Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

TEACHER-BOARD NEGOTIATIONS

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce today the establishment of a commission under the Education Act, section 9, to review the collective negotiation process between teachers and school boards.

The School Boards and Teachers Collective Negotiations Act has been in force since July 18, 1975. Before that time, there was uncertainty and disruption in teacher-board relationships. A decision of the court was required to confirm the rights of teachers to withdraw their services. The act, when introduced, provided for the first time a legally defined, equitable and reasonable framework within which teachers and trustees could pursue their goals through the collective bargaining process.

The act has improved that process in many ways. It has unquestionably reduced the number of occasions when a breakdown in negotiations has led to strikes and other sanctions. In the three years before the passage of the act, there were 28 cases which would now be defined as strikes or lockouts. In the four years since the act was passed, there have been over 900 settlements, with only 18 strikes or lockouts.

In our society there are basic rights to collective bargaining, and there is no question of compromising those rights in the case of teachers. However, like all policies of government, the act and the process it engenders should be periodically reviewed.

An internal review by ministry officials has indicated certain technical problems in the present act for which alternative arrangements should be considered. But, in addition, there are broader considerations relating to the basic rationale of the collective negotiation process, as it is now conducted, that have been consistently raised whenever the act has been discussed and which are of continued concern to the parties in the negotiation process and to the general public.

For this reason, I have felt that a commission should be established to examine the collective negotiation process as it has developed under the present legislation.

The government has been fortunate in being able to secure the services of an outstanding group of commissioners. The chairman of the commission will be Dr. B. C. Matthews, the president of the University of Waterloo. Serving with Dr. Matthews will be Dr. Roderick Fraser of the department of economics of Queen’s University and Dr. John Crispo of the faculty of management studies of the University of Toronto. Mr. W. C. VanderBurgh, the recently retired director of the Ministry of Education’s former supervisory services branch, will act as secretary to the commission.

Mr. McClellan: Always Crispo.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: The terms of reference for the commission are these: Upon completion of its review and inquiry, the commission shall recommend measures that the government should consider in relation to collective negotiations for teachers employed in elementary and secondary schools, having in mind the general public good and the rights of teachers to just and equitable remuneration and conditions of employment, and include in the report a response to the following specific issues:

Whether negotiations between school boards and teachers should continue on the basis now provided under the School Boards and Teachers Collective Negotiations Act, 1975, and, if so, what changes, if any, should be made to facilitate the operation of the collective bargaining process in the light of experience to date;

Whether negotiations should be conducted on some other basis and, if such other bases are recommended, who should be the parties to the negotiations, and the manner in which the negotiation process should be carried out;

Whether elementary and secondary school teachers employed by a board of education should negotiate separately or together;

What restrictions, if any, should be placed by legislation on the items that may be included in collective agreements between school boards and teachers; and

Whether the sanctions available under the School Boards and Teachers Collective Negotiations Act, 1975, are appropriate or whether they should be defined in greater detail.

The commission shall also consider and make recommendations as to what relationship should exist between the collective agreement and the individual teacher’s contract.

It should be noted that the commission will be examining only the collective negotiation process between teachers and school boards. Its recommendations, if acted upon, may have implications for the collective negotiation process as it now applies to colleges of applied arts and technology and to the Provincial Schools Authority. If this is the case, the policy in these areas will be reviewed by a separate process.

The commission to review the collective negotiation process between teachers and school boards has been charged to inquire into and report to the Minister of Education upon the matters outlined in its terms of reference and, in so doing, to take into consideration the results of the Ministry of Education’s internal review of the act and to invite and take into consideration written submissions and oral presentations related thereto from the Ontario School Trustees’ Council and its member associations; the Ontario Teachers’ Federation and its affiliates; the Education Relations Commission; officials and others who have been involved in collective negotiations between teachers and school boards; and other individuals or organizations the commission may feel may facilitate its work and, for this purpose, hold meetings in Toronto and one location in each of the Ministry of Education administrative regions as may be judged necessary and convenient by the commission.

The commission will report as soon as practicable. I hope that it will be no later than the spring of next year. The commission’s report will be published by the ministry. The schedule of work and bearings, the budget and the location of the commission’s offices have not yet been established but will be announced as soon as possible.

The public and the educational community, as well as the government, will look forward with great interest to the recommendations of the commissioners and will, I know, extend the fullest co-operation in facilitating their work. For this work, which I know will involve considerable personal dedication on the part of each of the three commissioners, I thank them in advance.

ORAL QUESTIONS

GAS AND OIL PRICES

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the Premier (Mr. Davis) arising from the speech by Premier Lougheed in Vancouver yesterday. I certainly have no desire to escalate the war of words which has developed between the Premiers of Alberta and Ontario, but there is a very specific question I feel should be asked.

Does the Premier agree with Mr. Lougheed’s claim that the government of Alberta has the constitutional right and power to set the price of Albertan oil entering into interprovincial trade? If, as I hope, the Premier does not agree, will he accept Mr. Lougheed’s challenge to take the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada, by asking the government of Canada to submit a constitutional reference to that court on the issue?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t hear Premier Lougheed’s speech yesterday, of course, and I gather only from the press reports, that some of these observations were made, not in the context of the speech, but at a press conference afterwards. As I say, that is my impression with respect to some of his observations.

I already made a comment last evening on this matter, and I recognize the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) doesn’t want to escalate this debate. I am always appreciative of his moderation here in this House, even though when he departs from these premises he does his best to escalate this debate. I think it is really very presumptuous of him to say that he doesn’t want to escalate the debate, when he spent a good part of the weekend doing just that. That is just a casual observation.

Mr. Bradley: So far no answer.

Hon. Mr. Davis: However, in a more specific reply to the question, Mr. Speaker, knowing that at any moment you will suggest I am not answering the question--

Mr. Breithaupt: Any moment now.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would say to the member for Kitchener, if he is patient, I will get to it, but I really think it is just a little bit hypocritical for the Leader of the Opposition to say he doesn’t want to escalate, after the things he has been saying. Let’s be frank with one another. Why don’t we say the same things in this House as we are prepared to say outside the House?

Mr. Speaker: I think the preamble has been equal on both sides. Let’s get on with the question.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think you are quite right, Mr. Speaker.

Our point of view has been that under the constitution of this country, and I guess it was on the basis of the existing impression of the law that the federal legislation was passed, no producing province--let’s not just single out Alberta--no single province unilaterally can set the price.

The hypothetical question of testing this in the courts is very premature. I don’t think it is something that needs to be considered at this time because, as I understand what Premier Lougheed said, he made these observations on the basis of no agreement being concluded. I think he said, “If there isn’t an agreement this winter--”

Just to refresh the memory of the Leader of the Opposition, the agreement is in place. The agreement includes the January 1, 1980, price increase, which is already established at $1 per barrel. Sometimes people forget that, but that is the existing agreement. It would be very premature to indulge in speculation prior to the first ministers’ meeting, to discuss this issue. I certainly don’t intend to escalate, unnecessarily, the debate or the rhetoric.

As I observed last night, I would find it regrettable in a country such as ours if any head of government said, “If things don’t go totally my way, I am not going to play the game any more.” I think that would be unfortunate. It is an attitude this province has never adopted.

The advice of this province, or our point of view, has not always been accepted in these matters, but when decisions are made, we try to make them work in terms of the provincial interest as well as in the national interest. I hope this will be the frame of mind of those who attend the first ministers’ conference, dealing with this very sensitive and very difficult issue.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary:

Since the Premier of Alberta made it very clear, according to reports of his speech yesterday, that in the absence of an agreement with the federal government he felt Alberta had the right to set its own price for the commodity in question; and since he specifically challenged Ontario, if Ontario disagreed with that interpretation, to obtain a ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada, will the Premier explain why he seems unwilling to do so?

Since this is going to be a recurring theme with every OPEC price increase, and as every negotiation continues, why would he not get the matter settled once and for all so that Premier Lougheed will have a better understanding of what the constitution of Canada provides?

[2:15]

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t know whether the Leader of the Opposition is trying to make work for the legal profession in this province or not, but he demonstrates in that kind of question--not the kind, but the question in particular--his lack of maturity and understanding of what this process is all about.

I am really totally amazed that he would say this province within Canada should take to the Supreme Court a reference on an issue that is in the process of negotiation, where the government of Canada is endeavouring to reach an agreement with the producing provinces, to further escalate and be totally divisive within this country.

I say to the Leader of the Opposition he is doing his party, the people of this province and this nation no credit by making that suggestion at this time. I have no intention of taking this to the Supreme Court at this moment. I have my own point of view as to what the law may he.

I would say to the Leader of the Opposition, if he has any sense of this country, if he has any feeling for the consumers of this province, if he has any feeling for our degree of involvement in this discussion, that kind of question is very, very silly; very silly.

Interjections

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: In view of the mounting concern of citizens of this province at the statements that have been made by the Conservative Premier of Ontario, the Conservative Premier of Alberta, and the Conservative Prime Minister of this country, have there been any contacts or communications at a more private and perhaps less battling level among those three protagonists in this particular question in order to seek a resolution which will protect Ontario’s consumers and Ontario’s industries against the effects of very rapid increases in oil and gas prices over the course of the next two years?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Just to keep the record straight, Mr. Speaker, I should point out to the leader of the New Democratic Party that there are a lot of Premiers interested in this, including the New Democratic Premier of Saskatchewan, who also has a point of view and who traditionally has been in support in terms of the principle of world price. On distribution he has a different attitude. I fully recognize this. In fact, in many respects the point of view of the Premier of Saskatchewan with respect to distribution of the income from those dollars is not inconsistent in some respects, not totally, with some of the points we have presented.

Mr. McDonald: It was the other way around. You are duplicating him four years afterward.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But don’t oversimplify it by saying Alberta is the only producing province. This principle also applies to the New Democrat-led province of Saskatchewan; so don’t try to isolate that great province from this discussion.

I will say to the leader of the New Democratic Party--and I hope I have made it very clear--there are no behind-the-doors negotiations. Ontario has never been part of a negotiation. We are not part of an agreement. There have been discussions; there have be representations made and made very vigorously. But my point has been, continues to be and I am insisting on it, that this discussion which is fundamental to this country-it is important to the consumers; to the economy; it’s important to everybody--be held at a first ministers’ meeting and the meeting be in public so that the whole country and, from my standpoint, this province will understand exactly what it is we are saying on this particular issue.

In my view, I would be very disappointed if--and I’m almost sure it won’t--this solution or a solution were found in something other than a public forum, or certainly not until after a first ministers’ meeting in public has been held. This is the point of view I have continued to express and I haven’t changed my mind.

Mr. Smith: Mr. Speaker, would the Premier kindly explain why it is that a suggestion that this very real difference in the interpretation of the constitution be referred the Supreme Court for a sober and realistic analysis of the matter is somehow less desirable in his mind than a continuing war of rhetoric across this continent and across the country between the two Premiers in question?

Why does he find something so objectionable about letting the Supreme Court deal with this admittedly vexing constitutional question, which could clear up, at least in Premier Lougheed’s mind, certain powers he thinks he has? Why would that not be a reasonable and Canadian thing to do, as opposed to the notion of continuing the inflammatory rhetoric as is currently the case?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I take the Leader of the Opposition back a little bit in history, and memories are very short. While I am not one to indulge in rhetoric, not to any great extent--

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, I tell you, I don’t indulge in it any more than the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart).

Mr. Swart: You can’t say that with a straight face.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t indulge in much rhetoric, Mr. Speaker. I can only say that some of the things being said are not dissimilar to those things that were said in 1974-75. The fact of the matter is that as a result of the debate that took place and of the discussions and the things that were said by the Premiers of the producing provinces, and by the Premier of this province, an agreement was reached between the producing provinces and the government of Canada.

In other words, what I am saying is, all of this is not that new. It may have been escalated somewhat, but a lot of it is not new. If the Leader of the Opposition will try to recall something else; if he can give me a bit of his attention without getting legal advice from the member for Kitchener, I would make this observation to him as well: One perhaps could get a determination from the Supreme Court on this issue, but that isn’t going to put the issue to bed. This is one of the concerns expressed by other first ministers with respect to any consideration of constitutional reform, because the Supreme Court may or may not make a ruling.

I happen to be one of those in this country who thinks, and I would hope this view is shared by some members opposite at least, that part of the long-term solution has to be by way of some constitutional change. The resource industry, in terms of the question of resource responsibility or the question of control of resources, is going to continue to be one of those fundamental areas of discussion. If the Leader of the Opposition thinks a decision from the Supreme Court, which may or may not resolve this issue, is going to deal with the broader issue, then I have to say he is more naive than he pretends to be.

I just repeat, because this is an important issue: To suggest we pre-empt everything and take this to the Supreme Court to see whether our feeling on the law is right, or the Premier of Alberta’s feeling on the law is right, in the midst of the debate that is going on with a scheduled first ministers’ meeting, I think is not only premature, I think it is immature, by way of a suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, is the Premier saying that these issues at this time transcend legalism and go to the heart of a working federalism? Is that what he is saying?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the member for Riverdale on the odd occasion can put things in more simplistic fashion than I can--not often--but in fact he has said in a very simple way what it has taken me a moment or two longer to explain to the Leader of the Opposition.

REVIEW OF BILL 100

Mr. S. Smith: I hate to interrupt the love-in here, Mr. Speaker, but I have a question for the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson). Will the minister table the results of her ministry’s internal review of the act which is going to be further reviewed by the commission she has announced today? Since one of the purposes of the information-gathering exercise by the newly-appointed commission will be to take into consideration that internal review, and there will be many people invited to give submissions to this commission, surely we all have to know what the internal review says if we are to make intelligent submissions to the commission that’s looking at it. When will we see the internal review?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker I am not at all sure that condition is required for all groups interested in making submissions to the commission. However, that information will be available to the members of the commission during the term of their existence and it will be published, I believe, in all of the documentation along with the report of that commission at the time it reports.

Ms. S. Smith: Well. Can the minister give one possible reason--

Mr. Hennessy: Well, well!

Mr. S. Smith: The member for Fort William is here today. I am sorry. We missed him in the past. It’s good to see him. When I use four-letter words like “well,” he understands every one of them. He is right on the bit.

Would the minister explain to the House--given the excellent commitment to open government which I am sure she shares--why the internal review of this bill is being kept secret until the commission has made its report public? What conceivable reason can there be for that, even in the minds of people as suspicious as some of the members of the cabinet?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I do not believe the minds of my colleagues in cabinet are suspicious in the way in which the Leader of the Opposition has suggested. But the statement was made in April of this year that we would be carrying out an internal review of the history of the bill and the experience under it; when that was completed, we would make a decision about whether an external review commission would be appointed. At that time it was decided the internal review would be supplied to the external review commission for its examination. The Leader of the Opposition, I am sure, will be delighted to have a copy of that internal review as a part of all the published material when the external commission reports.

Mr. S. Smith: Why not now?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Because he doesn’t need it.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary:

Can the minister explain what justification she and her cabinet has for denying this information to members of the Legislature and the public? What has she got to hide? Why doesn’t she table it?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I have nothing to hide. The decision was made some time ago, and that decision will be carried forward. The members of this House will have that documentation at the time the review is completed.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary: Could the minister explain why the internal review had the same time line as she is now giving to the external review? If during that period of time we come up with these same questions, what were they doing? What’s in that thing?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the internal review does not have the same time line. The internal review was begun in April. It was completed in midsummer. We reviewed it thereafter and made the decision to appoint the external commission, and that has been carried out.

The primary content of the internal review relates to technical points within the legislation which the internal review committee felt should be drawn to the attention of the external review committee and should provide for some technical amendments in the legislation. It also raised questions about some broader issues, but made no recommendation about those at all. That documentation will be available to the members of this House in due course.

Mr. Nixon: Who are you protecting?

OHIP FEE SCHEDULE

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Premier. Will the Premier confirm that the government negotiators who are discussing the new Ontario Health Insurance Plan fee schedule have offered the Ontario Medical Association an overall increase of 11.24 per cent in the OHIP fees, with 15 per cent for general practitioners and a nine per cent increase for specialists? Is it the case that the OMA has refused to accept that offer? How does the government justify offering doctors an average of 11 per cent when health-care workers have been getting increases of six to eight per cent and this government has held hospitals to an increase of 4.5 per cent?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, in that the negotiations have not been completed--they are still going on--I think it would be wise not to comment.

I am sure the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell), at such time as the negotiations are completed, will be delighted to give a full report to the members of the House. But my understanding, as of yesterday at least, is that negotiations are still continuing.

[2:30]

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Given that the doctors are accounting for $1.25 billion or 30 per cent of the health budget this year, and given that both hospital workers and hospitals have to negotiate in public, surely this is a matter of public interest. Will the government instruct its negotiators not to offer more to doctors than the government is prepared to see in increases for health-care workers in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Once again, I’m not an expert in terms of hospital-employee negotiations. Certainly the ultimate results are public, but my impression was that a lot of these negotiations were not held in public. They were negotiated, as are so many discussions in this field, somewhere other than in the public forum.

In fact, I don’t recall many discussions being in public. The leader of the New Democratic Party can enlighten me but that’s not my recollection. Certainly it’s not true in other fields of negotiation. The few that I did get involved in, I can tell him right now, were anything but public. They were at the Royal York Hotel; they were in my office; they were in many places, but not in public.

I would just reiterate to the leader of the New Democratic Party that, when a negotiation has been concluded, the minister will obviously inform the House. But during the process of negotiations it would be unwise to discuss or debate them here. He will have his chance on that occasion.

Mr. Cassidy: In order to avoid a double standard in Ontario, will the government instruct its negotiators not to give more favourable treatment to doctors than is being given to hospital workers in the province? Will the government also insist as part of negotiation that doctors agree not to continue extra billing but, in fact, to have one price for medical care in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I’m always delighted to have the point of view of the leader of the New Democratic Party. I must confess I don’t always agree with it. I guess if I were honest, I would say I rarely agree with it. I just have to tell him--

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Surely I’m entitled to my own point of view. I mean, they never listen to mine. They never pay any attention to my point of view.

Mr. Foulds: With good reason.

Hon. Mr. Davis: However, I just repeat, for the third time--the member knows something about negotiations; if he doesn’t, some members of his party do--I think it would be very unwise for me to comment on the state of the negotiations, on exactly what is being discussed at this precise moment. I have no intention of doing it. Maybe the member can tell me of other areas of negotiation where it has been helpful if we’ve debated it here in the House in the midst of negotiations.

GAS AND OIL SUPPLIES

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch). Since he has repeatedly assured the House that heating oil supplies and energy supplies are secure for this winter and since he told the House as recently as October 11, and I quote, “We have no reason to believe that we have problems for this coming heating season,” why did the government have the Deputy Minister of Energy appear before the Provincial-Municipal Liaison Committee on October 19 to make a detailed presentation of the federal Energy Supplies Emergency Act, Bill C-42, a presentation which included plans for coupons for gasoline rationing?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, the reason for the appearance of the deputy minister was at the request of some of the municipalities, particularly those who were expressing some interest in getting some information about the federal legislation. As a result, we agreed some months ago to appear before the Provincial-Municipal Liaison Committee to share with them: whatever information we had with respect to the emergency allocations, particularly as it would relate to the interest of municipalities in fuel for transportation.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, since in that presentation the deputy minister indicated that the Ministry of Energy is working closely with the federal government to develop its contingency plans in the event that Bill C-42 is invoked, could the minister share with this House the input from his ministry to the federal government as it sets priorities for the allocation of energy supplies? Does this mean in fact that the province has views on the allocation of petroleum supplies this winter despite the minister’s statement two weeks ago that the province had no emergency plans at all?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I don’t change the answer I gave to the member’s question earlier. All I’m repeating at this particular time is that it was deemed to be a rather responsible response on the part of the ministry to share with the municipalities, particularly with respect to their interest in fuel for transportation, the areas in which there have been some consultation, where our ministry staff have worked closely with the federal people. Not that anyone expects that it will be necessary to put any plan into effect, but I think it would be less than responsible not to be involved in these discussions and not to be part of the exchange of information.

We responded to questions quite openly at that meeting, and we would be glad to provide members with any specific information they need. I think it is in keeping with the spirit of the federal legislation that the municipalities would want to have some of this information.

Mr. J. Reed: Would the minister be good enough to describe the kind of supply monitoring that is going on in the province now in order that the ministry may assess the prospect of supply problems showing up in the ensuing months? Is he aware that the business of bidding for contract oil for this winter is far more widespread than originally observed?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I wonder if I might have some clarification, Mr. Speaker. Does the member really mean the bidding is that much more competitive?

Mr. J. Reed: I meant that the restriction of bidding is far more widespread than originally observed.

Hon. Mr. Welch: On the basis of copies of correspondence that is being directed to my colleague the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson), and on the basis of some questions raised in this House, there are indications that companies providing bulk heating oil are not out looking for new customers this season and are perhaps being a little more restrictive in their bidding practices. This doesn’t change the fact that, on the basis of information available to me, although the supply situation will be tight this coming season, it is still manageable.

The honourable member asks about our monitoring. The source of our information is principally the reports we get from time to time from the National Energy Board. We take this information, as far as it is shared with us, and make some projections with respect to supplies and inventories, and in touching base with the companies.

When I was in Calgary about a week ago meeting with all my colleagues of the provincial energy ministries, we raised some questions about the necessity of bringing into operation the technical advisory committee that is talked about in so far as this subject area is concerned, so that we can have the benefit of its advice as well.

I would like to say at this stage, as far as the supply situation is concerned, I have no evidence at the moment that would persuade me to give an answer other than the answer I have been giving up to this time; that although supplies will be tight this coming season they are manageable and we have them under control.

Mr. Philip: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Will the minister make public a copy of the deliberations that are taking place today at the Valhalla Inn with representatives from the United States and people from the federal government concerning energy contingency plans? Will he make that available to members of the opposition and to the press, since I understand a reporter was turned away from listening in on that seminar today?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I would be in no position to make such an undertaking without consultation with all the parties involved in such discussions, if such discussions on that subject are going on.

Ms. Gigantes: Oh, boy! One would think we were children.

Mr. Cassidy: The Minister of Education won’t give us information, the Minister of Energy won’t give us information, and neither will the Premier. It is the whole pack; every one of them. They are the most secretive government in this country; that’s what they are.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

EQUALIZATION PAYMENTS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer, a somewhat intricate question: He replied to a question from my leader last week with respect to an entitlement to some $105 million for equalization for this year, recognizing of course that Ontario had become a have-not province and was entitled to that $105 million.

Does the Treasurer agree that in fact our entitlement is probably about $172 million, as estimated by Dr. Courchene in a paper presented this week to the Ontario Economic Council? The figure of $105 million the Treasurer used, which he agreed with, took into account the provisions of Bill C-26, the federal bill that altered the provisions on the crown leases so that the number that was used did not conform to the law that was in existence at the time. In fact, our entitlement for 1979-80 in equalization would be about $172 million; our entitlement for 1978-79 would be about $100 million and our entitlement for 1977-78, according to the last estimate of the federal-provincial relations division of the Department of Finance, would probably be $103 million, making a total entitlement for the last three years in the range of $375 million for equalization due to this province as a have-not province, which this government has not collected.

Does the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) agree with those figures? And even if he doesn’t agree with my specific figures, why hasn’t he collected our share of that equalization?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I’ll speak close to the mike today, if you don’t mind.

Mr. Kerrio: What’s $3 million?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The $105-million figure was the member’s leader’s figure. I recognized that under the current rules we were entitled to receive money. He asked me for a simple yes-or-no answer. If the member will check Hansard, he will see I gave him a one-word answer, yes.

Secondly, the member’s estimate is, by my estimate, $100 million low. In fact, the three-year entitlement would be closer to $470 million.

Mr. Peterson: That's worse. Why aren’t you collecting?

Hon. F. S. Miller: That’s based upon the current formulae. One can argue with those figures, and I’m sure we could have them double-checked. But, certainly, the range between $350 million and $500 million is one that the figures are in.

The point we would make, and the point around which the debate seemed to rage the other day--and it is a fairly complex matter--is that according to the principle for which equalization payments were established, Ontario, in the philosophical sense, is not entitled to receive them since our per capita incomes are well above the national average. That was the amendment proposed, which Dr. Courchene mentions in his paper, in the bill the federal government was to pass last fall and did not pass--that and one other restriction.

Ontario simply argued that the original intent of equalization payments was not to redistribute oil profits; it was simply a method of taking moneys for certain basic services to governments. That in no way invalidated the Ontario argument which has gone on, saying that the oil profits must be redistributed in Canada by a better method. We’ve simply said that the formula illustrates that it is now archaic and needs a thorough overhaul of its original purpose and, simultaneously, discussions must go on to find ways and means of using the massive flows of money out of all the other non-producing provinces to the producing provinces for the benefit of all Canadians.

Mr. Peterson: Supplementary: The philosophy is not to equalize per capita income but to equalize provincial revenue, and there’s a very distinct difference between them. Bill C-26 was not passed by the federal government. My question to the Treasurer is, why hasn’t he collected what we’re legally entitled to under the current rules? We are a have-not province and entitled to it.

In the absence of the Treasurer’s presenting an alternative position to a dominion- provincial conference suggesting some alternatives that people will buy, since we are entitled to it, why doesn’t he collect it? Is it that the Treasurer has too much pride, or what is his problem?

My second question is, what is the Treasurer going to do if Bill C-26 or a successor in some form or other is introduced in the federal House? This time will he fight it to protect Ontario’s interests?

Hon. F. S. Miller: One way or another I intend, and I’m sure the Premier intends, to protect Ontario’s interests in its overall financial and fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Kerrio: You lost that battle when you elected Joe Clark.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I think it’s very important not to mix up the two arguments currently going on, namely, the question of the redistribution of oil money and the current equalization formula.

Mr. Peterson: That’s part of the current equalization formula. You could share it.

Hon. F. S. Miller: We have pointed out to the federal government the very fact that they don’t have sources of money to pay the funds their old formula tells them they must pay, and the fact that we show up in their eyes as a potential recipient indicates how out of date the formula is.

If we can’t resolve it by any other means, obviously we’ll be back to discussing Ontario’s entitlements within that formula, but I think they’re better discussed in another way and in another forum.

Mr. Peterson: You are three years late.

[2:45]

EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Premier: Given this government’s oft-stated concern that women have equal opportunities with men, will the Premier indicate whether he agrees with the comments by a Stelco spokesman that the reason not one of some 30,000 female applicants was hired for industrial jobs at Stelco since 1961 was that the 33,000 male applicants hired were all more qualified?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I haven’t the foggiest idea. I don’t know what qualifications are required. I don’t know exactly what type of employee they were looking for. I would be delighted to look into this matter and get a more definitive reply for the member, but he should understand--and I’m sure he does--that for me to answer that at this precise moment without a little more knowledge and information would be asking me to express an opinion. I’m never reluctant to express an opinion, but I like to do it based on a certain amount of information. If the member will pass on any information he has, I’d be delighted to take that along with other information I shall seek.

Mr. Mackenzie: Supplementary: Will the Premier assure this House that the hiring practices of Stelco, in relation to female applications, will be investigated? Will he help to expedite the complaints filed last week by individual women involved, and can he tell us what affirmative action programs might be available to see that we do have some equality here?

Hon. Mr. Davis: With respect to the second part of the second question, I would be delighted to discuss this with the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie), who is more knowledgeable on these matters than myself and perhaps even more so than the member who asked the question, for all I know. I’m sure that between the two of us, we will get a reply that will be totally satisfactory to him.

INTEREST RATES

Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, since the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Henderson) seems to be occupied with activities other than those that take place in this Legislature, and since when he is here he pretends not to understand the question--

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Riddell:--let me try one on the Minister if Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman). In view of the fact that farming is probably the largest industry we have in Ontario, what consideration is he giving to the concern expressed by the president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture when he states:

“Interest rates at unprecedented heights spell the beginning of the end for many of Ontario farmers. We’re not talking about inefficient or marginal farmers, although they will be affected too. Progressive, innovative farmers, the ones who produce the largest portion of the food we eat, are among the many facing disaster.”

What does the minister, through his government, intend to do to cushion the effect of the high interest rates, in the interests of the farming community and in the interests of those people who consume the food and who are ultimately going to be faced with higher food prices if we carry on with these ridiculously high interest rates which his government seems to concur with?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Firstly, Mr. Speaker, may I say that for the member to imply or suggest that we automatically concur with the interest rate strategy would indicate that he wasn’t paying attention to yesterday’s discussion here. Secondly, we made our position quite clear--

Mr. Breithaupt: Not in this House the minister didn’t.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The other day the Premier was quite clear and explicit in response to a question from the member’s own leader, which was exactly the same question that he has just asked.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the members don’t want to pay attention, at least their colleague who posed the question is entitled to a response.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The reply given to the member’s leader the other day was that this government was going to take the lead in contacting the financial institutions and urging upon them the importance of not overreacting in the short term to the high-interest-rate situation. In simple terms, we want to ensure that both the farming community and the small business community, to name just two, are not unduly affected by banks being unduly restrictive during the high-interest-rate period.

If a fanner or small businessman had a project, an undertaking or whatever, which was worthy of bank support, and the banks thought enough of it to give it that support, and lend that degree of credit to that firm or person, then we have urged the banks to give them some flexibility. We have urged the banks to allow them to miss some payments, after having studied the situation. We have urged them to take a look at the long term and not the short term.

Unquestionably, some people who have good and viable operations will have difficulty in meeting the odd payment from time to time. If that’s the case, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for financial institutions to come in and seize assets or withdraw the credit simply because there’s a one- or two-month period of time during which they can’t meet these higher interest rates. We’ve made that quite clear, here in the House and through the media, and I am just in the process of drafting a communication to the banking institutions which will refer to both small business and the farming community.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I can’t sit down without pointing out to you that I will compare the attendance record of the Minister of Agriculture and Food in this assembly to the member’s attendance in this assembly any day of the week, and that is taking into consideration the fact that the Minister of Agriculture and Food has a heck of a lot more obligations to meet and a wider range of responsibility than has the member. Any suggestion that he is absent from this H doing anything other than looking after the interests of the fanning community is cheap and unfair and ought to be withdrawn.

An hon. member: The height of arrogance.

Interjections.

Mr. Riddell: I certainly accept that challenge. If the minister is prepared to put his money where his mouth is, we may find out whose record is best in this House.

An hon. member: We all know how cheap he is.

Mr. Riddell: Let me ask the minister this:

If the financial institutions fail to accept his recommendations, what is he going to do then? What steps is he going to take?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s like asking if we’ll make a constitutional reference in the event we don’t reach agreement on other matters. Let me say, as always, it’s ridiculous to suggest we’re selling the farmers down the drain.

An hon. member: You are.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Let me say on the attendance records, I’ll put my money where my mouth is if the member will put his money where his mouth is. It means he’ll have a heck of a lot more money on the table than I will.

Interjections.

COMPLAINTS AGAINST POLICE

Mr. Lupusella: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Solicitor General (Mr. McMurtry). Since Cardinal Carter’s report is the fourth one which acknowledges the problem of racism in the city of Toronto and calls for action, can the minister state what course of legislative action he is planning to undertake in response to the Cardinal’s proposals? Also, would the minister inform this House when he plans to introduce legislation to set up a citizens’ complaint bureau?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say firstly that I think Cardinal Carter’s report is an excellent contribution to a very sensitive area of public controversy. We certainly welcome his recommendations and are going to pay serious attention to them.

In so far as the civilian review board concept is concerned, one has to be a little careful with the language that is employed, because 100 people may be talking about civilian review boards but they may be talking about essentially 100 different types of civilian review.

What we have agreed to do, at the request of the mayors of Metropolitan Toronto and the Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission, is to introduce legislation this fall which will provide a greater civilian involvement in the review of civilian complaints against police conduct. The nature or the character or the details of that legislation will be made known to this House in the relatively near future.

Mr. Lupusella: Supplementary: With great respect for the minister’s statement that he will introduce legislation in the near future, and in view of the fact that he failed to act upon three previous reports, what kind of assurance do we have that he is going to act now?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: First of all, the legislation was introduced, as I recall, by one of my predecessors. I think it was Bill 114 but, be that as it may, there are many complex aspects to this type of legislation.

With respect to the earlier legislation, notwithstanding very extensive consultation with municipal councils, municipal governing authorities, police chiefs’ associations and police associations generally prior to its introduction, there was still a great deal of concern expressed about certain aspects of this legislation by many of the interested parties as wall as citizens’ groups. Therefore, it goes without saying, it is very important that the legislation that is introduced receives a fair amount of support from both the police community and the citizens generally, or it simply won’t work.

The history of the so-called civilian review process in other jurisdictions has been generally a very unhappy and, indeed, a very disastrous one. The process we are going through at the present time is to ensure we provide legislation that will serve the legitimate interests of all those who may be involved in the process.

I think it is very unwise to adopt the very simplistic approach that has often been adopted in this area of concern and simply say, “Give us a civilian review board.” There are many aspects to it. The experience of other jurisdictions during the past several years indicates the wisdom of proceeding cautiously in this area.

MORTGAGE TAX CREDIT

Mr. Mancini: I have a question for the Premier of Ontario, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Kerrio: Go right to the top.

Mr. Mancini: Now that it is evident we have a bunch of loan sharks in Ottawa, I wonder if the Premier would reconsider a campaign promise he made in 1975. He spoke from a document called The Clear Choice--I almost blush quoting the name. He said in Waterloo on September 11, 1975, addressing himself to the problems of high mortgage interest rates: “Rest assured that this government is not prepared to stand idly by, to give up its housing objectives and to give up jobs in homes to a federal policy which gives in to both increased unemployment and inflation.

“We would propose, if we were forced to act, to extend tax relief to present and prospective home owners through a new tax credit, which would offset three quarters of the mortgage interest costs which are 10.25 per cent. Such tax relief would be allowed to a maximum of $500.”

Now that mortgage rates are nearing 15 per cent, would the Premier reconsider this well-thought-out policy so that the people in Ontario can continue to own the homes they have and may have an opportunity to purchase new homes in the future?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think the member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) should at least have thanked me or my office for providing him with a copy of that speech. I just wish he had read other parts of it, because they are also quite relevant.

Mr. T. P. Reid: There are a lot of promises in it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no; it is just a question of time. That speech was delivered in 1975, if memory serves me correctly.

Mr. J. Reed: We are still waiting.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s right--it took us a while; it took us four years to get a change in government, a government which has now introduced a program for tax credits for mortgage interest which are in excess of the figures I mentioned in 1975.

Mr. Mancini: I have a supplementary question. In 1975, when the Premier made this speech called The Clear Choice, he gave the people of Ontario an indication that he was against the high interest rate policy of the then government. Would the Premier inform the House whether he is in favour of the policy as set out by the governor of the Bank of Canada and supported by his good friend, Charles Joseph Clark?

Hon. Mr. Davis: My point of view on interest rates has not changed as a person, as an individual, as a leader of government here. We have never been in support of high interest rates; that has not changed.

Interjections.

[8:00]

ALGOMA UNIVERSITY

Mr. Cooke: I have a question for the Minister of Education. Is the minister aware of the very serious financial problems at Algoma University? Is she aware the accumulated deficit at the end of this particular fiscal year is projected to be $360,000 and will result in a loss of six faculty members out of a total faculty of 32, whereas the enrolment has only dropped from 430 to 400 full-time equivalent students? What is the government’s commitment to maintaining this university?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: The board of directors of Algoma University had a meeting on Saturday last week at which some decisions were taken in conjunction with the faculty association related to the problem of declining enrolment within that institution and its funding difficulties, which have been relieved to a very significant degree by a specific designation of funds by the Ministry of Northern Affairs. I am aware that indeed these decisions were made. They were joint decisions between the faculty association and the board. I am also aware the acting president of the college is comfortable with the decisions and feels they were made logically and in the best interests of the institution.

Mr. Cooke: Supplementary: Does the minister realize that as the number of faculty decreases, the programs that can be offered at this institution also decrease, thereby putting the viability of this institution very much in question? Does she understand the need for this institution to maintain itself in Sault Ste. Marie to provide accessibility for working-class students and for full-time working people who want to attend this institution on a part-time basis? Where is her commitment and why doesn’t she put more money into this institution to maintain its viability so it can compete with the American university?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Is the honourable member finished now? All of those factors have been taken into consideration; they have been considered seriously in discussions with Dean Howell, with the acting president of that university. In fact, in support of the necessity of that institution in its present site, and in support of the concept that kind of institution needs to be within Sault Ste. Marie, there was a new funding mechanism which was announced to Laurentian University and to Algoma University and the other institutions in that group in September of this year, which will, I think, support the continued viability, the continued vigour of those institutions in their communities.

TEACHER-BOARD NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Van Horne: A question to the Minister of Education: In light of the minister’s statement earlier today regarding teacher negotiating procedures in which she said, I think I have it right, “the external review, if acted upon, may have implications for the collective negotiation process as it now applies to colleges of applied arts and technology,” will she now broaden the terms of reference for the commission to look at the bargaining process as it applies to colleges and universities, particularly since it seems we are heading into a strike situation with the 6,500 community college teachers in the province?

Mr. Cooke: The member wants to take the right to strike from them too, eh?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Since the commission is unlikely to report until spring, I would think there would be very little to be gained by broadening those terms of reference. As I suggested in the statement, if there are implications as a result of this examination of that collective bargaining process for the relationship between the faculty members of community colleges and the boards of community colleges, I wonder if it might not be more appropriate that another small group look at those implications and make recommendations for community colleges.

The matter which seems to be disturbing the honourable member is one which is relatively imminent and I doubt very much that waiting for approximately six to eight months for a report from this commission would be of assistance in solving that problem at this time.

Mr. Van Horne: I agree with part of what the Minister of Education has said in so far as waiting for 16 months is concerned but the fact of the matter is that community colleges will continue to exist for a long time and the negotiation process seems to be in some kind of jeopardy, particularly in the light of comments made by such people as Norman Williams, chairman of the council of regents--

Mr. Speaker: Question? Would the minister agree.

Mr. Van Horne: Would she not agree, since he says that he cannot agree to the arbitration process, for example, even if they asked for it, and in fact they have asked for it; if they are saying things like that, why doesn’t the minister broaden the terms to look at the negotiation process now?

An hon. member: It makes lots of sense. That’s why you are not going to do it--because it’s sensible.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: it is unfortunate that sometimes in the heat of debate or comment certain statements are made. I am not at all convinced that that is the position of the council or regents, the body which is in fact responsible for negotiations with the community college staff. It may be a statement from one individual but I am not aware that it’s the position of the council of regents.

I am aware that an offer was made, which was an improvement over the last offer which had been made to the faculty of community colleges, and that offer has not at this point been taken to the members of staff for a vote. I am aware there’s an application before the College Relations Commission at this point regarding that vote.

ROY WOOD

Mr. Warner: I have a question for the Attorney General. Will the Attorney General be extraditing Mr. Roy Wood, who was formerly a detective in the Peel regional police force and is at present residing in England? If so, when; and if not, could the Attorney General give us reasons why he wouldn’t be extraditing him, as this is normally a procedure we follow?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I can’t assist the member at this time. I recall some preliminary report that I received several weeks ago on this issue. Quite frankly, I don’t know where the matter stands but I will find out and so advise the member.

Mr. Warner: Supplementary: Since this matter has been dragging on for about five weeks--

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I have just been handed a note, Mr. Speaker, which I assume is accurate. It indicates that we have instituted extradition proceedings.

Mr. Warner: Supplementary: Could the minister indicate if there will be additional charges other than the one that was reported in the press, which was to the effect that a charge of theft would be laid? Will there be additional charges laid against Mr. Wood?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I don’t have the answer to that question at this particular time.

PHYSICIAN IMMIGRATION

Mr. McKessock: I have a question for the Premier. The town of Durham has lost two medical doctors in the past year, one through a car accident and the other to the United States. In advertising for new doctors, they had responses from doctors in Scotland and the United States and although these doctors were willing to come they were unable to obtain work visas. I have been told it is government policy that although we allow doctors to leave this province the government will not allow doctors to enter. Is this correct? In fact, what is the government’s policy in allowing doctors into this country?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am just going by memory here. I believe it is the policy of the government of Canada. I think two or three years ago--

Hon. Mr. Wells: Four.

Hon. Mr. Davis:--four years ago a determination was made that we had sufficient numbers, and that in terms of the capabilities of our medical faculties to educate prospective young doctors we could meet the demand with respect to that profession. I will check and make sure for the honourable member but I am almost sure it is a federal policy and one that has application beyond the province of Ontario. I will check that out for him.

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

Mr. Lupusella: I have a point of order. I am not satisfied with the Solicitor General’s (Mr. McMurtry’s) answer. Therefore, under standing order 27, subsection (g), I would like to debate this matter on the adjournment of this House this evening.

HANSARD

Mr. Speaker: Last evening, just before six o’clock, I undertook to investigate the remarks made by the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) concerning the completeness of the Hansard record in the committee of the whole House on October 23, that was so capably handled by my colleague and deputy, the member for Perth (Mr. Edighoffer).

In checking the Instant Hansard, I find that there is a gap which does not show the disposition of a question before the House. However, as honourable members know, the Instant Hansard is an unofficial and unedited record, made available for the early convenience of all members.

If the honourable member will check page 3791 of the printed Hansard, he will find that the record is complete, and, having, checked the tape, I find it completely accurate.

The presence or absence of floor interjectionists would have no effect on the Instant Hansard omission, and if members will just check that they will find it is complete.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF PEEL AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Wells moved first reading of Bill 158, An Act to amend the Regional Municipality of Peel Act, 1973.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The purpose of this bill is to give to the area municipalities in the regional municipality of Peel the power to make expenditures for the purpose of diffusing information respecting the advantages of the area municipality as an industrial, agricultural, business, educational, residential or vacation centre, and the regional municipality will no longer have this power.

Mr. Speaker: I would like to advise the House that pursuant to standing order 28, the member for Downsview (Mr. Di Santo) has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer to his question given by the Premier (Mr. Davis) concerning the policy of the government on the possible sale of de Havilland Aircraft of Canada, Limited. This will be debated at 10:30 p.m.

Further, pursuant to the same standing order, the member for Dovercourt (Mr. Lupusella) is dissatisfied with an answer given by the Solicitor General (Mr. McMurtry). This will be debated this evening at 10:40 p.m.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

EXTENSION OF INTERIM SUPPLY

Hon. F. S. Miller moved an amendment to government resolution 8, that the words “March 31, 1980,” in the motion be deleted and the following substituted therefor:

“December 31, 1979.”

Mr. Speaker: Any discussion?

Mr. Nixon: I have no objection to that amendment. I would like to debate the motion, however. The Treasurer is amending his own motion before he puts it, with unanimous consent, I understand. We are not withholding unanimous consent on that.

Mr. Speaker: I take it you have no discussion on the amendment?

Mr. Nixon: There is no motion before us. Has the honourable member made a motion? I don’t believe he has.

He has said he wants to make an amendment to his motion. He hasn’t put it yet.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I could be corrected on my orders of procedure, but I understand my original motion was on the Order Paper and, therefore, before the House. It must be moved? Then I will be glad to move the motion as it reads in the Order Paper.

[3:15]

Hon. F. S. Miller moved Resolution 8:

That the authority of the Treasurer of Ontario granted on March 29, 1979, to pay the salaries of the civil servants and other necessary payments pending the voting of supply for the period commencing April 1, 1979, be extended to March 31, 1980, such payments to be charged to the proper appropriation following the voting of supply.

Mr. Speaker: You’ve heard the motion. I’ll allow debate on the main motion, but when I put the question to the House I’ll ask for the amendment first.

Mr. Nixon: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This motion is one that has not always come before the House in precisely these terms. I know, sir, you would recall when the Treasurer at the time of his budget, or shortly thereafter, would ask for the authority of the House to carry out the spending program put forward in the budget for the entire fiscal year.

As a result of debates in this House, and amendments put forward by myself and others, it has come to be the position of the Legislature that interim supply would be granted usually for two to three months, and occasionally six months, if it appears that the Legislature is not going to be able to deal conveniently with the spending program under those circumstances.

I’m sure you’re aware, sir, that when the discussion on the estimates review is completed, it is standard procedure that the Treasurer brings forward a supply bill which gets three readings immediately in the House, and if it is successful in getting three readings and royal assent, it means the House approves the expenditures of the government, and they have therefore the legal right not only to tax the money but also to spend it in the programs that have been approved in that way.

It is important, of course, for the Legislature to retain as much spending control as is possible, as our democratic system evolves. There are those who have said that the executives--the Premier and the cabinet--have been gathering, one might even use the word “usurping,” more and more authority from the Legislature as the years have gone on. I think it is a healthy thing indeed that the House be asked only to approve expenditure for a two- to three-month period under these circumstances. Surely, if we were to proceed with the motion in its original terms, granting the government six months’ supply to the end of the fiscal year, it would mean that no matter what happened with the estimates and the discussions taking place thereon, the government could legally expend the money anyway.

It might be said that the argument is an academic one, and yet it is possible to envisage a situation that could take place right in our own House next week, next year, 10 years from now, when the powers the opposition or the Legislature in general must hold to exert what controls they can on governmental expenditures should be maintained.

I have a feeling that the Premier and his advisers in his caucus might have thought the notice we put forward of an amendment to limit the spending authority to January 31 had some ulterior motive. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, and I know that you are at least open-minded and fair enough to be convinced, that that is not the case, that we felt very definitely that if the business of the House proceeds the way many people--do you want to speak?

Hon. Mr. Davis: No. Why did you agree to it, that’s all.

Mr. Speaker: Everybody will have an opportunity to speak to the motion.

Mr. Nixon: I want to respond to his interjection. I know that you, Mr. Speaker, feel that it’s important that the Premier has a chance to respond to interjections. If he is saying, why did we agree to this, we agreed to go forward with the debate. That is precisely what we are doing.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier seems to have a funny notion of what’s to go on in here. He resents it if people on all sides do not follow in lock-step the way he thinks the business should go. He doesn’t like it if the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) asks questions about energy policies. He feels that that’s inflammatory and provocative. All right, the Premier--a very important person in this province--has interjected. He has said, “Why did you agree to the motion we are debating?”

Certainly, when the House leaders discuss this, the agreement is only when the debate shall come forward. The honourable House leader made a very natural error, one in which I suppose we all concurred, when he did not mention last Thursday the debate would have to come forward today in order that the money would be available to meet our commitments at November 1 and thereafter. Surely the Premier is very much in error if he is assuming that by agreeing to go forward with the debate we agree it should not be either debated or amended. And we would be doing something less than our responsibility if we allowed him to get away with it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I thank the members opposite for their very well-deserved applause. I would only say to the House leader of the Liberal Party I had no involvement in the meeting, which he attended and of which he is a principal, I understand, as the representative of the official opposition.

We didn’t determine the debate was to take place today, other than by agreement. I was under the impression, an impression which I think was shared by a number of people, the House leaders had agreed in terms of the specifics of the supply motion. It did come as a bit of a surprise--even to some of the member’s own colleagues, I think--that he determined he was going to try to play games and insert the date of January 31.

We have been flexible in terms of the date. The Treasurer has introduced an amendment to make it December 31. But I think it really is unfair of the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk to suggest this government is reluctant to debate the issue, or that we were the ones who predetermined, without consultation, what the date was to be.

If the member is to say to me that he himself didn’t, by implication or by non-objection or in any way, say he was not satisfied with the date of March 31, then that’s fine; he’s an honourable gentleman and I would accept his word. But I hope he will accept mine when I explain to him that the distinct impression we have had, and we’ve had it for several days, is that the Liberal Party had agreed to March 31.

I’ve got news for him: I don’t care whether it is December 31 or March 31 or January 31; I’m interested in getting the business of this House concluded. If the member had only said two or three days ago he would have preferred January 31 there would have been no problem.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The Premier is saying we don’t need this place at all then.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no. I’m not saying that. The member should not say his people didn’t know it was March 31 and that there wasn’t an understanding this was to be the date. That’s all I’m saying.

Mr. T. P. Reid: That’s not the point at all. The Premier is making the point that the House leaders are running the Legislature.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I wasn’t at the meeting, and I make this abundantly clear. I am not going to get into a confrontation such as we had over another issue.

Mr. Nixon: I just got the floor. What are you doing?

Hon. Mr. Davis: What am I doing? : The member was suggesting I wanted to limit the discussion, or that I was trying to prevent the House from debating it. I want to make it abundantly clear that is not the case. If the House leader of the Liberal Party is saying he wasn’t under the impression there was some agreement--and I wasn’t at the meeting--where it was established that the date was to be March 31, that’s fine. Then let’s limit our discussion to December 31.

I know the usual procedure, and that is the passage of the supply bill. I say to the House leader it is our intention to have the estimates finished by the end of December. I hope we can have them done well before Christmas, but we are quite prepared to sit here until such time as they are finished. But I think, in fairness, it would have been a lot simpler if he had said to our House leader a couple of days ago, “We don’t like March 31; let’s make it some other date.” There would have been no fuss of this kind whatsoever.

Mr. T. P. Reid: But he said he would accept March 31.

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

Mr. Nixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I resumed my seat simply because the Premier was standing to interject. That’s a fact.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, he was on a point of privilege.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will somebody refresh my memory as to whether or not the Premier stood on a point of privilege?

Mr. Peterson: Yes, he did.

Mr. Nixon: I appreciate that, Mr. Speaker, I certainly do. I also appreciate the fact that the Premier has expressed his concern. But I want to make abundantly clear to him and anybody else who wants to listen that our agreement was only over when the debate should take place.

There was a time when I had the honour and the responsibility to decide, with the advice of my colleagues, what the position of this party would be. I am very glad that responsibility is carried by another person at this time. My job, and that of the other House leaders, is simply to facilitate the debates’ taking place and not to make the decisions that must be made by the House.

Does the Premier (Mr. Davis) want to get up again?

Interjections.

Mr. Nixon: He’s going to wait? All right.

I just want to say this very clearly, Mr. Speaker--

Mr. Speaker: Are you going to address the chair now?

Mr. Nixon: Yes, thank you. I think that’s really what I’ve been trying to do all the way along. I think I should have as much protection from the chair as the Speaker seems to be able to give to the other side.

Mr. Speaker: I can assure you that’s my aim, with your permission and with your cooperation.

Mr. Nixon: That’s good. I will continue to support you in those endeavours.

I would say to you that if we are not successful in carrying the estimates and the supply bills by the end of December, the House can decide to sit continuously until we do so, or we could also decide to have an interim supply bill that would extend supply for a longer period of time, perhaps even to January 31. The House, if it chose, could take a few days off and return to complete that work. There is no reason why that should not be so.

I’m sure, Mr. Speaker, you will understand that if the resolution in its original terms had been passed and the supply bills had also been passed, there would have been a double authority for expenditure, which is redundant. On the other hand, if the resolution in its original terms had been passed and the supply bills had not been passed, I know of no power that would require the House to resume to approve the expenditure program of the government.

With regard to the amendment, notice of which was given to the Premier, and which seemed to raise his ire in such an unreasonable way and prod his paranoia in a way I haven’t seen for many months, I believe any moderate, objective observer would have considered it a most reasonable and appropriate amendment indeed. Frankly, I’m very glad the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) in a rather awkward way has decided to indicate he will amend his motion even before he puts it.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I will attempt to address myself to the supply motion itself and not the shenanigans that have surrounded it.

We support the idea of a supply motion to be debated every three months. I think it’s a very good idea, and it would be very nice if it could be enshrined in the rules of the House so that we debated it every three months and didn’t deal with a six-months supply motion. The Ontario economy is something we need to be talking about more often in this chamber, particularly in the last short period of time. This government in particular, should be answering more than it is on the problems that face Ontario.

When I think of what this province had, and in some cases still has, I weep for what has been done to it. Basically it’s the stewardship of this government that has been the cause of it. We have had so much in resources. We had a manufacturing base no province in Canada could touch; we had a healthy farming sector, a booming service sector and a very good public sector in the province of Ontario. Now we see what’s happening in every one of those cases to those particular sectors.

For example, we see the resource sector giving us a sadly inadequate return when compared to other jurisdictions. We see a lack of processing of those resources, which costs us enormously in jobs and in new wealth that’s created in the province of Ontario.

Mr. Martel: The government has done it.

Mr. Laughren: We see virtually no linkages between the forward linkages of processing the resources or the backward linkages of buying the mining machinery to develop those resources.

Mr. Martel: You’ve killed it, Leo.

Mr. Laughren: When it comes to employment in manufacturing, we see it declining as a percentage of the work force. I know what the Treasurer will say about employment in manufacturing, but as a percentage of the work force it is indeed declining. As a matter of fact, I’ll return to that whole question of the problem of manufacturing in a few moments.

[3:30]

We talk about the farming community. I look at Ontario as a farming province as well as an industrial province. We have aided and abetted the farming community in this province a great deal, but what this government has not done is monitor what happens from the farm gate through to the consumer. That has not been done. We need only look at what has happened to the cheese processing industry in Ontario to verify that.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Tell us more.

Mr. Laughren: As a matter of fact, we need only look at what happened in food processing--

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Tell us more about the cheese.

Mr. Laughren:--industry in Ontario to know the government stops short of its responsibility when it comes to food and agriculture in the province of Ontario. I’ll talk lots more about it.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Tell us about it.

Mr. Laughren: Because of what has happened in these very vital sectors of manufacturing, resources and in the farm community, we now see in the province of Ontario an erosion of the very essential social and health services.

Mr. Speaker: I hate to interrupt the honourable member, but this motion deals expressly with the extension of time for the payment by the Treasurer of salaries of the civil servants and other necessary payments pending the voting of supply. It deals with an extension of time, rather than a complete, full-flown throne or budget debate.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, might I then ask for your clarification, because as I read the resolution it’s allowing for the expenditure of funds in a variety of fields, whether it be agriculture, whether it be the manufacturing sector or tourism. We’re allowing for the expenditure of funds in all of those fields. Surely it’s been my experience in this House when we get to this type of resolution, that although we’ve very seldom taken it, the opportunity is there to discuss anything in any of those expenditures which could be made. That, in fact, is what the resolution is going to do. We’re going to allow the government to spend money in every sector under its jurisdiction over the next three months, so surely we should be allowed to discuss at random any aspects of that spending we want. I can’t see why we’re being restricted.

If I look at the motion and what you’re attempting to tell us, Mr. Speaker, I can’t even determine what you want us to debate.

Mr. Speaker: The extension of time.

Mr. Martel: No, no.

Mr. Speaker: It’s the extension of time.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, maybe you can clarify this for me--

Mr. Speaker: I thought I just did.

Mr. Martel:--but aren’t we talking about the expenditure of money?

We’re talking about giving the government permission to spend money until December 31, and this money is expended by every department within the government of Ontario. Surely this attempt to restrict debate is certainly a novel introduction by you, Mr. Speaker. I would ask you to reconsider what you’ve just indicated you want us to restrict ourselves to, because in fact we are talking about money at every level.

Mr. Foulds: Could I have a point of clarification, Mr. Speaker? Are you ruling we’re to speak only on the Treasurer’s amendment, which does restrict the time, or on the substance of the motion?

Mr. Speaker: We’re dealing with the main motion right now.

Mr. Foulds: With great respect, I would point out to you that in the wording of the main motion there are the words, “that the authority of the Treasurer to pay the salaries of the civil servants and other necessary payments--”. My understanding of the phrase, “other necessary payments” is that it includes, as the motion itself says, “the voting of supply for all ministries for the next few months,” because we have not yet had the final vote on the budget of the minister. It is a substantive motion dealing with the expenditure of funds, even though it’s on an interim basis.

Mr. Speaker: I don’t disagree at all. It is a substantive motion, but had it not been introduced it wouldn’t have provided the members with an opportunity to rehash all of the things the supply motion covered. You do that in the regular estimates.

We dealt with concurrences yesterday afternoon where we allowed for a sufficient length of time for somebody to discuss something that, for a variety of reasons, it wasn’t possible to discuss when the estimates were referred to the various committees. If the member is saying that by the Treasurer coming to the House and asking for an extension of his powers that throws the whole thing wide open again I’m sure in the hands of the House. I thought it meant an extension of time.

Mr. Nixon: On the point of order; if I may, I think you may recall discussions taking place here, actually on the three supply motions themselves that were put. I can recall one of my colleagues, some years ago, getting up and getting the approval of the House to bring forward a matter pertaining to the financial and fiscal policy of the province which he felt should be redressed. He brought forward precedents that indicated down through the many years of British parliamentary practice that a motion to approve the expenditure of money in this way--and this really takes the place of the supply motion on an interim basis--that the motion to approve is the time when a private member of the House can ask for redress of a specific matter involving expenditures. If that is accepted, then I suppose it can be expanded so that under this motion members can debate almost any matter pertaining to the business of government.

Mind you, the basic budget motion--that is wherein the House is asked to approve the spending policies of the government--is the one that normally encompasses the broad-based debate involving all of the issues that might present themselves to the House. I would rather hate to see the matter unnecessarily restricted, on the other hand I feel that surely this motion is not an occasion where the whole House could involve itself in a lengthy debate involving all subjects.

My own view is that the precedents associated with this, and associated with the supply bills themselves, do give Her Majesty’s subjects, through their representatives, an opportunity to petition for redress on matters pertaining to the spending of money by the government.

Hon. F. S. Millet: Mr. Speaker, I’m quite happy to have the advice of my colleagues in the other benches at this time. I have looked back at previous debates and recognize they often are able to offer words of advice or support--

Mr. Laughren: A bit of support and lots of advice.

Mr. Peterson: And no encouragement.

Hon. F. S. Millet:--sometimes even criticism at these times. Rather than have them use up the whole afternoon debating the merits of whether they can or can’t, I’d be happy to let them go on with it and take their advice in the way I always do.

Mr. Nixon: Maybe we shouldn’t support.

Mr. Peterson: Be brief, though; spare us, please.

Mr. Speaker: You obviously have the complete approbation of the House, and I just hope all honourable members will remember this in the future.

Mr. Laughren: I think they somehow got an inkling that what I was going to say was worth listening to, that’s why they’ve come around.

Whenever we confront the Treasurer on the problems facing the Ontario economy we always get back the sense that, ‘Ontario’s doing what it can, and after all we’re only part of something much bigger that’s having problems. Really, you know, that recession in the United States that they’re into is what’s causing a lot of our grief and that’s where a lot of the blame belongs.” Of course that’s when he’s not blaming the federal government for our problems.

In reality, the problems of the recession in the United States and the way in which they affect the Ontario economy, really illuminate the structural problems that are there all the time, and have been with us for some time in the Ontario economy. It’s not as though the US recession has caused these problems, they’re simply emphasizing and illuminating them in a different kind of way.

The government response bothers me a great deal. I think of a two-headed coin when I think of the government response. On one side of the coin you’ve got an ostrich with his head in the ground pretending that the problem isn’t there; on the other side of the coin you’ve got an owl sitting there blinking stupidly in the sunlight; it’s not really aware of what’s even going on. In one case you’ve got the person pretending that there’s no problem, and in the other one not even comprehending that there’s a problem there; that’s the two-headed coin I see.

What’s happened, of course, is that the Treasurer, the Premier and the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman), who are the triumvirate over there, don’t have the courage to intervene and rectify or turn some of the problems around.

I’ll tell you something: if we were to win the battles with Ottawa on oil prices and interest rate increases, even if we were to win those two battles, while it would be helpful it would not solve the structural deficiencies that are there now in the Ontario economy.

One need not look to me for that. Look to the Minister of Industry and Tourism when he admitted less than a year ago in his submission to the GATI negotiators that that was exactly the problem, structural deficiencies in the Ontario economy.

Even though this government might like to pretend that the problems in the Ontario economy are Ottawa based, that is simply not true. They are exacerbating the problems and they are exaggerating them, I agree, but that is not the cause of the structural problems in the Ontario economy. It is time we faced up to that.

When I stand back and look at the Ontario economy and its problems, which really are the problems of Canada, the thing that always jumps off the pages at me is our balance of payments problem. That is really where it all begins with the balance of payment. Perhaps it didn’t begin there, but that is the source of much of the aggravation that is there now.

I see a deficit on our current account of about $7 billion. When I see a deficit like that, I know that is caused primarily by an outflow of interest and dividend payments, mostly to the United States. To compensate for that we lure in ever larger amounts of capital to make up that $7 million deficit. By doing that, of course, we are guaranteeing larger deficits in the future. What a vicious circle to be caught in.

This government doesn’t seem to understand that this cannot be allowed to continue. All we do is stall, stall, stall; and the problem gets worse and worse and worse. If members disbelieve me, look at the figures.

Look how they keep getting consistently worse. When we start paying interest and dividends on the new amount of capital that is going to be required to come in at the higher interest rates, we can be sure the problem is going to be considerably worse.

I know what this government over there says. In particular I have heard the Minister of Industry and Tourism say it, and the Treasurer as well. They say:

“Well you know, we can’t discourage foreign investment in Ontario. We can’t do that, because if we do, either by legislation or by lower interest rates, then the Canadian dollar will drop. If the Canadian dollar drops, then the inflation rate goes up. If the inflation rate goes up, what will that do? It means that we are less competitive and our exports will drop and the Ontario economy will be caught in a downward spiral on international markets.”

They will say we will export less and import more, which is, of course, where all the trouble began in the first place.

Those are the arguments I hear the government using. It really bemuses me, because I think we have a choice to make, although it is a very difficult choice. We can do what the federal government says and what this government seems to be agreeing with, namely ride it out, simply ride out the problem. We will suffer a decline in our standard of living. We will have high unemployment. We will have high inflation.

Then, the government argues, as interest rates stabilize and as oil prices stabilize the very serious problems will go away. And what will we be left with? We will be left with the same problems we had before oil prices became an issue and before high interest rates put us under siege.

The trouble with this argument is when that is all over, if it ever will be all over, we will still be left with the rather outrageous and pathetic dependence on economies other than our own. It won’t solve the problem at all. The Treasurer and the Minister of Industry and Tourism, the Premier and others don’t seem to understand that.

What we say is it is time to begin the rebuilding process. It is time to do it; the stall has gone on long enough. If the government takes our advice, which I will outline in a little detail, sure the process will be painful. As a matter of fact, if we have lower interest rates we will have less investment in Ontario and in Canada, we will have a lower value of the Canadian dollar; I admit that. We will have some inflation because of the amount of imports we buy with the deflated dollar.

At the same time, when that happens we will at least begin the process of replacing the large amounts of imports which now meet a large part of the domestic demand, and we will start to rebuild our manufacturing sector in Ontario. Those are two very important things, and they are related.

[3:45]

We might even emerge from such an agonizing process with some kind of national purpose or will; we might even do that. It would be nice to see Ontario leading the way in that respect; demonstrating that we have said to ourselves in this province, and as an example to other provinces, that we are going to tackle the problem here at home, we are going to rebuild the economy of the province of Ontario. And as we rebuild manufacturing in Ontario so goes manufacturing in this country, because we are the heartland.

I think perhaps the Treasurer would want me to be a little more specific, but I really believe that is the route we have to go. The place I would start is with interest rates themselves. I know the Treasurer doesn’t set interest rates but I tell you, Mr. Speaker, the interest rates people are trying to cope with out there now are unacceptable.

This morning we phoned Avco Financial Services and they said, “If it’s above a $1,500 loan it is going to cost a 28 per cent annual rate.” Household Finance said a loan would have a 23.9 per cent annual rate.

Mr. Martel: Usury.

Mr. Laughren: What kind of stewardship is that for any government to endorse? It is absolute nonsense.

The government admits the hardship this imposes on small business; and after all, when you think of the job creation component that small business is involved in it’s very substantial and this will hurt. The farmers, the house buyers, and of course, the people with consumer loans, will also suffer.

The federal government argues, and Mr. Bouey argues, “Well, you know, we can’t have an overheated economy.” I would like to know where he gets this idea of an overheated economy. He must be talking about some other province; he must be talking about Alberta and Saskatchewan, he sure isn’t talking about Ontario.

According to the Treasurer’s own Ontario Economic Accounts Bulletin; second quarter, 1979: “In real terms, the second quarter volume of production experienced a slight decline of 0.8 per cent.” Some overheating that is.

He goes on to say: “The slackening in the growth of consumer expenditures seems to have come primarily from the durable and semi-durable categories, with particular reference to automobiles, furniture, clothing and footwear.”

The governor of the Bank of Canada, and I suppose this Treasurer, thinks that higher interest rates by making it worse will solve the problem. I find that very strange thinking, very strange thinking indeed. Not only the Minister of Treasury and Economics, but also the Conference Board in Canada has made very dire predictions about the Ontario economy, and perhaps the Treasurer would like to talk about those himself.

If the interest rates are brought down, if we can convince the federal government to lower interest rates, the Treasurer would recognize, as we do, that even though there is a four per cent spread between inflation here and in the United States, that may very well reduce the amount of capital coming into Ontario and the rest of Canada. But surely the Treasurer would also realize if that is true and if the Canadian dollar declines, that would indeed make our exports more competitive.

In this same document, Ontario Economic Accounts, second quarter, the point is made, in referring to this rather sluggish performance of the Ontario economy: “Most of this sluggish performance can be attributed to a decline in the demand for exports generally, resulting from the continuous slowdown in the United States economy.” There we have the Treasurer’s own report telling him that sluggish exports are a serious problem. Perhaps he could pass the word on to the Minister of Industry and Tourism who thinks our salvation is in the stimulation of exports rather than the replacement of imports. That is some economic policy from over there.

The Minister of Industry and Tourism is hanging his hat on a strange peg if he thinks that is going to solve the structural problem in the Ontario economy. As a matter of fact, the lower Canadian dollar would help us turn that around. Keep in mind that higher inflation rates cause inflation without encouraging import replacements; that is something the minister seems to forget sometimes about the high inflation rate. He thinks that somehow it attracts capital, causes inflation; but he should keep in mind that it does nothing to encourage import replacement.

I wonder if we could talk a little about our manufacturing problems. The Treasurer and the Minister of Industry and Tourism engage in some, quite frankly misleading rhetoric when they talk about manufacturing in the province of Ontario. They compare only 1979 to 1978. They don’t go back to the years when it was just as high, and of course they never deal with the whole question of the amount of employment in manufacturing as a percentage of the total work force, which has declined in these years.

The government response to the whole manufacturing problem is totally inadequate. Does the Treasurer really realize that in this country in 1978 we had a deficit of more than $12 billion in manufactured goods?

I would make a suggestion to the Treasurer if he is serious about at least starting out to try to solve the problem. I would start out by doing something which the Minister of Industry and Tourism has already done--he has done it only in a half-baked way, however--by getting together, sector by sector, the important goods that are imported; inviting the buyers of those goods to come to a trade fair of sorts and saying to them:

“These are the things that are imported now. We want you to start seeking out Canadian producers.”

Then he should bring in potential manufacturers and say to them: “Here are the products we would like to see you produce in this province”--or this country; not just in Ontario. He should encourage their participation in those sectors, particularly in the machinery sector. If there’s a response out there that’s inadequate then he should take the next step and say: “We are prepared to go into joint ventures in order to rebuild the manufacturing sector in Ontario.”

If there are still no takers out there for joint ventures, then he should pick a sector, such as mining machinery, and do it through the crown corporation route to make sure we have some import replacement capacity in the province of Ontario; which is sadly lacking now, and which is what’s causing our enormous current account deficits.

When one looks at the import penetration of key sectors, just to name a few--these are Canadian figures and all high technology goods--there is 50 per cent import penetration. These are the latest figures I could get. In machinery, it is 71 per cent; mining machinery, 78 per cent; electric products, 30 per cent; textiles, 53 per cent; consumer electronics, 63 per cent; and computers and office equipment, 90 per cent.

That’s domestic demand that’s met by imports. The Treasurer shouldn’t be happy with that. He should be prepared to move in and try to turn that around.

I want very specifically to give some examples of sectors that drastically need action. In machinery, the 1977 trade deficit was $4.8 billion. That’s three times what it was just 10 years ago. The Ministry of Industry and Tourism itself admits that Ontario would gain 47,000 new jobs just by replacing imports in machinery. One sector alone would have that kind of impact. We are the only industrial nation that imports more than 50 per cent of our machinery and equipment needs.

Areas where we have very high imports, such as farm equipment, forestry, mining and construction, are the very areas--and this is what adds insult to injury--where we have such enormous domestic consumption. The argument is always used that with a small population we couldn’t do that. These are areas where we have enormous domestic consumption, yet imports are still meeting the majority of our needs.

Look at mining machinery. It’s an area that’s dear to my heart. We are number three in the world in mining production. We are second in the world in the consumption of mining machinery and first in the world in the import of mining machinery. In 1965 this country imported 59 per cent of its mining machinery. The latest figure I have is that it has risen to 91 per cent. There are different figures for that, but the highest I have seen is that 91 per cent of our mining machinery needs are being met by imports, though we are number three in the world in mining. Once again, a high domestic consumption is being met by imports, not local manufacturing.

Electrical products: The unions involved in the electrical products field claim that 23,000 jobs have been lost in this industry just in the last five years. In 1977 the trade deficit was almost $1 billion in this sector alone. We import $3 for every $1 that we export in electrical products. As a matter of fact, this country is the world’s greatest importer per capita of heavy electrical equipment. One thinks of the large number of capital-intensive jobs, with big machinery and large electrical products required, yet here we are importing them instead of meeting our needs domestically.

When it comes to food processing, we have detailed in this Legislature, through the Treasurer, that imports account for 25 per cent of the processed fruit and vegetable market, and about half of those could be produced in Canada. Of course Ontario would be central to that. I can think of no better place than the Niagara peninsula to establish a thriving food processing industry.

Those are some of the specific sectors we could take a look at. We should try to rebuild them, because we are not dealing with the structural problems the way the Treasurer is going about it. The Treasurer and the Minister of Industry and Tourism sprinkle their EDF funds across Ontario but do not really create much employment at all. It is almost like adding food colouring to food. It really doesn’t change it, it just puts a glow on it; it doesn’t get at the problem at all.

The other area I wanted to talk about briefly is resources. I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks that here we are selling off our resources, forever it seems, and not maximizing a return on them; the way, for example, Saskatchewan has done. I won’t go into detail and comparison. It is a sad comment indeed on the stewardship of this government the way it has handled resources.

I picked up a mortgage market letter from Greymac Mortgage Corporation.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I got one, too.

Mr. Laughren: They were quoting a government table: “A government table illustrating comparative impacts at various stages of the mineral production and processing system shows the GNP generated in the overall economy as a result of the production of a dollar of mineral output at each stage to be: mining, $1.50; smelting and refining, $1.38; iron and steel plants, $1.37; semi-fabrication, $1.48.

“It appears we can almost triple the value added to our economy by processing a metal within Canada.”

I don’t know how long we--my colleague from Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) in particular--have talked about the necessity of further processing our minerals in this province. The new wealth that would be created would go a long way to turning around the decline in the Ontario economy. And what a beautiful lever that is for the further industrial development of Ontario.

The response of the government is to give yet more processing allowances to the big companies, which really doesn’t solve the problem at all. It really is offensive to think that Falconbridge has been in Sudbury for more than 45 years and still doesn’t even have a refinery there. Neither does it have any intention of installing one. If they were a struggling little entrepreneurial enterprise perhaps I could understand it, but they are not at all. They are part of massive Superior Oil. They have all sorts of money, and yet the Treasurer says, “They really can’t afford to do it.” What a lot of nonsense.

That’s why when we talk about bringing the resources into the public sector we are very serious about it. We think that is the only way we will ever maximize returns, the only way we will ever ensure that we develop a mining machinery industry in Ontario, and the only way we will be able to process those resources to their maximum. The return is enormous as long as we can do it.

[4:00]

Those are some specific suggestions. It would be very nice if the Treasurer would act on some of them. If he would even start with one it would at least give us some hope.

We’ve said to him in the past that instead of sprinkling the Employment Development Fund all over Ontario, take a specific sector, one of those I have mentioned or one of his own choosing, and start rebuilding it. Rebuild it sector by sector until we again have a thriving manufacturing industry in the province of Ontario, because we don’t have it now.

I’d like to talk for a couple of minutes about the foreign ownership of the Ontario economy, because we always have such interesting exchanges, particularly if the Minister of Industry and Tourism is here. The Treasurer also has a rather knee-jerk reaction to the whole debate.

The argument that’s always used is we need foreign investment to create jobs. That’s his argument. I sometimes think, when I hear the Treasurer--

Mr. Martel: He created the problems.

Mr. Laughren:--or the Minister of Industry and Tourism talk about jobs when we’re faced with unemployment, of that old expression and I think jobs have become, “the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

Mr. T. P. Reid: Tough times.

Mr. Laughren: In fact the argument simply does not hold water. The real reason for the encouragement of foreign investment--though governments don’t often want to admit it--is simply to offset the current account deficit; but the Treasurer will always use the job argument instead.

I picked up a copy of the supplement to the Foreign Investment Review Agency 1978-79 annual report, filed under the Foreign Investment Review Act. It tells me that in Ontario, in the five years from 1974 to March 31, 1979, 21,520 jobs were the direct employment benefits of investments.

The Treasurer will say you can’t sneeze at that many jobs, but I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, the outflow of interest and dividend payments during that same period of time totalled $18.2 billion. Eighteen point two billion dollars was the outflow of interest and dividend payments. That’s some kind of payoff.

It was accumulated foreign investment that caused that drain of $18.2 billion during that five years; it’s because of foreign investment he has that drain of the $18.2 billion. The Treasurer’s arguments are spurious at best and specious at worst, when he uses the argument of job creation and ties it to foreign investment.

By the way, that same document goes on at some length about the problem of takeovers in high technology industries. I’ll quote directly from the annual report. This isn’t even the supplement, it’s the annual report itself. I quote:

“As in 1977-78, the number of applications to acquire manufacturing businesses accounted for less than half the total, though it did increase from 125 to 172. High technology businesses--metal fabricating, machinery, transport equipment, electrical and chemical products--were the object of the greatest increase in acquisition activity, along with the food and beverage industry. Assets of acquired manufacturing businesses rose from almost $700 million to $1.6 billion. Fiscal year 1978-79 was the first year since 1975-76 in which the service industry share of the total acquisition applications decreased from 51 per cent to 45 per cent.”

The Treasurer can even turn a blind eye and deaf ear to that problem of high technology industries. What’s happening is not only are we losing that which we already had, we’re losing our future, which is in the high technology areas. For what? For higher interest and dividend payments down the road.

Mr. T. P. Reid: What about nuclear development?

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you that’s a very worrisome aspect of what’s happening in the Ontario economy. Ontario, which is the manufacturing capital of the world, is where the bulk of the takeovers and new business enterprises are occurring. What does the Ontario government do? It approves over 90 per cent of all applications; and it doesn’t seem to matter that it is in high technology areas.

I don’t know what the Treasurer thinks we are heading for down the road, but I can tell him we are heading for an ever-increasing level of deficits on interest and dividend payments. Perhaps the Treasurer understands why I feel so strongly that collectively they have got their heads in the sand over there.

Despite the fact that the Foreign Investment Review Agency refuses to acknowledge the problem--and by the way, when I read that report I noticed they talk about all the benefits of foreign investment, how it has got to be in the Canadian interest and all that; but from what I can see there is no mention at all of what the disadvantages are. I think even the staunchest Tories would admit there are some disadvantages to foreign investment. I think they would agree to that, but FIRA won’t even admit that.

We know there are disadvantages, because we know the branch plants don’t do their share of research and development. We know we don’t get our share of skilled jobs; one needs only to look at the auto industry to see that. We know the branch plants don’t take advantage of export markets. We know that the dividend and interest outflow is substantial. In summary, we simply have less control over our own destiny because of the tremendous amount of foreign ownership.

Those are some of the problems, Mr. Speaker. I would like to suggest to the minister that he do some specific things before we approve this motion of supply today. I think he should take another look at some of the suggestions we presented to him last spring in our response to his budget. I will reiterate them to him very briefly.

We said he should establish a shared-cost program on apprenticeship training for 10,000 young people, at a cost of $40 million; a home-insulation program, 2,300 jobs, at a cost of $10 million; a solar heating subsidy, 1,500 jobs, at a cost of $30 million; a cooperative and non-profit housing program of capital grants, 14,000 jobs, at a cost of $35 million; loan-assisted housing for families and senior citizens, 8,000 jobs, at a cost of $55 million; a $25 million expansion of the Ontario Home Renewal Program, 1,500 jobs; special grants for hard services in northern Ontario, $25 million for 1,000 jobs; and $150 million to accelerate provincial and municipal capital projects, for 7,500 new jobs.

I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer may say we can’t afford that kind of thing. I wonder if he can afford the kind of potential tailspin we could be headed for with the Ontario economy. I am sure he has read the Conference Board in Canada projection that in 1980 there will be 10,000 new jobs created in Ontario. I shudder to think if they are correct; and they are not far out on this year’s projections. The conference board is not the kind of body that normally makes extravagant projections on either side. I would like to know what the Treasurer thinks of the conference board projections. He is going to have to do something.

I haven’t heard a peep from the Treasurer about what he is going to do in terms of job creation, either direct or indirect, because of the interest rate increases or because of the oil price increases. If he wants to use the US recession argument, let him; but I haven’t heard a peep from him about what he is going to do, either this winter or next year. It takes time to get programs in motion; and the Treasurer sits there benignly, blinking in the bright sunlight.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I wouldn’t have chosen that word.

Mr. Laughren: Well no. I would suggest that the Treasurer go back and take a look at some of those suggestions. They are as valid today as they were six months ago. I would like to know what plans he has in terms of implementing studies, to start with on what the effects will be of these interest rate increases and oil price increases. I think it is time the Treasurer involved himself in the nuclear debate, quite frankly, because of the enormous implications for the consumption of capital in Ontario.

I haven’t heard the Treasurer talk about nuclear energy. Darlington is going to cost over $4 billion. That’s a draw on capital, and of course with interest rates the way they will be, that is very substantial. The Treasurer has to look at that. I think he should seriously think about making some tradeoffs, between nuclear and the alternatives, such as solar energy and conservation measures; all of which by the way were outlined very succinctly by my leader a couple of months ago.

Mr. Hodgson: You’re very proud of him, aren’t you?

Mr. Laughren: Yes, I am, as a matter of fact. At least he is addressing the issues, which is more than I cay say for the Treasurer.

The Treasurer has not done anything in terms of stimulating conservation measures in the province of Ontario. I think that’s the responsibility of the Treasurer as much as it is of the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch) or anyone else. The Treasurer is simply not taking a lead in these critical matters.

The Ontario Research Foundation has done some work on the whole question of solar energy and some of the potential for businesses. Where is the Treasurer there? If the Minister of Industry and Tourism isn’t doing it, why isn’t the Treasurer? There’s a lot at stake here. The Ontario Research Foundation has outlined a number of business opportunities in the province of Ontario. The Treasurer is the great free enterpriser. Here’s his opportunity to stimulate small business and at the same time do some very good things in the conservation of energy.

I’ll give him some examples which he might want to talk to his friends about: Exterior coatings, solar collector glazings, solar collector sealants, collector plate materials and coating, thermal insulation materials, solar heat transfer and storage systems, frame and housing materials; these are some things which the Treasurer should be encouraging the private sector to get involved in. They’re not doing it for him. These are his friends. Talk to them; maybe he can get them to take some action.

When I look at the potential for employment in this area I think why aren’t the Treasurer and the Minister of Industry and Tourism involving themselves in this as well? According to the federal Department of Energy, Mine and Resources, strictly in the Ontario region, if we were to move towards implementation of some solar heating experiments and so forth, it would create in total, indirect and direct jobs, 1,766 jobs by 1985; 14,000 jobs by 1990; 31,000 jobs by 1995; and over 43,000 jobs by the year 2000. Not only are they jobs, they’re good jobs and they’re jobs that can conserve energy. That is something the Treasurer should look at. It also would decrease our dependence on nuclear, which in itself would he a very good move.

Those are some of the things we would like to see the Treasurer do. We’re going to support the supply motion, but there are a number of my colleagues who feel so passionately about the problems in the Ontario economy that I know they’re going to feel compelled to speak and to share their wisdom with the Treasurer.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I want to make four points. First of all, I want to say how shocked I was at the interjection and then at the point of privilege put by the Premier (Mr. Davis) in the early minutes of this debate.

As I understood the Premier, what he was saying in effect was that there had been an agreement amongst the House leaders that the motion as presented at the House leaders’ meeting had been accepted in each and every specific detail, that that had been agreed on by the House leaders, therefore my House leader was now reneging on that deal.

An hon. member: The Liberal House leader.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Our House leader; thank you. We’ll shorten it, to the House leader for the Liberal Party.

Ever since the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk has been the House leader, as far as I know he has yet to make any kind of agreement with the other House leaders without either referring it to the caucus or carrying out his function, which is, as I understand it, simply to agree on the order of business in this Legislature. As far as I’m concerned the House leaders have no mandate to be running this Legislature and debating these matters amongst themselves.

Mr. Nixon: That’s right.

Mr. T. P. Reid: That’s what this forum is for. We’ve got enough totalitarianism on that side of the House, with the Premier and the way he operates, without the three House leaders agreeing on matters that are supposed to be debated in this chamber.

[4:15]

I suppose it’s not that much out of character for the Premier, because he has a great deal of disdain for the machinations and operations of this body, but surely it’s a function of this legislative chamber to arrive at those kinds of decisions as to whether we’re in agreement with something or opposed to it. Certainly, as my House leader pointed out very clearly, he doesn’t see that as his function either. In fact, that’s what the Legislature is here for. I don’t know what the NDP position is, but I would hope they would agree that the chamber is for making--

Mr. Nixon: They have one thing one day and something else the next.

Mr. T. P. Reid:--those decisions and not the function of the House leaders. That’s the first comment that I wanted to make.

Hon. Mr. Walker: The member is not supporting his House leader.

Mr. Nixon: Certainly he is.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I certainly am. I’m supporting what he says exactly. The function of the meetings of the House leaders are to facilitate the business of the House and to make sure of the order of business.

Hon. Mr. Walker: The member is not giving him his support.

Mr. T. P. Reid: It is not to make the decisions or to vote on matters of substance. That’s what we’re here for and that’s what these debates are for. I know that’s not the Conservative view of democracy.

Hon. Mr. Pope: The member doesn’t have to lecture his House leader.

Mr. T. P. Reid: It’s a strange thing, Mr. Speaker, that in the last week I’ve heard the most anti-democratic speeches from that side. Starting with the member for Oriole (Mr. Williams)--

Mr. Nixon: He is their principal philosopher.

Mr. T. P. Reid:--in the debate on my resolution on public opinion polls, when he stood in his place and said that we’re not allowed to have this background information, we’re not allowed to have this research, we’re not allowed to have the public opinion polls because it would only confuse us and the general public if we had knowledge of what the government was doing in this chamber. Then today the Premier stands and says this little triumvirate, as he sees it, is making the decisions that this body is supposed to be arriving at.

Mr. Nixon: A serious misunderstanding on the part of the Premier.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I find it the height of arrogance for the Premier and the member for Oriole to speak in this kind of vein. The Premier has one of the most selective memories in the place on occasion--and perhaps the Treasurer too. He seemed to feel that what is happening here today. has never happened before.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Oh, no; there were times when you people have agreed before.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The Treasurer, at least, does not agree with the Premier that this is something new. The precedent was on March 18, 1976 when the House leader for the Liberal Party got up and amended the same type of supply motion for the then Treasurer, Darcy McKeough--and my, how we miss him.

Mr. Nixon: He was a good Treasurer.

Mr. T. P. Reid: He was a good Treasurer. At least he knew what was going on and how this place operated. I can’t remember him having that foot-in-mouth disease that we saw the Treasurer fumble through earlier today. Mr. McKeough said, in response to the amendment put by Mr. Nixon, and I quote him: “I have no trouble in accepting the amendment to my motion prepared by the honourable member for Haldimand--”

Mr. Nixon: Brant.

Mr. T. P. Reid:--“Brant-Oxford-Norfolk”--I wish we could do something about changing that, Mr. Speaker. So there surely is a precedent for this debate and for an amendment to be put forth. As I say, there are perhapt selective memories on that side that certainly don’t square with the practice and precedents of the House.

I’d like to make two or three remarks about some related topics in regard to the expenditure of money and the vote that is going to take place. I suppose it’s a little ironic that we probably won’t get to it this afternoon, but perhaps in the evening sitting we’re going to be dealing with amendments to the Crown Timber Act.

It’s an ironic juxtaposition in view of the fact that for the last six weeks in this Legislature we’ve been dealing with the oil problem and the lack of oil supplies in Ontario, and this evening we’re going to deal with amendments to the Crown Timber Act, the only real renewable resource that we have in the province of Ontario, a renewable resource that the Treasurer, in his former emanation as Minister of Natural Resources stated, with his usual fanfare, that he saw as the number one priority of the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Members will recall one of our previous elections when the government was feeling the heat. There was the great Brampton charter and the Premier going back and forth across the province--two for one; we were going to plant two trees for every one cut down in the province. Wasn’t that marvelous?

This Tory government, known for its great management of the economy and the resources of the province, after then about 34 years in power decided they had a problem and they were going to plant two trees for every one that was cut down for either pulp and paper or lumber.

What a con game that was. It never happened and it isn’t going to happen. The Treasurer, who was then the Minister of Natural Resources, made commitments of this kind as well, backing up the Premier.

What have we seen since? We’re hardly any farther ahead in our regeneration program than we were then. There have now been 36 years of Tory mismanagement of that renewable resource. It is becoming even more important today, not just because of its effect on the Ontario economy in terms of jobs and of exports, particularly to the United States, and the billions of dollars we gain in our balance of payments through the export of pulp and paper and lumber, but also because it is now a renewable resource in terms of energy supply.

I know in my riding people are going back to wood stoves and heating their houses with wood. Also it is important in terms of methanol which is going to be, I think, part of our salvation in this province in regard to a renewable energy supply. Yet we don’t hear anything from the government on that side. That would take some imagination and some kind of commitment and some kind of new initiative, which the government has run out of, obviously.

It’s ironic that we don’t hear anything about renewable energy supply from the forests of the province. I suppose there is a good reason: under 36 years of Tory mismanagement we’re in a crisis situation and it’s going to get worse in the next 10 or 15 years. In the years ahead we’re going to be really faced with a crisis in our forest industry.

The member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope) is spitting and spluttering like the Premier was earlier; purple paranoia is spreading through the ranks over there.

Mr. Nixon: He didn’t use to.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Yes, I recall that member wasn’t quite as keen on government policy as he seems to be now. It was a few scant months ago, if I recall correctly--

Mr. Nixon: It was an extra five days.

Mr. T. P. Reid:--that member resigned as a parliamentary assistant on the basis he didn’t like the lack of policies of the Conservative government in regard to northern Ontario.

He should be sitting over here on either this side, or if he is really desperate on that side.

Interjections.

Mr. T. P. Reid: He is just a junior Marvin Shore. He, at least, had the courage of being bought off to make the switch completely.

Hon. Mr. Pope: Who’s the Labour-Liberal?

Mr. Mackenzie: Get rid of those people.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I am concerned about people’s jobs in my riding and in northern Ontario, which he should bloody well be concerned about as well. He was, for all of about two weeks, until the Premier called him in and said, “Sonny, this isn’t the way we work in the Conservative Party. Just calm down and your reward will come to you. Patience is a virtue.”

All of a sudden we see that great conversion back to the Mickey Hennessy type of member, pounding his desk blindly without any knowledge of what’s going on in this chamber.

Hon. Mr. Pope: Two seats; that’s all you’re going to keep.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I don’t think that member will be around when they read his speeches and his press statements about how little the Conservative government was doing for northern Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Pope: You said it.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I said it, certainly; but he said it as well. I would have thought he’d be supporting exactly what I’m saying here.

Mr. Nixon: As any reasonable person would.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I would draw to your attention, and perhaps somebody could read it to the member for Cochrane South, an article in the Toronto Star on Saturday May 5, 1979 entitled Ontario Stalling as Vital Forest Devastated. The writer had the good sense to quote me rather extensively in this article.

The present Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Auld) is here, as are two former ministers of natural resources. I am sure we will have a third one before too much longer, because he will be unable to deal with the problem.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: If it weren’t for us you wouldn’t be re-elected, and you know it.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Yes. I noticed all the donations and all the people banging on doors.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Who takes all the credit? Who fried to take the credit? The member for Rainy River.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Take all the credit for what? I am not taking any credit for the way they devastated the forest. That is not my line but the headline in this particular article.

I was referring earlier to the remarks in the Brampton charter, which has got to be one of the biggest con jobs we have seen in a long time. Let me quote from this article the words of a member of the staff of the Ministry of Natural Resources:

“Today the commitment is sneered at within the province’s own bureaucracy. ‘It was a stupid statement,’ one Natural Resources official says bluntly. ‘It certainly didn’t come out of this office.’”

Well, what can we do?

I might go on with the next paragraph which I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you are particularly interested in:

“Pat Reid, Liberal MPP from Rainy River, called the province ‘almost criminally negligent’ in letting the northern forest shrink.”

I thought you would be interested in that. Another quote:

“‘We haven’t received either the money or the staff to follow through,’ acknowledges Bill Fullerton, director of the ministry’s forest resources branch.”

Mr. Nixon: Is he still working for the government

Mr. T. P. Reid: There are three of them sitting there like one large lump. There isn’t any commitment or any new thought amongst the three of them to really do very much about the dwindling forest reserves in northern Ontario.

I want to say one other thing: We are voting interim supply to the end of the year; we are giving the government carte blanche to go ahead and carry out its government programs, to spend those moneys it is supposed to on salaries of the civil service and other items.

One of those items, in which I would presume the Treasurer, I am sure in fact, will be particularly interested, is public opinion polls taken by the various government ministries. I hope the Treasurer is listening, because in the last few years, between 1975 and 1979, the Ministry of the Treasury and Economics has been one of the biggest users of public opinion polls.

Hon. Mr. Pope: Oh, oh; here we go again.

Mr. T. P. Reid: On two separate occasions they did a survey of public opinion on some economic perspectives and a survey of public opinion on various economic problems facing Ontario, at $60,000 a crack. The total cost of these polls in these years is over $1.5 million.

The Treasury is taking these surveys and these opinion polls, which I am sure the Treasurer in his wisdom huddles over and reads late at night under the sheet, because they are apparently stamped secret and not available to members of the Legislature. They are not tabled here and therefore they are also not available to the public at large.

All we can assume on this side is these public opinion polls being taken by the Conservative government, paid for with taxpayers’ money, must be such an embarrassment to the government they are afraid to table them, or secondly they are being used for partisan political purposes. If you look at some of the dates when some of these polls were taken, Mr. Speaker, you will find in many cases it wasn’t too long before certain elections took place in the province of Ontario.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Oh, Pat.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Now Margaret, don’t say, “Now Pat.”

The Premier stands in his place. He goes around the province and I must say he has become so good at it--of course if you do your same act year after year you become somewhat professional.

[4:30]

I think he reached his climax with the Brampton charter, because he could reel that one off without any grimace of sensitivity as to what he was saying, but he can stand in his place in this Legislature, he can go across the province and he can wring his hands and he can look pious, which he does amazingly well.

If Oral Roberts ever goes out of business the Premier can take his place. He talks about a freedom of information act, and all the province of Ontario is doing about this is spending millions more on a royal commission which is not needed; we’ve been through that one before.

Here is a practical demonstration of where the Premier could set an example by making these documents public. Nobody has ever been able to explain what is secret about them, why they should not be made public, except that it is “the policy of the government”; whatever that means.

Mr. Philip: He can’t even make public the forum at the inn this afternoon. He’s not even going to make public one of their surveys.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I would say to my friend who just interjected, the Premier had the nerve to stand there this afternoon in his place and talk about hypocrisy; and I say to the Treasurer the Premier knows whereof he speaks because there is nothing more hypocritical than for him to talk about a freedom of information act and then to withhold that kind of information which has been paid for at public expense.

We have rules, Mr. Speaker; as you know, I have brought to your attention that under 26(c) and 33(e) of the standing orders of this House, a compendium of information in regard to policy and legislation should be tabled with any bill or policy statement. We haven’t any of that. If they are not being used for policy and legislation, which is what the Premier is indicating and what other ministers are indicating, then what are the polls being used for? What are they being used for?

I can understand a survey in order to evaluate the effectiveness of some of the government programs, and some of the titles of those public opinion polls would indicate that that’s exactly what’s being done, but there is no reason why those should not be made public and why they should not be tabled here in the Legislature.

Mr. Hodgson: Mr. Speaker, a point of order. Is this the budget debate or are we on a resolution on supply?

Mr. Stong: You woke up. Why weren’t you here?

Mr. Hodgson: I have been listening to that crap all afternoon. The member for York Centre just came in. Where has he been all day? Did he have a case in court or something? Let’s get back to our resolution. I think the member for Rainy River is out of order.

An hon. member: One of the best speeches we’ve had in almost a week.

Mr. Eakins: Certainly, an excellent speech.

Mr. Speaker: I think we determined the nature of this debate quite early with the approbation of the Treasurer and spokesmen from all sides of the House. If I captured the mood of the House on that occasion they wanted a wide, far-ranging, unfettered debate. That is what members are getting.

Mr. Hodgson: We sure are.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I trust, Mr. Speaker, you weren’t referring to my comments as wide-ranging. I think I am zeroing right in on some of the problems that we are facing here in the province of Ontario.

Mr. Eakins: I guess the truth hurts, eh?

Mr. T. P. Reid: However, I say with regret the government--

Mr. Hodgson: The same old speech he gave 10 years ago.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I am going to keep making the same speech until this government gets a little injection of the democratic spirit.

Mr. Hodgson: Just keep making it; the member will never be on this side of the House in order to make those kinds of speeches.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I can say to the honourable member, Mr. Speaker, that once the arrogance and the dictatorial approach of the Premier and the Conservative Party gets out to the public, and it is getting there, then those people over there are going to be sitting over here, but in very few numbers, because the people want to know what is being done with their money. They are entitled to know what is being done with the taxpayers’ moneys that is being spent on these public opinion polls in particular.

I say with regret the last speaker for the NDP indicated his party was going to support this supply motion. I say after the week I have spent in here--this last week particularly, given my resolution on the public opinion polls which the government wouldn’t allow even to come to a debate, and with the two stooges they had making those speeches of the most anti-democratic nature I have heard in a long time, almost since the police bill, in this place, speeches I just cannot accept--I say that I am not willing to vote more money or interim supply to the government to allow it to continue in this undemocratic arrogant fashion, and I for one will not support the motion.

Mr. W. Newman: Pat, you have been here too long.

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I want to say at the outset there would have been problems in my caucus had there been any attempt by our House leaders to muzzle us in this particular debate.

When I look at the business for Tuesday, October 30, and see “Resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government,” and when I realize we are talking on a motion of supply and government spending, then I think probably all of us, including this side of the House, have been derelict in not being a little more specific or a little harder hitting in terms of just exactly how the government of the province of Ontario is spending our money.

I think there are some priorities that are away out of order and in a very short period of time--I am not going to go very long--I want to express to this House the frustrations I am having in terms of my work as an ordinary member of the Legislature and as a constituency worker, where we do our darndest to serve the people who come to us.

I am faced with a couple of things. Without going into great detail, let me give two examples of either expenditures or potential expenditures or expenditures that we are starting on as a result really of government policy and government priorities. My colleague, the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), mentioned briefly the expenditures that we are now into in terms of the Darlington operation, another major nuclear plant in the province of Ontario, and I am not yet clear in my own mind as to when and if that particular plant is needed. I do know that we are sitting right now with a surplus of somewhere around 18 per cent, and that’s over peak periods, in terms of electricity in the province of Ontario.

I also know that when we finish the second phase of Darlington and Bruce we will have a potential 60 or 70 per cent over-capacity; and that’s based on the kind of growth, which has dropped sharply, that we have in the province of Ontario now. So we are already digging out and have a huge mound of earth on which they have spent some money trying to landscape a little bit out at Darlington for another plant on top of that, which the most conservative estimates seem to indicate we don’t need until late in the 1990s, and what may very well be reliable estimates put away beyond the year 2000.

Without an approval, without a licence, we have already signed more than half a billion dollars, $500 million, in contracts for that plant; and we are facing, as I say, if we go ahead with it, $5 billion. I suspect it will be more but that’s the estimate now. What could we do with that money, and why is that money going into that kind of a project when we are as uncertain as we are in the needs for that project?

Let me back down from that major project in terms of government expenditures to a more minor one, but still a major amount of money in my own riding. We are having one hell of a fight in the Hamilton area over the need or lack of a need of a major six-lane freeway down the Red Hill Creek valley. While every developer that I know and the trust and insurance companies seem to want it--they are the ones who presented most of the briefs in favour of it to regional council--the people who live not only along the route but for a good many blocks on either side in those wards, and I think a majority of them in the rest of the city, don’t want it and they are mobilizing effectively, and they are speaking from the heart as ordinary people, against it.

If we take the favoured route, the one the ministry wants--and the transportation ministry hasn’t been too silent on this--the one the planners want in the city, the regional council, we find that the cost of that, about three-quarters of which is going to be borne by this provincial government, is somewhere between $80 million and $100 million. We are looking at a $60 million to $80 million cost for that freeway, which you can argue very strongly against on economic grounds, strictly apart from the environmental grounds.

One of the big arguments they are giving us is that it is to pour cars down into the heart of the City for 28,000 new jobs in the very core of the city and 12,500 new jobs on Stelco and Dofasco property. Nobody can tell me where those jobs are going to appear on those properties.

We are probably going to have maybe an extra 3,000 or 4,000 jobs in the heart of the city. We are probably come to have jobs cut with automation in those plants with some of the new plans they have on the drawing board now, or at least cut equally in ratio to the expanded work force there may be with some of the additions to the mills, but we are getting crappy arguments in terms of the need for that particular expenditure on that particular road. People are coming to me in my constituency office, and asking why.

We are spending $5 billion on Darlington when we don’t know if we need it. We certainly don’t need it for a considerable period of time; we are not sure when we are going to need it as yet. And why spend $60 million or $80 million on a six-lane freeway down the last greenbelt in the east end of the city that the people don’t want; and also when there is some serious question as to the economic judgement in that kind of a decision or that kind of a route?

People come into my office and say to me, “Mr. Mackenzie, what’s wrong with the expenditures of this government?” This lady says to me, “Why don’t you call a press conference and bring me down to Toronto to tell the ministry what’s happening to me? Why don’t you do something?”

I want you to know, Mr. Speaker, that I have been doing something. I have been writing to the minister until I am sick of writing to him.

I have a situation involving Mrs. Teresa DiMascio, Ottawa Street apartments in Hamilton, who receives FBA, GAINS allowance and CPP. Her total income right now is $297 a month. Every time the CPP portion goes up her Ontario share comes down, so she doesn’t even keep up with the cost of living.

What is Mrs. DiMascio trying to live in and live on and what does she have? This is a case where she would love to come before this House and stand in my chair with this information. The doctor tells her, and has written me a letter to that effect, that she is on a special diet. She is supposed to have fish two times a day. She doesn’t have enough money to purchase the proper foods for her medical condition.

She is paying $177 a month in rent. To illustrate how demeaning that is to people, when she adds up her necessary costs, she has got about $90 left per month for food and clothing. She is a bit of an institution in the Hamilton Centre shopping area because probably her only enjoyment in life is walking almost every day through that centre. All of the merchants know her, and I think they all respect her for her fight for the specials on at the supermarket or the food that is a little old.

She has had to remove the cable from her television set. She has had to remove her phone. Her entertainment is nil. She comes to me and says: “What are they doing to me? Why don’t they see the circumstance I am in?” I say to her: “Mrs. DiMascio, there is one thing we can do for you. We could probably get you into a seniors’ apartment”--she happens to be 63 right now--“at a much lower rate.” She says to me--and I admire her will to fight this long--“For 14 years bnI have lived where I have. I know the people on the rounds I make every day through the centre. I don’t want to move out of the apartment I have. I don’t want to move out of it to another part of the city, even if it meant that I could get my rent for $60 or $70 or $80 or $90, or whatever I might end up with on a subsidized rent, and have a few extra bucks to spend.” But she is still not going to have enough for a decent living.

I ran into a lady in my office just the other day who was 58 years old and lived alone. With CPP at $131 and unemployable FBA benefits of $58.82, she had an approximate total income of $190 a month. Her rent is $47 as we do have her in subsidized housing. Her telephone costs her $8.03. She has kept it up until now, but she is now considering taking it out. Her usual expenses are $55. That leaves her a total of about $135 on a 30-day month. She has worked it out to $4.50 per day. You should see the budget that she has brought into our office--$4.50 per day to feed and clothe herself. She buys five tickets for $1 for transportation, and that cuts into it. She is in the same boat. Every time there is a CPP increase her Ontario share goes down.

[4:45]

What are these people purchasing? What are they doing in terms of stimulating our economy, and how are we treating them? Does this government have no priority in terms of its expenditures?

There was one other case I was going to use but I’ll drop it because there are two or three other points I want to make.

I wrote to the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Norton) on June 25, 1978. He said, “In reply to your letter re regular cost-of-living increases to people on GAINS, it is a federal requirement that increases in CPP pensions must be reduced dollar-for-dollar from provincial social assistance payments. It has been a matter of considerable concern but to date we have been unable to resolve the problem with federal authorities.”

I think it’s the weakest excuse I’ve heard. Nobody can tell me there are not means to get around that. But he now has some friends in Ottawa. In terms of his priorities and spending policies what is he going to do about somebody in that position?

He only needs to look, if he has them coming to his office, at some of the problems of the blind, of epileptics trying to find employment, of people who are suffering, and people from the Workmen’s Compensation Board. What do you say to a fellow who worries about his house, who runs into all of the problems of establishing a decent pension level?

Take a person who has worked as an auto mechanic, made reasonably good money, has a family, is trying to meet the payments still owing on his house--he’s no longer a youngster; he is in his 50s--and he has an accident that really damages his hand. He spends eight months in hospital on therapy as they try to repair him. He finally goes back to work, but the company says he can no longer work; and he can’t. On a piecework basis he couldn’t make anything, so they put him on a lower hourly rate.

For a period of time he was able to get an income supplement which amounted to $153 every two weeks on top of $400 some-odd income per month. He was on that for a number of months. He was working 16 hours as a mechanic, even though he can’t do the piecework and earn the rate. They decided he should no longer be entitled to the almost $300-a-month income supplement. They finally established a two per cent disability for him. It’s now under appeal, but he’s gone through some agony in the meantime and he is going through it right now.

On top of the 16 hours a week he’s getting from the firm he used to work with, he’s now getting $20 a month. Add that $20 a month to the 16 hours a week work and he finds, as he comes into my office, that he can’t meet the payments. He has problems with the kids, he has problems in holding the family together; the man is desperate.

Our priorities in this province are adding to situations like that. I really wonder where our spending priorities are. There’s something haywire in ordinary decent issues, not in philosophy or ideology at all, as I see it. Something has to be done to change our direction.

Why is it that we’ve had three years of pretty savage and severe restraints on the 51 children’s aid societies in the province?

We have a number of problems with abused children and difficult-to-handle youth. But still we had appeals from the 51 agencies on their allotment a year ago. Why are we facing 33 appeals, and the threat by at least three agencies to surrender their charters in the field of children’s aid funding and financing? What’s happening to the people they’re trying to service?

Why do we have a lady from the Council of Women in Hamilton, who met with some members of this House yesterday, telling us her group was just not accepting referrals to their children’s aid society unless it was literally a matter of life and death? Who can be proud of a situation in this province that has reached that stage in terms of service to people? Why don’t we see action from this government when we ask questions about the increased interest rate? What is going to happen to the people?

A lot of Ontario Housing units over the last five years have been sold to some of the tenants. Most of them carry mortgages that seem to be in the eight per cent or eight and three quarter per cent interest range. They are up for renegotiation; they are up for change in 1980 to cover a period of time. How are they going to afford it? I know some of them and I helped some them; I sent them to various agencies, and lending agencies. How are they going to scrape together the additional payments when they are right on the border line now? These are people like some of the people I have been talking about.

How do we explain the situation to people? A young couple, perhaps both of them working--and that’s of course the danger--they may be making a fair combined wage in one of the plants--may look at a house in the conventional market today. One year ago, October 1978, to finance a $60,000 house they needed $567.24 a month, based on 25 per cent of their total income with a 10 and three-quarter per cent mortgage. An annual income of $27,227.52 was needed to maintain that payment. One year later, in October 1979, on a 14 and three quarter per cent mortgage that same couple does not need $567 a month but $736.82, and an income of not $27,000 but $35,367.36. Where does that money come from? That’s a $60,000 home based on 25 per cent of income.

Members can wave their hands over there all they want. If that extra money has to go into that kind of situation--just halve it or cut it down in terms of some of the Ontario Housing units, the poor people’s housing--that money is also not available for purchase of manufactured goods and services, or the odd vacation or a number of other things. What does that do to the economy in terms of the gearing down we are going to see, and the increased unemployment as people can’t purchase the goods or services they need.

What do we tell people in terms of safety and health in the province of Ontario? This also deals with the kind of costs we are going to have in terms of disabilities, and the kinds of expenditures that might have to be made in terms of a safe work place. We have a situation which involves the 4,000 coke oven workers across Ontario. We have established in the case of Dofasco that lung cancer is one of the legacies from working in those coke ovens.

In response to the appeal of those who worked hard to dig up the information, John Lennie and Bill West of Local 1005 as one example, they got a letter, dated April 24, 1979 from the Premier of the province--I think William Davis is the Premier of the province--which among other things, in dealing with their plea for standards to be set--standards which are already set in the United States but have been challenged for three years through the courts and upheld in terms of coke oven workers--the second last paragraph of that letter says: “I understand from Dr. Elgie that he hopes to be in a position to outline a strategy for the control of exposure to coke oven emissions before the end of the summer.”

There is another letter which was sent to the Premier. I’m sure he has it; I see him in the House. It is dated October 24 and asks him what happened to this commitment to give us some standards to protect the safety and health of those workers. It asks him to see to it so that they remain capable and effective participants in the work force and maintain their earning power so they can buy some of the goods and services we want to produce, and that provide the jobs in Ontario.

In terms of expenditure, I wonder at the $1 million to $2 million we spent in the Fleck situation a little more than a year ago. I wonder at the 92 Ontario Provincial Police officers who were on the picket line two days ago in the Radio Shack strike. I wonder at the number of people we have involved and the kind of defiance, as I see it, of the Labour Relations Act in this province in a number of fights by workers in Ontario to achieve first contracts and to achieve some union security provisions so they can’t be undermined, cut out and decertified a year down the road.

How do we justify management that ignores orders--25 specific charges, in the case of Radio Shack, brought ‘before the Ontario Labour Relations Board--and seems to do it with impunity? Why do we have the disputes that are burgeoning right across the province of Ontario in the labour relations field and that have a very definite effect on the kind of attitude of the workers, their ‘belief in the system, their belief in the fairness and justice of the law, and that certainly lead to disruptions and problems in the work place? How do we expect we’re going to sell this province’s ability to produce when these kinds of situations are allowed to develop and to undermine the respect for the law in Ontario?

I suspect that close to a third of the most serious labour disputes in Ontario centre on union security and first agreements, and neither of those issues are ones that are going to cost this government very much. It might cost a few additional dollars in wages to one of the managements involved, most of which would be spent by those workers; but I see no great cost in either of those to this government, and I see a solution to a heck of a lot of the labour unrest in Ontario.

Why do we allow that kind of a situation to develop and exist in Ontario? Why are we ourselves, either by our lack of very simple, decent pieces of legislation or by our refusal to enforce legislation already on the books, allowing this kind of a situation to develop?

When people come into my office and ask some of the questions I’ve raised here today I have a tough time, unless I’m totally partisan. While I have no hesitation about being partisan that’s not the way you want to respond to somebody who has a serious personal problem they’re really asking for some help with. I have to relate it back. I know what it is in my own mind: it’s how I can relate it back, to the people who come and see me, to the kinds of policies and the kinds of priorities this government has. Something is sadly out of whack. I would hope we don’t just blindly accept a motion to extend supply to this government again at any time in the future, and that we do raise the questions that are bothering all of us on the kinds of priorities in spending that are affecting people.

Maybe the government is right. Maybe their ideas of the priorities are correct. I don’t happen to think so. I would be sadly remiss in my responsibilities if I didn’t raise them; raise them as I see them, and raise them as the people who come to see me with their problems raise them with me. I think there is going to have to be some real honest and sincere debate on where our priorities are going, and not just shouting back and forth that you’re crazy or we’re crazy in this deal. Something is wrong; something is hurting people in this province and we’re not responding to it.

As my colleague has said, we probably will approve the money. I gather it’s a formality. I still don’t understand everything that goes on in this House, but I have some serious doubts about the spending policies of the government of Ontario.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I thought I might just as well contribute something, if that’s the correct word, seeing as how a number of the other members have become so involved in this debate. I don’t apologize for that. I look hack a couple of hours or so and think maybe Mr. Speaker’s initial judgement in regard to the parameters of this particular debate may have some relevance.

I say that in that I think it was his intention to try to curtail, or keep on track to some degree at least, of the extent and scope of this debate to extend supply until December 31. I think the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) was absolutely correct, however, in saying it’s a matter of relevance for this assembly, that it wasn’t simply a question of debating a date. It’s a matter of bringing before this House the whole question of government spending so that this House at least participates in terms of whether or not supply is granted so that the government can carry on.

[5:00]

At first, I thought maybe there was some thought of creating an issue. In hearing some of the debate I thought maybe there was some preparation for an election.

Mr. Kerrio: Perish the thought.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I personally wouldn’t mind that either.

Mr. Kerrio: Does the member mean he’s happy with that?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: No, I would disagree, because I frankly feel that minority government is a very bad thing. If this House was to come down, if the opposition was to bring it down and the people were to judge, then I would surmise there would be a majority on this side of the House.

Mr. Mancini: We would want to know if the member is running again. Is he running again?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: What I did regret very much--

Mr. Kerrio: I think Joe Clark’s got a point.

I don’t know whether we’d want it right now. It was a dastardly change.

Mr. Mancini: It was the Premier’s fault.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: One at a time and I’ll respond to the members one at a time; none of this gang warfare.

Mr. Eakins: We want to know if the member is running again. Is he running again?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I learned something when I went to school; admit nothing, deny everything and demand the truth. That’s a pretty fair principle.

Mr. T. P. Rcid: The member wouldn’t be any good over here because he would never get the truth.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Over there.

Before being interrupted I was going to comment on some of the remarks from the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid), because I was sincerely disappointed that he would attack personalities in this House. In retrospect, he probably didn’t mean it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: How can the member speak so highly of him?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: He probably didn’t mean to berate my seatmate here, the member for Fort William (Mr. Henneasy).

Mr. Laughren: I think he did.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: If he did I think he must have spoken before he thought--

Mr. Laughren: He thought about it.

Mr. J. A. Taylor:--because I don’t think those remarks were either accurate, kind or parliamentary.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Has the member ever been in committee with the member for Fort William?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: They were certainly unnecessary. I would remind the member that his party solicited the member for Fort William to run for his party prior to the last election. The member might just reflect on that for a moment as well,

Mr. Mancini: We’d like to have this member too.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: The member’s party would like to have me? It’s nice to feel wanted. I don’t always feel that way, but it’s nice.

Mr. Kerrio: But it would be a Liberal majority.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Has the member been knocked in the falls lately?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t want to extend this debate unnecessarily, but I can’t fail but make some comments in regard to the concerns expressed by the members of the New Democratic Party.

Mr. Mancini: I always thought that was the minister’s job.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I gather that Hansard is picking up all the repartee and the by-play so I’ll just continue.

It’s very interesting, Mr. Speaker, the solution that the New Democrats seem to have to everything is to spend more.

Mr. Laughren: It helps the economy.

Mr. Kerrio: They think what great spenders are listening.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: If there is ever an answer to any particular problem in this province or this country the answer is to increase supply, not to shrink supply.

Mr. Laughren: The member wasn’t listening.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: They are not asking for accountability and credibility in government spending, they are not looking for that.

Mr. Laughren: The member wasn’t listening.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: They have the estimates where they can pursue that ad infinitum, which they do without effect. What they are saying is that government should be spending more. And when we hear from the individual members of that particular party--and I know that individually they are nice guys; I love them; they are great, sincere, hardworking, even the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds).

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: They are hardworking, sensitive people who are not there to champion the weak and the oppressed. I congratulate them for that. That’s all very well, but the panacea is not to keep spending public funds.

Mr. Laughren: Why don’t you listen sometimes?.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I’ve listened very carefully to what the member for Nickel Belt has said and I’ve looked at his philosophy of evolution in terms of government intrusion more and more into the marketplace and into the productive capacity of this province and this country.

Mr. Laughren: Rebuild it.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: The concept of joint venture and eventual government takeover.

Mr. Laughren: Not necessarily.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Certainly; the continued spending of funds.

Mr. Laughren: Look what’s happening now.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: “What is happening now?” the member asks. Mr. Speaker, may I just say this to you that what has been happening is that this type of philosophy has developed an escalating expectation on the part of the public to consume more and more. There’s just no question about the demands that are made.

Mr. Laughren: The poor are greedy.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I would suggest that we’re just now entering the economic wringer.

Mr. Laughren: What do you mean by that?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: We’ve hardly started to squeeze the lemon and a lot of people are going to suffer. They can talk as they will about high interest rates, but they’re going to see them higher, if anything.

Mr. Mancini: It’s shameful.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Sure it’s shameful, but they’re a manifestation of a sick economy. Let’s put our economy in Ontario in relation to the economy of Canada and the economies of other nations.

Mr. Mancini: You don’t fix the economy by squeezing working people, that’s nonsense.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: We cannot insulate ourselves from international forces. We cannot keep consuming and maintain a high artificial standard of living. Look at our dollar. It has shrunk, and it keeps shrinking in real terms. We only look at it in terms of the US dollar. It’s not in a very happy relationship now; and on an international scale that dollar is certainly not sanforized and it’s very, very small.

We’re going to have high interest rates because our dollar is depreciating. We can’t keep printing more money, which has been what the federal government has been doing. It’s taken a number of years to get us into this mess, but we’re in it and we’re going to have to go through it.

Of course that means if the dollar isn’t very strong and if it’s a depreciating dollar, then we’re not going to get low interest rates, no doubt about that. We’re all going to have to suffer together. We cannot take one segment of society--

Mr. Laughren: Some more than others.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Yes, some more than others. I say that in response to the member for Nickel Belt, because there are some segments of our system that are stronger than others. The working man who has the clout of a strong union with him is able to withstand some of these economic pressures longer because he can maintain his purchasing power that much longer. But the size of the economic pie is not increasing, which means that somebody else has to suffer because he is getting less for one reason or another. Right now that reason is inflation. The member’s colleagues on that side then bring in a shopping list of individuals with names, addresses and complaints. I sympathize with those individual people because they don’t have the clout, they don’t have, the bargaining power.

Mr. Laughren: They don’t want your sympathy.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I’m not giving you my sympathy, my friend, I’m giving my heartfelt sympathy to the poor individuals in this province who don’t have the economic clout--

Mr. Laughren: They don’t want your gratuitous sympathy.

Mr. J.’ A. Taylor:--who have to suffer because they’re on fixed incomes and pensions. They’re the people I’m interested in.

Mr. Laughren: When you were a minister you did nothing for them. What a hypocrite you are. Why don’t you apologize?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I won’t keep responding to the member because he is becoming meaningless and irrelevant. When I was a minister, my friend, I was charged with the responsibility of implementing a restraint program which in my estimation should have been implemented right across this country with more consistency and more conviction.

Mr. Laughren: I need your sympathy.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: If it had maybe we wouldn’t be in as difficult a position today.

Mr. Laughren: Crocodile tears.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: But the socialists over there, the revisionists, and that’s what they are because I see what their end goal is, to take over the means of production. I see some of that in their party. They laugh, but they know what I mean because they have others and they have division in their ranks. I can see what they are aiming for, but what they are going to do is tear this country apart with their contradictions.

Mr. Laughren: I represent the strengthened centre.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I don’t know what strength the member might have.

I didn’t hear the entire phrase, Mr. Speaker. I am glad you now grace that chair. I am sure you will ensure there is order and fewer interjections.

Mr. Laughren: You wouldn’t be happy if there weren’t any interjections.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I say that with tongue in cheek, because I am not particularly concerned about the repartee from that side of the House, but I am concerned, Mr. Speaker, in addressing you, and I do that.

Mr. Mancini: Where’s your plaid jacket?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: What we have today in the guise of a resolution to extend interim supply is an opportunity to open a very wide-ranging debate which really is not making any contribution to the substance of the motion.

Mr. Laughren: That’s because your mind is closed.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I started off on that theme when you were not occupying the chair, Mr. Speaker, I propose now to close on that theme. I felt you had a feeling that unless you kept this debate within fairly defined parameters it would go astray.

Mr. Laughren: You are contributing to it.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: It would become another debate on the speech from the throne or on the budget without too much relevance, especially when the leader of the Liberal Party was interested in demonstrating the relevance of this chamber.

Mr. Laughren: Norm Sterling for minister without portfolio.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I thought he would be really contradicting himself, and we would be contributing to that contradiction if we didn’t try to keep the debate within some reasonable parameter.

Therefore I didn’t want to unnecessarily extend the debate. I rose mainly to see if, with some pleading, I could entice some of the members of the opposition not to parade all of their forces, one by one, so as to unnecessarily extend the debate.

I couldn’t fail to point out to the members of the New Democratic Party that it wasn’t a time to parade before this particular chamber the individual plights of constituents, no matter how important they may be. I certainly don’t underestimate the importance of those individual problems, but I didn’t think this House was going to contribute to their resolution.

Mr. Kerrio: Jim, I am going to move another amendment.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I also fail to see how a debate on high interest rates is going to make any relevant contribution to this particular motion.

[5:15]

Mr. Laughren: What is your view of the political process? This is a legitimate forum here.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I did initially demonstrate, Mr. Speaker, in response to the interjection, that this forum is a legitimate forum. Of course it is a legitimate forum and it is a relevant forum, and the Leader of the Opposition was technically correct in terms of saying here the substance of the motion is one of voting interim supply, and therefore the subject matter certainly could mandate a discussion of the spending of this government. That is not irrelevant.

Mr. Laughren: So what is your point?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: My point simply is that to engage in a wide-ranging debate about everything contributes nothing.

Mr. Laughren: Now you are depicting yourself.

Mr. Bradley: Here is my favourite Tory.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: It was merely a demonstration of some electioneering, some derision from the benches opposite.

Mr. Mancini: And deservedly so.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I thought it was not making any particular contribution to this debate.

Mr. Laughren: Oh that hurts, that hurts.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: That should hurt, because a man in the honourable member’s position and a man with his background and education should know better, so it should hurt him. He should feel smaller than he actually is.

Mr. Mancini: That’s pretty small.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I’m not trying to inject contention. I am simply saying it is a quarter past five--

Mr. Laughren: You’re invited to join the Toronto police force, time to vote.

Mr. J. A. Taylor:--I would ask the members of this chamber to get as quickly as possible to the vote so that we can either pass the motion or otherwise, and I surmise from what has been said that everyone is in agreement with the motion, so we can get on to the legitimate business of the Legislature.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I would like to reply to the government motion by the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) concerning voting extension of supply until December 31.

I listened very carefully to the member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. J. A. Taylor), as I always do, because I know he is one of the members on that side of the House who will more often than not speak freely and without any worry as to what type of reprimand he may receive from the party hierarchy.

Mr. J. Johnson: That’s more than you can say.

Mr. Mancini: He usually speaks very freely and expresses his true concern. But I cannot understand why today, when we are voting for the extension of supply, he would want to curtail arguments which members felt it would be necessary to bring before the House.

Mr. Bradley: Bud Gregory’s cracking the whip.

Mr. Mancini: There are many things members can speak about. There are many things under the issue of supply. This deals with the whole monetary policy of that government that has been there for 37 long years.

Mr. Eaton: It will be here a lot longer too.

Mr. Laughren: Too many.

Mr. Mancini: So if we have problems in the Ontario economy, the problem lies there with the government that has been in control of the purse strings.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Oh stand up, Remo. Get up off your knees.

Mr. Kerrio: Tory times are tough times.

Mr. Mancini: In the past they have been able very craftily to confuse the people of Ontario by shifting some of the blame to a government in Ottawa which was not of their political party. We have seen, since the last election, how really inept this government is. They can’t shift the blame, because their friends up there won’t allow them to and they are unable to, because when they look bad, this government looks bad.

We have a Treasurer today who won’t even receive payments from the federal government that we are entitled to. He told the Legislature today that we are entitled to some $400 million. He won’t even receive those payments that Ontario tax-paying citizens have paid through their own hard work and efforts. At least when Darcy McKeough was here, whether we agreed with his policy or not, we got a picture of his economic philosophy. But this Treasurer has no picture of any type of economic philosophy at all. He’s like a rowboat in the Ocean.

Mr. Bradley: Where’s Darcy McKeough when we need him?

An hon. member: His pictures are the abstract.

Mr. Mancini: Let’s talk about supply. Let’s talk about their handling of the government economy. Ever since the member for Brampton (Mr. Davis) became the Premier in 1971, we have had nothing but large deficit piled on top of large deficit, billion-dollar deficit upon billion-dollar deficit. I know the member for Prince Edward-Lennox has to cringe in his seat when he sees the reports of the Treasurer which reveal billion-dollar deficit upon billion-dollar deficit. There was no economic control there in the past few years and there’s very little now.

We have heard all kinds of statements from this government. Every year they upset the province’s civil servants by saying they are going to cut back on the civil service. Every civil servant in the province gets nervous. Then at the end of the year when we look at the actual amount of civil servants in Ontario’s employment, it’s the same or greater. Why do they bother getting all the civil servants upset if they do not mean to take any action? If they don’t really mean to do anything, why disrupt the work of the civil servants?

Mr. Eaton: Get your facts straight.

Mr. Mancini: It’s a charade; that’s what it is. It’s a charade because they have the province’s economy upside down and they want somehow to deceive the people of Ontario. They want them to think they are taking some type of corrective action. They are taking no corrective action at all. Their priorities are confused.

Mr. Warner: They’re doing absolutely nothing.

Mr. Bradley: They’re just coasting along over there.

Mr. Kerrio: Can’t you feel the water up around your ankles?

Mr. Mancini: After 37 years, the government is just hobbling along from one question period to another.

Mr. Bradley: You have reached the pinnacle of arrogance over there.

Mr. Eaton: We’re still leaving you behind.

Mr. Mancini: This government has never been concerned with supply. It has never been concerned with money. I remember the 1975 election, when they unashamedly spent $1 billion to get re-elected with a minority government. They were offering all kinds of programs--a $1,500-home ownership grant, a sales tax reduction, money to people who bought new cars and other programs. They unashamedly wasted $1 billion. Today, with interest rates on mortgages approaching 15 per cent and the average working man not being able to afford to have this type of mortgage at that kind of rate, when I asked the Premier of this province if he was prepared to assist a person who wanted to buy and own a home--he rose, buttoned his jacket, clasped his hands and said the federal government is taking care of this problem. This government helped elect a bunch of loan sharks in Ottawa. That’s what it has done. it is very evident to anyone who watches the proceedings of the House on a daily basis, or to anyone who would take time to read Hansard on a daily basis, that this government is not concerned with supply. They have no idea where the Ontario economy is going. They either don’t have competent economists or don’t know how to hire competent economists. They are struggling from one question period to another. They ought to be ashamed at the way they have allowed royal commissions to spend millions of dollars. They have got their priorities upside down.

Mr. Bradley: Remember Judy LaMarsh.

Mr. Mancini: They say there is no money to assist people to obtain mortgages when the mortgage rate is at 15 per cent; yet there is all kinds of money to pay royal commissions millions of dollars. We read the reports of the provincial auditor. We know exactly what he said. And we have a Chairman of Management Board of Cabinet (Mr. McCague) whose profile is so low one doesn’t even know if he is in the House or not.

Mr. Warner: Who is he, anyway?

Mr. Mancini: Yes. Who is the chairman of the management board?

Interjections.

Mr. Mancini: What type of control does he exercise over the provincial economy?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let’s have some order.

Mr. Kerrio: Darcy knew what was happening.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Mancini: The government has probably already spent the money it is asking us to allow it to spend; so we are really going through some motions here this afternoon. But we just wanted to take this time out to let the government know--

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Did you forget what you were going to say?

Mr. Mancini: No, no. I didn’t forget. I just wanted your attention. I wanted the attention of the member for Mississauga East, the Minister without Portfolio, who is getting extra money, paid for by the taxpayers of Ontario.

Interjections.

Mr. Mancini: He doesn’t even know what his job is. He is probably going to get some special job every now and then from the Premier. He probably gets driven around in a nice blue Chrysler, with a chauffeur with a nice round hat, who says, “Where would you like to go now, Mr. Minister?”

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Envy will get you nowhere.

Mr. Mancini: And he says, “Let’s go to Winston’s. I have some people waiting there. We will discuss the problems of the economy of this province.” I am sure he could well understand the problems of the ordinary working man at Winston’s.

We just want to bring to the attention of the Minister without Portfolio, whatever his job is, that the hard-working people of Ontario now realize that, after 37 uninterrupted years of rule, the government has been able for some time to deflect and hide many of its economic mistakes. But those days are gone. The government in Ottawa has changed. The provincial government has its Tory friends there now. They are not going to accept responsibility for the Treasurer’s blunders. If we have $400 million coming, I suggest we accept it.

I think I have got on the record pretty well everything I wanted to say in this debate. I think I am pretty well satisfied. Thank you.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in this well-thought-out, reasonable debate; I am sure the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) has, as he said, learned greatly from the wisdom of the members on this side of the House. Perhaps I may add a little to that.

It is ironic this debate should be taking place on the day the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Ministry of Energy are finally getting together behind closed doors to look at the link between transportation and energy.

Mr. Bradley: More secrecy.

Mr. Philip: One would have thought if the Ministry of Transportation and Communication and the Ministry of Energy had not discovered this link, the Treasurer would have pointed it out to them.

The very fact that a member of the press was turned away today from this seminar of public employees--turned away with the words, “We also refused the attendance of the NDP transportation critic”--is merely one more indication that this government is paranoid about its activities in the field of energy. It is paranoid about sharing information with members of the opposition.

Mr. Warner: It should be.

[5:30]

Mr. Philip: I was somewhat amused that the Conservative member for York West (Mr. Leluk) felt he or his ghost writer, whichever the case may be, had to write to the Etobicoke newspaper to assure the readers that this government had an energy policy and that the energy policy was no secret. Later in the letter he rationalizes the lack of policy by stating that “in the final analysis the people who have the final word is the federal government.” So we change federal governments but still the members on that side of the House, the government, blame Ottawa for the catastrophe that they’ve created in energy.

Mr. Speaker, I point out to the Treasurer that the report of the Deputy Premier of Ontario and Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch) states: “Today Canada imports close to 20 per cent of its crude oil supplies. By 1990, unless vigorous steps are taken, it is projected that Canada will need to import about 40 per cent of these requirements.”

It goes on to state, under the title of Framework for Crude Oil Self-Sufficiency by 1995: “There are three ways to achieve self-sufficiency in crude oil. These are: to increase supply mainly through oil sands and heavy oil production, and enhanced recovery of frontier and off-shore resources; to reduce oil requirements by substitution of other fuels, for example, natural gas, electricity, coal, energy from waste materials renewables”; and lastly, “to reduce crude oil consumption through conservation.”

Two out of three of these objectives are clearly within provincial jurisdiction; yet where has this government shown any leadership to date in this regard?

Mr. Bradley: No place.

Mr. Philip: Transportation is a major user of energy; yet when one reads the transportation journals, one reads that very little--in fact, nothing--is being done in transportation energy research as a result of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications of this province.

Perhaps this is why the London Free Press reporter was denied entry to today’s seminar at the Valhalla Inn. The minister realized how little has been done and how apparent that would be to the press as well as to the opposition.

Indeed, if one looks at the agenda for the seminar today, one sees that it’s a very reactive agenda rather than an active agenda. I look down at some of the notes I received from the reporter who was able to get hold of an agenda before he was forced to leave, and I see that it deals with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications seminar at the Valhalla Inn, joint meeting on energy. It goes on to say: “Municipal Energy Management, Conservation in Passenger Transportation Sector, US Conservation, The City of Washington Contingency Plan, Bill C-42” and so on.

What we have here is a reactive kind of situation. The government has not acted and therefore it must now meet a crisis. Indeed, to make matters worse, the next secret seminar will deal with van pooling.

Our public servants, for whom we are voting public funds today, will be spending their time dealing with ideas that Doug Moffatt and I shared with the minister in 1975 when he and I were both first elected to the House. It has taken four years for the Minister of Transportation and Communications to finally learn that he should hold a seminar on some of the things we were pointing out to him at that time. Little wonder he’s so insecure that he has to hold it behind closed doors.

Bus and Truck Transport magazine has documented how the government uses tax dollars on pie-in-the-sky research with the Urban Transportation Development Corporation. Likewise, the Liberal transportation critic and myself have documented this over and over again.

We can contrast that with the federal republic of Germany, which is spending $50 million per year on hydrogen research and transportation. This government is not alone in this. While certain progressive cites in the United States are moving in the direction of hydrogen experimentation, the US federal government is doing virtually nothing. A mere $250,000 is being spent by the US federal government as compared to $50 million per year by a progressive government in Germany, a government that is so progressive that it is not controlled or influenced by the oil lobby as in Washington.

This government seems to be more comfortable with the US position. This is understandable when we remember the position of this government during the Isbister commission hearings and when we remember we could not expect anything different.

Fort Collins, a city of 70,000 in Colorado, has been working with the Daimler-Benz corporation in Germany on a hydrogen-powered bus. Daimler-Benz corporation in Stuttgart, Germany, has already developed a hydrogen bus and is so far along as to have entered into contracts with the city of Berlin for delivery in 1981. The federal republic of Germany, in spending $50 million a year on hydrogen research, realizes what the projections are in terms of technology in the future. This government prefers to react rather than to act.

Likewise, American cities are at least trying this technology, even though their federal government may be doing very little about it. We in this province, seem to be keeping our heads in the sand as the Premier shadow-boxes with the Premier of Alberta.

John Arnold, city manager of Fort Collins, has pointed out in an article in Urban Transit Abroad, published by the Council for International Urban Liaison in Washington, that one of the side lines developed by Daimler-Benz may well become the most important end product of their hydrogen research. They are working on a totally integrated home and car system that allows refuelling of a hydrogen-powered car by using the heat generated in the home. No fossil fuels are involved, and the cars, in effect, are fuelled by electricity.

In contrast to this, we only need to look at page 13 of the government’s publication, Energy Security for the ‘80s. There we notice the projection for use of energy from hydrogen by 1995 is absolutely zero. The Canadian transportation journals recognize the value of hydrogen technology. I won’t quote to the Treasurer or to the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) from Bus and Truck Transport, because the latter minister is always upset when I do so. He realizes what a straightforward journal this is and what a fantastic job it has done in showing the incompetence of his ministry in transportation research.

Instead, I would rather deal with another journal, one with which I am sure the Minister of Transportation and Communications, the Minister of Energy and the Treasurer will be familiar. I am talking about the journal Canadian Automotive Trade. Canadian Automotive Trade deals with a few questions and answers on the Roger Billings research project in Provo, Utah. I am sure these ministers--even the Treasurer--may have read some of the excellent articles in the various trade and scientific journals about the work of Billings in the United States.

This article deals with some of the basic questions the average layman has about hydrogen. I will deal with only a couple of these; I think they are worth reading into the record.

First of all, “What is necessary to modify an ordinary car engine to run on hydrogen?” Billings claims it is necessary simply to add a gaseous carburetor.

Further down, after a series of questions “Since water is the principal byproduct when hydrogen is burned,” the journal asks, “Is there any problem with corrosion within the engine and exhaust system?” Billings claims his research shows there is no corrosion problem within the engine and exhaust system when hydrogen is burned, and water is a major product of combustion when gasoline is burned; therefore, hydrogen should not have any significant difference.

Another question put by the Canadian Automotive Trade is: “Would there be any problem in the valves and valve seats?” Billings assures them his research has indicated there would be none.

“How much would a hydride tank cost?” The fact is, a hydride tank costs approximately five cents a pound, according to Billings’s research.

I could go on and on about the research on the Billings project. I’m sure the minister can find other journals. A number of them have dealt with it. It’s well worth the time of the Minister of Transportation and Communications to consult some of those and arrange an on-site visit to the Billings project.

When one speaks of hydrogen, one always has to overcome certain prejudices that exist in the public mind. The Hindenburg disaster has injected into the public psyche a fear of hydrogen as a fuel. The fact about the Hindenburg is that the occupants of it were burned to death not because of hydrogen but rather as a result of the diesel fuel that spilled on to the ground and caught fire on the ground.

Scientists tell us that hydrogen is at least as safe as products such as jet fuel and certainly safer than liquefied natural gas. As for pollution, when we burn hydrogen, the exhaust is water vapour. The cost to society as a result of gasoline burning is astronomic. One needs only to take a simple example by looking at the fabrics industry and the amount of cleaning and so forth that must go on as a result of the exhaust.

Hydrogen burns more smoothly than conventional transportation fuels, and thus there will be a noise payoff. For those of us who live under the flight paths at Malton, there’s a considerable advantage to this in the aviation field of transportation.

Hon. F. S. Miller: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: When I said early in the evening I was anxious to have a wide-ranging debate, I assumed it would be on topics that were budgetary. I really believe the member is talking about the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

I would only suggest to the honourable member that he go back to a speech I gave in 1972 on hydrogen and its generation for electricity. He will find I gave a very learned debate at that time. I really think he’s out of order.

Mr. Kerrio: That will teach you.

Mr. Philip: I think the Treasurer will remember I started off my remarks by pointing out that a number of staff people were involved in an energy seminar today. Private as that might be, I believe they were being paid from Treasury funds, though I may be mistaken. I’ve been dealing with the way in which this ministry has been wasting money on research as well as on the way in which the staff has been utilized. I’m pleased the minister made a cogent speech on hydrogen.

Mr. Foulds: I was here for that speech, and it wasn’t so cogent.

Mr. Philip: If that is the case, one can only wonder what his timetable was for implementing it, because we certainly haven’t seen any of it to date.

Professor David Scott of the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Toronto says hydrogen has the greatest potential as a fuel that he has seen. The Treasurer no doubt will know, as a result of his research for the speech he alluded to earlier, that Professor Scott has been specializing in gas fuel most of his career. He states the world will be into a hydrogen economy by the turn of the century.

Where is Ontario in all of this? The Treasurer gave a speech some years ago, none of which has been implemented. When I had my assistant call the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, obviously the ministry didn’t know of the Treasurer’s speech, because the ministry said the only thing they know they were doing in hydrogen transportation research was pulling a few things together on it. I hope the Treasurer tells the Ministry of Transportation and Communications about his speech of several years ago so that when they pull together all the data, they’ll include his speech in the data they’re collecting.

By the same token, the ministry officials had no idea what UTDC might be doing in terms of energy transportation research. Just as the Ministry of Transportation and Communications has shown no leadership in transportation energy research, it has shown absolutely no leadership in transportation conservation. I will not at this time recycle the presentation the leader of the NDP, several other colleagues and I made before the Toronto Transit Commission, but we remember the stand this government took when it came to trying to encourage people to use public transportation at that time.

[5:45J

In the movement of goods by highway, the use of certain devices such as air deflectors on truck cars, radial tires, special wheel discs and smooth-skin trailers have all been tested and proven to be of assistance in fuel economy. Driver training courses have also proven to be a most efficient way of reducing transportation fuel costs.

We are talking about fuel savings of as much as 25 per cent in the transportation industry, according to a survey done by the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada. Some of the larger, more sophisticated companies, such as United Parcel Service, are aware of this; they’ve done their own research. I would point out to the minister and to the Treasurer that the document done by United Parcel Service on economy in the transportation industry might be worth their reading.

How about the smaller, less sophisticated companies? How aware are they of this? I’ve never once heard the Minister of Transportation and Communications deal with this topic. Is it not possible to show some leadership in education throughout the transportation industry? Is it not possible, together with his federal counterpart, to look at regulations which, over a period of years, would equip the transport industry with those kind of fuel-saving devices that are so necessary for conservation?

I was shocked to see a recent story in the newspaper about the Minister of Energy. When questioned about where research should be done in terms of alternative forms of energy, he said he did not rule out the possibility of subsidizing the oil companies to do this.

When I was first elected to this House, the issue I first dealt with, and one the then leader of the New Democratic Party dealt with at great length, was the vertical integration of the oil companies. We showed the then Minister of Energy, the same minister who is now dismantling our health-care system in Ontario, that it was in the interests of the consumer to move against the vertical integration of the oil companies. Instead, he chose to side against small business, against free enterprise, and to push for the side of the multinational oil companies who were vertically integrating.

These small service station operators are still being pushed out. In the last two or three days in the newspapers, Mr. Sandford, the president of the Ontario Retail Gasoline and Automotive Service Association, was saying it was still a problem. Yet at that time the then Minister of Energy gave the same kind of answers he gives now as Minister of Health, that there is no problem and somehow everything will be solved. Of course, it hasn’t been solved. Then later the Premier took a hands-off attitude when it came to windfall profits of the oil companies. They were items that were clearly within his jurisdiction.

The experience of the whitewash of the Isbister commission repeats itself over and over again in this government.

John Bulloch, the president of the federation of independent businessmen, pointed out at a meeting I attended that one of the most difficult matters in dealing with the multinational oil industry was finding out the facts. The public is being kept in the dark about oil supplies and inventories. As a result, little effective planning on energy can take place at either the federal or provincial level.

The member for Carleton East (Ms. Gigantes) has been trying over and over again to get certain facts about this. She’s been tryng for months to obtain the NEB figures on oil supply and inventory in Canada. She has been repeatedly refused access to this information by both federal and provincial public employees acting, we can only assume, on the directions of their political superiors.

I haven’t heard the Minister of Energy or the Treasurer voice any objections to this. It’s fairly clear this government has not taken action against the oil companies within those areas where they clearly have provincial jurisdiction.

There are no less than 10 perfectly viable alternatives to gasoline that we know of. For the most part, I have dealt only with one of these. It’s fairly clear that this government is the party of monopoly, the party of the oil companies, the anti-free-enterprise party, if you like. The Premier goes through this silly charade, this silly shadow-boxing with the Premier of Alberta. Where is the policy? If transportation and energy policies cannot be spelled out, it’s little wonder they cannot be integrated by this government.

It’s little wonder, in fact, that one Etobicoke paper said that this government has no energy policy. The Premier provides great theatre, but his policies, if you look at them, provide little substance.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is there any other member wishing to participate in the debate?

Mr. Kerrio: Let’s wind up.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Regardless of other speakers, I’m speaking now.

Mr. Renwick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I don’t want to interrupt the minister; I just want to understand what be is saying. Is he attempting to close the debate? I suppose is the question I want to ask.

Hon. F. S. Miller: No way. I just want to give my comments, because it’s my understanding I do not have to be present during the entire debate. I have the flu and I’d be very glad to be absent for part of it.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Give it to ‘em, Frankie.

Mr. Renwick: If I may address myself to that matter, the purpose of the debate is to debate with the Treasurer. We would certainly be agreeable to adjourning the debate until a time convenient to the Treasurer so that he could be here.

Hon. F. S. Miller: In the beginning, I agreed with the members opposite that the debate shouldn’t be restricted in so far as the terms that the Speaker interpreted. I have to say, from my own personal point of view, I think some of the subject matter has strayed a little further than a normal review of the matters before us. In no way do I want to restrict the amount of time that members speak. I was told by the government House leader and others that, unlike my estimates debate, I would be speaking once and it was not necessarily required of me to sit through the entire issue.

Of course, if members take that attitude, I will sit here all night quite happily rather than have the debate adjourned. My own personal inconvenience isn’t worth having it put to another day.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, unless our whip wishes to speak to that matter, I might say it is our intention that the matter be concluded this evening. It is not our intention to debate matters on which it is not important for the Treasurer to be present. It would be important for the members of our caucus, speaking on this particular debate, to see the matter concluded tonight and to have the benefit of the Treasurer’s views on such matters as are raised in the debate on which he sees fit to comment when it is concluded, in accordance with the customary rules of the House.

Hon. F. S. Miller: In that case I will come back tonight and sit through the debate. I would only ask and hope that a matter such as the one which was just discussed, which was very interesting to me--I happen to be very interested in energy--would not be the type of thing we’d argue after supper. I would rather we argued the kinds of things as discussed by the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), which I feel were quite appropriate within the terms of reference.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I would just like to draw to the members’ attention standing order 62: “When a debate arises on any government substantive motion, the minister or parliamentary assistant who moved it has a right of reply and the Speaker shall inform the House that such reply closes the debate.”

Mr. Renwick: I believe the comments of the Treasurer resolve our problem. If it is convenient at this time to be six o’clock, perhaps we could resume at eight o’clock.

Some hon. members: No.

Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I would like the attention of the Treasurer to give him, from a back-bench farmer, a little bit of economic theory and history from this side of the House. I am sure he is well aware that interest rates over the millennia since civilization began have historically been about three per cent. That is based largely on the growth in population and growth in the economy, which will stand an interest rate of about three per cent.

When we look at the present situation in Canada versus the United States, we find in Canada our effective interest rate today is approaching about eight per cent, a rather unconscionable and non-historical rate. It is bludgeoning the people of this province.

I would point out to the Treasurer that demand notes held by banks, especially to small businessmen and to farmers, are today at about 16 per cent interest rate, whereas the rate of inflation is running somewhere in the neighbourhood of eight to nine per cent. So we come up with interest rates between seven and eight per cent in Canada. In the United States, from which we are taking our cue on this matter, inflation is approaching 14 per cent. Their interest rates are about 16 per cent. So there is an effective interest rate in that country of about two per cent. Perhaps if one wanted to be generous, it’s three per cent.

I am sure the Treasurer has had those lessons in economics and he agrees with it. I just wonder how he can explain his party’s support and his federal party’s support in this move towards a lock-step advance in interest rates with the United States.

This government historically has approached the farming problem in a particular way. I would go back to the 1969 report, The Challenge of Abundance, a study of agriculture in this province. One of the results of that was a public policy to reduce the number of farmers. The conclusion was drawn that there are too many people in agriculture and not enough money to go around. So the government will adopt policies that will reduce the number of farmers, and that has come about. Since 1969, the numbers have gone down by at least 30 per cent. I would think the real effective number today, that is, the people who produce most of the food, probably has gone down to 50 per cent.

Concomitant with that, of course, these farmers have larger operations and they have mechanized. They have gone to buying the products of our factories. And so we have the problem today that many of these farmers are financing that equipment with loans that are costing them 16 per cent today.

When we heard today in the House from the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) that the answer to the farmers’ problem in this event was to skip interest payments, I just found that to be a great insult to the farmers and the small businessmen of Ontario, that they should be put in a position where they have to skip an interest payment, based on an unsupportable interest rate, in the light of traditional economic theory.

I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the farmers and the small businessmen of Ontario do not accept the answer that they should skip an interest payment. If there is one group of people in Ontario who are really serious and really concerned about meeting their payments, it is the farmers of this province.

I can tell the minister how they will go about meeting that problem. They won’t do it by missing payments. They will do it by working longer hours.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the honourable member has further comments, probably we could continue after the supper hour.

Mr. MeGuigan: I’d be glad to, Mr. Speaker.

On motion by Mr. McGuigan, the debate was adjourned.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.