think that for the record we should be very clear that as far as the Liberal opposition is concerned this is another of those classical arabesques. You can call it a somersault, you can call it a flip-flop, you can call it what it is; it just proves that there is absolutely no consistency in that group over there, that they are far to the right of any party in this particular chamber, that in their hearts they have never endorsed any attack on land speculation, whether it be via public ownership or via the tax system or any other means, and that the vote on second reading which they took in favour of the government’s bill was a wholly unnatural act which they are now seeking to repudiate.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, it is always interesting to listen to the comments of the member for Ottawa Centre. He seems to remind me of a man who goes through life with his carhorn stuck all the time because the comments that he makes --

Mr. Lewis: That’s what they are saying of David Lewis. That’s a direct theft from the Prime Minister.

Mr. Breithaupt: Well, I suggest that if the shoe fits, the leader of the New Democratic Party can wear it as well.

As a result of this debate, which we have had for some time, I am sure all members of the opposition have received calls as to what has been happening within this Legislature, and what is going to happen if, as and when this bill is dealt with.

Many persons who have written and who have called have suggested they are wondering what the opposition is doing. I suppose the interesting thing is the matter which we have debated has been before the House for certainly as long a time as most members can remember. Whether or not it is being reported by the media, of course, is another story; basically, we see one or two loyal persons sitting in the gallery, but whatever they’re reporting apparently isn’t getting through because the people of the province are not aware of the fact that the opposition has made many suggestions on this bill. The debate has gone on at some length and we feel there are some strong amendments which the government should have accepted.

Mr. Deans: That’s true.

Mr. Breithaupt: Some 24 members spoke on second reading, as you will recall, Mr. Speaker; 11 from this party. We spent some 46 hours in committee. The principle, as we believed it, remains a good principle in that taxation of speculators should, of course, take place. Amendments have been offered and we were happy that one amendment was accepted, the one made by the member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell) with respect to senior citizens.

The Treasurer, in his comments, has suggested that the reasoned amendment which has been put forward would move this bill not forward but sideways. He has suggested that would not be a positive thing.

Hon. Mr. White: I asserted; I didn’t suggest.

Mr. Breithaupt: All right, the minister asserts that. I assert to him that if the committee acted promptly and if the tax would be retroactive the matter of this kind of referral could be dealt with expeditiously and we would be able to get the proper result, which would make this bill a worthwhile bill.

He has suggested as well, indeed he has asserted, that the opposition members in both opposition parties have filibustered this bill.

Mr. Deans: Nonsense.

Mr. Breithaupt: If he were true and correct in those remarks I suppose we would have seen this bill pushed through day by day, relentlessly, morning, afternoon and night if it was so important. We have seen days go by when, because of one reason or another, the bill has not been called on the order paper. If it’s a filibuster surely it has been one which the government has found very convenient to accept, because it has not seen -- at least his colleague in the government has not seen -- any reason why the comments made have been unacceptable.

The Treasurer has quoted from lawyer X. He doesn’t tell us, of course, whether lawyer Y or lawyer Z have opinions; which the acceptance of this reasoned amendment would allow us all to know. Whether or not the author of that letter, as suggested by the member for Riverdale, is Mr. Stikeman, is a matter of conjecture. Surely that’s a one out of three possibility, but it could have been either of the other two distinguished members of the bar to whom the member for Downsview has referred.

I will agree with the Treasurer on one point and that is the bit of economic theory he quoted from Logan and Inman. Certainly it’s apparent that he took the Economics 20 course, and, as one who has taught the course for five years, I too realize there are some general items on which we can agree. The minister, I presume, perhaps even taught the economics course, so we share that questionable distinction if nothing else.

Mr. Lewis: Have both of them taught it?

Mr. Breithaupt: Yes, but not to each other unfortunately.

Mr. Lewis: Neither of them understands it.

Mr. Breithaupt: That may be. Our students could only refer to that one way or the other.

Mr. Lewis: The member is quite right. I don’t pretend to understand it.

Mr. Breithaupt: The reasoned amendment which the member for Downsview has raised, I think, is one worthy of support within the House. The members of the New Democratic Party have chosen to suggest, indeed the member for Riverdale himself has suggested, that the --

Mr. Deans: Himself.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: After careful consultation with his colleagues.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- that the bill has been drafted in an uncertain way; secondly, that the bill has been substantially flawed; thirdly, that taxing statutes must be clear and this one is not; and fourthly, the editorial comments headed, “Incentive to Cronyism” are comments which attract his support.

In addition he referred, in the debate on April 29, to two further points on which he thinks the bill is not worthy of support. Those are on page 1492, where he said that this helps to cloak the failure of the housing programme of the province; and on page 1493, where he said that there is no clear approach being taken as to the deductibility of the bill.

For those six reasons, one would have thought that the member for Riverdale, in his imposition of his will on the party in respect to how they would vote, would have decided in fact to vote with the reasoned amendment.

Mr. Lewis: Voting against the government.

Mr. Breithaupt: Yes, indeed voting against the government.

Mr. Lewis: That is what he is doing.

Mr. Breithaupt: However, the party has chosen not to do so.

Mr. Lewis: No, he is voting against the government.

Mr. Breithaupt: The member for Riverdale has chosen to vote against the amendment that is being made and presumably will stand with the government.

Mr. Lewis: The amendment is preposterous; but we will vote against the government.

Mr. Breithaupt: If that is the choice which they wish to make, of course, that is up to them. They have their own reasons, I dare say, for coming to that conclusion. They have suggested, indeed possibly even impugned, certain motives to us which I find unacceptable. However, these again are things with which they will have to live.

I suggest that the comments made by the member for Downsview and by my leader have great reason and great logic and should generate the kind of support which we think should be received on all sides of the House for the amendment made by the member for Downsview.

The points which have been clearly set out are ones which I think are of concern to all of us. We suggest this is one way of avoiding the kind of difficulty this bill will receive when it is tested in the courts. I am quite certain it will be so tested. I think that is going to happen and as a result the minister is going to be embarrassed by not bringing out clearly the reasoning and the advice and decisions which were the sources of this bill, which information we should all have before the bill receives third reading.

I would hope members of the House will support the reasoned amendment of the member for Downsview.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I think the member has convinced the NDP.

Mr. Breithaupt: I doubt that.

Mr. Lewis: I think that may be true. However, we will see as time passes.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Well some of the NDP anyway.

Mr. Lewis: Yes. Mr. Speaker, I have a number of things to say, some of which may be of interest to some of the members.

The reasoned amendment that is before us, Mr. Speaker, is frankly insupportable. I don’t know how the devil one deals with this kind of situation that we have been put into in this House, which is not true, I believe, of the federal House. This is one of the distinctions which we discussed in the rules and regulations committee, where, Mr. Speaker, because you put the motion on the reasoned amendment one is forced, therefore, to vote on the reasoned amendment and the motion simultaneously rather than voting on each of them singly. It would be possible, were we to vote first on the amendment and then to vote on the motion, to vote against this silly amendment and to vote against this absurd motion for third reading of this bill. We could feel virtuous on both tasks; and totally so in fact in terms of whatever righteous disposition we had taken. As it stands, under the circumstances of the rules in this House -- which are frankly, I think, really silly rules -- we’re forced to the business of having to judge the bill not so much on the merits of the bill but on the merits of a reasoned amendment which may or may not be appropriate. It makes for some very complicated procedures, one of which I will deal with in a moment.

About the reasoned amendment, Mr. Speaker, I can only say I think that the Liberals on clause by clause, like members of our caucus, fought this bill and fought it well. All of us fought it with feeling. That was true of the opposition; collectively we opposed the implementation of the clauses of this bill. We felt that the clauses were so wrong, as we read them in advance, that we must oppose the bill in principle on second reading and did so. The Liberals didn’t feel that. Fair enough!

As they saw the bill proceed, however, they clearly became persuaded in their own minds that the bill was absolutely unacceptable. As they became enchanted by their own rhetoric, mesmerized by the weight of their own arguments, captivated by their own logic, they saw in the bill a useless instrument.

They came, rather late in the game, to the view which the NDP had at the outset, which is that you oppose it on second reading.

But then how do you do that Mr. Speaker? The ground was very neatly laid out by the master strategist himself, the member for Downsview, who said in that noble little phrase on second reading, that if they weren’t satisfied on clause by clause they would change their position on third reading; and so they have done, but within the parameter of their own selfless logic.

Who can deny them that if that is all that is left? So what you have by way of reasoned amendment is a kind of twig being clutched from the quicksand, something that, in terms of the issues themselves, Mr. Speaker, for which we have no use.

What use is it to send this matter to the justice committee of the Legislature? How can that possibly solve anything? How can it resolve it in the middle of a federal election campaign? How can it resolve it in terms of competing legal opinion? How can it resolve it in terms of the application of this bill?

The suggestion is absolutely without substance. It is ludicrous! But, because --

Mr. Singer: But! But!

Mr. Lewis: No! Because the Liberals felt they had to do something on third reading to extract themselves from the dilemma, they are moving this reasoned amendment knowing that the cute rules of the House will get them out of it.

Mr. Ruston: The member is the one who wanted it. He is the one who wanted to vote for it on third reading!

Mr. Lewis: All right.

An hon. member: He even voted twice.

An hon. member: On third reading.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I’m attributing motives.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Just tell us how the member for Riverdale --

Mr. Ruston: Will he not vote against the speculators? We didn’t like the policy.

Mr. Lewis: We discussed this rather --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Hansard is going to be read in minute detail by thousands of people.

Mr. Lewis: I think it will be read by thousands. Hansard always is pored over and absorbed.

Mr. Speaker, we discussed this matter of the -- it’s a pity it has gone beyond 5 o’clock -- we discussed this matter of the difficulty of the reasoned amendment in caucus rather carefully.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: There was many an arcane argument made in the caucus, because this is, as I said earlier, a silly business that we are engaged in. Now what happened, I learned listening on the speaker in my office this afternoon, was that some of us under- stood the caucus consensus and some of us were uncertain about it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Those things happen. They happen purely because of the way in which the rules apply.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Is the member for Riverdale standing in some corner somewhere?

Mr. Lewis: My colleague, the member for Riverdale, with whom I have consulted carefully before making the remark --

Mr. Breithaupt: But not lately.

Mr. Lewis: -- in the last 10 minutes no less -- is off to an important legal conference to discuss the intricacies of the legislative process.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Off with his head.

Mr. Breithaupt: He’s going down to night court.

Mr. Lewis: The fact of the matter, Mr. Speaker, is that we have decided --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: -- that in order to --

Mr. Breithaupt: Flip-flop.

Mr. Lewis: -- visit our feelings, our animus, against the objectionability of this bill, we are voting both against the amendment and against the bill, and we are going to do it simultaneously.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, you would feel --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Ruston: The member is the greatest actor around. The greatest actor in the Legislature.

Mr. Lewis: -- you would feel that the only way to achieve that would be to absent ourselves, or indeed to remain in our seats.

Mr. Singer: Like the member for Riverdale.

Mr. Lewis: Au contraire, Mr. Speaker, it isn’t necessarily so. We are going to stand and when you ask: “Shall the bill be read a third time?” We are going to stand against the bill being read a third time, conscious that everyone in this House, and certainly the Speaker and every Liberal worth his weight, or her weight, will know --

Mr. Breithaupt: In gold.

Mr. Lewis: -- in gold -- will know that we reject their proposition with as much passion as we reject the government’s.

Can I have a little desk thumping? Thank you very much.

Mr. Breithaupt: There aren’t too many around.

Mr. Ruston: Greatest actor --

Mr. Breithaupt: The member has only five witnesses.

Mr. Lewis: That minor irrelevancy having been cleared -- will that be enough to call a vote?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Yes; that minor irrelevance having been cleared, now that it is well understood, which frankly my colleague the member for Riverdale put in a fashion analogous, if not identical --

Mr. Ruston: Get those cue cards.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Especially in the mirror image.

Mr. Lewis: That having been cleared, I want to say a word about the bill.

The reasoned amendment, typical though it may be, does reflect --

Mr. Breithaupt: It is worthy of support.

Mr. Lewis: -- does reflect one of the problems of the bill. Reflects it, doesn’t understand it; because one wouldn’t expect Liberals to comprehend.

The matter of the amendment does talk to one of the difficulties in the bill. One of the difficulties in the bill is that its central contention, which is that the tax can be effective, will of course be destroyed beyond repair if it turns out that the tax is not deductible. Therefore the government has engaged in a confiscatory tax. As I think I told the minister once before, the only other person I know who believes in confiscation is Mel Watkins, and I would not have believed that the Minister of Revenue of Ontario and Mel Watkins had anything in common: except, it turns out, confiscatory tax policies.

That is one of the basic flaws of this bill. The government brings in a bill dealing with tax, the central reality of which is the matter of deductibility, and the government is not sure about it. Therefore. Mr. Speaker -- and I can draw mv remarks to a conclusion very quickly -- let me say that this absolutely highlights the difference in social philosophy between the government and the New Democrats on this matter, as on all matters.

We would not bring in a bill allegedly devised to deal with land speculation with its central argument flawed beyond repair. We would not bring in a bill, Mr. Speaker, with such anxious and inappropriate preparation that we knew no more at its conclusion about its application than we knew at the outset. We would not bring in a bill which attempted to deal inappropriately by tax means with an issue which should be dealt with by way of social policy.

If the government is going to deal with it by tax means then tax at 100 per cent, not 50 per cent; that is what is so flawed about the bill. That kind of confiscation, surrounded by other policies, we can entertain. This kind of bill in terms of what the government intends to effect, is as I said insupportable.

We would not bring in a speculative land tax which won’t halt land speculation. We would not bring in a bill designed to help the housing crisis, which in fact has aggravated the housing crisis. Above all, Mr. Speaker, we would not bring in a bill which will do so many hurtful things to so many individuals in the Province of Ontario who never thought of themselves as speculators, while at the same time providing a myriad of exemptions for those whom the bill might affect but won’t touch.

In other words there is not a redeeming feature about this bill. It damages the majority of people in Ontario. It will work only to help the few who are engaged in corporate land speculation of one kind or another. The government has contrived an artifice to protect its friends and to hurt the public, and it is doing it in a fashion so deliberate, and in its own way so self destructive, that it is hard to understand.

There is nothing about this bill which can be supported. The taxing section, the central taxing section, is beyond redemption. We will therefore vote against it and the reasoned amendment simultaneously, and I would have thought that --

Mr. Breithaupt: But the member doesn’t know how.

Mr. Singer: But not flip-flop.

Mr. Lewis: No. There is nothing quite so elegant as a socialist who cries: “A plague on both your houses simultaneously;” and we are fairly comfortable in doing that. I would have thought --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: How about the member for Riverdale? Is he comfortable?

Mr. Lewis: He will be here, exuding comfort.

I would have thought that the minister would have withdrawn this bill by now, because it is going to haunt him and the administration for some time.

The distinguished provincial Treasurer is given to these spasms of creativity in intermittent moments during his political career.

Mr. Deans: In the middle of the night.

Mr. Lewis: He came up with the tax on food; he came up with the tax on energy; he came up with the speculative land tax. He is given to these quixotic, self-indulgent fantasies; which bring his cabinet colleagues down in ruin because he is very seldom here to see them through. Then, as with a man who understands the consequences of his act, leaves politics. Ah sir, there is no nobility in his soul.

Mr. Breithaupt: And just in time, just in time!

Mr. Lewis: There is only antagonism to all of those who surround him on the benches.

We know that. We know what he thinks of them to visit this upon them. But he is not prepared to admit it to them; not in the privacy of the cabinet, not in the privacy of caucus. Well the fantasies of the Treasurer are no more worth supporting than the rigid partisanship of the Minister of Revenue. Therefore I would like to draw my remarks to a conclusion, pointing out --

Mr. A. Carruthers (Durham): It being 5 of the clock.

Mr. Lewis: -- thank the Lord, that it is 5 of the clock, Mr. Speaker. There may be others --

Mr. Singer: The member is not quite finished yet, is he?

Mr. Lewis: I am finished but others aren’t.

Mr. Speaker: Are there other members who wish to participate in the debate?

Mr. Deans: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Well, perhaps the hon. member for Wentworth then would move adjournment of this debate.

Mr. Deans moves the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ HOUR

THE PROFESSIONAL FUND-RAISING CORPORATIONS CONTROL ACT

Mr. B. Newman moves second reading of Bill 64, An Act to control Professional Fund-Raising Corporations.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The purpose of this bill is to provide for the licensing of corporations and the bonding of personnel and to require the company to file a financial statement with the minister after each fund-raising event and to limit by regulation the amount which could be charged, over and above direct expenses.

Mr. Speaker, it was a little over two years ago that I asked in this Legislature of the then Minister of Financial and Commercial Affairs, the hon. member for Grey South (Mr. Winkler), if it was his ministry’s intent to license or regulate the activities of fund- raising organizations. At that time, the minister was unable to answer and referred the question to the Ministry of Justice.

On June 28, 1972, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice or the Attorney General at the time, the member for York Mills (Mr. Bales), replied that under section 6 of the Charities Accounting Act there was the means to review and control such organizations that then existed. Also in his comments in the letter to me, he makes mention of section 23 of the Trustee Act and section 72 and 74 of the Surrogate Courts Act.

Isn’t it strange, Mr. Speaker, that since that time two years have elapsed and there has been no action on the part of the government to control or regulate fund-raising companies? They have gone on sort of helter-skelter in various parts of the province and taken advantage of the good nature of a lot of people who wish to assist various fund-raising organizations.

Even with the protection that was supposedly built into various pieces of legislation that I made mention of, Mr. Speaker, I don’t know of any prosecutions that have taken place by the Attorney General’s office. As a result of no action at that time, Mr. Speaker, I introduced for the first time on June 22, 1973, the bill which we have before us today. It was called, at that time. Bill 182 and it was An Act to Control Professional Fund-Raising Corporations.

On the introduction of that bill, Mr. Speaker, I cited examples of charities netting only a small percentage of the gross proceeds derived from fund-raising drives organized by professional fund-raising companies. In the Windsor area alone, I cited the Odd Fellows club that received $3,000 from a professionally organized drive. Out of the gross proceeds, or gross receipts of $17,000, $3,000 was realized from $17,000 collected. The Islamic Association for the Mosque received only $2,000 out of a gross $14,000 collected by a fund-raising organization. The Navy League received $2,500 from collections of about $9,000, and the North American Development Organization received $1,650 from a campaign which grossed over $12,000.

Mr. Speaker, most professional fund-raising companies operate on a basis of splitting net profits after expenses, and the split is somewhere between 60-40 and sometimes 50-50. This would appear to be inordinately high, particularly in view of the fact that people purchasing tickets, or donating money for charitable purposes, do not expect to receive full value in terms of goods and services for the money which they have spent and given as a donation.

Mr. Speaker, when I introduced this bill I specifically made mention that it was not the intent of this bill to interfere with local Red Feather, United Appeal, or similar drives where much of the organizational work is of a voluntary nature and expenses incurred are a very small portion of the total proceeds. What I wanted to do, Mr. Speaker, was to control professional companies and boiler-shop operations which contact people by telephone selling tickets to an event or soliciting a donation, and then arranging to deliver the tickets and pick up the money. Without proper controls there is a possibility of overstating expenses in addition to skimming off extraordinary profits.

Mr. Speaker, on the introduction of that bill I received a whole series of letters from all parts of the province from individuals who were seriously concerned with the problem of the professional fund-raising organizations. Even the chamber of commerce from Niagara Falls wrote me on Nov. 7, 1973, and I am going to quote only one of the sentences from their letter: “Professional fund-raisers are becoming the concern of many chambers of commerce across the province.”

So you can see, Mr. Speaker, that chambers of commerce were seriously concerned. Some of them have attempted to resolve the problem and have, by means of an appeal board. But in spite of the appeal board procedure that operates in some communities, professional fund-raising organizations that do take advantage of the good nature of the donor are still proliferating.

A letter from a London individual where the community has attempted to resolve the problem by means of a charitable appeal board, contains the following quote:

“We are wondering if you had any thoughts relative to broadening the concept to require all charitable appeals to be approved at the provincial government level. These latter approvals would exempt United and Community Chest fund drives, along with any charitable appeal, made only to the members of an organization conducting the appeal. By the latter is meant appeals within churches and fraternal organizations made direct to the members of the church or the fraternal organization in question.”

So you can see, Mr. Speaker, that other individuals and organizations are seriously concerned with the problem, especially those organizations that operate in the charitable field and find that, as a result of some of these charity drives, when they come forward to the community in an attempt to raise funds, find themselves at a real disadvantage. There is suspicion cast immediately over their attempt to raise funds.

Mr. Speaker, on May 10 of this year, in the Toronto Globe and Mail, were the following comments. The heading was “Lean Cut.” If I am not mistaken, this was an editorial in the paper of that day. I am reading from the article now:

“Kudos for the Kinsmen Club’s national council. It is sponsoring a resolution to be voted on by member clubs amending by-laws so that local clubs will be barred from hiring professional fund-raising firms to do their charitable money gathering.

“Yes, indeed -- when, as reported, only four per cent of the gross money raised in the name of the East Scarborough Kinsmen Club charitable circus last year to aid victims of cystic fibrosis actually found its way to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Canada. There was $124,000 worth of tickets sold by telephone solicitation -- $5,000 went to the Foundation, $4,000 went to other projects sponsored by the club, and $115,000 went to the circus promoters, their telephone salesmen, and their expenses.”

Just imagine, Mr. Speaker -- out of $124,000, only $9,000 going to charity.

Reading from the article, again, Mr. Speaker:

“That is not charity. That is a profit-making business operation in the name of charity.

“And while the Kinsmen study their national council’s resolution -- the circus, by the way, is being promoted in Toronto again this year -- they might also give some thought to their professed ideal of community service by their members.

“The attraction to the Kinsmen of hiring the circus promoters is that there is no risk to the club and little effort, apart from lending the club name to the telephone solicitors, showing up at the circus in club blazers to act as ushers, and driving some crippled children down to see the show with tickets bought and donated by businesses.

“That is not particularly impressive.”

Mr. Speaker, I could read more extensive comments concerning another article in exactly the same vein. Instead, I will make short comments concerning the $12,000 that was donated by means of telephone solicitation. I am referring to the Canadian Foundation for Youth Action that collected about $12,000 in a month for the Riverdale Com- munity Action Centre on Gerrard St. E., and contributed only $3,000 to that centre. The operator of the fund says that he pays his six regular telephone solicitors about $2.50 an hour, and pays about $1.80 to more than 20 students who work part-time soliciting donations from business and homes.

He says he doesn’t pay his employees a commission according to how much they solicit in donations as many other charity promoters do. Quoting the gentleman: “Commissions encourage lying and high-pressure selling tactics. We have an image to protect.” Imagine protecting an image, Mr. Speaker, when you collect $12,000 and donate only $3,000 to a charity. That type of an image we could do without.

Mr. Speaker, a gentleman in the city of Toronto, after my introduction of the bill for the second time on May 10 of this year, wrote me the following letter:

“In reference to your concern regarding fund-raising companies, many people are concerned about the issue. And that is why there should be some legislation that limits the expenses, including salaries, to 15 per cent. Even in the case of the United Way, some control should be required regarding the salaries of all directors to be revealed.”

So you can see how far this gentleman goes as far as fund-raising is concerned. He made sort of a cute comment:

“A good idea might be to have members of the Senate appoint a committee to do this type of work, since most of the time they have little or nothing to do and since they are always being paid and represent a cross-section of the public from all parts of Canada, a great saving could be made.”

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Paul Martin would love that, wouldn’t he?

Mr. B. Newman: So you can see he even made kind of an unusual suggestion.

Mr. Speaker, this individual enclosed a letter from a local Toronto paper, a letter that had been written to him back in April, 1973. I am going to read the letter, Mr. Speaker. It starts:

“Thank you for your letter about my article on the ‘boilershop’ charity frauds, and especially thank you for drawing it to the attention of the authorities. Action will be taken by governments on problems like this only when they think there are enough people who care about the problem to make it politically risky to postpone doing something effective to solve it.

“I think our Community Chest drive in the autumn [and he is referring to 1973] is having trouble meeting its objective because people have become cynical about charities and the cost of administering them. Cleaning up the field and making administration more efficient seems to be an essential prerequisite to regaining public confidence.”

You can see, Mr. Speaker, from the contents of that letter that there is a backlash that affects honest, good charitable organizations when they attempt to raise funds because of the individual and organization that operate this boiler-shop operation.

In my own community, the Downtown Lions’ Club in Windsor had to put in the following public notice in the Windsor Star on May 16, 1974:

“1. The Downtown Windsor Lions’ Club is not associated in any way with the forthcoming Wild West Show to be held in the arena on May 28.

“2. This club is not now, nor has it been in the past, involved in selling programme advertising space or ticket-selling by telephone or by professional solicitors.

“3. Our only endeavours in fund-raising are the bi-weekly electronic bingo events, the Downtown Lions’ coin boxes and the annual Christmas car raffle.

“We thank all who have supported our efforts on behalf of the blind and our sight-saving programmes over the last 54 years, and wish to assure everyone that we are not conducting any extra fund-raising activity at this time.

“Downtown Lions’ Club,

“Don Fraser, President,

“Ron Malkin, Secretary.”

You can see, Mr. Speaker, the ends to which even good charitable organizations and service clubs have to go to try to convince people that they are conducting legitimate operations, when the Downtown Lions’ Club has to insert an ad such as that.

Mr. Speaker, fund-raising can be a racket, and it is not commonplace only in the Province of Ontario or to one given city; it spreads throughout all parts of Canada and the United States.

For example, in Long Island, NY, two police benevolent associations recently engaged a professional fund-raiser to launch a campaign for the sale of tickets to a circus, the proceeds supposedly to benefit a community youth programme and a retarded children’s programme. The sales pitch was later modified to indicate that only a portion of the funds would go to the retarded young people and the rest would be used to create a widows’ and orphans’ trust fund. A newspaper articles goes on to show that not only was advantage taken of the police in Long Island, but so were citizens in Cincinnati, in New York City and in practically every community in the United States.

One of the most interesting letters I received as a result of the introduction of this bill was from a gentleman in Toronto, who wrote:

“First of all, I want to congratulate you for bringing up in the Legislature the matter of the so-called professional fund-raisers, raising money for clubs and charities; that after promoters and phone sales- men get their cut of the money that is donated, it ends up that the so-called charities only get about five cents out of every dollar. These promoters admit that it is a business proposition and most of them do not have a sponsor at all. If they, the promoters, like it, they will give $100 to some charity just to make it look as if they are doing something worthwhile. In other words, they give $100 out of about every $100,000 that they collect from the public.”

I know that the gentleman is exaggerating, but those are his comments. He continues:

“I worked in a phone room or boiler room once and I quit because I didn’t like the underhanded, deceitful, lying ways that they were milking money from the public. A lot of their phone promoters have criminal records and couldn’t be bonded anyway. I knew of one woman who used four different names and who called up a certain branch of a bank in the city of Toronto five different times, using a different name each time and getting a donation each time.”

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman does mention certain fund-raising organizations. One he mentions is Canadian Blind Associates. It has nothing to do with the blind; it is strictly a profit-making organization, and it goes into most cities and towns in Ontario at present. He claims that they are now operating in Thunder Bay.

Another organization, Kids’ Safety Manual, has nothing to do with safety; it is just another profit-making scheme.

I could go on at length in mentioning the boiler-shop operations that are common in the city of Toronto. However, when other members have had the opportunity to speak on this bill, I hope that the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr.

Clement) will weigh all of the comments made and introduce his own legislation or accept the bill that I have placed on the order paper, so that once and for all we can control professional fund-raising companies so that the donor knows that when he gives a dollar to charity, that one dollar is going to charity.

In the United Appeal fund in the city of Windsor -- and it was the best in Canada -- I would like to point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that of $1,467,930 raised in 1973, only $100,000 went for expenses. That is the way to raise funds. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Beaches-Woodbine.

Mr. T. A. Wardle (Beaches-Woodbine): Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words about the bill presented by the member for Windsor-Walkerville regarding the Act to control Professional Fund-Raising Corporations.

I would like to put on the record my own thoughts and observations regarding this private member’s bill. I should also like, Mr. Speaker, to commend the member for bringing forward this question, which I know is very current at the present time.

I imagine the member is bringing forward this bill at this time because of recent developments. He did take time to quote from recent articles in the Globe and Mail regarding $12,000 donated but only $3,000 going to the centre. The one he mentioned was Riverdale Community Action Centre. He also referred to comments in a later article, “Clean up fund-raising, Kinsmen told.” He made other comments, which I will not repeat, that have appeared in the press.

I know that every person in business is besieged almost daily by requests for donations from so many organizations. Every mail seems to bring a request from this group or that group, but I think the ones that cause the most annoyance, the ones that are most suspect, are the ones that come by telephone, inviting the businessman to buy tickets for a circus, to a Christmas party, to a picnic, or to some other fund-raising event on behalf of what seems to be a very legitimate purpose.

This is all done in the name of improving the lot of the underprivileged or those who need help over and above normal government pensions and assistance. Most of these causes are worthy, or sound worthy enough, and I know they do commend support, provided the money given is going for that particular purpose.

I know that businessmen would benefit if they knew in advance that the person soliciting the funds was properly licensed and that the money would go to that particular charity or purpose.

When the United Appeal was first formed, we were told it was most desirable to have one blanket organization that would raise money on behalf of charities. But it seems today that there are just as many organizations taking funds from business people or from the general public. Despite the large amount of money raised by United Appeal, probably a much larger sum is raised by other organizations or people soliciting on behalf of them.

I understand in lottery legislation expenses of operations are limited to 15 per cent of the total amount raised. In order to obtain a licence to conduct a lottery, it is stipulated that at least 85 per cent of the money collected must go for the purpose that is advertised. I understand the expenses in connection with United Appeal are at the rate of about eight or nine per cent. Most reputable charities have money-raising expenses of no more than 11 per cent.

As I mentioned before, I think the person or persons who cause the most problems in this field are those who approach a service club and guarantee a certain and definite return to the club or organization if it allows its name to be used in a fund-raising scheme. Mr. Speaker, these people call on behalf of the club. They have no personal connection with the club. They’re not members of the club, but often they call on behalf of the club soliciting this money.

The club in this way may be guaranteed $500 or $1,000 which could turn out to be only 10 per cent of the money taken in. As far as the club is concerned, all it is doing is selling its name. But I think now, with the press reports, this particular club, the Kinsmen Club, has been told by its national president not to raise money any longer in this particular way.

I understand also, Mr. Speaker, that if money is collected in order to put out a programme where advertising is sold -- and as you know much money is taken in in this particular way -- if only one copy is printed, this makes it perfectly legal, despite the fact that hundreds of dollars could be taken in in advertising in that particular programme.

We know of promotions having to do with helping underprivileged children. I would hope that in this day and age children who require such services would receive them as a right and not have to depend on private promotional activity, whether it be for needed social services or whatever the cause is advertised to be, a camp for underprivileged children or whatever it is. I believe the people engaged in this line of business should require a licence, and when a fund-raising scheme takes place they should be required to file documents as to what children or adults will be helped and also the budget and the disposition of the money that is to be raised.

I think further every person who makes a contribution to that fund should be entitled to have a final statement as to how much money was raised and the disposition of that money. I know that many people on particular lists are called on year after year for $10 or $25 or $100. They really never stop to think of where this money goes. If they knew that only 10 per cent of the money they gave went to that particular cause, they would stop to consider whether they should not be giving their money to a legitimate charity, United Appeal, the Cancer Society or whatever it may be.

In examining a particular section of the bill, I see that a commissioner of professional fund-raising corporations would be empowered to designate certain people under him to provide inspections from time to time, to carry out inspections, and to ensure that the provisions of this Act would be respected and complied with. Under section 10, a person empowered to carry out an inspection would be permitted free access to all books of account and other documentation required to fulfil the conditions of a regular inspection.

While an inspector would be empowered to check the performance of any fund-raising operation, why are there no specific provisions in the Act to permit the prospective customer of a professional fund-raiser’s services to have access to the information provided under the inspection clauses of the Act? That is, there is no provision which permits the public to be able to check out the performance of a professional fund-raiser. Therefore, the legislation as it now stands does not permit the public the right to see into the internal operations of these various professional fund-raising companies.

Since the intent of the Act is to regulate and licence the activities of professional fund-raisers, I believe it would be in the public interest to include in this Act provision to permit the public to see the books of a professional fund-raiser. Thereby, the prospective consumer of such a service would under- stand exactly how much he was paying under contract to such professional fund-raisers. Such a provision would generally improve the whole trust of this particular Act, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion.

I would like to make one further point, if I may. I don’t know how much money is raised --

Mr. Speaker: I point out that the member’s time has expired. Would he please round off his remarks?

Mr. Wardle: Right. Finally, Mr. Speaker, when money is given in this way and does not go to the charity, I think legitimate charities suffer. But I commend the member and I hope this receives very serious consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Yorkview.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to say in connection with this bill that we intend to support it in principle because we think the principle is right. But I want to say this: It’s a very pleasant change in this House during the private members’ hour to see the minister concerned in his seat. Not only in his seat but evidently consulting with the mover of the bill, I presume to get certain material which he had in his possession for the edification of the minister.

It is a rare experience for us, Mr. Speaker, to have the minister here so that we can talk to him and give him good advice. I am dead certain that he’s gathering up those jewels of wisdom which are dripping from our lips here this afternoon. I only hope he’s going to use those jewels to put together a really good piece of legislation which will result in cutting out some of the problems we face here in connection with this bill.

Mr. Speaker, we are grateful that the minister is doing what so many of his colleagues have not seen fit to do up to this point.

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): Don’t overdo it.

Mr. Young: No.

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

Mr. Young: The second thing I want to say is that if we had proper government policies in this province and federally, too -- for the benefit of my friends to the right here; I hesitate to say the far right but to the right --

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): This party appreciates good legislation. Ottawa has brought in some good legislation.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Young: Because of the lack of that kind of legislation, we find so many charity drives have to be undertaken in order to alleviate the distress and the problems faced by so many people. If we had that kind of legislation, if we had the proper kind of programmes to look after the people who are not as lucky as some of the rest of us, many of these charity drives would be eliminated and the member wouldn’t have to incorporate a bill like this.

However, we live in the kind of world we are living in today, with the kind of governments we have, and with the lack of a real stress upon humanitarian legislation and so voluntary organizations go out to raise money. Unfortunately, many voluntary organizations are not willing to undergo themselves the kind of work which is necessary to raise funds. They like to have the kudos --

Mr. Givens: The easy way.

Mr. Young: They say “We are doing so-and-so for the underprivileged children; we are doing this for the widow and the orphans; we are doing this for the blind; we are doing this for the children or some other groups.” Yet what they are doing is taking credit for work which they hire out to be done and for which the donors are giving money, in many cases, under false pretences.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would simply stress this aspect. After all, if our voluntary agencies, all the clubs and organizations that are raising funds for so-called worthwhile purposes -- and generally they are -- if they would get off their fannies and do the job themselves they would likely make far more than they receive from the fund-raising organizations. There would be far less total work involved, because so much of the work is being done by paid organizers.

But if the volunteers would do the job, they would get much, much more in the case of the examples which were cited by the mover of the bill here this afternoon. I think he has done an extremely good job in showing instance after instance after instance where people were really taken for a ride. They thought they were giving to a charity when as a matter of fact they were giving mainly to a fund-raising commercial enterprise.

Mr. Speaker, there are two or three things which I think should be included in the bill. Perhaps some of them are meant, but they are not too specific. One is that as far as the company is concerned, the commissioner should outline a prescribed form which the company must use in laying out its proposition to the charity for which it is going to work. That prescribed form would say exactly what his charges are for the service rendered. It would say exactly what proportion they are going to take as their commission or fee. It would also, I would hope, guarantee to the charity a certain stated amount of income.

In other words, the company says to the Kinsmen, for example, “You need $10,000 for your charity. We will guarantee you $10,000 and to raise that $10,000 we have to have 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15 per cent, or whatever the percentage is.” That is there in writing so that both parties understand what is involved and the Kinsmen know that for every dollar that is given to the cause, at least no more than that percentage is going for the work that is being done. Then they can count on something. They know definitely.

If they find the company is not willing or cannot deliver a certain number of dollars for a certain commission, then they can make up their own minds whether it is useful or not to hire that company to do the job. Under those circumstances, when they find that the company is not willing to do that, they might find that it is far better for them to go out and do the job themselves because that way they could raise the money.

I think there should be, as far as the company and the charity are concerned, a clear statement of what they can expect or what they will say to the donor. There again we come to the relationship between the company and the donor. I think the charity ought to understand that the donor will get a clear statement from the company as to what the expenses are going to be, what proportion of his gift is going to the charity, what his rights are income-tax-wise, what he will get as far as clearance for income, what deductibility there is there -- and then he goes ahead and makes his contribution.

In other words, if I am approached by a commercial company for a fund which is going to send a hundred children to summer camp, and they say to me, “We are going to raise so much. Out of each dollar, you are paying 90 cents for the summer camp and 10 cents for our work,” then I would say, “Well not a bad proposition. I am willing to give my dollar on that basis.” And so I contribute whatever I am going to contribute.

But if he says to me -- and he likely won’t say it unless I ask him -- “We are not certain yet what proportion of your dollar is going to the charity and what to fees,” then to my mind come the examples that I have known and that the mover of the bill today gave us. That gets me thinking that likely if I give that dollar, then 75 cents of it is going for these boys who are doing the collection. Then I’m not going to do it; I don’t like that kind of operation.

Unfortunately, most people don’t ask those questions. Most people, when they get this voice coming over the phone or somebody approaches them in these terms, they take for granted that they are actually giving direct to charity, and it doesn’t occur to them to ask what’s all about and how much is going into the fees for collection. There is one other angle that I want to stress, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Can you do it in 30 seconds?

Mr. Young: I beg your pardon?

Mr. Speaker: Thirty seconds?

Mr. Young: And that is in this situation, perhaps in this bill, we should have a clearly defined statement that these companies should be Canadian companies that are going to do business in Canada. So many that are doing business today come with all the high pressure methods of the American parent corporations. We don’t know how much of the management fees is going across the line, we don’t know how much of the printing cost is, or how much of other kinds of costs such as franchise fees. And so the costs mount up.

I think we have to have the Canadian content right here and the Canadian companies listed. But again, I stress that we ought to think in terms of changes, not only in legislation of this kind, but legislation which brings a greater degree of justice to the Canadian scene so that many of these appeals will be eliminated.

I think, Mr. Speaker, you and all of us, after we’ve been in this House for a good many years, get on innumerable sucker lists and day after day we are getting these appeals. Let’s examine them carefully, and while some other things could be in this bill which I have outlined and some others which I haven’t had time to do, I’m certain that as far as we are concerned, we agree with the general principle that there should be this kind of control over companies raising funds for charity in this way.

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

Mr. Givens: Mr. Speaker, I have been involved in fund-raising now for upwards of 25 years within this city and throughout the country. I guess that I have been personally responsible as a lay fund-raiser for the raising of literally millions of dollars in a lay capacity. I’ve never been involved in it professionally, but after being involved in it for many years you learn about the professional techniques and the expertise that is required in the raising of funds.

Funds just don’t raise themselves by themselves. You just don’t let out an appeal. You just don’t send out a series of letters and expect the money to fall like manna from heaven. There are certain prime requisites that are required. You’ve got to know who your fund-givers are. You’ve got to know who your donors are, you’ve got to know where to go, you’ve got to know what to expect and how to go about it and what the right circumstances are for the context within which you make your appeal. You’ve got to appeal to like-minded people and know what the approach should be and so on.

This is why these professional groups have grown up. I think that my hon. colleague from Windsor-Walkerville should be commended for the exhaustive work that he has done in extracting all this information. I’m appalled to hear some of the things that he has put before us today, because my experience in the fund-raising I have done has been that expenses should never be any more than about six or seven per cent of the gross, particularly in a very efficient operation.

It should never exceed 10 or 12 per cent in an operation which is either less efficient or where the gatherings of the gross are a little slimmer because you’ve got to cover a bigger geographical area or because a greater amount of expertise has to be brought to bear because the charity is lesser known.

But the reason why these professional groups flourish is because expertise is needed. As my hon. friend from Yorkview has pointed out, a lot of people are simply lazy and they don’t want to get off their butts and they don’t want to get out and do the kind of work that has to be done. The fact of the matter is that in any given charitable drive -- whether it is charitable, philanthropic or church organization -- lay supervision, lay leadership and lay vigilance are absolutely necessary.

It isn’t enough to go to the minister and ask for a bill which will cure all the ills, because you’ve got to have lay supervision and lay vigilance. The people who are in the charitable organization themselves have to know what they are doing and have to make sure that they watch the croupier who is handling the dough. They’ve got to know what’s going on.

These professional organizations use the charitable organizations as the catalyst because after all, by themselves, with all their expertise and all their slick manoeuvring, they can do nothing. They have to have the organization, which is the catalyst, or is like the distributor cap on a car that you so frequently see in the movies being taken out of the engine so that the car can’t go.

It is the charitable organization that provides this distributor cap for them, and gets the engine running. And without that, which is the sine qua non, as they say in legal parlance, they ain’t got anything going for them.

You have got to understand one more thing. This is this other point that I would like to make. It isn’t only a matter of a rip-off of a charitable organization, or whether the donor has $10 or $20 or $100 extracted from him. We are all the losers because in the case of a contribution there is tax deductibility, which means that we are all paying. If you give $100 to any given organization or a church or a charitable organization, we are all contributing to that, because of the tax deductibility factor. Consequently, it makes it important that these things do not become a racket. And I am absolutely appalled to hear that these organizations are ripping off as much as 80 or 90 per cent, and there has got to be a stop to it. It just has to be brought to an abrupt ending.

Now, it is true that expertise is needed, that fund-raising has become a specialized activity, just like everything else today. People who are in these various charitable organizations are taken up with the duties of everyday life, with doing a job, earning a living, pursuing day-to-day activities, or their family lives. They read these beautiful ads that they see in the newspaper. Somebody recommends their company to them; you know: “Call us and we’ll look after everything for you.” It’s like a catering firm; you know: “Bring us in and we’ll look after everything for you, and all we’ll do is send you a cheque at the end of it all.” And there is this tendency for them to leap into this blind alley and not to think too deeply about it.

I think that it is high time to change, under these circumstances, when we know what legitimate fund-raising organizations can do, when we see what United Appeal can do, and all the other legitimate organizations who have steady professional staff with them. There is no reason why our community in Ontario should have to put up with this nonsense.

But above all, I think that when the minister decides to bring in a bill and when he spells out, as in Bill 64, the duties and the obligations of the various professional fund-raising companies, he should also spell out the duties and obligations that should have to be carried out by the charitable organizations themselves -- the obligations that they should have to supervise and police the organizations that they do business with, so that it isn’t just a matter of taking them by the hand and trying to nursemaid them all along. They have certain responsibilities too, and they have to see that they take great care in how they conduct themselves in connection with the operation of these companies.

Again, I want to commend my hon. colleague from Windsor-Walkerville and just everybody who has participated in this debate. I think this is one of the most fruitful private members’ hours I have had the pleasure to be involved in. Again, I don’t know whether there is an ulterior motive or not, but the minister blew his cool today at one point, at a member of the NDP who really deserved it, and I think it is high time he blew his cool at him. But I also want to take this opportunity to thank him for being here and participating when we backbenchers get up and say our piece.

He should be here to pay attention to what we say, and I am sure that our efforts will be fructified with success as he sits here and listens to us and will implement our pleas with something concrete in due course when he comes in with a bill based on the lines as set out in Bill 64.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Prince-Edward Lennox.

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince-Edward Lennox): Mr. Speaker, if a man runs after money, he is money mad. If he keeps it, he is a capitalist. If he spends it, he is a playboy. If he doesn’t get it, he is a ne’er do well. If he doesn’t try to get it, he lacks ambition. If he gets it without working, he is a parasite. If he gets it after a life of hard labour, he is a fool who got nothing out of life.

Today we are talking about running after money, and it seems that the whole concept of charity has changed. We have institutionalized charity. I think we have taken a lot of the feeling and compassion out of causes; we employ a machine or an organization to try to raise money for causes that are commendable.

I don’t think we are going to be able to legislate human nature, nor are we going to be able to legislate attitudes. I am particularly concerned about the techniques that are often used by these institutions in raising money for worthwhile causes.

I don’t think it matters what type of programme a government has; there will always be another cause, a good and just cause that needs money to operate -- and there will be people who are promoting that cause and trying to raise money to assist it.

We’ll always have charities and charitable institutions and we’ll always have people who are trying to raise money. But I think it’s important that we cover, in some legislative form, the function or operation of professionals who make a business out of compassion and out of causes. I think all of us have had some experience in this regard, and surely the worthwhile charities shouldn’t be ripped off by ruthless and unscrupulous persons who try to play on the milk of human kindness of so many of us, thereby raising the moneys and, of course, pocketing much of the gain.

Mr. Speaker, I am reluctant to see a special Act passed, without involving persons who have experience in professional fund-raising, the people who have the insight. I think there is a role for professionals in this particular type of undertaking today. I would like to see them involved. I would like to see self-regulation as much as possible in this whole field.

Furthermore, and probably more important, I would like to see some provision in the Business Practices Act which would cover professional fund-raisers. I think that is the place where this type of organization might very well be included, so that instead of setting up a separate system or a separate bureaucracy for the licensing and administration of this type of organization, it could be included under the Business Practices Act.

Mention has been made of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations being here today and paying attention to what has been said. My message to him, Mr. Speaker, is that he give consideration to the licensing and regulation of professional fund-raisers, and that that particular undertaking be included in the Business Practices Act. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Thunder Bay.

Mr. Stokes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to commend the member for Windsor-Walkerville for having introduced this bill and to compliment him on the in-depth research he has done to bolster his argument.

I have had some experience with fund-raising, having been a former member of the Kinsmen Club; and while the comments made by the member for Windsor-Walkerville are valid in the context in which he used them, I want to assure all members of this House that I am well aware and very familiar with the workings of the Kinsmen Club across the province.

I wouldn’t want anybody to go out of here with the idea that fine work being done by the Kinsmen Club is as a result of funds that were created by the professional fund-raisers. I would say that well in excess of 90 per cent of all of the funds they use for the very good community services they perform are funds that are raised as a result of the hard work of many individual members of clubs. I don’t think that we should do anything to inhibit that kind of operation, and I am sure that this bill isn’t designed to do that. But I thought it should be put on the record that we must recognize the fine work that is being done by all Kinsmen Clubs throughout Canada.

I was involved in a professional fund-raising campaign that was operated by --

Mr. R. G. Eaton (Middlesex South): For the betterment of northwestern Ontario?

Mr. Stokes: -- a professional fundi-raising group from Detroit on behalf of a church. And I know whereof the member speaks because they are professionals in every sense of the word. We were never given any figures as to the amount of dollars that the professionals would get as opposed to the amount of dollars that would sift down for the very purpose for which the fund-raising was being done.

They do take novices such as myself and bring them in and give them a crash course of an hour or two of instruction. They say, “This is the kind of hard sell that you give; this is the Madison Ave. approach that you make. It is bound to provide results.” In that sense we were doing the door-to-door work and the canvassing for the professional organizer. They were indoctrinating us as to the proper approach with the public, and how to get them to sign pledge cards. They were just sitting back and watching the money roll in.

Sure, the church got some of it but we were never able to find out how much the professional got for the kind of work we were doing. So I think the kinds of things that are advocated by this bill would make it quite clear how much the costs were to the entire fund as the result of the activities of these professional organizers. I think it is high time that something was done in this regard.

I am also aware of the fine work being done by Rotary clubs throughout the province. I had occasion just recently to ask for some assistance for a family who had a child who was suffering from cystic fibrosis. When I approached the Ministry of Health they said that they didn’t have any particular programme for assisting those children, or the parents of those children. They said we would have to go to our local Rotary Club for that kind of assistance. I am told that there are certain funds made available to the Rotary Club by the Ministry of Health. They add this to their own funds to assist children suffering from this dreaded disease who have to travel several hundred miles down here to centres where they do have some means of treating them.

Again I would like to say to members of this House and to the ministry that we have to be careful that in coming to grips with this problem and these abuses that have been very well documented by the member for Windsor-Walkerville, we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. I think there are many, many clubs that fill a void for the delivery of assistance in many, many areas throughout the province. They would go unserved if it wasn’t for the fine work that is being done by most service clubs and most fraternal organizations throughout the province. I am sure that the member for Windsor-Walkerville didn’t have that in mind to subvert in any way the fine work that was done by those clubs.

I support in principle everything in this bill and hope that the minister who has done us the courtesy of attending during this debate this afternoon will bring in some kind of legislation that wall stop these abuses without inhibiting the ability of these legitimate organizations to thrive and to do the kind of work that they are doing in a very dedicated way.

Mr. Speaker: This completes this order of business.

Orders of the day.

THIRD READING (CONTINUED)

Clerk of the House: The second order, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for third reading of Bill 25, An Act to impose a Tax on Land in respect of certain speculative Transactions affecting the Control or Ownership of Land.

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