Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Oral questions. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

LAND SPECULATION TAX

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Are those all the ministers you can find, Mr. Speaker?

I would like to ask the Minister of Revenue if he can report to the House on the revenue level from the Land Speculation Tax Act. Are there, in fact, dollars coming into his ministry? Secondly, is he accepting the affidavits from people selling property that the value has been unchanged since the cut-off date, April 8 or April 9?

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Speaker, on the first question, I would expect about the end of this week I will have figures for the month of April, since April 10, and to the end of May as to both the Land Transfer Tax Act and the Land Speculation Tax Act.

As to the affidavits, basically yes; but I have indicated that in the immediate future -- indeed presently we are not as easy to convince as we were initially -- in, say, the next week or two weeks, it is going to be possible to put in place and have operational a system of examination of the values which will go farther than just accepting the affidavits and other evidence submitted by the parties concerned.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: I wonder if the minister can indicate what he is going to require, since he has been accepting the affidavit of the vendor that the value has not changed over this period of time? And since the new law itself is designed to stabilize those values, how can the minister counter the argument in the affidavit that since the law passed by the Legislature was to stabilize the values, that the value in fact has been stabilized and therefore no tax is payable?

Hon. Mr. Meen: There may well be no increase in values in many cases, Mr. Speaker; and this is going to depend on the evidence that is adduced. I have my own assessment division, a branch in the ministry with skilled personnel who are able to establish values, at least to our satisfaction. If those values as established are in line with the figures submitted by the applicants for lien clearance certificates, then of course there will be no dispute. Where, in their estimation, there has been less capital appreciation than we may consider there to be, then of course there will have to be an adjudication of the matter; and I would say that we will have some of those if in fact there has been appreciation in value.

The figures that my colleague, the Minister of Housing (Mr. Handleman), probably is in receipt of, and of which I am not currently in receipt, indicate there has been a decrease. I understand from the information available to him, through the real estate boards, that there seems to be a flattening out of the real estate prices. Whether this flattening has occurred because of the Land Speculation Tax Act, the Land Transfer Tax Act or high interest rates on mortgages, or possibly a combination of all three of them, I don’t think any of us know.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It depends on which forum you are talking in whether they want credit or to shift blame.

Hon. Mr. Meen: The point we are making is that it would appear that these Acts are working, and it may be that there isn’t any revenue of consequence to talk about yet. I do not have the figures, to repeat my answer to the first question.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): A supplementary --

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

Mr. Shulman: Inasmuch as the minister is basically accepting the values sent in by the vendor, at least up to this point, can he explain the very lengthy delay? Why does it take so many weeks to get a response and to get the certificate?

Hon. Mr. Meen: This kind of thing doesn’t occur instantaneously, and I am not sure that I understand what the hon. member for High Park means by taking weeks to get the certificate --

Mr. Shulman: Approval.

Hon. Mr. Meen: About 80 per cent of all the applications for lien clearance certificates are applications for which no certificate is required, those being circumstances in which the transaction is clearly an exempt transaction under section 4 of the Land Speculation Tax Act. Nevertheless, cautious lawyers being what they are, they have been asking for these certificates; and, as between vendor and purchaser, the purchaser is insisting on the certificate. So my ministry has been burdened with a heavy work load in providing a lot of lien clearance certificates when in fact such weren’t required.

I would hope that the legal profession, as they become more accustomed to and proficient in the application of the Act, will not require the same degree of lien clearance certificate issuances that have been the case in the past --

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): They will until they know whether or not the tax is deductible.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Of course they will.

Mr. Lewis: They will have to, until it is resolved federally.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- and that my staff will then be able to apply themselves more diligently to the other matters, such as the establishment of values for the purpose of computation of the tax.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The minister will need another 150 staff members.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary: If it is taking six weeks now when he is accepting the vendors’ statements, does the minister have any idea how many months it is going to take when his ministry starts checking into the vendors’ statements and not accepting them at their face value?

Hon. Mr. Meen: No, you see, in the initial stages, clearly there would be a lot of transactions that were executed in the form of commitments prior to April 9; and, of course, they would be clear. Then there would be many transactions that were completed in the weeks immediately following the April 9 budget statement that would deal in real estate values that were effective as of that date; and, of course, there would be no capital appreciation in those matters either.

It is therefore clear to us that only about now -- I would suppose by the end of June -- will we be getting into transactions that do not necessarily reflect a market value of May, April and so on but rather start to reflect the more nearly quiescent value of June and July. It may well be that with the alteration in the forces in the marketplace of real estate today, there will be no increase. I do not have the figure as to the extent of increase but from what I read in the papers, if one can accept that information, the rate of increase seems to have diminished substantially.

Mr. Lewis: So the government brings in a tax when the speculation has finished.

Hon. Mr. Meen: That may be.

An hon. member: You can’t win.

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

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Is the minister still handling all the clearances from Toronto? What plans does the ministry have in order to ensure there would be local clearance in areas such as Ottawa and Thunder Bay?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, I am actively investigating the question of decentralizing this function --

Mr. Lewis: I should think so.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- to major centres such as Thunder Bay, North Bay, Windsor, London, Hamilton, Ottawa and so on.

Mr. Shulman: Hire about 1,000 more employees.

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

LIQUOR LICENCES FOR BELL CENTENNIAL

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations what he is going to do to change the decision of the chairman of the Liquor Licence Board to deny a licence to the eight ethnic villages which are making extensive plans to participate in the Bell Centennial in Brantford, beginning I believe July 14? Does he have the power to reverse this inadequate decision; and if not will he order a further hearing in this matter?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Mr. Speaker; first, no, I do not have the power to order a reversal of the board’s decision.

I am familiar with the situation in Brantford. As I understand it, I believe there were nine, not eight, ethnic clubs involved. I’ve had some lengthy discussions with the member for Brantford (Mr. Beckett) in connection with it. Five of them, as I understand it, have their own club premises and four do not; and they wanted to stage an ethnic type of celebration over a period, I believe or 12 or 14, 15 days. They applied to the school board to have four elementary schools licensed, and as I further understand it, the school board did in fact eventually approve that application insofar as endorsing it is concerned.

The liquor board, I’m advised by the chairman, has received a substantial number of objections, both in writing and by telephone, from people in the Brantford area objecting to the use of school facilities as a licensed outlet, and as a result of that it was his decision that in the best interest of all parties the licences should not be issued to the four.

I was advised earlier today that the other five clubs, which are licensed or have special occasion permits, have declined to proceed with the ethnic type of celebration for reasons known to themselves.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Is the minister then indicating that a matter like this should be settled almost by a referendum or a mail-in to the chief liquor commissioner? Surely there are a number of people in the Brantford area particularly, who are involved in the preparations for these ethnic celebrations who are very, very keen indeed that they go forward. I simply ask the minister if he can use his good offices to have the matter further reviewed in the interests of having these large communities within Brant and Brantford participate in what is going to be one of the greatest celebrations in our community in many years.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker; no, I don’t think it should be determined completely by referendum; and I don’t think it should be determined by any political influence I might attempt to exert upon the board, which is autonomous and doesn’t have to react to any requests I make.

I think one has to look at the two sides to the situation. I’m advised there are a substantial number of outlets already licensed in the area. I’m also aware of the peculiar type of the events, of a very complimentary type of celebration, proposed by the ethnic groups; and so there are the two sides. Those people who feel very strongly that school facilities should not be used for licensed outlets have made their views known, and on balance the board has made its decision.

I suppose it is one of those things where you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t, and the board has made its decision.

I will be more than pleased to discuss it further today by telephone with the chairman, in view of the turn of events that have been described to me recently by the member for Brantford, but whether that changes the chairman’s position or not I just don’t know.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Does the minister not believe in democracy? Is he not aware there were two votes taken, actually four votes taken in Brantford? The city council has supported this proposal throughout, the board of education finally supported it; as a result of which the minority who were defeated by the democratic process then go to the appointed officials and override the democratic process. What kind of a nutty system is the minister running?

Hon. Mr. Clement: It is just this nutty; there were two votes and they were tied. Two separate school members came in and voted in favour of it but the facilities which are to be used are not separate school facilities. That’s how nutty it is.

Mr. Shulman: Just a minute -- a supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: What does that mean?

Mr. Shulman: Is the minister suggesting that because separate schools were not used those members should not be allowed to vote? Does the minister not agree that the majority vote was in favour of the schools being allowed to have the licences? Is that not so?

Mr. Cassidy: It is a public school system for both systems.

Hon. Mr. Clement: As I understand it, Mr. Speaker, the tied votes on two separate occasions were seven to seven I believe.

Mr. Lewis: That is right.

Mr. Shulman: The final vote was nine to seven.

Hon. Mr. Clement: On two occasions, and this did not indicate to the chairman of the board an overwhelming clamour in support of the request. As a result, there was a third vote later on and the two separate school members attended. I have no criticism of that; they are entitled to attend.

Mr. Lewis: And to vote.

Hon. Mr. Clement: He felt that because their facilities weren’t involved, he made the decision as he has so indicated.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker, if I may. Does the minister agree with his colleague, the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells), who has made pleas that the public schools be used on as many occasions as possible when they are not being used as schools? Would these ethnic events not fall into exactly that category?

Mr. Lewis: Right.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Of course, I agree with it. But I don’t recall in the comments made by my colleague, the Minister of Education, in the past any recommendation that school facilities be used as an outlet for alcohol.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Yes but the board has now okayed it. The minister can’t have it both ways.

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

MINI-SKOOLS LTD.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I’d like to ask the Minister of Community and Social Services if, as the minister responsible for the administration of day school policy, he is not concerned with the statement from the recent 82nd annual report of Great-West Life, which his policy minister told me on Friday was not associated with the expansion of Mini-Skools in this province:

“Ken Dawson, Great-West Life’s property investment research officer, and Stan Susinski, bond investment officer, who sit on the Mini-Skools board of directors, tell why this unusual acquisition meets the prime objective -- that is, a good financial return -- of an insurance company’s investment programme.”

Is he sure he wants to administer a day school programme which is actually performing this function for Great-West Life, an American-controlled concern, which has bought into the education process here and which is presumably going to be the recipient of substantial numbers of public dollars?

Hon. R. Brunelle (Minister of Community and Social Services): Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated on several occasions, especially during our estimates, we have a very enviable record for daycare centres in this province. We will build upon it and we will do nothing that will take away from our present very good quality of service.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Does the minister’s statement mean he is announcing a withdrawal from the policy secretary’s statements that there are going to be two substantial changes which will detract from the effectiveness of our daycare programme?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, I have said it before and I will repeat it again; I think the announcement of the provincial secretary was an exceedingly good announcement.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Does the minister agree with it?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Again, I said during the estimates that we were establishing an advisory council comprised of representatives from the professionals, the associations, the Provincial-Municipal Liaison Committee, all those who have an interest. Some time soon I will be announcing the names of the members. It’s an advisory council to make recommendations to me. I am very optimistic, Mr. Speaker, that we will continue to have one of the best daycare programmes in North America.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary, if I may: Is the minister aware that as a result of Great-West Life’s involvement we now have a Mini-Skools consortium involving Louisville, Lexington, Houston, Cincinnati, Columbus and Toronto, opening up volume daycare for children? What does he think of the statement in the report that Mini-Skools is not a typical life insurance company investment, perhaps because Great-West Life is not quite a typical life insurance company?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to look into the composition of the Mini-Skools. But again, I would like to say that we believe that there is -- as the hon. member knows, there are presently, I am told, seven Mini-Skools in Toronto.

Mr. Lewis: Seven branch plants here.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The services are purchased from the municipality and they have to operate under our Day Nurseries Act and they have to meet our standards.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Is it the minister’s officials who advised the provincial secretary that Great-West Life was not involved in this and which prompted her answer last week which was, to say the least, misleading?

Mr. Lewis: Misleading? It is an oversight which is hardly credible.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I don’t believe, Mr. Speaker, that the provincial secretary said that they were not involved.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, yes. She could determine no connection. That takes some doing.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Speaker, a supplementary of the same minister: Wouldn’t the minister think that he and the provincial secretary and the officials should get together and give facts to this House, rather than misinformed speculation? And wouldn’t the minister now be prepared to admit publicly that what Great-West Life says in its annual statement is correct, and that the secretary was wrong?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, there is no great mystery.

Mr. Singer: It is wrong.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: There is no great mystery. We would be pleased to make available the names of the directors and the involvement in the Mini-Skools by Great-West --

Mr. Singer: Was Great-West lying?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: And I see nothing wrong if a Canadian company --

Mr. Singer: Or was the minister misinformed?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- a very reputable Canadian company -- I see nothing wrong. As the provincial secretary indicated last week, what about the involvement in the group homes of Browndale --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: Is Great-West Life a non-profit company?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I want to indicate that the Great-West Life company has its: headquarters in Winnipeg, but is involved with Mini-Skools all over North America and their involvement is international.

Mr. Singer: I don’t think they are involved in Browndale, are they?

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

NITH RIVER DAM

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Minister of Natural Resources if he can indicate any change in government policy from the last time the matter was raised in the proposal put forward by some municipalities, and particularly by the Grand River Conservation Authority, to build a dam in Blenheim township -- I think it’s normally called the Ayr dam -- on the Nith River which, if built, would flood over 5,000 acres of class 1 and 2 farmland? The minister realizes that the government policy was not to provide further investigative funds for that purpose -- has the policy changed in any respect?

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Speaker, to my knowledge that policy has not changed, but I certainly will make myself aware of any possibility it has changed and report back to the member.

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

WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION BENEFITS

Mr. Lewis: Yes, Mr. Speaker, could I ask of the Minister of Labour if he would reconsider his decision of last week and allow the Workmen’s Compensation Act amendments to go before the appropriate committee of this Legislature, since the Union of Injured Workmen have already responded with enormous anxiety and unhappiness to the proposals which have been put forward; and surely the responsibility of this Legislature is to provide some type of avenue or funnel through which that anxiety can be raised?

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some members may remember that on June 14 I left the chamber early so I could go down and hear what the injured workmen wanted to present to me. Although at no time had they asked for a meeting with me, I had knowledge that they were having a meeting in front of the building at 400 University Ave. So I went down there especially to meet with them and suggested that they should send a group of six or seven up to speak to me, which they refused to do.

Now, at that point I would have been ready to listen to anything they had to say, but in the meantime --

Mr. Lewis: Come on.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: No, that’s right.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): They have sent six or seven up frequently.

Mr. Lewis: To the minister’s predecessor.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Maybe I should have gone down to listen to them, but I don’t like doing the business of the province on the street.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: He wants it in the board rooms of the province.

Mr. Lewis: For some of them there is physical pain involved in mounting those steps to the minister’s office.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I was quite prepared to listen to them. I know that my predecessor has on several occasions listened to them, but because of the urgency of trying to get this before the House on July 1 -- as members know there was very little time --

Mr. Lewis: There is time this week.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I don’t know when the plans are to recess for the summer.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: When the business is over.

Mr. Lewis: The minister can make it retroactive.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: In any event, I’m interested in getting this in, Mr. Speaker, by July 1, and I don’t see any way that we can hear them now. But I do say this, some of these pensions were raised last January. I’m not referring to other than the minimum, but some of them have been raised in the past. Certainly if inflation continues, I don’t think this will be the last occasion. I think it’s more important that we should look after those we presently plan to do. I’ll be happy to meet these people some time in the fall, or even during the summer months, in preparation for whatever raises may be in the future.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary, if I may: Why does the government drive this group of men and women, and many like them, to further demonstrations of anger and frustration by denying them the access which the legislative process is designed to provide? Why cannot the minister bring in his bill for second reading today or tomorrow and let us have the committee before the end of the week, so that they can express their views on the pensions which affect their lives? Not ours, theirs.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think I can add anything more. It’s the time element involved. I don’t know when we plan to recess the House and I think we should proceed.

Mr. Cassidy: Why is the minister so stubborn about these things?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Surely the minister should not continue to talk about the time element when he is aware that we are prepared to have the meetings of the committee this week. Isn’t our aim, I ask the minister directly, to have amendments which are at least going to come as nearly as possible toward meeting the requirements of the people concerned, rather than simply to adjourn by the end of the week or whenever the minister thinks we should get out?

Mr. R. Gisborn (Hamilton East): It is just a political gimmick.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Why could we not have some sort of a hearing when the bill has had second reading, so that we can improve the bill rather than just rush it through?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Simply, Mr. Speaker, because I am hopeful that this will be effective on July 1.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): So it can be.

Mr. Lewis: It can be.

Mr. Deans: Hold the committee today.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: If we open this up to hearings, the hearings may go on for some time. I don’t think we want to wait.

Mr. Lewis: That’s what the Legislature is for.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Yes, but this is a week away. Today is June 24.

Mr. Lewis: The minister can make it retroactive for five days. The government has done it before.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Well, I know but --

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): The government does it with taxes all the time.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I am anxious, Mr. Speaker, that we should move this as quickly as possible.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is not anxious not to hear their opposition.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: No. I said I had given them an opportunity to speak to me, which they chose not to take, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Gisborn: It is a political gimmick.

ALGONQUIN FOREST AUTHORITY

Mr. Lewis: I have a question, Mr. Speaker, if I may, of the Minister of Natural Resources. Now that his ministry has in good faith and with resourcefulness provided figures to show that in a 50-mile radius around Algonquin Park there is sufficient hardwood available, logged at a level of 50 per cent of the allowable cut, to allow us to phase out the logging in Algonquin, why will he not make an announcement of such a phase-out or set up or constitute the authority he has promised with those kinds of terms of reference before we end the session presumably?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, let me first point out that it’s government policy which was announced about a year ago to establish a forestry authority that would be totally responsible for the harvesting of wood resources within the park itself. I have had an opportunity to glance briefly at the member’s statement of last week, and I would point out to the House that in fact the area to which he refers as 50 miles outside the radius of the park is actually six times as large as the entire park itself. In fact, it’s nearly equal to about 41 per cent of all southern Ontario, and in this particular area about 44 per cent is private land. It’s obvious that the area referred to could not support and provide the quality of wood to which the hon. member refers.

Mr. Lewis: What does the minister mean?

Mr. Deans: What is he talking about?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: But I will, Mr. Speaker, in the weeks ahead, review the member’s comments and the way he has twisted the figures to his advantage and make a public statement along those lines.

Mr. Lewis: First, on a point of privilege, may I say that the figures are scrupulously reproduced from the material the minister gave me. On a supplementary question: Given the map which his ministry provided for me, which he can see across the floor of the House, with the portions outside the park shaded in yellow, on the basis of his ministry’s shading, how can he call that 41 per cent of the land mass in southern Ontario? What kind of nonsense is that? It just surrounds the park within that radius.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Four per cent?

Mr. Lewis: Four per cent perhaps? I don’t know, but surely the minister can see it covers just a number of townships. Will the minister please explain how, based on the figures his ministry gave, he is willing to continue to renew licences in Algonquin Park, and to refuse to take the measures to protect the park which the minister knows can now be taken?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, as I said just a moment ago, I intend to review those figures in complete detail and make a statement and correct them for the public at large. But on the point of renewing the licences in Algonquin Park, I would point out to the House that this is a normal course that we have taken since 1970. We have renewed these licences on an annual basis to gain greater control over the licences, particularly those in Algonquin Park. It is nothing unusual; we are still on schedule, the Algonquin Forestry Authority will be in effect on April 1, 1975.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: When the minister is reviewing the availability of hardwood alternatives to the park, would he kindly go outside the 50-mile radius that the leader of the NDP has been indicating, and indicate just what usefulness can be made of the hardwood bushes that are found all through southwestern Ontario, many of them not adequately looked after nor adequately harvested, but which could be a new and alternative source of income to the farmers concerned as well as an alternative to the continued logging in Algonquin?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I would point out to the Leader of the Opposition that a review of that entire area has been on for some considerable time and the facts and figures are now pouring in to us. We are anxious to learn about the availability of quality hardwood outside the park, because I think it is fair to say that the users of the wood resource from Algonquin Park depend on a high-quality resource --

Mr. Lewis: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- and this has not been available, to our information, outside the park in the same quality that it is in the park.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Grey-Bruce; a supplementary?

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): In the same area, Mr. Speaker, wasn’t the minister talking about providing an official Algonquin plan? Where is that?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we have an official plan. I had hoped to be able to table it in the House prior to the House rising, but unfortunately it is not off the press and we will do it just as soon as it is available.

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

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister of Natural Resources sure he didn’t mean 4.1 instead of 41 per cent?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No; 41.

Mr. Lewis: It is hard to believe.

NURSES’ SALARIES

Mr. Lewis: A question, Mr. Speaker, of the Minister of Health: Can the minister comment on the situation over the nurses’ negotiations, the problems over salary settlements, the explicit and implicit threats of strikes, and all that that raises for the hospitals in Ontario?

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, naturally I am very anxious to see a satisfactory conclusion to the negotiations going on now on a joint basis.

I am encouraged by the fact that the negotiations have been accompanied by a virtual news blackout -- an agreement between both parties -- because this to me means that they are negotiating seriously and in good faith.

I have never had any overt threats of strikes given to me as minister. I have read rumours in the press that nurses said they would go on strike. I have been asked that question by the press, and I have to say I would be very disappointed if, in fact, that, threat were carried out by a group of people who have shown themselves to be as responsible as the nurses are, knowing full well that the law prohibits a strike.

As far as the negotiations are concerned they are a matter between the boards and the nurses, not between the ministry and the nurses, and I want to leave them there.

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

Mr. Sargent: A supplementary: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the minister has set a 7.9 per cent salary increase ceiling, and all nurses in Ontario are making less than many cleaning staffs, is the minister going to increase that 7.9 per cent ceiling, which is about half what the nurses are asking?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the member for Grey-Bruce perhaps doesn’t get his mail regularly but we did, in fact, waive that for hospitals on a conditional basis sometime around May 3 or 4, and hospitals now have the freedom that they felt they had to have to come to reasonable settlements with their workers.

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

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary: Is the minister aware that a serious crisis in the form of a nursing shortage has taken place to the effect that the Northwest General is shutting two wards this week, St. Joseph’s is shutting 150 beds, Toronto Western is shutting a floor in the pavilion, and York-Finch is shutting down a number of beds? They inform me that this shortage of nurses applies right across the province. Is the minister aware of this particular crisis and what is he doing about it?

Hon. Mr. Miller: We have apparently gone from a condition of a surplus of nurses to a condition of a shortage. I am told that part of the problem is due to the fact that many people who work as nurses are not necessarily full-time employees. They are married women who traditionally have taken a good part of the summer months off, causing a greater shortage in the hospitals during the summer than in the winter months.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister aware of this statement from the Toronto Western Hospital saying there is a province-wide shortage of nurses and it is not a summer problem?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I am not aware of that particular statement but I am very concerned. One of the things that should be understood -- and it came up during the health disciplines bill -- is that one does not need to be a registered nurse to work in the hospitals in the Province of Ontario. One needs to be a graduate nurse or diploma nurse but the requirement for registration is not in the statutes. It was applied by many hospitals as an indication of competence but it is not a requirement of this ministry.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary --

Mr. Deacon: Yes --

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

Mr. Deacon: Does the minister understand that some of the problems with regard to nursing staff, particularly at weekends and evenings and nights, are due to the fact that there is very little extra pay or consideration given for working during those hours? The fact there is little incentive makes it difficult for nurses to give up things such as normal home routine because there is very little financial benefit for doing so.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I am aware of that, Mr. Speaker. I am also aware that is one of the points being negotiated at this point in time and I assume, again, that the collective bargaining process will resolve it properly. I am also aware that many people, married women in particular, choose to work on those shifts because it happens to suit them.

Mr. Deacon: It is falling off.

Mr. Speaker: I think there have been a reasonable number of supplementaries. Does the hon. member for Scarborough West have further questions?

Mr. Lewis: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: If not, the hon. member for Downsview.

LIE DETECTOR TESTS FOR PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEES

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Does the minister have any attitude toward employers who require, as a condition of an application for employment, the taking of a lie detector test by the prospective employees?

If I were to advise him that Cadet Cleaners requires such a test in advance of employing anyone who might be dealing with money, what would the minister be prepared to do about it?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I would feel that making it mandatory that one submit to a lie detector test is certainly a most unusual type of an approach. The question was what is my attitude. It is very unhealthy -- if that is a healthy one -- because I personally would not support it. I wonder if it is not offensive under some of our human rights legislation and I have no jurisdiction to deal with that.

I find it offensive to me. I am not speaking on behalf of the government; I am speaking as me and giving the hon. member my attitude. I take it the hon. member feels the same way?

Did I understand the hon. member -- this is dealing with people handling money?

Mr. Singer: Who might be employed to deal with money.

Hon. Mr. Clement: What did they ask them? To promise they are not going to steal?

Mr. Singer: I do not know.

Hon. Mr. Clement: They will probably find out.

Mr. Singer: By way of supplementary, because posing this question to a particular minister presented some difficulty, would the minister who has just replied undertake to consult with perhaps the Minister of Labour and perhaps the Attorney General (Mr. Welch) and find out what, if anything, the province can do and might be prepared to do about this obnoxious procedure?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The Minister of Labour is present in the House and I think he could, perhaps, take it under advisement and report back to the House and the member involved. I will be glad to speak to the Attorney General on it to see if he has any interest in it; and I am sure he does. I will talk to the Attorney General.

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

MEDIATOR FOR A AND P PARTS DISPUTE

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): A question of the Minister of Labour, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister ensure that there is an immediate involvement by a mediator from his branch to assist the collective bargaining at A and P Parts of Canada Ltd., a division of Questor Corp., inasmuch as there is a strike date set for July 3 and the previous strike at this location three years ago was particularly bitter; it involved the use of strikebreakers by the company and, in one incident involving mounted policemen, there were 13 arrests?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, sometimes I think I’m just adding to this list all the time. I’m not aware of that particular strike but we’ll certainly do our best to find out about it.

I would take this opportunity to say that once in a while the list does become shorter. We have had a settlement of the Automotive Warehousing strike. We’ve had a settlement at Sklar and another which the hon. member asked me about some time ago, at the Borden’s plant in Belmont. We’ve had some settlements but this is a new one and we’ll get after it.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): What about Union Gas?

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

POWER LINE REPORT

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. Since the minister has now given his decision with respect to the inquiry officer’s report on the Douglas Point-Bradley Junction power line, is the minister prepared to table that inquiry officer’s report?

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, as I did with the last report, I’m quite willing to give the hon. member a copy of the report if he would like one.

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

Mr. Gaunt: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary, yes.

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, I’m wondering why the minister recommended in his reasons for decision that Hydro was well within its bounds to take 900 ft instead of the 500 ft which they have now agreed to do, in view of the fact that 500 ft is an adequate width to get all of the power out of that plant within the foreseeable future, given the fact that we’ve had two announcements of expansions last fall and again in January. I don’t think the minister realized that when he wrote this report.

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, in answer I’ll give the member a copy of the report. I believe the final report said 490 ft if I remember correctly.

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

Mr. Gaunt: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I think there are just a few moments and I think one supplementary is sufficient.

Mr. Gaunt: I have just one final supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: As I say I think one supplementary was sufficient.

Mr. Gaunt: This is on an important matter, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: They all are important or I wouldn’t allow them. The hon. member for High Park.

MCNAMARA CORP. AND CANADIAN DREDGE AND DOCK

Mr. Shulman: I have a question of the Solicitor General, Mr. Speaker. Inasmuch as the information laid with the court by the police named McNamara Corp. and Canadian Dredge and Dock as co-conspirators in Hamilton with the people who were charged, who, in his department, gave orders that these two companies were not to be charged?

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Mr. Speaker, that’s something that would not involve the Solicitor General at all. The RCMP are involved in this particular investigation and to some extent the Ministry of the Attorney General.

An hon. member: What about the CIA?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: It doesn’t involve my ministry at all.

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

CROWN LAND FOR MILITARY TRAINING

Mr. Sargent: I have a question of the Minister of Natural Resources. Can the minister advise me whether the federal government is trying to take over about 50,000 acres of Ontario Crown land east of Algonquin Park near Petawawa for military training?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, there was some contact made with my district staff in the Pembroke area by some personnel from the Department of National Defence. When I heard about that contract I asked the staff to come in and discuss it with myself and my deputy. In turn, I wrote a letter to the Hon. James Richardson who is the Minister of National Defence to express this government’s concern. We felt that an approach for the acquisition of this tract of land should be made at a much higher level than at the civil service level.

I have not yet heard from Mr. Richardson, but I would point out to the House that this government is not anxious to transfer 60,000-odd acres of prime recreational land east of Algonquin Park to the federal government for military purposes.

I would further point out that there are areas in this province that have been set aside for military purposes and which are not presently being used. I hope to make the suggestion to Mr. Richardson that he use the Meaford tank range for military purposes.

Mr. Sargent: A supplementary: Would the minister make a trade for the $100 million Meaford tank range and if he would we will help him out? Would he consider that?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, we have been attempting for some considerable time to retrieve the Meaford tank range for the benefit of the people of the Province of Ontario -- without success I might just say, and without any reaction from the federal government. I think it is very, very unfair that they should tie up a huge tract of this province for no purposes at all in the peaceful times that we have around the world today. We’re going to continue our efforts and with the co-operation and help of the member I think we can achieve it.

An hon. member: It’ll be the first time he ever did co-operate.

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

LIBRARY GRANTS

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Treasurer: Is the Treasurer in a position to confirm the statement given last week during the estimates by the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Auld) that the government will not proceed with deconditionalizing library grants?

Hon. J. White (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I think I did answer this question a couple of weeks ago. It was one of the dozen or so candidates for deconditionalization presented for consideration and comment in the budget of April, 1973. It was found to be unacceptable to some number of library associations. It was therefore not acted upon but rather was presented as a candidate for deconditionalization in the budget of April, 1974.

In meeting with the associations some months ago, I delineated five options, and I expressed the view that they would be well advised to try some form of deconditionalization -- whether that be as presented, or in modified form, or a trial form -- rather than keep themselves “on the public dole” forever.

Now, I want to have a response from the associations which are considering these five options, before I myself make a recommendation to the government. If the library boards across the province are adamant in not wanting to be deconditionalized, I myself could not recommend that these grants be deconditionalized.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York Centre. There are 60 seconds to go.

GRAND RIVER FLOOD INQUIRY

Mr. Deacon: I have a question of the Minister of Natural Resources. Will the minister include the causes of the March 6 flooding at Grand Valley among the matters to be considered by the Grand Valley inquiry?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Would the member repeat that question, please?

Mr. Deacon: Yes. Would the minister consider the causes of the March 6 flooding near Grand Valley among the matters to be considered by the Grand River inquiry?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I’ll take that under consideration.

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

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Mr. J. H. Jessiman (Fort William): Mr. Speaker, in the absence of Mr. Hamilton, I beg leave to present a report of the standing social development committee, and move its adoption.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, if I may. When this matter came to the standing committee, it came on the basis of the commitment of both the Minister of Community and Social Services and the Treasurer that that committee would deal with the whole GAINS programme --

Mr. Breithaupt: Right.

Mrs. Campbell: -- and not just with that bill. And I protest its being reported today when that commitment hasn’t been given to that committee or honoured by the committee.

Hon. Mr. White: On the point of order, I did indeed assure the House and members of the committee that there would be in attendance, ministers and officials from the affected operating ministries -- which is to say, Revenue, Community and Social Services, and Health -- and indeed we did have representatives from each of those ministries.

Mrs. Campbell: Not Health.

Hon. Mr. White: There were officials from the Ministry of Health in the meetings. To the best of my knowledge, this report is being made unanimously by the members of the committee. The hon. member, I do believe, still wishes to discuss the rent ceilings affecting senior citizens, and there may be a way of doing that. However, the bill does not in any wav touch on this, nor do the collateral moves being made to the regulations of the Ministry of Community and Social Services, and so on.

Mr. Jessiman, from the standing social development committee, in the absence of Mr. Hamilton, presented the committee’s report which was read as follows and adopted:

Your committee begs to report the following bill without amendment:

Bill 96, An Act to ensure a Guaranteed Annual Income to Ontario Residents 65 years of Age and over.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the report be received and adopted?

Mrs. Campbell: No.

Mr. Speaker: Those in favour of the report being received and adopted, please say “aye.”

Those opposed, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the “ayes” have it.

Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?

Some hon. members: No.

Mr. Speaker: Committee of the whole House?

Mrs. Campbell: No.

Hon. Mr. White: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: Committee of the whole; that’s at the minister’s discretion.

Hon. Mr. Stewart presented the reports of the Co-operative Loans Board, the Ontario Food Terminal Board and the Ontario Stockyards Board.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves that until the summer recess this House will sit at 10 a.m. and may sit beyond the normal adjournment hour of 10:30 p.m.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I feel that the matter that the resolution contains is very important. We were discussing earlier in this very session today the need to have a committee meeting on the workmen’s compensation amendments. The minister himself used the classic phrase, “There is no time.” Well, there is plenty of time.

I believe in opposing this resolution, that the House leader, (Mr. Winkler) should have conferred with the other parties so that we could know exactly what bills the ministry wants put forward and that we can apportion the time so that we can go to the standing committees for the representations that in my view and the view of others are absolutely essential before these bills become law.

Surely it’s not going to be in the best interests of the taxpayers or anybody else that we simply start this 12-, 14- and 16-hour-a-day routine, which simply ends up in acrimony --

Mr. Ruston: Railroading.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- as somebody behind me says, railroading, and inadequate consideration of the bill. Surely we should continue with our regular hours as long as is necessary in order to accomplish the work of the House that the House leader, in consultation with his colleagues, feels he wants to put forward. We cannot support this resolution.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, I want to join the Leader of the Opposition in exercising and registering my opposition to the move by the House leader of the government.

First of all, I haven’t polled my colleagues, but I personally don’t object to sitting at 10 in the morning. I don’t object to sitting from 10 o’clock in the morning until 10:30 at night. I don’t mind if we do that, because I think it is possible for the public to take part in the processes of government if they are done during normal hours. But I strongly object to the move to sit beyond 10:30 in the evening.

First of all, I think historically it has been shown in this Legislature that the time spent after 10:30 is counterproductive. For all that is ever accomplished between 10:30 in the evening and 2 o’clock in the morning, we might as well not have been here. There is adequate time between 10 o’clock in the morning and 10:30 in the evening for us to conduct the business of the Province of Ontario.

Beyond that, if it is the wish of the government that we sit next week, I want to assure the House leader through you, sir, that we have no objection. And if it is necessary, in order to complete the business of the Province of Ontario that we sit in the second week of July, we have no objections.

But we object to sitting around the clock. We think it is ridiculous. We think that if the government had brought in its legislation in some orderly and reasonable manner, we might well have been able to deal with much of the legislation before this time. And while I realize that it is not always the House leader’s fault that we are not able to get the legislation before us, it isn’t our fault either.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: We certainly don’t bring in the legislation. If the hon. members think we draft it and bring it in, they are out of their minds.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: I want to ask the House leader if he would consider amending his motion. Let him make it from 10 o’clock in the morning if he wishes. Regarding the committee that would normally deal with the Workmen’s Compensation Board, let him advise the minister that we would be quite prepared to have that committee have public representations and submissions made to it at any time after 10 in the morning. The House can sit; we can conduct the business in a reasonable way; and we won’t be sitting around here at each other’s throats at midnight.

I think that what the House leader is trying to do is ridiculous. I think it will only prove that once again the government is incapable of ordering the business of the province in a way that will allow the business to be conducted properly.

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): The member should speak for himself.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): Who wastes the time of the House with useless debates?

Mr. Deans: The last thing I need is advice from Timiskaming.

Mr. Havrot: He knows it. He needs more than advice.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: We make it quite clear to the House leader that we will oppose this motion.

Mr. Havrot: Take a long walk off a short plank.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I don’t know why we have to go through this same silly nonsense every time we get close to the end of the session. In the last 10 days, 28 new government bills have been introduced.

Now there is no reasonable basis that anyone can suggest under which government business is in fact being conducted. Suddenly we are in a great rush. One has to wonder, really, what the government is up to; or if they are up to anything, if their business is just so badly ordered they don’t know what they are doing.

Mr. Sargent: The Chairman of Management Board is in charge, that’s why.

Mr. Singer: It has been evilly suggested, and I wouldn’t want to make the accusation, that many Conservatives aren’t anxious to get on to the hustings until the last possible moment. Now I wouldn’t think that was one of the reasons why we are staying here until the end of June.

Hon. Mr. White: Not very likely.

Mr. Singer: Well, if the hon. Treasurer would like to meet me outside I would be very happy to make a bet with him about what might happen on July 9.

Hon. Mr. White: The voting is on July 8.

Mr. Singer: Some of his colleagues have refused to make any bets, so I’d be glad to discuss it with the Treasurer.

I say this, Mr. Speaker, I wonder why we cannot carry on the business of this House in a reasonable and normal fashion. No sense is going to be made in the debates that take place if this House has to sit 14, 16 or 18 hours a day. Certainly those of us who have been around here for more than a day or two recognize that when we get into these midnight and post-midnight sessions they get to be silly and stupid. No helpful addition to the province’s business is made when members are tired and fractious and miserable.

It would seem to me this motion should be withdrawn, and I urge the House leader to do that. Let us sit normal hours and then we’ll get the business done. If we have to come back or we have to sit through July, as we’ve done on other occasions, let’s do it. But there is no logic, to my mind, that suddenly, in the last part of June, we see 28 new bills; and the government suddenly is in a rush and the Minister of Labour has to say: “It’s a question of time.”

I urge the minister to withdraw his motion. If he won’t, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to join my colleagues in voting against it.

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

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, rise to oppose this motion and to support the tack taken by the hon. member for Wentworth. I think it would be quite reasonable to start at 10 in the morning. We in this party are quite willing to go that extra mile and give that concession to the government. We are not willing to sit past 10:30 at night.

It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, that when this House opened, at the beginning of March, during the entire month of March we sat in this Legislature less than 40 hours. By the end of April this government had introduced fewer than 25 government bills. Suddenly, we are asked to sit literally 20 hours a day; and in the last month, as the hon. member for Downsview has pointed out, we are given 28 bills to deal with.

Mr. Singer: In the last 10 days.

Mr. Foulds: In the last 10 days. It’s not just bad management, Mr. Speaker, it is not just bad ordering of government business; it’s a deliberate and obvious attempt to render the opposition powerless, because in this province our numbers are such that the government members can retire half their people every night while we fight these battles.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I don’t think that it is that, it is just incompetence, collective incompetence.

Mr. Foulds: And it is not a matter, as the member for Timiskaming says, that we are involved in useless debate.

Mr. Havrot: That’s what it is; really.

Mr. Singer: He doesn’t believe in debate.

Mr. Foulds: Debate is what the legislative process is about, Mr. Speaker. There are substantial areas of agreement between the opposition and the government on some of their bills. But even a bill as parochial and as narrow in its scope as the city of the Lakehead bill requires substantial argument on two or three clauses. We in the opposition would not be performing our function honestly and public out there could justifiably criticize, not only the opposition but the democratic process of this province, if we fail in our duty to debate those clauses fully and forcefully.

So I would ask the government House leader to withdraw the motion and substitute a motion asking us to sit at 10 in the morning but not extending the hours past 10:30 in the evening. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, I just would like to make one brief comment with respect to the motion. I think the business of the House could be proceeded with much more expeditiously if the House leader were to consider sitting between six and eight in the evening, rather than attempting to push the order of business past 10:30. If the additional time is needed in order to complete whatever the government business is, then I would hope that he would consider the alternative rather than attempting to force the House to sit beyond 10:30 in the evening.

I realize that it might be an inconvenience to some of the members to have the supper hour so removed, but for a period of a week or so this might be a much more happy result than dealing with, as has been said, the counterproductive hours that take place after 10:30. Certainly to sit after 10:30 has not proven to be particularly useful in the past. There is that other alternative open to the House leader, and I would hope he might consider it.

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

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, because the situation is so completely predictable, one can only call it a deliberate ploy on the part of the government --

Mr. Havrot: Nonsense!

Mr. Cassidy: As you know, Mr. Speaker, on a number of occasions I have tried to bring the House’s attention to the kind of situation we get into at the end of session. As it happens, this time I am in order in commenting on it. As the Speaker knows, and as other members know, it has happened again that 10 or 12 of the 26 bills left on the order paper happen to be those of municipal interest, in which I happen to be required to speak as my party’s critic.

I therefore feel it particularly acutely, because time and again at the end of a session it’s the municipal bills that are introduced late and then suddenly have got to be pushed through. That’s the way the government seems to work.

I would just like to know what was happening with the House leader and the government last week when we sat only four days and when no attempt was made to have the House beginning sitting in the mornings, say, in order to deal with what was obviously already a heavy crush of business. That was before the bills that were tabled late in the week.

Why is it that a week before this, when unlimited hours of sitting are being sought by the government, we take a full Wednesday off? Why does the opposition and the public have to suffer when it takes as much as 2 1/2 hours in an evening to debate one bill, because of the need for divisions --

Mr. Havrot: Whose fault is that?

Mr. Cassidy: -- and because of a need to wait for three-quarters of an hour or more while the government whips its members together in order to have enough people to win a division.

Mr. C. E. McIlveen (Oshawa): Because the member talks a lot. That’s why.

Mr. Cassidy: I point out, Mr. Speaker, that the bills that are on the order paper have almost all come down since June 14; that is, in the past 10 days. Many of them introduce major principles, whereas bills that were debated before were of relatively minor importance. It’s just totally unjustified, and it’s a travesty of what parliamentary democracy should be about, Mr. Speaker.

I am willing personally, and my party is willing, as the member for Wentworth has said, to meet at 10 o’clock in the morning. But if we meet after 10:30, this place will be totally unproductive, Mr. Speaker. Nothing will get done except that tempers will get increasingly frayed, and this place will become a total shambles.

Mr. Gisborn: Let’s go on strike.

Mr. A. Carruthers (Durham): Let’s not waste any more time.

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

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I too would urge the government House leader to reconsider this motion.

We have been sitting in committee, and it was only with a great deal of urging on the part of the official opposition that we sat on Wednesday afternoons. The NDP did not find it convenient to sit in the morning and the government members would not sit at night. I would therefore say that we have tried our best to accommodate to the business of this House, and we have been thwarted on those occasions.

It seems to me that there is a great deal that has been going on that ought to be in standing committee and is not going to standing committee, notwithstanding commitments to committees.

I am prepared to sit at 10 o’clock in the morning, but I am certainly not prepared to sit beyond 10:30 at night. I would infinitely prefer to continue the session longer to enable us to look after these matters in an orderly fashion.

I would hope that the House leader too might be concerned about the orderliness of the business of this House, rather than apparently giving every indication that he couldn’t care a fig about what the people think in this province.

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

Mr. Shulman: Mr. Speaker, I don’t wish to add to the comments of the other members, but there is just one question I would like to ask the House leader. Perhaps he could enlighten me. Is all this legislation that is brought in at the end of this session a result of the minister’s inefficiency, or is it his desire to see that things are pushed through without proper scrutiny?

If I don’t get an answer to that particular question, I have a suggestion to make to the combined opposition. Inasmuch as it is necessary that these bills do receive proper scrutiny, I would recommend to the opposition that at 10:30 -- or at the first possible occasion after 10:30 -- we call a division. We then all go home and let the bells ring until tomorrow morning and let the minister sit here until then. We can then come back at 10 and start again. That is a perfectly legal proper ploy. Let him sit if he wishes.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to speak to this motion?

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, it’s rather difficult for me to sit in my place and listen to all the accusations that have been made, because I think that if we are being completely and totally honest with one another, both parties across the floor will know that I did attempt -- as a matter of fact all through the session -- to maintain normal procedure and hours, right up until last Wednesday.

Hon. Mr. White: That’s true.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: In the meantime, I had made two alternative suggestions to both parties, and if that wasn’t conveyed to all the members, I am sorry, I can’t help that. Neither of the suggestions were accepted. Both of them incorporated exactly what has been suggested here today, but it wasn’t acceptable at that time. I am not going to say, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Deans: When?

Mr. Cassidy: When?

Mr. Deans: When did the minister suggest sitting --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I suggested to the member for Wentworth sitting from 6 until 8, and I suggested --

Mr. Deans: That was one evening last week.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That was the suggestion of the member for Kitchener.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Deans: On a point of order. At 5 o’clock one evening the House leader came and said, “Let’s sit through 6 to 8.” I said we couldn’t do it. We had meetings already arranged. One evening -- the minister shouldn’t be misleading.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I am not, I am simply saying that I was endeavouring to find an alternative at that time that was acceptable to all parties.

And I want to say this. Although I didn’t do my arithmetic, but listening to the self-righteous arguments coming from the member for Ottawa Centre, if this Province of Ontario knew how much he cost the taxpayer, they would have a second thought about him too.

An hon. member: And indeed they will; and indeed they will.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): He does yeoman service in this House -- and the minister knows it.

Mr. Speaker: The motion was that until the summer recess, this House will sit at 10 a.m. and may sit beyond the normal adjournment hour of 10:30 p.m.

Those in favour of the motion will please say “aye.”

Those apposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the “ayes” have it.

Call in the members.

The House divided on the motion moved by Hon. Mr. Winkler, which was approved on the following vote:

Ayes

Nays

Allan Beckett Belanger Bennett Bernier Birch Brunelle Carruthers Carton Clement Downer Drea Evans Ewen Gilbertson Handleman Havrot Hodgson (York North) Irvine Jessiman Johnston Kennedy Kerr Lane Lawrence Leluk MacBeth Maeck McIlveen McKeough Meen Miller Morningstar Newman (Ontario South) Nixon (Dovercourt) Parrott Root Rowe Scrivener Smith (Simcoe East) Smith (Hamilton Mountain) Snow Stewart Walker Wardle Wells Ayes White Winkler Wiseman Yaremko -- 50.

Bounsall Braithwaite Breithaupt Burr Campbell Cassidy Davison Deacon Deans Dukszta Edighoffer Ferrier Foulds Gaunt Germa Gisborn Good Haggerty Lawlor MacDonald Newman (Windsor-Walkerville) Nixon (Brant) Paterson Ruston Sargent Singer Smith (Nipissing) Spence Worton -- 29.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Speaker, the “ayes” are 50, the “nays” 29.

Mr. Speaker: I declare the motion carried. Are there further motions?

Introduction of bills.

Mr. Jessiman: Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to you and the House, sitting in the Speaker’s gallery, an Ojibway Indian artist from the Fort William Indian Reserve, Mr. Noel Ducharme, who has just recently completed a painting for Her Majesty the Queen. Mr. Ducharme is here to put on an exhibition in Toronto at Ontario Place. Would you welcome him, sir?

Mr. Speaker: Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

NOTICE OF MOTION

Clerk of the House: Government notice of motion No. 2, by Hon. Mr. White.

Resolved: That, in accordance with section 2 of the Parkway Planning Development Act, 1973, and subsections 1 and 3 of section 2 of the Ontario Planning and Development Act, 1973; Ontario Regulation 744/73 revoking paragraph 5 of the schedule to Ontario Regulation 742/73, and substituting therefor:

“5. In the township of Chinguacousy, in the county of Peel, and being composed of:

“i. Lot 1 in concession VI, east of Hurontario St., saving and excepting the west half of the west half of lot 1 in concession VI, east of Hurontario St.;”

be approved.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): I wonder if the Treasurer can indicate if this motion is anything other than a routine change in the boundaries of the area designated by the previous resolution, which we debated in the House a few months ago? Otherwise I would be prepared to accept it as routine.

Hon. J. White (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): I really should have provided an explanation. I wasn’t just entirely sure of the procedure in this matter.

On June 4, Mr. Speaker, I provided the Legislature with an extensive description of the parkway belt development since that plan was introduced to the Legislature one year previously. In that rather lengthy statement I referred to the resolution standing on the order paper, which was a minor amendment for clarification purposes only.

I think I can do no better than to read an aide-memoire which has been produced by a senior government official to describe the need for this resolution:

Ontario Regulation 744/73 was an amendment to the planning area order. However, it does not change the area of land affected by the order setting forth the boundaries of the planning area. It is simply a point of clarification.

Ontario Regulation 742/73, section 5 reads:

“5: In the township of Chinguacousy, in the county of Peel, and being composed of:

“i. Lot 1 in concession VI, saving and excepting the west half of the west half of lot 1, concession VI.”

The amendment which was made changed the latter part of 5 to read:

“Lot 1 in concession VI, east of Hurontario St., saving and excepting the west half of the west half of lot 1 in concession VI, east of Hurontario St.”

From this it can be seen that there is nothing more than a clarification, for I am sure that the order affecting lot 1, concession VI, east of Hurontario St., and not west of Hurontario St., as can be seen by all of the maps which were presented when the order was prepared, was concession VI, east of Hurontario St., which was mentioned, and therefore, I don’t see that this can be construed as being an amendment to the planning area.

However, I must admit it is an amendment to the order which sets forth the planning area. Whether technically this would require the minister to present it to the Legislature, I do not know. However, I think it would be wise for the minister, when he is making the other comments on the parkway belt west, to clarify this point in case somebody other than your solicitor raises it at any time.

So my clear understanding from my advisers is that this is a technical change only and not a substantive change.

Mr. Speaker: Is there any discussion on this resolution?

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): The matter is crystal clear, Mr. Speaker, thank you.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Could the minister --

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Only one question, Mr. Speaker: The minister was experiencing some difficulty in getting the metes and bounds descriptions completed because of either the busy schedule or shortage of Ontario land surveyors. How is the minister progressing along those lines, and when can we expect exact metes and bounds descriptions for the whole of the parkway job?

Hon. Mr. White: I am sorry; I cannot answer that, but I will try and have the information for the member tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: As somebody who owns the east half gives an enormous sigh of relief, I can bear or feel the suspiration on the back of my neck at this moment. Could the minister advise us who has the ownership rights over these properties that have been presently excluded? Not necessarily now but in due course.

Hon. Mr. White: I cannot now. I will certainly do my best to provide that information. But I do point out to my hon. friend that this is not a change in boundaries. This is a clarification in the wording in case there is any ambiguity. The conservative advice I am given is that we should put it before the Legislature, even though there is some doubt about the necessity for it.

Mr. Lawlor: I wanted to tell the minister that at least I am watching these boundary changes very closely, so that no rewards or penalties are inflicted upon certain numbers of our denizens in Ontario. I would be pleased to learn who is being exculpated.

Hon. Mr. White: I will be glad to arrange that for the hon. member.

Mr. Speaker: Any further discussion? Shall this resolution be concurred in?

Resolution concurred in.

NOTICE OF MOTION

Clerk of the House: Government notice of motion No. 3, by Hon. Mr. Bernier.

Resolved: That, Donald A. Paterson, member of the assembly of the electoral district of Essex South, pursuant to section 9 of the Legislative Assembly Act, may enter into agreements for the sale of the following described lands.

Firstly: (1) Part of Lot 7, Concession 3, Township of Wheatley, County of Kent. (2) Part of Lot 7, Concession 3, Township of Romney, County of Kent; and

Secondly: (1) Part of Lot 7, Concession 3, Township of Romney, County of Kent; (2) Part of Lot 8, Concession 3, Township of Romney, County of Kent;

to the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority, for the total sum of $83,900 and his seat in the assembly shall not thereby be rendered ineligible as a member of or to sit or vote in the assembly.

Mr. Speaker: Is there any other discussion?

Resolution concurred in.

Clerk of the House: The 37th order; concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Community and Social Services.

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES

Hon. Mr. Winkler, in the absence of the Hon. Mr. Brunelle, moves concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Community and Social Services.

Motion agreed to.

Clerk of the House: The 38th order; concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Colleges and Universities.

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Hon. Mr. Winkler, in the absence of Hon. Mr. Auld, moves concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Colleges and Universities.

Motion agreed to.

Clerk of the House: The 21st order, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 99, An Act to amend the City of the Lakehead Act, 1968-1969.

CITY OF THE LAKEHEAD ACT (CONCLUDED)

Mr. Speaker: I believe all members have participated. The hon. minister is next.

Mr. J. H. Jessiman (Fort William): Mr. Speaker, can I say a few words on the bill?

Mr. Speaker: I believe I had called to all members who were present at the time, whether or not they wished to enter the debate. There were no other members present who wished to enter the debate. The Minister may now respond.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister without Portfolio): Yes, I will, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Cassidy: Let the member speak, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I believe it may be a little unusual, but if the hon. members of the House concur that the hon. member for Fort William should speak, so be it.

Mr. Jessiman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will make my remarks as brief as possible having had the opportunity of visiting at Thunder Bay over the weekend.

Section 1 of the bill is certainly one to be commented on, the fact that we changed the name and leave it as it is now, the name of the city of Thunder Bay, and shorten it.

In section 2, the amendment to retain the present ward structure for the purposes of the 1974 election was made in agreement with the mayor and council at the time through a member of the ministry, Mr. Ian Reed. The mayor and council requested that it be left to them to decide whether they would hold this coming election in December under existing legislation and I agree with them. I also agree with the member for Port Arthur that the ward system should be restructured; and this will be done in the year 1975 when the mayor and council of the city make this proposal to the OMB. It is their wish that they be left to do this themselves and I agree with them.

I agree with section 4, the dissolution of the board of parks’ management, of which I had the honour of being a member for some eight years. It fulfils Bill 118, in which the dissolution of the board of parks’ management amendment was left out. The city of Port Arthur, at that time, did not have this board.

Certainly we’re in favour of section 5, the lower rates of taxation to Mclntyre and Neebing wards. This will give an opportunity of extending the services throughout that area when the DREE programme comes into effect at Thunder Bay. All in all, the benefits that will accrue to the residents of Mclntyre and Neebing wards, in the services that are not rendered to them, is certainly something that is most desirable.

The balance of the bill, sections 6 and 7, are complementary and I have no further remarks on those sections. I do appreciate the remarks that were made on Friday and I still assume that this will be going back so that the mayor and council of the city will have the full authority to change the ward system as they have requested.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I will make my comments as brief as possible. They will be related only to sections 2 and 3. I believe there is only one in contention, as the member for Port Arthur expressed the other day his disagreement with the proposed amendment.

It is, as the member for Fort William has said, an amendment which has been requested by the council. We have certainly felt that those at the local level have acted on behalf of their people and in their best interests. They have endeavoured, by way of briefs and by way of meetings, to discover which way the people wish to be represented, whether by ward system or an election at large.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): And their recommendations are just the opposite.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The reason we wish to proceed as we are with the ward system is not necessarily that we agree with the way it’s set up now, but we are saying that’s it’s mandatory that they do go before the OMB next year to decide on what is the best way to represent the people in that particular area. So I would like the member for Port Arthur to reconsider what he stated on Friday morning, that he wished to present to the House his views and an amendment in the committee of the whole House whereby he would suggest another system of representation. I would think the hon. member should recognize that it would be almost impossible to have it accepted at this time by any government, and also by the people in his own area, where they have not even heard of it.

I would like to say to the member that I may be mistaken, but to my knowledge -- and I’ve had our files checked -- I have not received any correspondence, nor has the Treasurer received any correspondence, to our knowledge, in the last two years in regard to this ward system. If we had received something from the hon. member we would certainly have looked into it more closely than we have, but we have been dealing with the council and the mayor and it is our considered opinion that this is the best way to handle this situation at this time.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): It’s the minister’s first message from the grassroots on this vote.

Mr. Speaker: The motion is for second reading of Bill 99. Shall the motion carry?

Mr. Foulds: No.

Mr. MacDonald: No.

Mr. Speaker: Those in favour of second reading of Bill 99 please say “aye.”

Those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion the “ayes” have it.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

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

Mr. Foulds: No, committee of the whole House.

Mr. Speaker: Committee of the whole House.

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

MUNICIPALITY OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO ACT

House in committee on Bill 89, An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act.

Mr. Chairman: Bill 89, An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act. Are there any questions, comments or amendments on this bill?

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: What section please?

Mr. Cassidy: Section 1 or section 2. I have it right here. I thought we were going to the Lakehead Act, I wasn’t quite prepared to go into this one.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, on section 1, I have an amendment to put forward and one or two comments to make. I’ll just sort out the material here and send the amendments around.

The major points that I wish to make in this whole debate were made during the course of second reading. I’ll reiterate them, but I’ll try and be brief during the course of this debate.

I have three amendments and I’ll send them all around, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Cassidy moves that section 5(2) of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act, as set out in section 1 of Bill 89, be amended by adding a new subsubsection 2(c) as follows:

“(2)(c) the chairman of the Metropolitan council, who shall be elected by a general vote by all qualified electors in the Metropolitan municipality at each general municipal election in accordance with the procedures of the Municipal Elections Act, 1972.”

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, in terms of the order of how one thinks about this, this particular section might possibly be debated later rather than now. But since it comes first in the bill I’ll comment on it at this time.

The effect of this amendment would be to have the chairman of Metro Toronto an elected official elected by the people at large in all of the Metro boroughs, rather than making him an appointed official. And if this section passes, then subsection 5 of section 5 of the Act, which comes a couple of paragraphs down, which talks about an organizing session at which the --

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member --

Mr. Cassidy: I am sorry?

Mr. Chairman: -- the member did say, I thought, that he had amendments on sections 1 and 2.

Mr. Cassidy: I beg your pardon. Did I not send that?

Mr. Chairman: No, I have the beginning of section 5.

Mr. Cassidy: I am sorry. It’s at section 5(2) as set out in section 1 of the; bill.

Mr. Chairman: All right. Proceed please.

Mr. Cassidy: Okay. Would you like to move it now Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman: All right.

Mr. Cassidy: I want to comment on this further, but if you want to put it on the floor of the House --

Mr. Chairman: I’ll read the amendment now.

Mr. Cassidy moves that section 5(2) of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act as set out in section 1 of Bill 89 be amended by adding a new subsection 2(c) as follows:

“The chairman of the Metropolitan council, who shall be elected by general vote by all qualified electors in the Metropolitan municipality at each general municipal election in accordance with the procedures of the Municipal Elections Act, 1972.”

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this is simply to recognize that, given the powers the government proposes to give to the Metro chairman through the course of this Act and given the problems which we are experiencing now with an appointed chairman who choses to act as though he had been elected by an overwhelming majority, it’s about time that the chairman of this Metropolitan federation was an elected official.

The idea that an appointed official should make decisions and have the powers that are being offered to him by this particular Act and in the other ways which he is taking unto himself is simply unacceptable in a democratic society. Frankly I would say this to the minister and through him to the government that I think that some very serious problems are being created right now within Metropolitan Toronto because of the way in which Chairman Paul Godfrey is using the powers of his office.

The Metropolitan chairman, who has been an appointed official for 20-odd years, has traditionally been somewhat of a mediator. That does not mean that he is not a leader, but he has been something of a mediator and he has sought to gain a certain amount of support from the city representatives as well as the five suburban boroughs. That’s certainly the way Chairman Gardiner used the powers of his office and that’s been the case up until this current chairman. We’ve had some who have been stronger and some who have been weaker, but they did seek to keep the municipalities that made up the federation, working more or less in step.

That is not working now, Mr. Chairman. We now have a Metro chairman who works by confrontation and who has simply decided that he will reject and, in fact, actually alienate or antagonize or attack the interests of some of the boroughs within the federation. He feels he can do that because he is appointed and because without the aid, particularly of Toronto, he can still see enough votes to remain in office.

What’s curious too is that for many years, Mr. Chairman, the province has resisted having an elected chairman in Metropolitan Toronto for fear that the powers of the chairman, the supermayor of Toronto, would start to rival those of the provincial Premier and a kind of jockeying for position would take place.

What we have now is that the province has suddenly turned itself around and is giving these powers to the chairman, even when he asks. Within two weeks he gets quite extraordinary powers, or the possibility of quite extraordinary powers, handed to him on a platter. We find this very difficult to understand.

The state of the Metro federation right now is such that the hard physical services that require a good deal of authority at the Metropolitan level are basically in place. Most of the developable land is developed. Most of the arterial roads are widened to six lanes, or whatever they need to be. The spine of the subway system, east and west, north and south is in being. The day of big, new expressways in Metropolitan Toronto appears to be over.

The services the Metropolitan federation is increasingly intruding upon are services which need to be handled much more delicately and with much more sensitivity, to the interest of neighbourhoods and to the interest of individual citizens and so on.

It happens that we have a Metro chairman right now who is quite insensitive to those particular interests, and a Metro council which tends to be that way too. Metro is mature enough that many of the powers at the Metropolitan level could probably and should probably be decentralized to the local level, rather than having an increasing concentration of powers. The province is choosing to go in the opposite direction and they are choosing to give those powers to a Metro chairman who is appointed.

We are saying that in order that the Metropolitan council be sensitive to the needs of all of the people of the federation -- and not just those of North York, or of a certain class of borough -- that the Metro chairman should be elected at large. There should be, in other words, at least one election that is devoted to Metropolitan issues, and the man elected from that election should be the chairman.

If it were possible procedure, Mr. Chairman, we would also suggest that there be substantial amendments in the way in which the Metropolitan council members are elected from the various boroughs. These would have the effect that in each borough, voters would clearly be electing someone whom they knew would sit on the Metro council as well as on the local borough council.

That would mean that in an area like East York or York, where there were only two or three members on the Metropolitan council to be elected, there would be an at-large election for those members of Metro council in order that Metro issues, again, would come to the fore. And then, presumably as a corollary, we would require that each of those boroughs have a selection of an executive committee from all of the aldermen, the Metro council members and, of course, including the mayor.

I put that idea down now in the hopes that once the study of Metro structure and powers gets seriously under way, they could pick it up. However, for the time being, I think it would be a very positive reform and one that is going to be increasingly necessary to have the Metro chairman elected -- particularly in view of the insensitive way and the undemocratic and overbearing way in which that office is being exercised by its present appointed encumbent.

Mr. Chairman: On section 1.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the amendment placed by the member for Ottawa Centre.

In the normal course, this has been a matter which has plagued me for a long time because there are obvious problems when one moves toward electing a chairman of Metropolitan council at large. While I favoured it for a long time I tried to come to grips with the actual mechanics of it and for that reason I have not sooner moved to support this particular amendment.

Having seen this bill, having seen the operation of the present chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, having been present when citizens have sought to meet with the ministry and have been ignored to a degree -- that isn’t quite fair because they’ve been listened to but not heard, I think -- there is no question in my mind that what this bill is doing, and many of its sections have been proposed by the chairman himself, is to destroy the two-level system of Metro.

I think there has to come a time when someone cannot just play his game of spending his life up here trying to dictate what shall happen to Metropolitan Toronto. He must be made accountable to the people, Metro-wide. Certainly there are other matters in this bill to which I wish to speak but when one sees the erosion of democracy in the hands of this present chairman, one has to be concerned and, I think, for most of the citizens of this area, horrified at the power concentrated in one man.

I wonder sometimes whether he is dictating to this government what shall be in the Metropolitan Toronto bill or whether the government is inviting him to take these positions. One can’t, of course, know that because we are not privy to these little conversations and discourses which go on here.

It is a fact that when Mr. Gardiner brought into being the Metropolitan government, as indeed he did, he had a deep integrity. There is no doubt in my mind either that in the beginning stages he, too, consulted with government and there were times when it seemed as though perhaps he was privy to information which was not made available to the whole of the council or even to the executive. Certainly when this government protests, as it does, that it is concerned about participation by people, it is time, surely, for this government to commit itself to adopting the amendment which has been proposed.

There is no way this government can commit itself, by statements in this House, to some future action because we now know that is a meaningless commitment.

There has been an erosion of the power of the government of Metropolitan Toronto and somebody, sometime, has to stop it. The people across this Metropolitan government area are, as the minister knows, concerned about what is happening. He’s heard it at first hand. I would urge the government to make a commitment to the people of Metropolitan Toronto that it does believe in democracy. Accountability is very much a part of that democracy.

Mr. Chairman, I would trust that this would be the beginning of a revamping of Metropolitan council, which at this point in time is so far removed from the people that it has become totally alienated. And I think the minister also either knows or may sense this. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I most strongly support the amendment put forth by the member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Chairman: The member for York Centre.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Mr. Chairman, I too rise to support the amendment made by the member for Ottawa Centre.

As our colleague, the member for York-Forest Hill (Mr. Givens), set out in a private member’s bill with regard to this matter a year or so ago, on which there was a debate, our party feels very strongly that the time has come for the position of Metropolitan chairman to be one that is held by someone who is accountable to all the people.

We did feel that it was impractical at first for a man or a woman to be elected as Metropolitan chairman in the whole area. But the more one sees the situation with regard to elections, particularly with regard to the mayor of Toronto, there is the fact that this is an area that has common centres of communication. It is just as easy to run for chairman of Metro Toronto as for the city of Toronto insofar as the major areas of communication and the media are concerned. It is certainly a practical matter and one that would make the chairman much more responsive to the people, rather than responsive to members of a council that unfortunately come from different boroughs and is therefore divided and easily divided.

It’s much more possible for a chairman to direct things in a metropolitan council than in a local borough or city council just because of the very nature of a council itself. This is one of the fallacies of saying that Metro council or a regional council is local autonomy. Indeed it isn’t local autonomy. It’s a structure where local councils are coordinated for various purposes or given various powers by the province, but in fact it is at a level too far removed from people for there to be real local autonomy. For that reason, it’s important that at least in the case of the chairman we ensure that that person is one whom the public have had an opportunity to vote for, to cast their ballots in favour of and to give him the office and the powers of that office, therefore, knowing that that man or woman is really responsive to the people who elected him or her to office.

I certainly urge the minister to consider making that change when he has this opportunity now in this bill so that we do at long last bring the matter of chairman of a council of this second-tier government into a position where that person is accountable to the people.

Mr. Chairman: Any further debate? We have the amendment moved by --

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, it would be helpful if we could have at least a word from the minister, rather than having him greet this in silence.

Mr. Chairman: I have asked, if there is any further debate. If there is no further debate, I am prepared --

Mr. Cassidy: I have one or two further comments to make, but I would like to hear the minister first. There’s nothing in the rules to say that the minister closes off debate. I don’t intend to prolong debate on this particular item but I would be interested in having the reaction of the minister to the points made by the opposition members and by me.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister?

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister without Portfolio): Mr. Chairman, I am quite prepared to enter into the debate. I was just waiting to see whether there was anybody else who wanted to enter before me.

In any event what has been said today, I think, is really something which is not only disgraceful but very much out of order. Someone said that in this bill this government is giving certain powers to the chairman. That is ridiculous. Nowhere in the bill are we giving special powers to any chairman; we are giving it to the Metropolitan Toronto council and I wish once and for all we might determine that.

The Act is set up at the request of the Metropolitan council. It is not entirely by resolution but certainly in cases where it isn’t by resolution it is, we think, in the best interests of the people in general. We would like the hon. members to consider that if we do have a good chairman at the present time we should be very thankful. If we have, as they have suggested, someone who isn’t competent, that is not a view which I share. I share the view of many of my colleagues that we have a very good chairman of Metropolitan Toronto at the present time. We have had good chairmen in the past and we have a very good chairman now.

Mrs. Campbell: You have or the people have?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We have had the member for St. George say there has been a problem over consultation with the people. She was there at a meeting with me, as she mentioned, with some people. If there is any problem of consultation between the boroughs and the city of Toronto, that is their problem; it is not the problem of this government. The problem is the people must get to their locally elected mayor or members of council and if they don’t choose to do this, it is not something which I feel is a matter we, at this level, should decide.

We have said before, and you have asked, that we give more powers to the local elected person. We are endeavouring to do that.

Mr. Cassidy: The local elected person?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The local elected. The chairman is there to be chairman.

Mr. Cassidy: Right. Paul Godfrey is not elected.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: He does not decide policy in all cases; the council members are the ones who have to vote. The council members are the ones who can say yes or no regardless of what the chairman says.

Mr. Cassidy: The chairman proposes and that gives him tremendous powers.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I think it is rather ridiculous, Mr. Chairman, to keep harping on about the chairman controlling Metropolitan Toronto council. If he does, I think the council had better reconsider its position.

Mr. Chairman: Any further debate?

Mr. Deacon: Yes. Mr. Chairman, I think the minister will agree there is much greater opportunity for councillors to effect affairs in their local area municipalities, or in their boroughs in the case of Metro, at the senior level and the upper tier. They really aren’t in the same situation at all. It is much less responsive to the direction of a group of people who are naturally brought together because they are from the same area of the Metro area.

The farther you get away from the local area municipality, would the minister not agree, the easier it is for someone who is the chairman, who is the organizer of the meetings, the one who really sets up these agendas, to divide and conquer because they are from different sections of the city, of the Metropolitan area. Would the minister not agree that is the case? There is a difference between the autonomy or the power of a councillor at the Metropolitan level, a much greater difference, and one at the local level? Wouldn’t the minister agree with that?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I want to repeat, hopefully for the last time, what we have before us is a matter which was requested by resolution by those who had been elected in the matter of representation -- the matter of the chairman was one of them -- so I really don’t know why you say they are removed from the people. It is your elected people who requested this. What the hon. member is saying is he hasn’t got confidence in those elected at the local level and he is trying to undermine them, in my opinion. I hope that is not what he is trying to say.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Chairman, if these matters had been discussed in each local council and the recommendation of the local councils had come through to Metro, and that was the basis of it, I would agree with the minister that it is moving up through the local representation of the people in each area of the Metropolitan area. But, if it is something that is just done by Metropolitan council by something that appears in the order paper one day -- and already there has been a little bit of lobbying done -- then it’s not really the wish of the local elected people.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, may I clarify another matter then? The request by resolution was in the fall of 1973. Surely to goodness, that isn’t something that comes in a hurry. We have had plenty of time for people to take exception to this; this just didn’t come before you, all of it, in the last two or three weeks. This matter was before council many, many months ago.

Mr. Cassidy: Well, Mr. Chairman, if I can comment on this. What changed the situation from the request that was made in the fall of 1973 are some matters that were, in one case, not requested by council resolution and another matter requested by resolution of the council on May 31, just 25 days ago, and that is the disbandment of the planning board, which was requested on May 31 after no advance discussion.

Mr. Chairman: Hon. member, I wonder if you could stay on section 1.

Mr. Cassidy: I am on section 1. This is germane to what I am talking about, Mr. Chairman. And the other one was the housing policy section under which Metro council’s powers over housing would be mandatory on the boroughs. And that was requested in a meeting with this minister, by Chairman Godfrey, as best as one can establish from the contradictory reports that have come out.

Both of those raised serious questions about just how far the chairman wishes the powers of his office to go. And if they go that far, then we are saying that the chairman ought to be elected.

One valid response the minister can make is, of course, that Metro council hasn’t requested that its chairman become an elected official. And as it has not, I would be quite willing to withdraw this amendment for the time being if the minister would be willing to withdraw all matters in the bill which have not been requested by resolution from Metro council. That’s a fair offer.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, let me make it very clear to any hon. member of this House. I am not about to make a deal with anyone unless I feel the deal is an amendment which would be acceptable not only for this government, but for people we represent.

I would hope that the member for Ottawa Centre would rephrase his request. There are no deals where I stand. The bill will go forward in the best interests of the people, and if I might speak again for just a minute on the matter of when the council requested and approved the new system representation, it was on Oct. 30, 1973.

Mr. Chairman: The member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I would ask the minister if it is not a fact that for some time prior to 1973 there were resolutions put forward from area municipalities asking that the chairman be elected. And is it not a fact that this has been consistently refused? Therefore, when the minister puts it in these terms does he not understand that after a while people get the message -- that they are not going to be heard when they want something like this, and therefore might very well bring forward the resolution to which he makes reference?

I know, Mr. Chairman, as I’m sure the chairman does, that on more than one occasion there were resolutions seeking to have the chairman elected. They went through the local council, but they went through people who sat locally and at the Metropolitan level. And I have been there and I understand how difficult it is, if you are on that Metropolitan council, when you bring in a resolution which affects the chairman himself, when the chairman is in control of the meeting.

I happened to be there on an occasion when there was an election on the retirement of the former chairman, Mr. Allen. And it was a very difficult and trying situation, because you are there voting on matters pertaining to the chairman as he sits.

I would have thought, from what the minister has said, that perhaps it would be more valid if the area municipalities came forward with this kind of resolution, because they could do so away from that atmosphere where it becomes almost a matter of personalities. It is difficult, but to say that this has come forward and to leave it there is not quite fair, because many people over the years have raised this issue time and again.

As I say, for a long time and up until now, while I embraced that policy, I did concede that there were difficulties with it. But at this moment I don’t -- I am not here trying to make deals and I have never ever done that; I have requested that consideration be given, which I think is my role. For that reason I would hope sincerely that the member introducing the amendment would not withdraw the amendment, because I certainly feel very strongly about it and I do not think that I want to go along with his suggestion. Of course, one of the reasons, apart from the deal altogether, is that the minister knows my concerns about that portion dealing with the planning board, which did come forward as a resolution of the council but in a way where debate was very seriously curtailed in accordance with what I have heard and what the minister has heard.

The minister makes reference to the fact that if the local people do not get through, that’s not the fault of this government. On the surface that may well be true. Yet I have to point out that the curtailing of responsibility and accountability to the people is very much within the hands of this government.

As was pointed out before, if a resolution went to this council on May 31 and if we had introduced into this House so soon thereafter a bill incorporating it, then maybe the ministry was aware that this was going to be introduced. Of course, most of us would believe that Mr. Godfrey probably did discuss it with the ministry and alert them to the fact that it should be ready to go into the bill because he would see it through Metro council. That’s the kind of thing that put the whole process into question.

But how can a local person get so quickly to the people he or she represents? It does leave a question when the mayor of the city of Toronto wants something and does it in the normal course through the private bills committee, that he may wait years to see it in legislation. It does raise a very serious question, this whole liaison between the Metro chairman and this government.

I would say that is something which this government cannot avoid if it shows itself to be so resolute in pushing this forward. I was going to say “obstinate” but I say “resolute” because it does give that effect to the people, and it may very well have a very damaging effect to the government of this entire area, that this kind of liaison continues. Normally, Mr. Chairman, I do not like to see amendments of any kind based on personality. I regret very much that the force of circumstances in this case is such that I am moved to support it on the basis of what has been publicly stated as to the way in which some of this material came to be in the bill. Nevertheless I believe that in a democracy there should be no dictators and that everyone must have direct accountability to the voter. If the minister is saying, “We think this is a dandy idea,” then, of course, it’s his accountability to the people of the province that is at stake.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman --

Mr. Cassidy: Just a brief comment, Mr. Chairman; I find it difficult to accept --

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister would like to reply.

Mr. Cassidy: Of course, yes.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I’d like to reply to the member for St. George because I don’t wish to leave on the record some of the emphasis that I gave to her remarks.

What we are bringing forth in this Act, as I said before, is something which, when we are speaking specifically on this particular section, was requested by those elected. The request was in writing, not verbally, and no deals were made by anybody.

Mrs. Campbell: I am not suggesting you did.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I think you were suggesting that we were doing it as a one-way situation whereby the province was taking all the responsibility on its own. We are not. We are acting in co-ordination with the boroughs and the city and Metropolitan council, and we intend to work with them. Our office is open at all times to any member of this opposition or to any mayor or any reeve or to any chairman. I said that last week and I’ll say it any time when I am in the office I am right now.

An hon. member: Your mind’s made up.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: As far as I am concerned, when a bill is brought forth with a resolution which is as old as it is and which has had plenty of time to be debated by the local people and plenty of time to be considered by the elected people, then there is no reason for the members of the opposition to stand up and criticize.

I agree with the member for St. George that it shouldn’t be personalities -- it shouldn’t be at all. It should be a matter of a chairman or otherwise. I say to you again that everyone has had plenty of opportunity to look at this section in particular; therefore I have to say to you that the government will not accept the amendment as moved by the hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, what the minister says is not a surprise, given his reluctance to accept amendments of any sort from this side of the House on any subject, no matter how good they are. When I suggested that I’d take back this amendment if he’d take back the other sections of the bill that hadn’t been requested by resolution, it was simply to make the point that there are sections of this bill which gave arbitrary and unjustifiable powers to the Metro council. These sections have not gone through the mill, have not been considered by Metro council or by the area councils up until this date. They were simply requested by Chairman Godfrey who was making a deal with this particular minister behind closed doors.

We are saying, if that’s the way that Chairman Godfrey wants to play it, then he ought to be forced to submit himself to re-election every two years, as should anybody else who desires that particular office. The rules of the game changed a couple of weeks ago when Paul Godfrey started to meet with ministers of this government in order to get particular sections in this particular bill. The government doesn’t play by the kind of rules the minister talks about anyway, as the member for St. George says. Toronto requested demolition control and beat fruitlessly at the doors of this government for a year and one half before it was eventually able to get anywhere. In the case of Chairman Godfrey he didn’t even have to get it past his own council to have that request accepted.

The government accepts what it wants and rejects what it wants, and it simply doesn’t have any respect for any kind of procedure there. If a municipality asks for powers, that’s no guarantee that it’s going to get it, because the government may say “we don’t want you to have it.” If a municipality refuses to ask or doesn’t ask for powers, they may find themselves getting them regardless, despite the opposition of a large number of people within the area affected.

Let’s be aware, Mr. Chairman, that the Metro federation just by its constitution does suffer from insensitivity. The borough councils are much closer to people. In the case of people in Scarborough or Etobicoke, their representatives come down to city hall for a few hours of meetings every other week, but their focus is in the borough city hall -- and not downtown at Metro headquarters.

The chairman is the one member of Metro council who works full time. In addition, he has the advantage that the department heads report, basically, to him. He and his administrative assistant -- chief administrative officers, if one is created by Metro council -- are in daily, hourly touch with the administrators who play a tremendous role in creating policy, just as the civil servants of this government have a large role in suggesting policy to the cabinet for adoption.

You cannot call the Metro chairman an equal among the rest. He is clearly first among the rest. He is clearly first among equals, if not far more than that. And that is why you have to have very great care about the way in which you endow this particular guy with powers and about the way in which you endow his office with powers, when it is an appointed office and not an office which is elected and, therefore, in that way sensitive to all of the people.

I am aware of the deficiencies of suggesting this elective office when it hasn’t been requested and hasn’t gone through council. But I am putting it on the record at this particular time knowing, I guess, that it is not going to be passed because of the government’s attitude.

I wish that the government would withdraw this section on housing policy and then I could be more comfortable with the fate which, I guess, awaits this particular amendment.

Mrs. Campbell: And planning and --

Mr. Chairman: Any further debate?

Mr. Cassidy moves that section 5(2) of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act as set out on section 1 of Bill 89, be amended by adding a new subsection 2(c) as follows:

“The chairman of the Metropolitan council shall be elected by general vote by all qualified electors in the Metropolitan municipality at each general municipal election in accordance with the procedures of the Municipal Election Act, 1972.”

Mr. Chairman: Those in favour of this amendment please say “aye.”

Those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion the “nays” have it.

Will this be stacked with any other further sections?

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): No, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Call in the members.

The committee divided on the motion which was negatived on the following vote:

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman the “ayes” are 27, the “nays” 45.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment lost. Shall section 1 carry?

Section 1 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Any further discussion or questions on any other section before section 6?

Mrs. Campbell: There is another amendment.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment to section 6.

Mr. Chairman: Anything before section 6? Section 2.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, I can’t accept that the quorum of the executive committee, which has been increased in size, would remain at only six people out of 14 members. I would therefore ask the minister if he could comment on it and ask whether he would accept an amendment to increase the quorum to either seven or eight.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, as I explained before, this request for the quorum of six was specifically at the instigation of Metro council. I would think that six would be an adequate number for a quorum. I see no reason to increase or decrease it.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth) : I wonder if I might ask the minister if he could explain the reason -- I’m sorry I didn’t hear him, he did explain it before -- why Metro council felt that less than half their total number was sufficient to do the business of the municipality?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, as I indicated before, the motion came in on Oct. 30, 1973, for representation of population, the matter of the chairman, the matter of the executive council, and so on. They felt that six was adequate to be present for a quorum. I have no quarrel with that if we think the number is all right. The member may say it should be four or it should be eight. I don’t see why we should just pick a number out of the air. It is something they suggested, I feel it’s a worthwhile suggestion, and we are willing to go along with it.

Mr. Deans: No, it’s not a matter of whether it should be four or eight or whether we should just pick a number out of the air. It would seem to me that in order to conduct the business and to pass bylaws there should have to be more than half; that one more than 50 per cent should be the requirement and that it shouldn’t be doing business with less than half of the elected members present. In fact, there should be the same kind of requirement here. On any matter on which a vote has to be taken, more than 50 per cent of the members should have to be present.

I just don’t see why there should be an allowance that is somewhat less and that some arbitrary figure should be chosen. It should be 50 per cent plus one to do business, and if you don’t have more than that there, then you can’t do business.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, if we were to follow that through to this House, I would think there would be very few times the opposition could vote.

Mr. Breithaupt: Not on this side.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): You’d better toughen up the glass in that house of yours.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The member for Ottawa Centre has the floor.

Mr. Cassidy: Not only that, Mr. Chairman, but the point about this House is that we have a party system. Therefore, even though only 20 people form a quorum here, when we have a vote the votes are taken in the normal way, on party lines. The government of the day can always be challenged to see whether or not it has control of the House. That situation is different in a federation where you have six boroughs, plus the chairman, and where under the present proposals the chairman, plus the representatives of, say, North York and Etobicoke together would make up a quorum, despite the absence of the people from Toronto, Scarborough, East York and York.

Mr. Cassidy moves that section 12(3) of the Act as set out in section 2 of Bill 89 be amended by changing the word “six” to the word “eight.”

Mr. Cassidy: The typed copies that I sent around, Mr. Chairman, said “seven” but I’ve changed that to “eight,” being convinced by the arguments of the member for Wentworth that it should not be just 50 per cent, but it should be 50 per cent plus one.

I would move that the quorum be moved from six to eight.

Mr. Chairman: Any further debate on this amendment? The member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could ask a question of the minister. When this matter was brought to his attention, was there any clarification as to whether this quorum would apply to all matters coming before the Metro executive or is there still to be the opportunity for only the Metro chairman and the mayors to act together in certain areas so that they become, in effect, a senior executive and a junior executive? This happened when I was on the executive of Metro and I felt very strongly about it, that anyone who was elected to that executive should have the full power of the executive. This does not seem to be clarified here. Do I take it that if there are six members as a quorum, this means that there have to be at least six members present to conduct any of the business of the executive?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Yes, that is what it means, six members for a quorum in order to conduct any business.

Mrs. Campbell: I am not quite clear at this stage as to what the original Act said. But I take it then that there is no way this chairman can appoint the mayors and himself to carry on the business of the executive as an inner executive, as was done in the past.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I am not aware as to what the hon. member is referring to, but very clearly it says six members form a quorum and they can do the business of the executive council. Whether they are junior or senior, I don’t know what you are referring to on that. I am sorry that doesn’t enlighten you too much but I would say everyone is equal.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, with that in mind I must, of course, address myself to the question because this, as it is set up now, can continue the practice which began with Mr. Allen as the chairman. It could mean that the executive committee, as such, could be eroded by having business conducted by the chairman together with the mayors of Metro. I would urge the minister to give some thought to this because this can effectively mean that all of the executive is not equal and it was not equal in Mr. Allen’s time.

It would seem to me, not because of the straight numbers as proposed by the member for Ottawa Centre, that if you really mean the aldermen from the city executive or the controllers, as provided here, have equal participation as executive members, surely, that has to be clarified. I suppose the only way this could be done would be by increasing the numbers in order to ensure that no one can deal differently with one half or one portion of that executive.

I wonder if anybody brought that to the attention of the minister? When I was on that council, as it were, No. 2 i/c for the city of Toronto, I found that while I was duly elected I was not an equal member when it was decided that the chairman and the mayors would act without the rest of the executive. To me, if you have an executive setup, that cannot continue and I would urge the minister to look at the amendment, not in strict numerical terms but as an indication of the policy that each member on that executive, in accordance with the bill, is as truly elected to the executive as the mayor in each case and, certainly, as the chairman.

The only way now that I can see to do it is to support the amendment to eight members for a quorum which clarifies that beyond a doubt.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I just don’t follow what the hon. member is saying. If she’s trying to say that only certain members of the metropolitan council would be notified as to a meeting, or certain members of the executive council would be notified as to a meeting, I think she’s wrong. Surely, everyone would get a notice of a meeting? They wouldn’t be excluded from a meeting which was duly called and I don’t see any reason to increase the numbers to seven, eight or nine if somewhere there is not the standing rule that everyone has to be notified.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I think that is the tragedy of having someone dealing with this particular situation who perhaps, hasn’t had personal knowledge of it. Of course, that’s precisely what happened. Notwithstanding the objections of those of us from the city in those days, because at that time it was only the city members -- if you will recall the membership of the executive -- who had the additional members on the Metro executive, that did occur.

I can be specific in the matter of our labour relations. We were not notified of meetings with labour although we were members of the executive. We were not advised of many of these meetings, which were important to the business of metropolitan council but were not deemed regular meetings of the executive. I think if you’re going to hold out that everyone here is equal, there has to be assurance that everyone is treated equally.

I suggest that if you keep your quorum at six, you are really being caught in that particular trap: You can continue to have meetings with the chairman and the mayors, without those other members. I would urge it for consideration, Mr. Chairman, because it happened.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I think what the hon. member is referring to is committee meetings which do not necessitate having the whole council, or a portion thereof present. Certainly there would be committee meetings that would be held separately without everyone being notified. I see nothing wrong with that. If you want to have a committee meeting to handle one particular matter, then bring it back to the executive council as a whole, fair enough. We do that everywhere.

Mr. Chairman: Any further debate on section 2?

Mr. Cassidy moves that section 12(3) of the Act as set out in section 2 of Bill 89 be amended by changing the word “six” to the word “eight.”

Those in favour of Mr. Cassidy’s motion will please say “aye.”

Those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the “nays” have it.

This amendment will be stacked.

Any other discussion on sections 3, 4 or 5?

Mr. Cassidy: On section 3, Mr. Chairman. We’re going to oppose this one and stack it, and I’ll explain very briefly why. This is one of the sections of the bill which was also not approved by the metropolitan council. As the minister will doubtless say, it is a permissive section, it’s not mandatory. And as he will probably also say, it compares with similar kinds of clauses which have been put into legislation for other regional municipalities.

If this had come forward with the request or the support of Metro Council we would have supported it. In this case, though, and in the context of the kinds of powers being sought by the metropolitan chairman, it’s unacceptable that it come forward after a quick meeting between the Metro council and this particular minister or other ministers of the government.

You cannot maintain that the Metro chairman is a member like anybody else, when he is (a) appointed, (b) the only full-time person working in council and, now (c) has working very closely with him a chief administrative officer -- if Metro Council chooses to accept the powers in this particular section -- to whom all other administrative people in Metro corporation will respond.

That link between the administrative branches of the Metro corporation and the administrative office is very direct. It’s laid out in this particular section, Mr. Chairman, that the administrative officer will have general control and management of the administration of the government and affairs of the Metro corporation. He shall be responsible for the efficient administration of its departments. That means he will be responsible for day-to-day running of Metro under the general direction of the Metro chairman.

Let it not be forgotten that general administration of these departments also means general administration of the people hired by Metro to develop policy and bring it before the Metro chairman and thence to the executive committee and the council. There’s no question that the council ultimately disposes of recommendations made by the chairman or by their administrative people.

But the power to propose is a very great power indeed. It is exercised by civil servants who work for the Metro government and they will be working under the direction of the administrative officer, who in turn works under the direction of the chairman. This is the way in which power is being concentrated into the hands of the Metro chairman without even a “by your leave” in terms of advance consideration by the council. So, for those reasons, we will oppose that section and stack it, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, in this particular situation, I, too, recognize that it is permissive legislation. But I understand from what has been said in the press that this was not sought by resolution of metropolitan council but simply by the chairman.

It’s true that this sort of thing has been brought into effect in other areas and to me it is a further possible erosion of the power of the people to be heard. We have consistently opposed the appointment of chairmen, regional chairmen. To be consistent, it seems to me we must oppose any further erosion by giving power to someone who, as one person put it to me; “You know, I really think that the Metro chairman ought to have his manager because of the volume of work.” That’s precisely what it comes out at, his manager to carry out his functions.

So you have two non-elective people at the head of Metro who are the only ones who are full time in that function. There is no doubt that a great many of the problems of Metropolitan Toronto have resulted from the fact that there has been one person who was unaccountable. Now you would propose that this council -- you have an executive committee now that can consist of the chairman and the mayors and this could be brought forward as the planning proposals were brought forward without notice and slipped through, particularly during the summer.

I would urge that if the government wants to be consistent, then it should say: “We will await the resolution of Metro council.” But when you want to use power you aren’t consistent. It’s only when you don’t want to listen to people that you drag in the local level of government in which you have such confidence.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): It is a good point.

Mrs. Campbell: I would urge that on this point you show to the people that you do have some concerns and that this particular section be deleted. So, if Metropolitan Toronto council wishes to bring this forward, it may do so by resolution. And if you do this, thus the government here is in no way responsible for enabling a small group to bring that legislation into effect. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Any further debate on section 3? The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, the point has been missed I am afraid as far as the members for St. George and Ottawa Centre are concerned. It’s not a power that is given to the Metro chairman whatsoever. It is a power given to the council. Whether we wait for the council to bring us a resolution in three months from now or two years from now, they have the same power to stop any move to appoint a chief administrative officer. It seems to me to make considerable sense to include this in the bill in case they wish to deal with this matter sometime in the near future, rather than bring in amendments. We have heard time and time again --

Mr. Cassidy: They have had 20 years to ask for it and they haven’t felt the need.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We have heard time and time again from the opposition that there have been so many amendments brought in, too many amendments, too many bills -- well, I think maybe if we want to follow that philosophy, this is one way to get away from another amendment.

Mrs. Campbell: Sure, stuff it down our throats.

Mr. Chairman: Shall section 3 stand as part of the bill?

Those in favour of section 3 standing as part of the bill please say “aye.”

Those opposed please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the “ayes” have it.

Shall this be stacked? Yes, thank you.

Section 4 agreed to.

On section 5:

Mr. Cassidy: On section 5, could the minister simply explain it? Right now there is the power to levy a sewage service rate. Was this requested and, if so, why? What effect will it have in terms of who pays what for sewage service?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Yes, Mr. Chairman, this was requested. It is a surcharge which will be applied by the area municipalities, the boroughs, or the city, as they see fit. Not as, necessarily, a water charge on the users only, but it could be a combination of property charge and a water charge.

Section 5 agreed to.

On section 6:

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister has an amendment.

Hon. Mr. Irvine moves that section 96 of the Act as set out in section 6 of the bill be amended by adding thereto the following subsection:

“4. No area municipality shall open up, establish or assume for public use any highway which intersects with, or enters upon any highway in the metropolitan road system without the prior writ and approval of the metropolitan corporation.”

Mr. Chairman: Any question or discussion on section 6?

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister would explain what he has in mind. We have been aware for some time that Metropolitan Toronto was anxious to get into the planning of downtown Toronto, and certainly if there is to be any development of downtown Toronto, and that is not before us at the moment, it was definite that there would have to be roads opened into that area.

Does this mean that Metro now takes over that planning of the city as well?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: No, Mr. Chairman, what we are saying is that this is a case where we have certain roads under the jurisdiction of metropolitan council and they must have the right to approve any stopping up and we should have included it in the bill. It was an error on our part. It is included in all regional bills where this power should be at the regional level.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Any further discussion on section 6?

Section 6 agreed to.

On section 7:

Mr. Cassidy: On section 7, Mr. Chairman, perhaps the minister can say whether this has any practical effect or is it simply to feed the vanity of the Metro mayor or feed the vanity of a particular borough that would be entitled to have the title of city?

I know that in Ottawa there were real changes that would have followed the elevation of Nepean from a township into a city. But I don’t believe that they would happen in this particular case. Could the minister explain and say whether there is anything practical that happens?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, it was requested by certain area municipalities. We made it permissive. If they don’t wish to change their name from city to borough or vice versa, fair enough.

Mr. Cassidy: That is the record, but what does it mean?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: But it means a matter, as far as money is concerned, of a very small change in grants -- if that’s what you are referring to, a very insignificant amount. I think it has to be a status name, symbol, more than anything else, and we have only put it on that basis to them, permissive -- if they wish to do it.

Mr. Cassidy: More power to the city of North York and the city of Etobicoke.

Sections 7, 8 and 9 inclusive, agreed to.

On section 10:

Mr. Chairman: The member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, in this matter of section 10, I note that there is an amendment before us and if it had not been placed I would certainly have placed it.

This, again, is a matter which was not introduced by resolution of Metro council, as I understand it, and this is something which goes a long way toward giving power to Metro if, as the minister will tell us, Metro decides to go along with it. It is permissive. But, again, if it hasn’t been requested by Metro council, why does this government feel that it should put into this bill this provision as to housing policies? I can understand the minister, if he is looking at a philosophy of housing, thinking that perhaps to have the Metropolitan regional government become committed to a housing policy is preferable than to have each of the individual municipalities involved with lesser resources. However, again, it is sad that the minister has not experienced this kind of government at first hand, or he would understand what I believe would be some of the concerns of the people of this area.

One of the things that goes with housing, if the housing should go to Metro and its policy should prevail, is that this is the first step forward to Metro doing indirectly what it has never been able to do directly, that is, plan the area municipality for them. It would seem to me that the Metro government should, first of all, bring in an approved official plan, other than having talked about it for 100 years, before it starts wanting to get into this setup as the Metro chairman wants to do. I suppose, actually as we see this and as we speak, one has a great sense of frustration because we know we are talking to people who simply will not listen. What is your real reason for putting this in when Metro council has not asked that this be done?

I notice that the Housing minister (Mr. Handleman) took, I think out of context, a nice swipe at the mayor of Scarborough in belabouring him for not co-operating. I didn’t hear him say anything about the mayor of Etobicoke, but I haven’t seen that anything has been done there. It does seem to me if you want really to have division this is your way to go about it. If it’s divide and conquer and if the minister tells me that, then I have to accept it as the philosophy of this government. That is precisely what is going to happen if you insist on putting in clauses like this and giving so much power that you have given to a non-elected chairman.

I can’t understand what it is about this government that it does seem to want to take one group after another and set them against it. You have managed to destroy the confidence in you in more people, members of local councils and groups across this province than anyone in the history of the province. Why do you invite this? Why do you impose this upon yourself? Don’t tell me it’s permissive, when you don’t understand the way Metro functions.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Do you?

Mrs. Campbell: Do I know how it functions?

Mr. Deacon: She certainly does!

Mrs. Campbell: I was there. Were you?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: No.

Mrs. Campbell: All right, then don’t talk to me about it. I know the way it functions and I know the way it has functioned for some years. For somebody to sit there and say “Do I?” -- I’m sorry, unless you are there, you don’t know. I say with the greatest respect you don’t know.

Mr. Deacon: Some of your experiences with not getting notices of meetings and things.

Mrs. Campbell: Oh, yes, I have already covered that and the minister says it’s all right if you don’t get notices of meetings. But that’s equality, that’s equality: “If you don’t get notices of meetings it’s too bad. We carry on that way all the time.” Well, of course, as far as I am concerned, it’s one of the things I would condemn you for. You do carry on that way all the time. And we very often have to dig and dig and dig to find out what is going on here. And I don’t think the people of Metropolitan Toronto should be having to be placed in that position.

As far as I am concerned, surely the thing for you to do --

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Maybe we had better put them in trusteeship.

Mrs. Campbell: -- and I didn’t catch what the Solicitor General said, but I am sure it wasn’t all that intelligent --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Put Metro in trusteeship?

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): You didn’t miss much.

Mrs. Campbell: But in any event --

Mr. Chairman: Order please. Order.

Mrs. Campbell: I would urge that you delete this. There is no urgency surely --

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): One of the best things you have said.

Mr. C. E. McIlveen (Oshawa): This is?

Mrs. Campbell: -- because it may or may not come into effect on your argument, and surely it could come in when a resolution from Metropolitan council asks for it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Any further debate on section 10?

Mr. Cassidy: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would move the amendment which Mrs. Campbell referred to.

Mr. Cassidy moves that subsection 2 of section 198(a) of the Act as set out in section 10 of Bill 89 be deleted.

Mr. Cassidy: I’m not sure if you have a copy of that, Mr. Chairman, have you?

Mr. Chairman: I do.

Mr. Cassidy: You do? Okay, fine. There are no changes to it as I set it out.

The effect of the amendment would be that the second part of the proposed section 198(a) would be deleted and therefore the amendment would simply give permissive powers to the Metropolitan council or to the council of any area municipality to adopt a policy statement relating to housing which contains specific objectives, production targets and financial arrangements, and would have to be approved by the Minister of Housing.

Now, I am not even sure whether it would be necessary to have those permissive powers in legislation, Mr. Chairman, but if there is any question about it, I have no objection and we have no objection to there being permissive powers to Metro council adopting a housing policy.

In fact, Mr. Chairman, I would want to encourage the council of Metropolitan Toronto to adopt a housing policy. And I would like to suggest to this House that the way in which this minister has gone about it in conjunction with Chairman Godfrey is going to be counterproductive. It is very likely to lead to a situation where Metro council will not get a housing policy this year, whereas had the work gone forward as it was going forward before this minister and the chairman stepped in, there was a very good chance that Metropolitan Toronto would have a housing policy around October of this year.

Some members of the Legislature may have read the interim Metro policy which was published in May by the Metro chairman, and which, incidentally, made no reference to the mandatory features of the Metro housing policy but instead laid very heavy emphasis on the need for co-operation with the boroughs and with the borough housing policies.

Now, that’s a good housing policy proposal which has come forward. I was talking today with the assistant to Mr. Godfrey. He says they hope to get discussions on this under way over the summer and they hope to get it adopted by the fall.

However, when this Act came down 1 1/2 weeks ago, the reaction was immediately intense and aggravated, not just on the part of Mayor Crombie and Toronto City Council, but also on the part of a number of boroughs. It was so violent that the Minister of Housing went out to Scarborough today in order to talk to the board of control and I’m not sure if he talked to the council as well. And out there, as I understand it, there was a resolution by the board of control or by the council, I couldn’t establish which, and Mayor Cosgrove is violently opposed to the mandatory features of this particular section.

The Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) isn’t here, but I understand that Willis Blair has spoken to the member for York East on behalf of East York, again to express opposition. I understand in Etobicoke, possibly for different reasons, Mayor Flynn and his board of control had expressed very strong opposition to the mandatory features of this. I understand that this is the case with the mayor of York whose view it is that the autonomy of the area municipalities should be interfered with as little as possible and that this interferes with their autonomy.

There are a number of different reasons for which these mayors opposed this particular section, Mr. Chairman, but the point is that they do oppose it. The bill came down a week ago last Friday. The matter was raised at Metro council at its regular meeting on Tuesday, the last regular meeting of the spring Metro council. It was its last regular meeting until September, in fact. By a vote of 17 to 10, Metro council voted to discuss the matter. Unfortunately, it was incapable of discussing it because it needed a two-thirds majority and fell one vote short. That was the degree of concern, that 17 members of Metro council wanted to discuss the matter. Most of them wanted to defer the matter.

I want to suggest that this section is unnecessary, because if Metro council is not holding its next regular meeting until next September and if it is only beginning work now to discuss the housing policy, then even with the best will in the world Metropolitan Toronto cannot have an adopted housing policy until some time in the fall. In fact, the kind of temper that is abroad in Metro right now is such that it is going to take them much longer than a month or two or three. It will be December or January at the very earliest before Metro council passes this housing policy. Therefore, the mandatory features of the housing policy do not need to apply. There is no reason why the minister cannot accept this amendment and withdraw those mandatory features until there has been a specific request from Metro council, if Metro council wishes to make one, and until the matter has been fully aired and discussed on the part of everybody involved.

Perhaps, I can say, Mr. Chairman, that in my talks today with Mr. Kruger, who is the executive assistant, to Paul Godfrey, Mr. Kruger expressed serious concern about the drafting of section 2 of this Act, the section which I wish to withdraw. I said to him, “Won’t you get Chairman Godfrey to talk to the Premier or to talk to this minister and to get them to withdraw till fall?” He said, “What I would prefer to see happen would be that there would be another section, a subsection 3, go in, which says despite section 2 nothing should be deemed to interfere with the usual powers of zoning, etc., that exist at the area of the municipality level.”

So we came out with different solutions. Nevertheless, the man who is slated for the job as administrative tsar of Metro Toronto says that the drafting here is bad, and he thinks that something should be done about it. I think that what should be done about it is, since it is unnecessary, it should be withdrawn.

Another point is this, and I say this to the minister -- I wish the Treasurer (Mr. White) were here in the House at this time -- it seems to me that people in all parties, and certainly from our party, would like to see Metro council adopt a housing policy. I confess to be somewhat ambivalent about the proposals made by the chairman’s office. I think they are good proposals, but I find distressing, for a number of reasons, the fact that at the same time it was proposing good housing policy the Metro chairman could with a sweep of the hand eliminate 250 homes on Toronto Island. The fact that I live there does not matter. I would feel that way even if I did not live there; and I am moving next week if we ever get this darn session finished.

That certainly undermines the Metro chairman’s credibility. Nevertheless, it is in the interest of everybody in this municipality that Metro council adopts a housing policy, and let us cross our fingers that we do not get the same kind of retrograde action as we saw from Paul Godfrey over the island housing.

If the housing policy is going to have a mandatory effect on the boroughs, Mr. Chairman, and on the city of Toronto, then what is very likely to happen is that for their own reasons, and certain reasons will differ, Paul Cosgrove, Dennis Flynn and David Crombie, mayors who together have far more than a majority of the votes behind them on Metro council, and the people who represent their boroughs, will oppose any move by Metro to adopt a housing policy. That is what they are going to do. Therefore, the situation that this could lead to is that Metro won’t adopt a housing policy. There won’t be targets based on the needs of all the people in Metropolitan Toronto and it will be left for the city of Toronto in particular to carry the entire burden for the Metropolitan federation in the matter of social housing and housing for people on low and moderate incomes. That is unacceptable.

The other slim possibility, Mr. Chairman, would be that a housing policy would go ahead under a compromise worked out between the Metro mayors, on which every clause of the Metro housing policy was governed by a statement that said: “Nothing in this housing policy will be deemed to interfere with any housing policy which is passed at the borough or at the city level.”

That’s the situation that would prevail if we took out section 2 and subsection 2. It seems to me that this proposal, as the minister has made it, will poison co-operation. It undermines the kind of work the Metropolitan corporation and the boroughs ought to do.

It seems to me, finally, that it pre-empts one of the major things at stake in the consideration now under way of future powers within the Metro federation. We feel that, where possible, powers should be decentralized to the boroughs. How it should work out in the field of housing is hard to say at this time. I think it’s going to be a shared responsibility. You can’t have a shared responsibility if all the powers of direction ultimately reside in the Metropolitan council and in the Metro chairman’s office.

Yet that decision is being pre-empted because of the discussions between Minister Irvine and Chairman Godfrey. The Metro mayors are justifiably concerned that a major decision about powers within the Metropolitan federation, that should be a matter for debate, discussion, representation and briefs by somebody looking at all facets of Metro Toronto’s structure, is simply being decided at the stroke of a pen by a minister who makes an arbitrary decision.

I have talked with the minister and asked him whether he wouldn’t withdraw this for now. We’ll be quite happy to pass the bill in a day in the fall if it is requested by Metropolitan council. I’ve talked with the Premier (Mr. Davis), something that I rarely, if ever, do, and said: Look, you’re going to poison the Metropolitan federation. As a matter of statesmanship, not as a matter of party politics, you don’t need it now. It’s counterproductive. It may sabotage the creation of a Metro housing policy which we on this side of the House would very much like to see. Now for God’s sake try the route of co-operation rather than putting a gun at the heads of the boroughs involved in Metro.

This has been met by deaf ears. I plead with the minister and with his colleagues not to be so stubborn, to accept this amendment and see what happens if you try a bit of sugar rather than forcing the boroughs to accept a policy for which the decision is made by Metro council.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Chairman, in Etobicoke there is an enormous sensitivity. We watch with wetted finger the weather vanes in the province and construe that this kind of transference of power in a critical area, into the Metropolitan area away from the boroughs, and particularly from the borough of Etobicoke, does touch a sensitive spot. The direction is perhaps, creeping amalgamation. This is an indication of that. This is a sign of the times, this ongoing process of stripping municipalities of their power, authorities, and functions -- and they have little enough left in order to constitute themselves as really viable political entities.

You give them power to become a city, and they have none of the works by which a city is supposed to operate. This is a move in that direction.

I want the minister to know there is a considerable feeling in the part of the world I come from about this legislation. I think you should give them far more incentive in the housing area, give them reasons to increase the housing figures and not simply move in with a sort of blunderbuss and take away powers vital to the good running and the constitution of any borough.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order. I want to ask for your guidance. It being almost six o’clock I would appreciate if you would check with the Speaker on behalf of the House, to determine the appropriateness of the estimates committee sitting this evening without the members of the estimates committee having been given adequate, or for that matter any notice, as is required by normal custom and precedent in this House.

Mr. Chairman: I would be pleased to take this up with the Speaker and report later. It being 6 of the clock, I do now leave the chair and we will resume at 8.

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