Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

PQ WHITE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with all members of the House and the people of our province the initial reactions of the government of Ontario to the white paper published by the government of Quebec proposing “a new partnership between equals: sovereignty association.”

The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) will have a more detailed response later on this week related to some of the specifics raised in that paper.

Let me say at the outset this government sees the referendum in Quebec as part of a process which has been going on in this country, in one way or another, since two great empires, those of Great Britain and France, positioned themselves in North America several centuries ago.

Throughout the years, the issues have not always been the same, but the central concerns have largely been the same -- the preservation of a unique national community across the northern half of this continent, a community with basic values of nationhood and particular cultural sensitivities responsive to the kind of people we are. That process has not been one without significant setback or frustration.

Where the Quebec white paper errs in its fundamental analysis of our history is in its failure to record the legitimate and significant steps forward which have significantly enhanced the quality of life and the real economic and social opportunity of the people of Quebec, the people of this province and the other regions and provinces of Canada.

It is, to be frank, a limited and shortsighted response to the continuing challenge of cultural development which places isolation and internalization above all other objectives. The survival of French-speaking Canada is inexorably tied to the survival of a larger political unit in which the two central cultural realities are English and French speaking, and in which their preservation is a main pillar of nationhood.

Sovereignty-association is put forward as a new departure for Quebec. It is anything but. It really is the oldest departure, the most facile response. It is what some might call the ultimate “cop-out” -- a self-imposed ghetto mentality, surely beneath the dignity of the French-Canadian people. It is a program which would limit the opportunities for French-Canadian culture and civilization. It is, and I view this as particularly sad, an admission of defeat by one government at a time when the opportunities for French-Canadian survival and for the broadening and deepening of French-Canadian civilization have, in my view, never been better throughout many parts of this country.

The centralization of legislative and fiscal power in the National Assembly of Quebec and the establishment of separate Quebec citizenship would appropriate to Quebec a status which would imply a massive withdrawal from the Canadian reality, a withdrawal which would seriously prejudice the economic, social and political rights of every man, woman and child in Quebec to the tremendous opportunity which the future holds for all Canadians and for which Quebeckers have made as great an investment in personal terms as all other Canadians.

The game, Mr. Speaker, of moving fiscal policy and legislative policy to one place with monetary policy remaining in another is a particularly deceptive proposition because it appears to imply more real independence in one sense while obscuring potential foreign domination in economic terms,

We can all see, Mr. Speaker, how critical monetary policy is to our day-to-day wellbeing. The monetary linkage envisioned by the white paper would make Quebeckers not “masters in their own house” or “maître chez nous,” but in economic terms Quebeckers would be second-class citizens in their own house with no real clout in real terms on the macro-economic issues that would determine their future in the Parliament of Canada, which cannot, in any respect, share or dilute its jurisdiction in monetary matters.

The white paper says: “Though federalism is not necessarily synonymous with poverty and political domination, neither is it a guarantee of freedom or a high standard of living.”

Though sovereignty-association is not necessarily synonymous with poverty and political domination, neither will it guarantee freedom for a high standard of living. I would argue that it would seriously disadvantage Quebeckers, economically and politically, without even marginally contributing to greater cultural security. Indeed, assuming a Quebec without broad economic or political protection under the Canadian national umbrella, the influence of our southern neighbours would likely exert profound cultural pressures on French-Canadian civilization and their cultural opportunity.

The government of Ontario very simply continues, of course, to oppose sovereignty-association. Our absolute commitment, that we would not negotiate with Quebec in this context, remains complete and undiminished.

What is more important perhaps at this point is what we are prepared to do. Our Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs is prepared to pursue any and all discussions -- discussions aimed at broadening and making more sensitive our constitution to achieve a new national sovereignty for all of Canada. Our position is based on a supple and humane nationhood, one in which all Quebeckers can pursue, along with Canadians everywhere, personal culture, economic and political development.

To the people of Quebec, all Ontarians can speak with one voice, a voice which is not limited by partisan or linguistic division. Our message need be honest, it need be frank and direct. We must affirm to Quebeckers our belief that the proposals of the white paper, the “oui” position in the referendum campaign, constitute the greatest possible threat to their ultimate freedom, their opportunity and wellbeing. We must assert that sovereignty-association constitutes the closing of doors, the limiting of hopes and the diminishing of their future.

Sovereignty-association and a referendum vote by Quebeckers endorsing a negotiated path to whatever precarious political status it suggests, would mean a closed door on the future for every Quebecker. It would be the ultimate denial of the inner strength, the cultural depth and vigour of a civilization that has withstood many threats to its ultimate survival through strength of character and conviction.

We will not be part of this denial of the future, this constraint upon potential for French Canada. We will be part of working with Quebeckers to change Confederation, to enhance its uniqueness as an adaptable political framework through which every legitimate social, cultural and economic goal is attainable for all Canadians. Previous federal rigidities serve today only to point to the real opportunity which now exists.

Soon there will probably be other proposals the Quebeckers will be asked to consider in the present debate. The government and the people of our province await those proposals with interest arid with hope -- interest because we expect there will be new federalist options formally put on the table; hope, because we are all looking for a way to ensure the continued partnership of the people of all provinces in the common cause of a new national definition for the nation we share with eight of our sister provinces.

Ontario will not sit quietly while others advance suppositions about where we stand on various proposals. Our position on the fundamental one to date, on sovereignty-association, is abundantly clear. Our position on other options as they emerge will be equally clear. Quebeckers have the right to know, as they assess their choices, where Ontario stands. Ontarians have the right to be assured that Quebeckers will labour under no false illusions about what is politically and realistically possible from Ontario’s point of view.

The next seven months must see no vacuums develop in the cause for Canada. While the law governing the referendum limits specific campaigning activities to registered participants, those of us who care deeply must not allow geography or reticence to make our commitment remote from the people of Quebec.

[2:15]

I will speak for Canada in the strongest and most direct terms that I can. I urge all Ontarians to make the same commitment in their own hearts and in their own way. I’m hopeful that the federal government in its own way, albeit different from its predecessor, will make the same commitment.

While I speak always as an optimist -- as a matter of conviction and, some will say, of temperament -- one cannot assess the white paper without a sense of how fragile this nation of ours can be, if we are not prepared to ensure the strength and the determination her survival demands.

We have something very special here in Canada. Canada, with all of our difficulties, is a nation with the privilege of fighting over wealth rather than fighting over poverty and of debating regional interests rather than deep socio-economic divisions of class. For our young people, that relative prosperity and the freedom which comes with it secures unlimited opportunity.

There may be a government in Quebec today committed to throwing away that opportunity for its own people and for the rest of us. We are not. We are certain that the people of Quebec are not. This nation, very simply, shall prevail.

ORAL QUESTIONS

PQ WHITE PAPER

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I rise to address a question to the Premier, but I want to preface it by saying that we can endorse this statement in the strongest terms. I’m very pleased to associate myself with the sentiments expressed by the Premier on behalf of Ontario.

Since the Premier recognizes that it is necessary for Ontario to speak with one voice, once the proposals of Mr. Ryan and the forces supporting a “non” in the referendum are made known, would the Premier then feel, as I do, that it would be a good thing to have a discussion and a debate in the assembly of Ontario on both these proposals -- the so-called sovereignty-association and the proposals to come forward from the forces in favour of federalism? Would he agree with the suggestion made by the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) at an earlier date that we might have a committee before which could appear various experts to assist us in defining what the technicalities in the various proposals might mean for Ontario?

Mr. Ryan’s proposal, of course, is not yet before us, although we have seen the white paper. Would these ideas meet with the Premier’s approval, as I think they would give an opportunity for the House to give a clear and united message at this very important time?

Hon. Mr. Davis: It has been the intent of the government, as I am sure the members will recall, to have -- I like the word “discussions,” quite honestly, on this issue rather than a debate -- it was our thought, quite frankly, to have had this discussion prior to this time, but that was predicated upon the feeling, I guess, because there was nothing definitive from the government of Quebec, that the referendum might have been held this past June or even perhaps at this time.

My view was then, and still is, that the discussion in this House related to this should not be two or three weeks before the referendum but should be closer to the date of the referendum, not only to give us an opportunity to assess where things stand at that moment but, I would hope, to have some greater impact somewhat closer to the date of the vote itself.

I can’t give a commitment in terms of a select committee at this moment, but certainly from my perspective I would hope that we could develop in discussion in this House some real degree of unanimity with respect to our feelings on this issue and that we could discuss this -- my guess is -- early in the spring, if June is roughly to be the date of the referendum, and perhaps take into account the proposals that may be emanating from the federalist group in the province of Quebec.

I would want to reserve to myself for further discussion the concept of having select committee hearings, et cetera. Certainly the opportunity for a discussion, for an expression of the will of this Legislature on something as fundamental as this to the future of Canada, is something we would like to see. But I ask the understanding of the members opposite. I really think there is merit in doing this somewhat closer to the date of the referendum than, say, this week or next.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary, and accepting that there is a certain degree of merit in what the Premier suggests in terms of impact, would the Premier not agree the proposals that are likely to come forward from Mr. Ryan’s group in Quebec will probably contain some suggestions, perhaps with regard to social welfare or economic matters? We don’t know yet, but presumably they will be somewhat technical.

Would the Premier not agree that all of us in the House, particularly the opposition parties who do not have access to the civil service in this regard, would be better able to judge, comment and to unite upon various principles that may be put forward by Mr. Ryan if we have some opportunity to understand the technicalities by a thorough discussion of the kind which can occur in a committee, and which is unlikely to occur just catch-as-catch-can in the corridors and in one’s office and so on?

Would he consider that possibility and, therefore, that the committee might sit before the actual debate or discussion -- as the Premier prefers, and I do too -- which he suggests might have a larger impact at another time?

Hon. Mr. Davis: The first point I would like to make is I have no indication as to when, as I assume, there will be proposals from Mr. Ryan or the federalists in Quebec.

My concern with respect to the select committee route is that not only the government but all of us would want an understanding of some of the financial, or potential financial implications, and so on. My experience has led me to believe, though, that this really helps a limited number of members. What I would like to do is to give some thought to finding a way for all of us to become more informed with respect to some of the practical implications of what may emerge.

While it is only a suggestion, we might find some avenue right here in this House -- and we haven’t done this before -- perhaps having some technical people available and setting aside special times for a more detailed evaluation, rather than just having a discussion on the general principles.

I am not precluding the other suggestion that came from the member for Riverdale, because I know it was well intentioned. My problem is that I can’t get to all select committees; I don’t get to any. I guess I am not really welcome to go to any. But I sense it gets down, really, to eight or 10 members who become quite knowledgeable. Then the rest of us sort of second-guess, agree or disagree with what is being suggested.

I would like to think on something like this, and I haven’t thought it through carefully, we might find a vehicle where all of the members could participate and become more knowledgeable, if in fact there is a fair amount of technical or financial information that would be important to us.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to begin by stating that the Quebec government’s white paper has made even clearer what we understood previously, which is that the sovereignty-association being proposed by Quebec is, in fact, a form of independence and is not acceptable to this party or to the vast majority, I believe, of the citizens of Ontario.

I would like to ask the Premier, however -- bearing in mind that had we had the debate on the question of sovereignty-association in the spring, as the government originally intended, the committee this House would have then set up would have reported back to the House on November 1, the same date as the Quebec white paper -- can he explain why he feels it should be himself who makes the decision as to what kind of scrutiny of these very important constitutional questions should be undertaken by the House? In view of the fact the select committee route has never previously been found to have the shortcomings the Premier now finds in it, why is he not prepared to leave it up to the judgement of members of the Legislature whether or not a select committee could look at these matters with a view to reporting back to the Legislature, or perhaps some possible further larger study at the beginning of March, when we resume after the winter break?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think if the leader of the New Democratic Party assessed it -- if, in fact, there had been a select committee dealing with sovereignty-association -- my expectation would be, I would hope, the select committee would have come back with a very simple statement that would have represented what has been said on that particular issue.

I think what may be emerging over the next few weeks or months is the viable alternatives in terms of this province and of our sister provinces. The basic alternative from my standpoint has always been a restructured -- whatever terminology you may wish to use -- constitution. I guess at this point I would say a select committee might not do this the most effectively, or perhaps it would be premature, because while we could prepare a paper saying, “Here are some things we would like to see considered,” the committee would be operating in something of a vacuum.

Obviously, there aren’t going to be any alternatives from the government of Quebec with respect to constitutional change. For the time being, at least, they have rejected that and we really haven’t had forthcoming from Quebec the possible alternatives, as they see them, from the federalist standpoint.

I’m not rejecting the concept of a select committee. Really, I am looking for a way where there will be a real measure of understanding by all members of the House at the appropriate time. I can’t honestly say to the leader of the New Democratic Party when that particular time has arrived. I don’t know, because we don’t know when these proposals may be forthcoming.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: We’ve spent 11 minutes on the first question. The questions themselves were rather long and the answers were even longer. It was a very important exchange, but I don’t think it will profit us to regurgitate what has been said.

GAS AND OIL SUPPLIES

Mr. S. Smith: I have a question to the Minister of Energy. Could the minister give us his latest view with regard to the possibility of heating oil shortages this winter, in as much as the minister said on October 30 the principal source of his information is the National Energy Board, and the National Energy Board last week expressed a certain concern over this winter’s fuel oil supply? Has the minister any more recent information? Has he received the latest statement from the energy board? Can he tell this House so, we can tell our constituents, what he perceives to be the present situation?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, certainly, I have seen nothing, nor have I received any indication from any other source, that would change the assessment which I shared with the House earlier. Indeed, if one were to go through the press release issued by the National Energy Board following meetings in Ottawa late last week, they have agreed that although the situation for this upcoming season is tight, it’s manageable.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary: Needless to say, Mr. Speaker, we all hope it will be manageable, but may I ask the minister what contingency plans he has in the event there is a shortage? What discussions has he had with the federal authorities on the matter? Is he urging the federal government to proclaim the energy supplies emergency act, Bill C-42, which would give them emergency power to allocate oil within Canada under certain circumstances?

What is the latest state of his negotiations with the federal government and what contingency plans does he have so that if we’re hit by a shortage, we don’t just suddenly get into a mad scramble but we know exactly what we’re doing?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I think it’s very important in responding to a question like this that one has to rely on the information one is getting from responsible sources. Indeed, we had our people in Ottawa last week discussing this matter, and we don’t want to be contributing to the problem by speculating with respect to events which, at the moment, there is reason to believe will not in fact occur.

As the Leader of the Opposition knows, there is federal legislation in place. I have written to the federal minister suggesting the technical advisory committee, which is a very important advisory committee to the National Energy Board, representing the industry, be consulted with respect to this matter as well.

[2:30]

The figures we’re getting from the National Energy Board are countrywide, and don’t have all the regional emphasis that perhaps they require. Certainly, on the information I have, I’m satisfied we in Ontario, in this part of the region, are going to have a situation which will be, under usual circumstances, manageable for this coming season.

The Leader of the Opposition is going to ask, “What if some unusual circumstance develops, be it an international event, or be it a mechanical breakdown in the system?” That would require the implementation of the provisions of the federal emergencies allocation legislation. Our ministry people have been consulted from time to time with respect to that. Indeed, we had meetings a week or so ago with our municipalities sharing the outcome of those discussions. I have no reason to believe but that the federal minister, and his officials, would be able to respond to that situation if we should be faced with a shortage or, indeed, the need for some redistribution of supplies.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Mr. Speaker, I think the minister is telling us he is still not concerned, despite the unprecedented step by the National Energy Board in making a formal statement to indicate there will be, or may well be, problems with the oil supply situation during the winter. Given some heating oil suppliers are refusing to tender new business, does the government have any plans to guarantee supplies to institutions such as hospitals or school boards, short of the federal government invoking its energy supplies allocation act?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I think it’s very important. I don’t know whether the honourable member, in all fairness, has seen a copy of the press release from the National Energy Board. If he has not, I’ll be glad to send him one over. It then becomes a matter of interpretation, depending on what he might want to emphasize. I’ve gone over this matter and, in balance, there is nothing in the release; there is nothing as a result of the meetings that would lead me to change my opinion with respect to the assessment I’ve shared with the House.

The honourable member makes some reference to the bulk tendering for wholesale supplies. There is no question that the situation this year is different from a year ago with respect to matters such as discounts and the number of new customers which some oil companies were prepared to take on. They’re not looking for new customers this year. This doesn’t mean they’re not going to be able, under usual circumstances, to service those customers they now have.

Mr. J. Reed: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister could tell us what role his ministry plays in the playing out of this contingency? What action is his ministry now taking to offset, as much as possible, such an event occurring? Is his ministry, at last, becoming active in the areas of conservation and those necessary acts that have to take place in order eventually to get to the point of petroleum self-sufficiency in Canada?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member does contribute very positively to this exchange this afternoon when he places emphasis on the long-term programs such as conservation and alternate energy supplies. Indeed, I’ll make a copy of the statement available to him, too, if he hasn’t seen it.

There is emphasis in the press release of the National Energy Board for the need to manage the resources we have cautiously, in order to ensure there are no unusual circumstances here.

Mr. Wildman: It’s nice to be well briefed. What about the north shore?

Hon. Mr. Welch: In so far as our ministry is concerned, there is full discussion going on. Our ministry officials have been involved in consultation with the federal officials in working out some details with respect to the federal legislation.

Mr. Wildman: Is it hard to get the press release?

Mr. Speaker: A final supplementary, the honourable member for Algoma.

Mr. Wildman: Could the minister now report to us on the specific problem which my leader raised initially, and which brought this matter before the House, and that is the refusal to tender along the north shore? The minister, I believe, indicated he was going to try to get specific information on that area and report to the House. Can he do so now?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, there must be some lack of communication. This matter was first raised by the honourable member himself, and on checking, in fact, we called the school board that afternoon. They indicated to us they were having no trouble in getting their supplies. They had signed their contract and, in fact, had their requirements for the upcoming season established by contract.

WATER POLLUTION

Mr. Cassidy: I have a question for the Minister of Health with reference to a report on the impact of past mining activities on the Moira River basin in Hastings county which has been prepared by the National Water Research Institute in Burlington.

In view of the fact that the people in Hastings county living downstream from the Deloro minesite near Madoc may have been exposed for decades to potentially hazardous concentrations of arsenic, could the minister say what long-term health studies have been carried out on residents in the area and what steps have been taken to warn them of the risk that they may be experiencing?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: That particular study has not been drawn to my attention. I will look into it and report back to the member. I will take the question as notice.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Can the minister explain why, in fact, there has been no action taken by his ministry to safeguard the health of people in this area since the problem of arsenic contamination has been known to the government for at least a decade? Since ministry tests of the Moira River in the mid-1970s showed levels of arsenic contamination up to 50 times the settled standard for drinking water, and since two years ago the Minister of the Environment slapped a tough control order on the Deloro mines, why has the Ministry of Health neither been informed of the problem nor taken action to safeguard the health of residents in the area?

Mr. MacDonald: Morty Shulman raised this years ago.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: As I said, I will take the question as notice. It may well be that certain actions have been taken at the local level or by other ministries, for that matter, that are involved with health matters, but I will take the question as notice and report back.

LABOUR RELATIONS

Mr. Cassidy: I have a new question for the Premier.

In view of the discussions that the Premier had with representatives from the Ontario Federation of Labour last week, in particular, with reference to the need for laws to guarantee union security and laws to give workers the right to a first contract through first contract arbitration, and in view of the particularly acute problems at plants such as Radio Shack, Butcher Engineering, Blue Cross, Canadian Gypsum Co. Ltd. in Hagersville, and elsewhere across the province because of a lack of these essential changes in the law, is the government now prepared to undertake to bring these reforms into Ontario’s Labour Relations Act in order to create the climate of labour management harmony to which the government is formally committed?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will tell the leader of the New Democratic Party what I said to representatives from the Ontario Federation of Labour who presented this brief to us last week. I think we discussed it for an hour and a half to two hours. It was fairly detailed and really dealt with two or three basic points which have been mentioned by the leader of the New Democratic Party. I made it quite clear to the members of the delegation that we shared a concern about these particular situations.

Mr. McClellan: The omnibus concern bill, again.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You see, Mr. Speaker, I’m being provoked again.

Mr. Martel: Ignore the interjections.

Mr. Speaker: I’m trying to ignore him, so maybe the Premier can, too.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Are you trying to ignore him? I’d love to ignore him.

I said to them that we shared the concern. We were interested in getting their analysis of why the problems were being created. I said to them very simply that as a government we would assess their recommendations about them and beyond that, I gave no commitment.

Mr. Martel: See if you can get an opportunity to look at it.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Is the Premier not aware that the concern expressed by himself, by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie) or by any other member of the government, is of no concrete help at all to the women and men on the Radio Shack picket line and to their brothers and sisters on other picket lines across the province who are seeking first contracts or who are seeking a guarantee of union security so that their anti-union management cannot simply bust the union in the first year or so of the contract?

If the Premier is aware that that concern doesn’t really work, then can we not have a commitment from the government to bring in legislation and have it adopted before Christmas to get those people back to work with a decent contract and the right to have a union, rather than have them forced to knuckle under by anti-union management with the support of the government of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I agree with the leader of the New Democratic Party, which is unusual, that concern does not always solve specific problems. I take that without any debate. I am not in a position to give a commitment to the second part of his two-part question.

SUICIDE AT GUELPH JAIL

Mr. Worton: I have a question of the Minister of Correctional Services. Recently there was an inquest into the hanging of an inmate at the Guelph provincial jail. The jury made certain recommendations as to what measures should be taken to protect against another such incident happening.

I notice in the report that one of the officials of the ministry indicated the ministry was negotiating with the federal ministry in regard to reducing the time limit of 30 days in what I suspect would be admittance to the federal penitentiary. Would the minister have any comment on that particular report?

Hon. Mr. Walker: Yes. We were very disturbed by the fact there was a suicide in the Guelph jail, not to be confused with the Guelph correctional centre. An individual by the name of Anderson had been sentenced to 15 years in a federal prison for attempted murder. While awaiting transfer after the trial and after conviction to a federal prison, he committed suicide.

Many people realized beforehand that this person was a suicide risk and, indeed, he was under awfully heavy review and supervision by guards within the jail. As the psychiatrist and the psychologist and everyone there indicated, it was absolutely impossible to prevent this individual from suicide. He was bent on it and it was just going to happen. He had tried three times prior to the charges under the Criminal Code of Canada involving his wife.

I would say with respect to the general suicide rate within jails it is far less than what it is within the general population at large. In fact, last year we had two suicides and a further two suicides this year, and that is far less than in the general public.

The 30-day provision is something which is very difficult to work with. We are required to maintain an inmate following a sentence for 30 days, which is the appeal period. We are attempting to negotiate a reduction in that time with the federal government so that an inmate can be dispatched as quickly as possible to the final prison where he might then receive proper treatment. This was a very unfortunate incident.

Mr. Worton: Naturally the number of suicides in jail is less than the number outside, because there are far fewer people in jail than are outside of jail. A ministry employee has indicated here that the minister is negotiating with the federal people. Is that not so?

Hon. Mr. Walker: Yes. As I indicated, we are attempting to have that 30-day mandatory waiting period reduced as much as possible so that inmates can be moved as quickly as possible after the trial to the final receiving prison.

HOSPITAL BED ALLOCATIONS

Mr. Cooke: I have a question for the Minister of Health. In view of the fact Windsor Metropolitan Hospital has been unable to close 25 beds the ministry no longer funds, and in view of the fact the hospital put an appeal for $500,000 to the minister on September 27 to fund those beds, as well as $200,000 for the obstetrical ward, is the minister prepared, because it has adequately demonstrated to him the need for this money, to announce today that he will be funding the Metropolitan Hospital with this extra $700,000?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No, Mr. Speaker.

[2:45]

Mr. Cooke: Supplementary: Will the minister make a commitment that he will close no more beds in Metropolitan Hospital or in Windsor, period, until alternatives are put in place, as recommended by the social development committee? The alternatives I am referring to are chronic home care, adequate numbers of nursing-home beds and adequate rest-home beds that are supervised and regulated by this minister.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: As the honourable member knows, the Ministry of Health has no role nor should it have a role in the question of rest homes involving anyone who is not under care.

Secondly, with regard to Windsor and Essex county, the rationalization of services --

Mr. Cooke: Yes, you just close beds. It should be called irrationalization.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- in that area, involving four of the five hospitals in the county, is going extremely well, with the closing of obstetrics at Grace Hospital, the closing of paediatrics at Hotel Dieu, the movement of services between those two hospitals, the ordering for installation in less than a year now of a CAT scanner for Hotel Dieu and the beginnings of a development of a peri-natal unit at Grace, as well as the opening of chronic beds at Grace, Hotel Dieu and at the hospital in Leamington, which is also putting in air conditioning and a fair bit of renovation.

The health council in Essex county is engaged in a review of its long-term needs, including chronic beds and extended care. I would anticipate having a report from them sometime in the next few months.

Mr. Cooke: What’s going to happen this winter?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Depending upon the results of the study, once we agree on what is needed, then we will have to agree also on how it is to be done.

I would point out that with the rationalization of services that has been effected in Essex county there has been a very marginal restriction in the total number of beds. There is, in fact, a much better use of the facilities which are there and of the considerable amount of money which is spent every year in operating the hospitals in that county.

Mr. Mancini: Supplementary: Why does the Minister of Health persist in his hard-line attitude concerning the 25 beds at Metropolitan Hospital, when he knows darn well that they have made proper representation to him and that they are incapable of reducing beds any further? Why doesn’t he provide the money and stop playing games with them?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I can assure the honourable member that for my part as minister the easiest thing would be to tap the taxpayer for some more money.

Mr. Swart: The most humane thing, the most sensible thing.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The more difficult thing, but the thing that needs to be done -- in that community, as in most communities, is to effect co-ordinated planning and co-ordination of existing services. For its own reason, that hospital has repeatedly resisted working with the other hospitals in the county. It’s not a question of trying to penalize the Metropolitan because I would remind the member that the very day I announced the rationalization agreement, I also announced additional funding for Metropolitan Hospital in excess of $500,000 a year for an expanded cancer clinic. It is not a case of penalizing them, but it is the case that they are going to have to work with the other hospitals in the county. They cannot and they will not plan in isolation from the others in Essex county.

Mr. Cooke: What about chronic home care?

ARENA OPERATING COSTS

Mr. McKessock: I have a question for the Minister of Culture and Recreation. In view of the fact that Ontario has been asked to pick up the proposed deficit of $250,000 a year for the proposed new $72-million convention centre in Toronto, would the minister at the same time consider picking up the yearly deficit that has been emerging from the many new arenas throughout rural Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Baetz: I think the first part of that question should be directed to the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman). But I would like to assure the House that in so far as the provincial government’s picking up any operating deficits of any arenas that have been built largely through Wintario funds in the course of the last four or five years, the answer is a definite no.

Every single municipality and every voluntary agency that have applied for Wintario funding for capital support to build their facilities have been warned and have been told time and time again, both orally and in writing, that we will not take responsibility for meeting any operating deficits that might occur. That is very clearly understood throughout Ontario.

I want to reiterate that policy here today. I think it is a wise one, and that is why we are once again taking a look at the need for more arena facilities throughout the province. We are prepared to help only when there is a real need indicated, and also when they can convince everybody that they can support the operations of their arena.

Mr. McKessock: Supplementary: In view of the fact arena recreation boards, in order to meet these expenses, have to increase fees to the children who play hockey and figure skate, wouldn’t the minister consider paying a portion of each child’s fee to allow the rate charged to a child to remain about the same so these facilities will be available to everyone regardless of income?

Hon. Mr. Baetz: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think so. We have not considered that as a possibility. That certainly would be an indirect form of subsidization of the operating deficits and for the reasons just mentioned, I don’t think we should feel our ministry, any ministry, should be responsible for that. Again, I think we have an elected body at the municipal level that should be looking at these things and working out ways and means to meet these ongoing costs and try to make costs for the users of the arenas reasonable and equitable.

Mr. Martel: Supplementary: Isn’t there a report being prepared by the Ministry of Culture and Recreation with respect to the cost of electrification of these facilities, which in fact, is the single biggest cost factor facing these small municipalities across Ontario? When can we expect that report to be tabled and if it’s prepared, does the minister have any plans to assist the arenas to meet those hydro costs?

Hon. Mr. Baetz: Again, Mr. Speaker, it is quite correct that the Ministry of Culture and Recreation, in co-operation with the Ministry of Energy, did develop this kind of a report and, as the member opposite has quite correctly pointed out, the energy costs are the very high item in the operational costs. In this particular report, and I have seen the draft form of it, there are suggestions whereby arenas can cut back on their costs. I would imagine both the Ministry of Energy and our ministry certainly are going to be spending a good deal of time with arenas across the province, trying to help them to cut back on those very high energy costs, which are continuing to escalate.

HEALTH TRAVEL COSTS

Mr. Wildman: I have a question for the Minister of Health with regard to the need for universal access to health care in the province. Why won’t OHIP pay the return fare to northern Ontario, as well as the fare from northern hospitals to Toronto hospitals, for acutely-ill patients once they have recovered sufficiently to return to their home? Also, why won’t OHIP pay the travel costs to and from Toronto for follow-up checkups with specialists here in Toronto?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: A short answer, Mr. Speaker: It very simply is we are limited. This is a question about which I have corresponded, I know, with the member for Sudbury East and others on a number of occasions. We are limited under our legislation to paying for medically necessary services, and the movement of patients, once they are recovered or for follow-up, is not, in fact, medically necessary.

It is something we are following, and as a matter of fact I will be discussing it with representatives of the health councils tomorrow.

I would say in the long run, the more we can attract specialists to settle in northern centres that --

Mr. Martel: We would love that.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Well, I think this is important. As the member knows, I wrote to the health councils in the north about three months ago, asking each of the five to do an analysis of their specialist requirements because I am prepared to use the under-serviced area program financial incentives in a creative way to attract needed specialists to various parts of the north. In the long run I think that is a more effective answer than looking at subsidizing bus or plane fares or gasoline or whatever.

But as I say, the short answer unfortunately is we are limited by law to paying for medically necessary services.

Mr. Wildman: Supplementary: While I certainly sympathize with the minister’s desire to attract more specialists to the north, in the interim wouldn’t the minister agree that families in the north, where there is now a shortage of medical specialists -- like the family of the teen-ager Leslie Voznek, in Timmins, who suffers from systematic lupas erythematosus or SLE for which he was hospitalized in Toronto from April to August and continues to have to travel to Toronto every four to six weeks for tests -- are financially penalized by this OHIP policy? It has cost that family over $2,500 so far.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: With respect, I would suggest that could happen to a family living in Verona, in southern Ontario. If the member doesn’t know where Verona is, it is north of Kingston.

Mr. Wildman: You wouldn’t have to fly back, though.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: But there is a considerable expense, of course, involved in driving and the like. My colleague, the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson), points out that there are facilities available in Sudbury that could probably do that.

An hon. member: Why don’t you let Dennis answer the question?

Mr. Conway: Is she the real minister?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I think that is the point. We are not in a position to pay for services that are not medically necessary; it is as simple as that.

Looking to the longer term -- whether it is in the north or any part of the province -- the aim is to get a good distribution of the various specialties so that people don’t have to travel any more than is necessary. It will always be necessary for some very rare and very exotic ailments and diseases.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Supplementary: Did I understand the minister to say that the reason it wasn’t being paid for now was because of the legislation in Ontario setting up OHIP? If that is the case, why don’t we change it so that some of these people who have these onerous costs should be able to recover them and make the system universal?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I think I answered that. I think you get into a situation then that you really would not be able to properly make the judgements, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Wildman: Isn’t it medically necessary to get home again?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: A medical necessity is very simple to judge. The doctor decides you have got to get there in the ambulance, We do try, and we are trying, to make better use of our air ambulance service, to co-ordinate the use of the ambulances, so if we have a plane or planes coming in with people and we know we have people to go back, we do try to use them in that way from time to time.

Mr. Wildman: Surely it is medically necessary to go home again.

ODC LOAN RATES

Mr. Mancini: I have a question of the Ministry of Industry and Tourism. Recently, we have been given some information from the Ontario Development Corporation concerning the loans it has been providing. I would like to ask the Minister of Industry and Tourism, does he not consider it odd that some of the companies that had received loans had received these loans at no interest rate, and it was stated that they would not provide any new jobs within the five-year period?

What criteria is the minister using to give out these loans with absolutely no interest rate and which would provide no jobs at the end of five years?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Since I can’t conceive of a single ODC loan which is at no interest, as the member has described it, I really can’t answer the question. Perhaps he will send over some specific instances, and I will see what I can do for him.

Mr. Eakins: Supplementary: Is the minister saying that in the ODC book which has recently come out there are no loans at no interest to firms which are not going to produce any new employment? It seems to me that I have noticed some in the book

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Again, I don’t know which specific instances the member would be talking about where we have a loan at no interest.

Mr. Eakins: An Ontario Business Incentive Program loan.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Oh, an OBIP loan. That is a different story.

The incentive loans, of course, have a waiver of interest for the first five years, so there is no payment of interest for the first five years which allows that firm in most instances to get a foothold in the market.

I should remind the members that the ODC decisions are to this point in time made entirely by the boards of ODC upon the recommendation -- not always accepted -- of the ODC staff.

Second, I should point out that the ODC maximums were reduced this year to $ 250,000, so that we would have more of a selective role to play in the larger loans and grants.

Third, I should point out that in very many instances incentive loans are given and other loans are given to maintain jobs that otherwise would have disappeared. I acknowledge that that doesn’t look as politically attractive as a situation where a loan is given and jobs are added, but in many instances it prevents a situation in which I stand up here explaining why a firm has gone out of business.

[3:00]

I might add that our loss ratio on the Ontario Business Incentives Program is quite healthy; in other words we’re not experiencing very many losses. The loss ratio is very low and it seems to have been a very successful program.

If the opposition members have any comments on the OBIP program I’d be pleased to receive them, perhaps when our estimates have started next week.

ONTARIO HOME RENEWAL PROGRAM

Mr. Dukszta: A question to the Minister of Housing on the subject of Ontario Home Renewal Program and the minister’s recent decision to reduce the city of Toronto entitlement by 75 per cent, to $321,224. Can he tell me: (1) why they’ve reduced the money so suddenly and capriciously; (2) is he aware that this will affect very seriously the existing old-housing stock in Toronto; and (3) is he also aware that a number of jobs will be lost?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I’m well aware of the program and would inform this House the conditions and procedures have not altered one iota from last year.

We have tried to deal with every municipality requesting a grant through the Ontario Home Renewal Program on an equitable basis. The city of Toronto and the other communities in this region -- indeed, the smallest communities in the province -- have been handled on this similar basis.

The city of Toronto got a percentage of what they might qualify for. They were told very clearly and distinctly that 100 per cent of their request was not being granted, any more to them than to the city of Ottawa or to Smiths Falls or any other small community. They got exactly what we told them they’d get -- the same percentage on the same basis as has been allocated over the last two years.

Mr. Dukszta: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary: Between 1976 and 1977 the city received 100 per cent of its entitlement, which was $1.3 million. The minister now reduces it to 25 per cent of what it was, without giving an explanation. Can he tell me: (1) why he specifically singled out Toronto; (2) has he considered that this affects approximately 150 jobs in Toronto?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, we’ve tried to distribute the $20 million we had in the Ontario Home Renewal Program on a very fair and equal basis across this province, taking into account the smaller communities to a very large extent, to make much better use of those funds because they employ people within those communities where the small developers or small contractors have a greater risk of unemployment -- of not having their services used.

As I’ve said earlier, very clearly Toronto has been dealt with in this case on the same basis as it was a year ago, and two years prior to that.

Mr. Conway: Since I understand that roughly $106 million has been appropriated by the provincial government through this program over the past number of years, can the Minister of Housing indicate whether or not he has initiated or intends to initiate an audit from his department to ensure that the criteria for which this very good program has been established are in fact being met? Can he indicate whether or not there has been such an audit and, if so, how it is proceeding or, if it is not, if it will?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, over the period of time that we’ve had the OHRP grant there has been something in excess of $100 million distributed to better than 625 communities in the province. While the member’s remarks re auditing are ones that concern this minister and the ministry, yes, we’ve done spot audits in some of the municipalities.

I can say fairly and frankly that some of them have not been adhering to the policies and procedures that have been set down by the provincial government. Some of it stems from complete lack of understanding or ignorance. As a result, the auditors brought it to their attention that there were some infractions. If the member looks at the provincial auditor’s annual report he’ll see that they’ve noted there have been some infractions in one or two cases. The ministry, with its auditing staff, has tried to follow up the report as carefully and quickly as possible to make sure that those infractions were amended and that the policies were corrected.

I must say that in some cases, because of the procedure adopted by the municipality, if we had asked them to go back and set down the procedure according to what we had originally established it would have been a hardship on some of those to whom loans were extended. So there have been special considerations given where it would have been a real hardship to alter the policy or programs for those individuals.

WCB REPORTS

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, during my absence the member for Cambridge (Mr. M. Davidson) raised several questions with the Premier (Mr. Davis), concerning a story in the Hamilton Spectator, relating to remarks by a Dr. Jack Richmond at a Canadian Society of Safety Engineering conference.

Like the member, I was distressed to see this sort of comment made by a physician. I am pleased to report to the member that the executive director of the board’s medical services division and the director of the claims adjudication branch spoke with Dr. Richmond on the telephone on October 1.

In that conversation, Dr. Richmond stated it was not his intention to advise employers to take actions that would disrupt the processing of legitimate claims, but he did confirm he had stated at the meeting that employers should leave the social insurance number off form 7-S when they are completing it, in anticipation of receiving a phone call from the board which would provide the employers with an opportunity to voice their opinion about the legitimacy of the claim.

In response, board officials outlined the implications of his statement and told Dr. Richmond that if an employer wished to raise doubts about the validity of a claim he should do so by indicating it on form 7 and attach an accompanying letter outlining the reasons for challenging the case.

Dr. Richmond indicated he believed he had been misquoted and, when properly quoted, his remarks had been taken out of context. He told the board he planned to write a letter to the editor of the Hamilton Spectator to clarify the situation.

Both the board and I believe Dr. Richmond now understands that limiting the information provided to the board in the initial accident report provides no benefit to the employee, the employer or the treating physician, as the resulting delay has a negative effect on the employee and might well delay the necessary treatment that could allow him to return to work.

I regret that these comments were made, but I am hopeful this clarification will ensure such comments are not repeated by others talking about the system of reporting accidents to the Workmen’s Compensation Board.

Mr. McClellan: Supplementary: In view of the fact this Dr. Richmond has acted as the medical consultant to the BP refinery in Sarnia, as well as to Canadian General Electric and St. Lawrence Cement, I want to repeat the request I made of the minister through the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell), or the Premier -- I don’t recall which -- and that is that the Minister of Health review cases which have come from those three companies in which Dr. Richmond was involved in his capacity as medical consultant and make a determination whether Dr. Richmond practised the kind of sabotage on those cases, or on any cases in WCB files, which he was preaching at this convention and which was quoted in the Hamilton Spectator.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to disagree with the intent of the member’s question, because I share almost an anger that someone would do that sort of thing. Whether or not it is feasible or possible to carry out the sort of review the member requests, I can only inquire and see.

JAILING OF MOTORIST

Mr. Eakins: I have a question for the Attorney General, Mr. Speaker, when he returns to his seat. I believe he is getting ready for after the next election.

Mr. Speaker: The member can put the question. The Attorney General can hear it on his way over.

Mr. T. P. Reid: He can’t walk and listen at the same time.

Mr. Eakins: Mr. Speaker, realizing that the new Judicature Act will come into effect on April 1, I believe, and following my question of a week ago, will the Ministry of the Attorney General stop this charade that is now taking place in Ontario whereby, when an individual is convicted of a driving offence and is given the alternative of a fine or, say, three days in jail, that alternative does not exist in Ontario? In fact, if such an individual wants to retain his or her driver’s licence a fine must be paid, period. Is this not simply blackmail, instead of allowing the individual the alternative the judge or justice of the peace offers?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member has brought this problem to my attention and I know he is anxious to get a response. I don’t know what the problem is in relation to his constituent. I will try again to get back to him as quickly as possible. On October 29 I wrote the member a fairly lengthy letter --

Mr. Eakins: You should read what you said.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I will reread it. Quite frankly, I don’t recall specifically the contents of the letter, but I did read it --

Mr. Nixon: It was your usual memorable letter.

Mr. T. P. Reid: It’s a form letter, anyway.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I will pursue the matter further if the member so desires. I am not sure what that particular problem is.

Mr. Eakins: Mr. Speaker, it’s simply a straightforward question. When a person in Ontario is convicted in the courts before a judge or magistrate and is given a fine of $18 or three days in jail and the person opts for the three days, why cannot one serve those three days? Why does the ministry write to these people and tell them, “If you want your driver’s licence back, pay the $18”? In effect, there’s no such thing as serving three days in jail.

Why doesn’t the Attorney General stop the charade and tell the judges and the justices of the peace to eliminate this, because one can’t serve three days in jail? That’s the effect. Can he answer that?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I don’t have anything to add to what I said in my letter, but I will review the matter.

ESL PROGRAM

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Education. In view of the fact that only a small fraction of the total number of children who need the English-as-a-second-language program are being served in this province right now; in particular, since in two North York schools there are 456 students who have been identified as needing ESL and only 115 in those two schools are getting it; and in view of the fact that between 5,000 and 15,000 Indo-Chinese children who speak no English are expected to enter Ontario schools within the next 12 to 14 months, will the minister assure the House that 100 per cent provincial funds will go to the school boards immediately to ensure that new classes will be set up to meet that need?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, there are very logical definitions of responsibility set out under the general legislative grant which I would anticipate would be a part of any exploration of funding for any massive increase in numbers of students requiring English-as-a-second-language teaching. I’m sure the honourable member would wish to ensure that that responsibility at the local level would remain a part of the responsibility of the locally-elected officials.

Mr. Grande: Supplementary: Is the minister aware that according to the grant formulae no provincial money would be flowing to the school boards until January 1981 to meet this need? Would the minister make a commitment to communicate with the chairmen and with the directors of education of the boards of education in this province who are right now forcing teachers to remove children from the special programs to make room for the new arrivals, and will the minister communicate to them that this is definitely not an acceptable solution to the problems they are facing and will be facing?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I have no knowledge and no information that indeed directors of education are removing from programs children who are at the present time being taught English as a second language in order to make room for others. I shall investigate the situation and shall be glad to consider the results of that investigation.

TEACHER-BOARD NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Bradley: A question to the Minister of Education: In view of the fact that the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union has requested on behalf of the academic staff of Ontario’s community colleges binding arbitration to settle all outstanding matters and disputes in their current negotiations, is the minister prepared to order that kind of binding arbitration to avoid a devastating strike at this time of year, which would have a very detrimental effect on the academic outcome of students in the province of Ontario?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that consideration of the request is being made at this point by the Council of Regents for Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology, which is the body responsible for those negotiations. I shall most certainly be interested to hear what the council has to say about it.

Mr. Bradley: Supplementary: Is the minister aware that the employees’ association of the family and children’s services in the Niagara region requested the same thing, binding arbitration, and when it was not forthcoming a strike did occur and children in the Niagara region were adversely affected? Does she not see the same pattern developing in the community colleges across the province of Ontario?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I would admit that this eventuality can indeed occur, but I would remind the participants in collective bargaining that the ultimate sanction is one which may in fact be exercised. If there is a reasonable alternative to that kind of sanction I would be most willing to look at it, but I think the fact that that sanction exists does impose a degree of responsibility on each side at the bargaining table, and I would assume that those parties to those negotiations would accept that responsibility in the light of the possible alternatives and in the light of the possible results of their actions.

[3:15]

VISIT OF U.S. PRESIDENT

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. My concern is whether or not this government has been consulted by the federal government about the proposed agenda of items to be discussed at the time of the visit of President Carter to Ottawa later on this week. In the spirit of co-operation that exists between the two governments, has a discussion taken place? If so, what are the concerns of Ontario that may be subject to discussion at Ottawa at the end of this week? What input has this ministry had to the development of that agenda?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I think there have been some informal discussions about some of the details concerning the visit, but I certainly haven’t been a party to any detailed subject matter discussions as to an agenda or anything like that. I can’t tell the member anything more than that.

Mr. Renwick: By way of a supplementary question, is the minister saying that there are no matters that may be on an agenda to be discussed by the President of the United States with the Prime Minister of Canada that may affect this province, such as the continuing option for the location of major industrial plants; such as the question of acid rain which has preoccupied so much of the time of this assembly; such as the continuing operation of the auto pact; and any number of other items that may be of significance to this jurisdiction?

In the short time available, will the minister try to indicate to the government at Ottawa that there are matters of sensitive concern to this province which have repercussions on any discussions which may take place at the federal level between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, this is basically a visit by the President of the United States, a very short visit, to the federal government and to the capital of this country.

Mr. Renwick: It was a short one to Mexico too.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I’m sure that if any of the items that my friend has enumerated are being discussed, the present government of Canada will elicit our opinions --

Mr. McClellan: They’ll let you know.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- and our ideas on those particular subjects.

Mr. McClellan: They’ll send a press release.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I’d be glad to make a fuller report a little later in the week as to what kind of matters will be discussed at that meeting and tell my friend what is happening.

REPORT

STANDING RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Mr. Villeneuve from the standing resources development committee presented the following addendum report to the report on the Pickering B generating station’s steam generators supplied to Ontario Hydro by Babcock and Wilcox Canada Limited and moved its adoption.

Your committee believes that officials of Ontario Hydro, in their testimony of July 4, 1979, should have provided more detailed answers to the committee in reply to questions regarding difficulties encountered with the boilers supplied by Babcock and Wilcox Canada Limited for the Bruce A generating plant.

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

MOTIONS

STANDING ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE COMMITTEE

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that the standing administration of justice committee be authorized to travel to Park Public School in the city of Toronto on Wednesday, November 7, 1979, and that the provisions of section 66 of the Legislative Assembly Act be not applicable.

Motion agreed to.

SITTING OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that when the House adjourns on Friday, November 9, it stands adjourned until Tuesday, November 13, 1979.

Motion agreed to.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day, I wish to table the answers to questions 311 and 326 standing on the Notice Paper.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, OFFICE OF THE PREMIER (CONTINUED)

On vote 201, Office of the Premier program:

Mr. Deputy Chairman: I believe that when the committee adjourned the other day the Premier was in the process of answering a question.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think I had partially completed my answer, Mr. Chairman. The member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) was anxious to go about other business and indicated he wanted to be here this afternoon for these discussions. If he has a few observations to make I will reserve my further discussions until he has completed his contribution.

I am sorry, the leader of the New Democratic Party wasn’t here on Friday because of urgent public business, so I assume he wants to speak first.

Mr. Cassidy: I apologize to the Premier, actually, for not being present. I was able to hear the last few minutes of his exchanges with the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith), but I had an unbreakable engagement outside, and I have broken a few to be here today.

I want to take a look at some of the key problems which will be facing this province as we enter the 1980s. We are less than two months away from that unhappy or happy date, and as the Premier knows we have already raised a number of concerns in this House. I want to reiterate a few of them, because I am concerned about the way the government is tackling major and important issues and I am concerned about the consequences of its inaction in important areas which affect virtually every resident of the province.

The first day we were back, just under a month ago, I asked the Premier about the state of medicare, and he told this House effectively that medicare in Ontario was the best system in the world. I don’t think that’s too much of a hyperbole.

Since then the Premier has stood aside and let the heat be directed at the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell). I can tell the Premier that we don’t feel we have been getting the desired response from the Minister of Health. We feel he has been ignoring real problems in the health system that have been created, not just by the ministry but also by the overall policies of the government headed by the Premier.

I have talked to a lot of people this fall about what is happening in medicare and hospital insurance, and New Democrats in general have talked to many more over the course of the last six or eight weeks. I can tell the Premier that the concern about medicare is a very real one in every corner of the province and that the problems we are running into are very similar everywhere in the province as well.

Last Monday I was off in Oshawa and met 150 people there. They told me about patients going from a stretcher in the emergency ward, to which they had been admitted for the lack of a bed, up to the operating room, and then being returned to the stretcher in the emergency ward because there was no other place to put these particular patients. The hospitals in Ajax and in Whitby have whole areas that have been shut down, thanks to the edicts of the Ministry of Health, where there are empty beds, yet people are being backed up in the emergency ward to the point where there are sometimes as many as eight or nine patients who are being held overnight in holding areas for lack of any particular room.

Not only is it a matter of the hospitals running into problems because of the arbitrary cutbacks that the government has brought in, it is a matter of the doctors being given what amounts to a free rein to undermine the health-care system because of the very substantial double billing which they have under way right now.

The Premier may be aware of the fact that the Ontario Medical Association fee schedule averages 43 to 44 per cent higher than what people can receive under OHIP. If you have a broken arm and you get it fixed, you get paid $36.50 by OHIP but the DMA fee is $52. If you have an appendectomy you get $132 and the OMA rate is $190, a 43 per cent difference. So it goes right through the whole list.

That wouldn’t be substantially important, except for the fact the proportion of doctors opted out is heavy across the province. In some specialties it is as high as 47 per cent, as in my riding of Ottawa Centre, and effective access to medical care is being denied.

If the Premier would like, I can even send him a copy of Dr. Allan Garland’s fee schedule. He is a family physician in Weston who is in fact double billing. Dr. Garland doesn’t hold with the OMA fee schedule. Where the OMA would give him $28 he is charging $40 for general assessment, as against the OHIP fee of only $19.50.

On an ear syringe, of all things, where OHIP pays two dollars and a nickel, Dr. Garland charges a mere $5, or a 140 per cent surcharge; and so it goes right though his particular fee schedule.

I raise those particulars with the Premier because I want the Premier to understand that both in the hospitals and in the medical care provided by doctors there are now severe problems. If the government refuses to take any action we are going to get a hospital system which will increasingly be of lower quality. We are going to get doctors who will increasingly decide to take the law into their own hands and charge what they think the market will bear rather than providing universal access. In turn, that will mean a two-class system of health care in the province of Ontario.

That is not what this Legislature voted to bring in when hospital insurance was established in Ontario in the late 1950s; that is not what the Legislature voted for when medicare came in the latter part of the 1960s. We didn’t vote at that time for a hospital system which would come under the sudden and arbitrary bed cutbacks which have been imposed by the Minister of Health and his particular staff. We voted for a system that would be universal, to which everybody would have access and which wouldn’t treat anybody as a second-class citizen. We didn’t vote for 10 years of medicare followed by a return to the welfare ward, a return to a system where people who could afford it got first-class medical care and people who couldn’t would find themselves having to wait for hours in hospital clinics or having themselves shovelled through doctors’ surgeries at an incredible rate because they couldn’t afford any more than what the government plan would pay.

We have made some impact, I think, with the campaigning we have been doing to try to get the government to change its tune. Over the course of the spring the government has come up with $65 million which it said it didn’t have in order to help hospitals, although we haven’t found out how that money is going to be spent.

The Minister of Health, who has been busily closing hospitals suddenly came up with $32 million for the coming fiscal year in order to help hospitals open new beds within their capital budgets.

The ministry which said no appeal process would be available has somehow managed to invent an appeal process. The ministry which said it would cut beds and offered no alternatives is now quite vigorously looking at the possibility of turning some of those active-treatment beds into chronic-treatment beds.

So far, so good; but the facts are, Mr. Chairman, that is only a step or two along the way to preserving the health-care system we have and making the health-care system a heck of a lot better than what we have had in the past.

When I was in Sault Ste. Marie, I was struck by the excellent community clinic which was established by steelworkers in 1963 and which has now grown to be a model of its kind across Ontario, in fact across this country. The Premier may not be aware of it, but that is a model of the kind of alternative health care which we should have created by now in every part of the province. The Premier may not know it, but that particular clinic, which treats almost half the population of Sault Ste. Marie, is using 40 per cent fewer hospital days than are required on average for patients in Sault Ste. Marie who don’t go to that clinic but who go to their regular family doctor who practises the kind of medicine practised elsewhere across the province.

[3:30]

I am sure the Premier can recognize that at $200 or so a day, to save 40 per cent of the hospital days represents an enormous saving for the health-care system, and in turn means an enormous amount of resources which could, and we believe should, be available to provide alternate forms of health care in the community.

That is why we have been looking with frustration on the actions of the government. For 10 years we’ve had medicare in this province and we have not taken the fundamental steps needed to restructure and change health care. We’ve privatized the public health-care system. We’ve provided health insurance for doctors; we have made no changes in the way that the care is actually delivered.

Perhaps the Premier knows that the clinic in the Sault has had to fight entrenched, bitter and continuing resistance, not just from local academies of medicine but also from the Ministry of Health. Perhaps the Premier knows that the small health-service organizations, the community clinics across this province, have been held on a string and made to dance to a tune played by the Ministry of Health, which has devoted every conceivable effort to try to prove that their kind of medicine doesn’t work and that the only kind of medicine that works is the kind of medicine that doctors have traditionally provided in this province.

If we are sometimes frustrated at the way the government runs medicare, it’s because there are such opportunities on the one hand, while the way we are going, on the other hand, is such a dead end. It is a dead end because of the fact that the cutbacks now seem enshrined in this government’s policy. It is a dead end because if public medicare is brought in and designed to be universal and accessible and if the system is not changed, then one is almost inevitably going to get into problems, which could and should have been avoided had there been progressive leadership coming from the government over the last 10 years.

It is not often I spring to the Premier’s defence and I won’t do it for long, however I do want to say I have heard the Premier say quite clearly that Ontario is prepared to seek a $1-a-barrel increase in the price of oil, which has been agreed to for January, but that Ontario has taken the position there should be no further increases in the price of oil until a number of specific conditions have been fulfilled. I heard that loud and clear, even if not everybody in this House has heard that.

Mr. Conway: Some old game.

Mr. Cassidy: I do fear that the Premier’s pleas have been falling on deaf ears up in Ottawa. I think we should register the fact that the shift in political gravity towards western Canada that has occurred in this country in this past year has been even swifter and more abrupt than the shift in economic gravity which has slowly been taking place since the early 1970s.

Nevertheless, in the next election, the Premier, his party and his government will have Joe Clark’s energy policies as a cross to bear. I think the Premier understands that’s one of the difficulties he will face when it comes to the next election, no matter how much he seeks to fight Joe Clark.

Mr. Martel: He should sell Joe Clark and keep Petrocan.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right, yes.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Now you know that that’s nonsense.

Mr. Conway: You can only sell something for which there is an established price.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Does that mean you’re for sale?

Mr. Cassidy: I would say as well to the Premier if any other party, if the Liberal Party for example, expects to benefit from the Premier’s being identified with Joe Clark’s policies, then let’s put it on the record. The high-interest party of seven months ago, which was the Liberal Party of Canada, is now the Conservative Party of Canada. The party that was advocating unemployment as part of a fight against inflation seven months ago was the Liberal Party of Canada; that’s now become the Conservative Party of Canada. The party that was trying to cut family allowances, and did so in fact a few months ago, was the Liberal Party of Canada; its members are now joined by their spiritual brothers, the members of the Conservative Party of Canada,

Mr. Martel: Surely there is not much difference, is there?

Mr. Cassidy: The party which was seeking world prices for oil in this country a few months ago was the Liberal Party of Canada. It is now joined by its spiritual brethren under the leadership of the fellow the Premier campaigned for.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You’re not blaming me for that.

Mr. Cassidy: I’m not blaming you, I’m just saying --

Hon. Mr. Davis: But you’re not sure of the latter part.

Mr. Cassidy: I guess there is one good thing about the May 22 election.

Mr. Conway: This can only be described as war of cordiality.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s better than cool cordiality. The one good thing that emerged from May 22 is the demonstration that if there is anything worse than a Liberal government in Ottawa it’s probably having a Conservative government in Ottawa. The two of them are just about impossible to distinguish when they trade hands and trade leadership at that particular level.

Mr. Nixon: Thank God, we’ll never find out about the third party.

Mr. Martel: Don’t be so sure; they said that in Ontario.

Mr. Cassidy: It’s easy to have hindsight but I would like the Premier to imagine that Ontario, back in 1975, had joined with the province of Saskatchewan when Alan Blakeney proposed the energy security fund that he put forward at a federal-provincial ministers conference in 1975. That fund, established at that time, would have put the ownership of new energy resources squarely in the hands of the public of Canada and in the hands of the governments of the producing provinces. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how much different the situation would be today. Now we find ourselves at the mercy of multinational oil companies; we find ourselves spending hundreds of millions of dollars on tax expenditures in order to help those foreign companies develop our resources and sell them to Canadians while keeping them under foreign ownership. It was an opportunity that was lost, Mr. Chairman.

To bring the discussion closer to home, there are other opportunities that have been lost in this province as well; that was just one of them.

The government of this province will be judged on its energy policy, not just on the basis of what was said at federal-provincial conferences but also on what is done here in the province of Ontario. That’s why when I spoke in the energy debate a couple of weeks ago I talked about a number of specific, concrete steps that could and should be taken by the government of this province, by the people of this province, to improve the productivity of our energy use; to make sure that we were less vulnerable to ransom, whether from the Alberta government or any other outside body.

I made a number of specific suggestions in the areas of building codes, insulation, transit and methanol development, and a number of other items; but we wait in vain, Mr. Chairman, we wait in vain for the Premier and the government to determine when anything is actually going to occur. We hear with interest but with concern that the government’s planning for energy over the next 15 years involves about $15 million or $16 million of public expenditure, almost all devoted to the generation of electricity. It is a pious hope that the private sector will do what the government will not in terms of developing alternative sources of energy and in terms of conservation. Meanwhile, Hydro spends $1.8 billion on new investment, largely in the nuclear area, while the government’s total investment in the areas of conservation, renewable energy and alternate energy sources totals about $16 million. At a conservative estimate that is about one per cent of what’s going into the area of Hydro.

Mr. Nixon: Hydro plants are cheap.

Mr. Cassidy: In simple terms, Mr. Chairman, that isn’t good enough. Despite everything that’s been said and all we know about the energy needs of this province, we still haven’t got an effective energy plan coming from the government. We have ample advice being directed to the feds about what they should do, but very little is being done in terms of breaking the paths in Ontario. We have a continued, almost excessive, expenditure in one area, the area of electricity. We are already 25 per cent overbuilt, while next to nothing is done in the other areas. We have a Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch), the latest in a line occupying that particular position, for whom I have great respect. I had great respect for his ability as House leader and so on, but that position is becoming a revolving door. The present minister perhaps indicates why that is so when he says, despite what even the National Energy Board says, that there’s no problem, our situation is manageable once again. You may as well start to change him, Mr. Premier, it is about time; you knew you were going to have to do it soon.

Mr. Chairman, one of the concerns legitimately expressed by western Canadians over the course of recent months is just what has Ontario done with the control it has had over the industrial heartland of this country for the last century, let us say for at least the last 35 or 36 years. What have we done? Yes, it’s grown; but now that we have come to the crunch, now that the good times are no longer here, what have we built to protect ourselves and this country as we move into the 1980s?

What advantages have we taken which will benefit us five years from now during this period when our energy prices have been significantly below the world energy levels that have prevailed, particularly in Europe?

Over the last two or three years there has, in fact, been a great increase in understanding and public discussion about some of the problems of Ontario’s industrial economy. Many of the things New Democrats used to be alone in talking about have now become almost common watchwords, as people talk about the costs of foreign ownership and about the risks of relying on foreign oil multinationals and other problems like that. Other people now recognize what we have said for a long time.

My colleague, the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel), and my former colleague, the former member for Wentworth, Mr. Deans, and a number of members even from the Premier’s party, joined together in the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism back around 1972 to develop a blueprint of what was needed to try to protect and secure the economy of this province and this country against the control of foreigners and against the problems that have been created.

Apart from insisting that the boards of directors include a few Canadians, 51 per cent, and that can be five secretaries from Canada and then the five big boys who come up from Cleveland --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no.

Mr. Martel: All this is window dressing and you know it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will give you a list.

Mr. Martel: Yes, I know; it’s still window dressing.

Mr. Cassidy: The facts are the structural problems of the economy now are exposed as never before. With 60 per cent of our industry in foreign hands, and half of that, or more than half of that, in the hands of US corporations, we are suffering an enormous drain in terms of profit, in terms of dividends, in terms of management fees and royalties -- God knows you name it and off it goes across the border. It is at a rate which is getting pressingly onerous as far as people in the province and the country are concerned.

There is the problem of the export performance of foreign-owned corporations. The Premier knows -- at least he acknowledges to me privately -- that when a foreign-owned corporation is under orders from head office not to export, particularly to the most attractive market we have abroad which is in the United States, then the fact is there is a branch plant operation such that they have nothing meaningful to sell. They don’t research, they don’t develop any products; they have nothing in particular to sell abroad, and therefore they are part of what the experts now call the truncated branch plant structure of our economy, of which this particular province is the epitome right through Canada.

The Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) has discovered global product mandating -- I will give him some credit -- but he hasn’t yet discovered how to make it stick with foreign owners who have learned over the years they can cock their snook at the Ontario government, right from the Premier on down, because effectively there is no political will being shown to make those foreign-owned corporations act Canadian and to bring them under Canadian control.

I would like to see this government say that over the next 10 years our goal is to reduce foreign ownership in this economy from 60 per cent or more in manufacturing to 40 per cent, or to 30 per cent; and if we are not getting there by natural market forces then by God we are prepared to take direct action in order to see that kind of goal achieved.

I think that kind of thing is feasible, and I think had this government said that back in the 1960s we would not be looking with such pain on the prospects for the economy in the 1980s when so much of our economy is foreign controlled.

One of the areas where we have a particularly dismal record is in research and development. The science and technology jobs can’t be filled by Canadians if R and D isn’t being done in this country.

If I can give just one example to the Premier, his colleague was up in the House the other day to announce, with some pride, the decisions by General Motors Corporation to invest in Windsor and in St. Catharines. We welcome that particular investment, although we would prefer to see it in Canadian hands. I think the Premier knows that, but the Premier did not comment the other day on the fact that all of the technology for the new cars of the 1980s being carried out by General Motors is being carried out without so much as a nickel of effective research and development spending by GM here in Canada.

We have a cold weather station up in Kapuskasing which employs a handful of housewives and a few motel owners to house the researchers who come up from the United States and that’s all, that’s all the research and development. In the meantime, Canadians who buy cars and trucks every year are remitting to the United States the equivalent of $300 million annually for research and development by the automobile companies in the United States.

[3:45]

Mr. Martel: A disaster.

Mr. Cassidy: I could point out to the Premier the fact we have high unemployment, with the prospect that it’s going to rise again in 1980 according to what the Conference Board in Canada says, and yet we have severe shortages of skilled labour in virtually every area of need.

This government has been prepared to let companies hire their skilled workers abroad. It’s been a policy which has been devoutly followed for so many years that now we have an ageing skilled-labour force and nobody coming up in Ontario to fill those particular jobs. We get the Ministry of Industry and Tourism going off to the United Kingdom to help General Motors of Canada Limited hire skilled workers for its plants down in Windsor. We have Douglas Aircraft Company of Canada Limited trying to do the same thing until it was turned down by its union, the United Automobile Workers.

We have a manpower commission, which has been established under the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie) but every time we ask the minister what it does he says: “The Ministry of Education has got a bit of this action.” Similarly, the Minister of Industry and Tourism, and goodness knows who else, have various parts of that particular show.

There is still no effective manpower policy. There is still no insistence that companies have a responsibility to train or to contribute to the cost of training if they won’t do it themselves. There’s still no insistence on planning for our manpower needs and in making sure that those skilled workers are in fact going to be trained and will be available in the 1980s, and that those opportunities will in fact be opened up to the young Canadian men and women who are now coming out of our high schools, colleges and universities.

Mr. Chairman, I think the Premier should recognize that in Ontario right now, far from an increase in industry there are signs that in certain key sectors we are suffering from deindustrialization. I could cite an example right in my own riding where 100 jobs at Jean Pigott’s old plant, the Morrison Lamothe company, are now disappearing as a result of a corporate merger with an American-controlled company which is taking over Morrison Lamothe’s bakery operation.

Here in Metropolitan Toronto, the heart of the Golden Horseshoe, they’ve had an increase of almost 900 manufacturing jobs between 1974 and 1979 at a time when the work force has gone up by 20 per cent.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, but you have to include Brampton and Mississauga.

Mr. Cassidy: The Premier says, “You have to include Brampton and Mississauga.” I’m sorry I don’t have the figures with me here, but I would say to the Premier that all that Brampton can do will not prevail over the shortfall in the creation of industrial jobs through the remainder of the Metropolitan Toronto region.

When one looks at the fact that there have been losses in jobs in the durables sector, in textiles, in clothing, in furniture, in paper, in metal fabricating, in machinery, in electrical products and in chemicals in Metropolitan Toronto over that five-year period it gives one pause. One begins to ask oneself if the government has been doing an effective job of stewardship over our economy, and if so why are these industries in actual decline in terms of the number of jobs?

Why is it that there’s been no growth at all in such key areas as primarily metals and in rubber products? Why is it that the government, which says it’s so concerned about the development of Canadian enterprise, continues to give its seal of approval to 90 per cent of the applications before the Foreign Investment Review Agency in Ottawa?

If one looks at another area, the area of buying Canadian, one asks if the action of this government in rejecting Canadian suppliers -- when it comes to light as it did in the case of Canadian Applied Technology and that equipment that was needed for Nanticoke -- isn’t just like the tip of an iceberg? Doesn’t that really demonstrate that the slogans and the TV commercials and that lovely little red maple leaf that I see on the billboard when I drive down to the Legislature, or even when I ride on the TTC, are all very nice, but in reality the government is not prepared to put its commitment where the publicity has been as far as encouraging a science-based corporation here that comes from Canadian sources and does Canadian-based research and development, and surely the government has to be judged not just by its words but also by its deeds.

The deeds of the government have been predicated on the view that if the government pulls in its horns, if we deny essential services to the public, then in time that will begin to pay off in terms of private sector development. That fails to recognize the serious structural problems. If the private sector is deindustrializing; if Texas Instruments Incorporated, to give an example, is taking its assembly line operations back to the US and is just simply replacing them with a warehouse operation here in this country; if that is happening in many parts of industry, and if there is no or little commitment to Canadian production and development on the part of the firms that control 60 per cent of our manufacturing industry, then that belief in private enterprise is not going to succeed.

We are not going to get the kind of returns the Premier and the government are looking for. We are not going to get the kind of growth of jobs this province actually needs. We won’t be able to resist that drift to the west. We will find ourselves in the 1980s facing increasing difficulties, on the one hand because the industrial economy in the province is weak; and on the other hand because of the fact that, given that weakness, we will have more and more difficulty in maintaining essential public services, such as a high standard of health care and of social services.

Those are the most critical issues, but I bring to the Premier’s attention the fact that everywhere you now look in this government there are problems. I am not sure how he can justify the fact that where last year three children’s aid societies felt compelled to appeal their budgets to the ministry’s review board, this year 30 of them had to do so. I am not sure how he justifies the government’s standing by while for five months a strike has been forced to continue at the Sault Ste. Marie Children’s Aid Society over a dispute which comes down to a difference of about $20,000.

I am not sure how the Premier can, on the one hand actively intervene to torpedo the bill of the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) which would have given legislative status to the French language, something which has been the cry and the desire of Franco-Ontarians for so many years, and on the other hand stand idly by while the Minister of Education effectively reverses a policy the Premier himself brought in 10 years ago --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is entirely erroneous.

Mr. Cassidy: -- to guarantee that there could be a right to French-language secondary school education for everybody in the province.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: That’s where you’re entirely wrong.

Mr. Martel: Then deliver it.

Mr. Cassidy: I am particularly concerned because of the fact that with the referendum taking place in Quebec in six or seven months, why it is that this province, which has such a crucial role in Confederation, should quite deliberately set out to prove every allegation of the PQ and of the separatists when they say the rest of Canada doesn’t care about its francophone population --

Mr. Martel: They do, they use it every time.

Mr. Cassidy: -- and that the only place they can find a national home is in Quebec? The Premier should know that the headlines are almost six inches tall. Certainly the impact on people in Quebec every time we take a decision like the one in Penetanguishene is absolutely stupendous in terms of convincing people in Quebec that Ontario doesn’t care. He should know that every Penetang costs 10 times as much in terms of the loss of what influence we could have on the future referendum, as does everything this province has done; and it is quite a commendable record, in many ways, in terms of providing French-language secondary education for the 80 or 85 per cent of the eligible population who now benefit from it.

We have some accomplishments in that area, and when I talk to my friends from Quebec I tell them about them, Mr. Chairman. I say that to the Premier too, but all the same I can’t go into Quebec and defend the fact that when it came to the crunch we were not prepared to continue along the route that was decided upon 10 years ago.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: We are going along the route that was decided upon. Just because we’re not building a building doesn’t mean we’re not going along that route.

Mr. Martel: You have to teach in the system to understand it.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Oh, nonsense.

Mr. Martel: Look, I’ve spent time in both systems; don’t you tell me.

Mr. Nixon: Oh well, that’s the end of it right there; next.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Nobody can tell you anything.

Mr. Deputy Chairman: The member for Ottawa Centre has the floor.

Mr. Cassidy: Every Franco-Ontarian group of any substance has registered its opposition to the step taken by the Minister of Education.

What I want to do, in concluding, is to express concern over the fact that whether it’s kids; whether it’s social workers who are trying to do a job in Sault Ste. Marie; whether it’s people who just want to get access to medicare without having to pay extra; whether it’s people in the labour unions who are forced to go out on the picket lines in order to get such basic rights as union security or a first contract; whether it’s the Franco-Ontarians -- it seems there are so many minorities across this province; whether it’s women, who are still battling to get legislation in this province to get equal pay for work of equal value; this government seems to be set on a tactic of confrontation rather than one of seeking co-operation in order to gather our forces together to meet the challenges of the 1980s in areas as crucial as medicare, energy or the economy.

I say as well that if I were a Conservative -- I haven’t been and I don’t intend to be -- I would have real qualms now about the nature of the government which is being led by the Premier. It’s beginning to show the same problems as the federal Liberal government was showing in its latter years.

I give the Premier great credit for the fact he’s led this province for eight years, it’s longer than I’ve had a chance to yet do --

Interjection.

Mr. Cassidy: We’ll have to see about that. We’ll let the voters decide on that particular subject.

Increasingly, it seems as though the shots are called by the Premier. The Premier is dealing from a hand which I’m afraid is tending to be more and more empty when it comes to filling up the cabinet. That creates real problems, as I think the Premier will acknowledge happened with the federal Liberal government. It happened in Ottawa, and I’m afraid it can happen here as well.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think when you say you’re afraid of it happening you really are saying you wish it would, and you know it won’t.

Mr. Martel: Verbal gymnastics at its best.

Mr. Cassidy: I’m just making an observation, the public can be the judge.

I do want to say that we are going into the 1980s, in my opinion unprepared and unarmed for the challenges we have to face. We’ve lost many opportunities over the course of the last decade, certainly in the time I’ve known this House, since October 1971.

If I can give one specific example to the Premier. It was in February 1978 that this government decided it would advance $300 million interest free to Rio Algom and to Denison Mines. That was Ontario’s Petrocan. Denison is now dutifully going out in the private sector buying up energy investments in heavy oil all over the place, thanks to the grubstake it was given by the Ontario government.

We could have taken those corporations over; brought them into the public sector; had them do in the public sector, at public profit, what they are now doing in the private sector at private profit.

Mr. Martel: At great cost to us.

Mr. Cassidy: We could thereby have helped to secure the energy future of this province. But that door has been shut because of the decisions of the former Treasurer (Mr. McKeough), and presumably of the Premier himself.

When we come to grips with the problems of the 1980s they are going to demand more than a government which is ideologically committed just to standing aside. They’re going to demand more than just simply a policy of restraint in hope that the private sector will somehow come through. They are going to demand planning. The problems of the 1980s are going to demand commitment and involvement on the part of government. They’re going to demand more than what the so-called swing to the right is delivering.

It seems to me people are looking for that kind of engagement from government, and I don’t really think it can come from this government because of the nature of the party the Premier happens to lead.

If we at times appear to be frustrated at the inaction on medicare, at the failure to create policies to start meeting our energy needs within domestic sources, and the failure to come to grips with the problems of foreign ownership and the structural problems of our economy, it’s a frustration over the fact that the party the Premier leads has been in office for so long and is not taking advantage of the opportunities that are there to turn this province into a province that could do so much for so many of its 8,500,000 residents.

I wanted to put those few remarks on the record. I know my colleague has some comments about the Legislature. I welcome the chance to make this contribution to the Premier’s estimates; I hope he emerges chastened and wiser, and that he will in fact implement a number of the suggestions we’ve been so bold as to make.

[4:00]

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Chairman, I would like to reply briefly to the leader of the New Democratic Party, because he would be upset if I didn’t at least offer some observations on the points he has raised. At the outset, I would like to say that I thought it was one of his more reasoned approaches here in the House.

Mr. Cassidy: I’m always reasonable, Mr. Chairman.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, I’m not sure that the member is, but I thought it was one of the more reasoned ones; although wrong, at least it was delivered in a way that does not provoke an unreasoned response.

I won’t deal with medicare at any great length, Mr. Chairman, because we’ve debated that on other occasions. I expect we will continue to do so. I do thank the leader of the New Democratic Party for acknowledging that in the field of hospital services the government is moving ahead, that we have found additional funds to make very significant progress. That’s the language I would use. The member uses a different language but I’m sure we were saying the same thing.

Mr. Cassidy: We had to twist the government’s arm in order to get it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, no. How these things are done is something else, but it’s encouraging to have the leader of the New Democratic Party publicly acknowledge we are making significant progress in medicare. It’s certainly much better than it was six months ago --

Mr. Martel: Kick it to death.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- and there are just one or two hurdles to resolve.

Mr. Martel: The government has slowed down the decline.

Hon. Mr. Davis: With respect to the energy policy, the member at least understands what we have been saying on energy with respect to pricing. I wish he would read, though, the second paper more carefully. Some of the suggestions he made today, in fact, are included in that.

Mr. Nixon: Is that the Welch paper?

Hon. Mr. Davis: The Welch paper, that’s right. I would think that if the member read that carefully he would find not only the things he has mentioned today but others that have been suggested in terms of how, as a province or even nationally, we might do more with respect to either substitution or conservation. However, I would point out to the leader of the New Democratic Party, who along with his colleagues is concerned about the continued growth of Ontario Hydro, that obviously electricity is one of the potential substitutions and here is a resource that we can use. To say we should substantially limit its potential, when it has in turn the ability for substitution, would I think be a contradiction of the things he has said.

Mr. J. Reed: Tell us about substitution of electric power for liquid fuel, what’s the difference?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I know the energy expert for the Liberal Party is interested, why doesn’t he say something?

Mr. Nixon: He just did.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I read all he says on energy with a great deal of interest.

To digress a bit, Mr. Chairman, I’m not suggesting that you can substitute electricity for all other forms of energy --

Mr. J. Reed: That’s the first step in the right direction the Premier has taken in a month.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- but I do say, with respect, that you can substitute it for some forms of energy, that is correct. My guess is that out of the total in terms of energy supply, you could increase the electricity component by several percentage points without any major adjustment. In fact I think the member will find this has been the case in some other jurisdictions.

Who knows? Take a look, for instance, at the GO Transit service. I haven’t done any calculation of costs recently but surely one can’t ignore the potential of the electrification of that part of the system.

Mr. J. Reed: About 100 megawatts.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, sure.

Mr. J. Reed: The Premier didn’t know that before, did he?

Hon. Mr. Davis: And this is available. Listen, we did a costing 10 years ago; I didn’t but it was done, somebody did it.

Mr. Nixon: The Premier used to be on Hydro, didn’t he; he used to be on the Hydro board?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes. Does the member know how long ago that was? That was before he was even a member.

Mr. Nixon: That’s when some of the original mistakes were made.

Hon. Mr. Davis: In fact that was before he even thought about becoming a member.

Mr. Conway: I remember it well.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, the member for Renfrew North does. What was he; aged two, maybe four?

Mr. Chairman remembers it well, that’s when he was on the Etobicoke Public Utilities Commission.

Mr. Conway: That’s right, when he was a Liberal.

Mr. Deputy Chairman: Let’s leave Mr. Chairman out of this and get on with the debate.

Mr. Conway: If it’s good enough for the Minister of Education, it’s good enough for the Chairman.

Hon. Mr. Davis: However, I urge this on the leader of the New Democratic Party: to ignore the potential of electrical substitution for other forms would be unwise, because I think it’s one of the great pluses we have available to us here.

As I mentioned in the discussions on Thursday or Friday, we think the potential of substitution of natural gas is significant, but it too has its limitations. I think we should be very cautious. Spending a lot of money doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to find other sources of energy.

I don’t close my mind to any of these potentials. I don’t close my mind to the possibilities in terms of solar energy, for example; I discussed this when I was in the United Kingdom. There were people there who were arguing that maybe by the year 2000 we could get up to three per cent of energy consumption through solar. That doesn’t sound like a large percentage to some people, but if we could that would be a very positive step. That is the kind of figure they were looking at there, and I think that is true of the European community and its assessment of other sources of energy.

I will deal briefly with the manufacturing sector, because here the leader of the New Democratic Party and I have certain philosophical differences, some of which will be shared by some members of the Liberal Party but not all members of the Liberal Party.

Mr. Nixon: Some of the members some of the time, but not all of the members all of the time.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That is about right. I am not getting into a lengthy debate on multinationals or control by people other than Canadians, except it is intriguing that you are so negative about how things are here when you recite all the problems we are experiencing. Yet it is interesting to me that the economy of this province is still performing better than that of most states of the union where a lot of these multinationals are headquartered. What I can’t quite understand is how you reconcile your longer-term perspectives of the economy of this country with the fact that we are, in your view -- and I emphasize in your view -- dominated mainly by our American neighbours when most economists give us far greater credit for a potential for economic growth than the United States. I find that in itself something of a contradiction.

I share the views -- in fact I think I have expressed them more often than you have -- about research and development. I have said to the automotive industry very clearly that we don’t want to be confined to the role of hewers of wood and drawers of water, we want our share of research. I think that the companies are giving this serious consideration; I can’t establish anything as yet but I am hopeful.

Mr. Martel: It’s just lip service,

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, I think the potential for this exists. I don’t want to have you be completely negative. I just happened to drop into a modest ceremony -- you can question how modest it was -- at Litton Industries the other day. Litton Industries got an order for $1.2 billion; I think I am fairly close there. This is being done partially through Canadian research, it is being done through Canadian personnel and it is being done in relation to that same firm that you like to chat about, McDonell Douglas. It was won in competition with other people in the United States and it is related to Litton Industries in the United States, but it is functioning as a separate entity. Litton is in a position now to export in the neighbourhood of a billion dollars worth of Canadian-manufactured goods.

Tell me now that the ground rules are all wrong when that sort of thing can happen, because I will take you out to Litton Industries, if you would like to go, to chat to some of the people there. They are not going to tell you that their relationship to Litton in the US has been a total negative when you see that extent of that order, and this is not an unusual sort of example.

Take the case of McDonell Douglas. I just mention these things because they happen to be very close to my riding. The fact is that McDonell Douglas here in Canada in terms of productivity and many other things is showing a better record than that of some of its component organizations in the United States. This is recognized and they are getting increased work. This is happening even though it is part of a multinational.

I am not one to be negative about having more Canadian control and Canadian ownership, I have always been in support of it; but I have to look at the realities. You are asking me to look at realities; I am asking you to look at some.

Our responsibility as a government is to move the economy ahead and to do our best to encourage a climate where investment and job creation can take place. You can talk about some figures here in Metro. You leave out the fact that Ontario has had a better rate of job creation than that of any comparable industrial jurisdiction. You are great at figures, but check them out and show me a jurisdiction that is comparable where in the past 12 months they have had a better record of job creation, a lot of which is in the manufacturing sector.

You can always isolate or take a look at one geographic area. I haven’t got the figures and I am not going to debate them with you, but I look at the totals and I think that the totals for 1979 will be close to 140,000 jobs. That in itself indicates that the economy of this province has continued to move ahead. In fact I think it indicates more than that; it indicates that part of it, though only a modest part, is the result of policies of this government.

Mr. Cassidy: In manufacturing, you know, we have just gotten back to the number of people we had employed in manufacturing in 1974.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But you are arguing the influence of the multinationals, and I just have to tell you that sort of problem isn’t related to the multinationals. The problems we are having here in some areas of the electronics industry are the same problems a multinational or a series of multinationals are having in the United States.

When did Zenith close up their shop in Chicago, was it four or five months ago? It was really the last of the major American electronic-TV producers. I don’t know where the work has gone, I forget now whether it was Mexico or Taiwan. The fact of the matter is the same multinationals you are critical of every day in the week are experiencing the same difficulties in that area in the United States as they are here. It is something that really isn’t related to being a multinational.

Mr. Martel: They have no allegiance to anybody.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is related to the fact this economy is competing now with the Third World economy, or whatever terminology you may wish to use, which establishes a very different set of competitive ground rules. I am just saying to you don’t lay it on the backs of the multinationals, there are other problems inherent in that.

Mr. Martel: They have no allegiance to any country.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would say if you eliminated the philosophical debate about multinationals we would still have trouble in some areas of the electronics industry. I don’t think we can ignore that reality. It is something that has happened and something no degree of subsidization and so on is going to solve.

We have to attempt to develop some of our own technology, concentrate on those things we can do as well or better than other parts of the world, which is not an easy thing to go about.

I refer to the question of employees or skilled workers. I am always encouraged when I hear from the members opposite the concerns they register, because over the years there has been some difficulty in this area.

Mr. Kerrio: I don’t want to get in the bag with Cassidy. Don’t say, “you members over there.” I don’t want to get in the bag with him.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will try not to -- I won’t say it. I have a member of the family here who doesn’t understand all these debates in the House.

Mr. Deputy Chairman: If you are going to make interjections as to whom you are going to get into bed with, you had better get into your own seat to make them.

An hon. member: Politicians make strange bedfellows.

Mr. Kerrio: No, no. I said bag.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He interrupted me. I think the minister was asked, and the other day I was asked, a question with respect to skilled workers and figures were given as to the number who come into this country. In terms of impact I used the figure five or six, and I think the figure the minister had was seven, it doesn’t matter, in terms of the multiplier effect.

Part of the problem we have had, and it is changing and I acknowledge this, has been the reluctance of other groups in our society to accept the concept of skilled training as being a valid form of educational experience. There has been a reluctance, even on the part of some segments of society, to encourage and support apprenticeship programs.

Mr. Cassidy: Like corporations.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But they are not the only ones. I used to have that very simple position, as Minister of Education. There were no problems in those days. We even issued certificates to such unlikely candidates as the member for Sudbury East and all the rest. It just shows you how broadminded we were.

Mr. Martel: He’s just a great fellow. We had to listen to your instructions.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can recall the discussions, and even he may recall them, with respect to the four-year program. Do you remember the debates we had about the two-year occupational program? They still haven’t been totally resolved as to the number of hours that might or might not be included. It is something that goes back a while, and with great respect you can’t blame the government totally.

I am not going to repeat what the minister has said far better than I on so many occasions about this whole area of skilled training. That is there is still out there, that is outside the enlightened atmosphere of this legislative building, a feeling on the part of a lot of people who were rather directly involved with young people and who are in the decision-making process, who still will encourage them and say to them, “Please take your second year in law at Queen’s instead of something else”, or say to one other member of the family -- do you have any family yet, Michael?

Mr. Martel: When you were minister you had to get a profession, that’s all we ever heard then.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have to say to the member for Sudbury East you never read my statements. I made the strongest plea, and the member for Brant-Haldimand-Oxford-Norfolk -- all of those great counties he represents -- can recall debating right here in this House the whole concept of the community colleges, and he recalls too the pressures we were under as a government --

[4:15]

Mr. Martel: You should get back to the teaching profession.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- as well as the pressures I was under as a minister to establish these with a straight transfer program, like the junior college system in the great state of California with everybody going on to university, with everybody getting their BA, MA, PhD. Who was leading the crusade? The great member, he was then the member for Brant (Mr. Nixon) was leading the crusade in terms of a transfer of programs in the colleges.

I made some great speeches in those days; I made some great speeches about the relevance to society of a skilled tradesman vis-à-vis somebody in the professions. I would make the same speech again today but the honourable member wouldn’t listen to me.

All I have to say to him is that the public attitude --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have to tell the honourable member one of the toughest fellows I had to deal with on this concept for a period of years was the same Walter Pitman. I am always encouraged the way Walter has changed his approach, I am just very encouraged. The honourable member should have heard him talk. In fact I had to correct him; he used to talk about liberal education, and I told him as the NDP education critic that was a contradiction in terms too. But anyway Walter has come around and I am delighted that he has.

Mr. Cassidy: Doing a good job.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But I say there is still a school of thought -- or that is the wrong way to phrase it; there are a lot of people who still are reluctant to embrace the concept of a technical training program or skill training as being what they want for their children in terms of an educational experience.

Mr. Martel: That’s your brainwashing in the school system.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, if the honourable member is taking responsibility as a member of the teaching profession for doing it --

Mr. Martel: I’m not, I didn’t create this --

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well he should go out and talk to his teacher friends if he thinks they are doing that.

Mr. Martel: They never had a say in this.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh come on, they can encourage their students any way they want.

Mr. Martel: Well, go after them.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Don’t be so negative about the profession, don’t be so negative about your colleagues.

Mr. Martel: I know how they feel about it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: In fact I am told when the honourable member was teaching, whenever he did teach it was always, “Listen, be a teacher like me.” And all your students said, “Heavens above, is that the only future for us?” No, that’s not true, they didn’t say it that way.

Mr. Martel: I never taught Sunday school.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well I did, that’s where I got all my teaching experience. That’s why I can speak about teaching with such great depth and knowledge.

Mr. Conway: The best note taker the University of Toronto ever had.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Who was?

Mr. Conway: You were the best note taker the U of T ever had.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I never took notes, never took notes.

Mr. Conway: That’s not the record I have.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I tell the honourable member I didn’t take notes, it was one of the great mistakes I made.

Mr. Martel: You should play football for the Toronto Argonauts.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Dealing with the philosophical concern, the last area mentioned by the leader of the New Democratic Party, I don’t think there is any point in labouring whether nationalization of the resource industry is an answer to the economic problems or the future of this province. He has his point of view on nationalization, we have our point of view; and I think our point of view will continue to prevail. I don’t happen to believe that government, like the honourable member feels, should be running everything. I don’t think we can do it as well as people in the private sector and I think --

Mr. Cassidy: It’s the record playing again.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well listen, it is in fact a matter of record, look at it in many other places.

Mr. Martel: What did your colleagues say on the select committee, what did they call for?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Who?

Mr. Martel: Fifty per cent takeover of natural resources.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Oh come on now.

Mr. Martel: You’d better read it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have read it.

Mr. Martel: Tell her she doesn’t know anything.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t know what the Premier of Saskatchewan is going to do, I have no idea; but I’ll say this, and this is no criticism of Saskatchewan’s policy, it is intriguing when we are talking to people in other parts of the world in terms of investment, which I know the honourable member wouldn’t encourage us to do but which I think is part of my responsibility, some of them do raise the question of the policy of the government vis-à-vis nationalization or takeover. I think it is fair to state that most people in the business community whom we are trying to interest in the growth of this economy are less than enthusiastic if that is the stated objective of the government. I happen to have to report that too.

Mr. Conway: If it’s good enough for Hydro it’s good enough for me.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think we can make some slight distinctions. However, Mr. Chairman, I try not to take any more time than the members themselves take, so I think I have contributed my modest share in that length of time. If there is anything I haven’t answered to the satisfaction of the leader of the New Democratic Party he might communicate to me and I’d be delighted to personally share some more of my thoughts with him.

Mr. Nixon: I hope the Premier noticed that the name of the constituency is Brant-Oxford-Norfolk. I don’t represent any part of Haldimand, and they are probably very relieved at that. If the Premier continues to have difficulty with the name of the riding I know that my good constituents would accept it if he just called it Brant; it’s just a suggestion.

I have two or three things I would like to raise, Mr. Chairman, and the first has to do with the comments the Premier made today about the possibility of a referendum debate and the way the House might handle it. I feel quite strongly about it.

Actually, I thought the Premier made a good statement today. I felt he was a little uncomfortable with some of the words, like where he felt that the white paper was proposing a “cop-out” and it would be the greatest “cop-out.” I felt I should advise him that when his writers give him something he’s not wholly comfortable with he not use it. It’s a bit of advice I should have given myself some years ago and taken. I felt him hesitate a little bit before he mentally said: “Well, the heck with it. I might as well use it.” It just didn’t sound like him.

However, the phrase about we are fortunate enough to be fighting over riches rather than poverty, or something like that, that was a very good line. It’s not like him to use the word “fighting.” He’s a great fighter but he doesn’t like to talk about debates or fighting or “I”, or any of those words that have connotations that he thinks are sort of improper. By “I”, I mean himself.

He did, however, feel that it might not be proper for a committee of the House to be discussing the various alternatives, that it would be better if it would not be restricted, let’s say as a select committee would be to five or six from each party or something like that, but in fact it would be better to have it as a discussion in the House itself.

My colleague, the leader of our party, expressed agreement; and I think there was general agreement that we would not want this to be an exclusive sort of an enterprise, particularly if it meant that in a major debate that might come next spring, at the end of a committee process, there would be a feeling that only a few people had spent time on it and therefore studied it and therefore were competent to speak on it.

That sort of thing would be bad, and I would agree that an approach through the select committee system does tend in that direction. Whether it’s education or Ontario Hydro policy or anything like that, there is a feeling of people who are not on the committees concerned to say, “Oh well, we will let our colleagues, who have spent so much time and supposedly so much work on that, speak for us.” Certainly we don’t want that to happen in any discussion that deals with national unity.

When I was talking about the Premier’s statement, which I say again I thought was a good one, he had another phrase that might have given pause. He said, “I am prepared to speak for Canada.” I don’t think Joe Clark would have thought that was an appropriate comment. I am sure he meant Canadian unity or maybe, “I am prepared to speak for unity.” He can certainly speak for Ontario, but not for Canada in that connection. So, you see, I was listening and I know my colleagues were listening very carefully as well.

I would hope, however, that the time frames in the Premier’s mind would support the concept that either a resolution or an instruction to a committee would be appropriate. The committee could be the committee of the whole. I think the Premier would

be rather optimistic -- and he has been known to be that before; he says he is, anyway -- I think he would be optimistic if he felt that a large percentage of the 125 members of the House would avail themselves of the opportunity for a rather extensive committee review; I don’t think there would be that many.

If we were to establish a select committee, even making membership available to any member of the House with easy substitution as the subjects varied, we would have a chance to get into the less formal atmosphere of a committee room and have the opportunity perhaps to call various experts or people whose opinions we might want to hear.

It has been said before that John Robarts would be a classic example. Mr. Pepin might be another. I don’t know whether we would want a delegation from the National Assembly or not. I know I would, but the Premier might think that’s tantamount to negotiating on sovereignty-association, which he has said, and quite properly, that we should not do.

Being informed on the matter is not the same as negotiating and I believe representatives from the National Assembly would be quite willing to come up and express their views from all of the parties there, or at least representing the two points of view.

They might even be interested enough to have our committee go to Quebec and discuss the matter on their own ground, because whatever happens I personally feel there is no doubt that national unity will be maintained. I feel quite confident about that and I think all of us in here do. When this thing settles down and we continue to have the normal exchanges, if there is such a thing as normality in constitutional discussions, it will lead, if not to changes in the constitution itself at least to changes in our understanding and practice of it. When we settle down Quebec will still be, and must be, our best friend and ally in Canadian Confederation.

The Premier has heard my views on this before. I hold them very strongly. If it is a criticism I suppose it will have to stand as such. I feel that close, traditional and historic association between Quebec and Ontario, going back to Confederation, and of course before that when we were joined together much more structurally in government, has not been maintained during the last decade. There have probably been good reasons.

Interjection.

Mr. Nixon: All right, let’s say the public connection.

The Premier may feel very closely allied to his opposite numbers, either in the present government of Quebec or otherwise, but I feel we have not had the kind of exchange between governments and Legislatures that has been traditional and important as a bond in Canada; and this is regrettable.

So I would just suggest to the Premier the hope that he did not have in his mind, when he was ruminating in his answer to the question of my colleague the leader of the Liberal Party today, some way of removing the discussion from committee. I felt that in the spring the decision had been made that come what may, come high water or an election, we were not going to have this thrown to a committee for the kind of review that might in fact be somehow dislocating, disconcerting, embarrassing -- or counter-productive in the phrase sometimes used -- in connection with Ontario’s position in the national unity debate.

Really, the thing is pretty much there. We have the white paper. The opposition’s position that is the position of the official legal forces for national unity in Quebec, is coming from Mr. Ryan of the Liberal Party and it will be available, we are told, within a month. We don’t know about that but it is expected. Everything but the date of the referendum in the spring is established, we now have a period of time when the referendum statute in Quebec prescribes the procedure for them, but not necessarily for us.

So we know approximately when the vote is going to be taken. We don’t know what we can do about it. I think we would be very unwise to intrude. However, the Premier was making noises that he certainly doesn’t intend to be reluctant about expressing his views, maybe even down there; that was more or less inherent in what he had to say. His judgement will be forthcoming on that and we will see what happens.

However, we do want to be informed and we do want to have a chance to talk about it in a knowledgeable way. We want to review the white paper and the official alternative from the Liberal Party in Quebec, or let’s say the federalists in Quebec. Certainly their alternatives are going to be very important to us. Not that it is a foregone conclusion they will become the government of that province, although frankly I feel in the evolution of events that will happen in the relatively near future.

If we are not worrying about the separation and the division of our country, I can assure you we will return to the former debates on changes in the constitution in a much more immediate and pressing way than the rather dilettante approach we have experienced before. I am not sure that is the correct use of the word but I meant it as an adjective. In other words, we are going to be really called to the spot where we, one of the major provinces of the country, are going to have to take a lot of leadership, probably in support of many of the contentions coming from Quebec after the business of separation is settled and when we are back to the business of making Canada work. I think it is up to us to at least go into it with the concept of allying ourselves with Quebec’s view in these matters.

Personally I would hope that a committee, however large it might be and whatever its terms of reference might be, will have a chance to review the alternatives, have as many of the members of the Legislature become expert as choose to do so and be prepared to make a report to the Legislature at a time which would lead to a broad, and I hope extremely important and useful debate right here. That debate, as the Premier and others have said, could be timed to have the most important impact on the forces of reason, moderation and unity in Quebec and elsewhere. I hope that can be carried out.

[4:30]

There’s something just leading from that. It’s a great pleasure, frankly, to have the Premier in here for the regular business of the House. This is about the way it is, with a handful of people. The Premier will remember when his predecessor used to sit in the House many hours a day, almost longer than one could imagine a person doing. I think the attendance in the House was better, I think we had the sense that in fact we were doing public business more than we do now. Actually, I think the House conducts itself rather well. I still think the hour-long question period, while it may be irritating and boring at times, is a marvellous approach to democracy. The ministers are subject to any question without notice and respond with their views in any way they choose.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Or are subject to no answers.

Mr. Nixon: Of course they have to be judged on that and they are judged; and I think that’s good. The rules, in general, I think work very well on all sides.

I’ve become somewhat interested in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and never cease telling them that while I feel we may have what some people call a most unruly Legislature in Canada, I certainly don’t feel in any way that the rules are unduly restrictive. A member elected here has only himself or herself to blame if he feels his/her views are not properly put. They may not be acted upon, but at least this is a parliament not an executive chamber, and I feel the rules work well.

As a House leader, I want to do everything I can to increase the interest in what goes on here. I think there are specific occasions when we can do this. I would hope that after a budget or after the ‘speech from the throne we can arrange it so the party leaders speak, as they do in Ottawa, the very day following without this strange procedure that has developed, even in my time as leader, when there has to be a good deal of time for preparation and each leader has his own day. I think this has simply resulted in a decrease or elimination of interest because there isn’t the kind of debate -- the old phrase “cut and thrust” comes to mind. When the three lenders are present with their backers putting forward the views of their party on the same occasion, I think that’s extremely valuable.

A thing that has also led, probably, to a decrease in interest is the very busy schedule of the Premier and the two leaders which it goes without saying makes it extremely difficult for them to listen to each other, though it may be difficult for other reasons.

The schedule on these debates is known a bit ahead. In my opinion they make it worthwhile sending a telegram to the manufacturer’s association or whoever it is to say they’re not going to be there because something more important has come up. I really believe that.

I think when the leaders are not here for those debates there is a tendency for the members of the House, on the government and the opposition side, to say, “We’re going to stay in there and listen to our boy and give him every support we can, but aside from that there’s nothing going on in there that we want to bother with.” I resent that personally very, very much. I hope we can do something to set that straight,

I have some very specific things I feel have to be raised with the Premier, because they’ve been raised with individual ministers and they don’t seem to have much to do with it. The first has to do with the disaster relief program, I have no complaint with the response of the government to the disaster in my area, and in Oxford county particularly, to the tornado in August. I felt the ministers responded in a very sensitive and effective way. The Ontario Provincial Police were outstanding. The ambulance service worked well. Even the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Walker) was able to make some of his inmates available to do some work and so on. There seemed to be good co-operation.

The real complaint I have -- actually, there are two of them -- is I feel our approach to the government for assistance payments is unhealthy. We should not be begging the Premier or the appropriate minister that the situation is a $2 for $1, $3 for $1, or $5 for $1 situation. There ought to be a clearly understood designation procedure followed by a clear allocation of funds which can be in some sort of a revolving account so that the people who are subject to these natural disasters know they are going to get a certain degree of assistance without begging for it.

I don’t like the system the way it presently is. I am not just complaining about the way it has functioned in this tornado situation we all remember from August.

The second complaint I have about that situation is the way the federal program works, or does not work. We were told by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) that we haven’t had a nickel of disaster relief from the federal government for 15 years. I think probably this tornado business will trigger the federal program, but that too should be more closely co-ordinated with the provincial program so it is brought into play in any of the provinces, not just the ones with small populations. There is something the matter with the overall program which I feel ought to be changed.

I have one area here that is a little sensitive for me, but I feel I should say it; I have already been reported as expressing views about the dinner given in honour of Cardinal Carter. I am not here to argue about it particularly, other than to make this point. I feel it would be easier in a situation like that, which I felt was otherwise very appropriate, if the Premier would do what his predecessor always did and be sure the opposition parties are always represented at the head table.

It is a small thing and I don’t want to sound small about it, but it would make it easier for the principals in the thing to realize that the government here is not a one-party situation. While the power resides, as it must, with the government and with the party supporting the government, the system is based on a broader concept than that.

There was something about the situation that night that made me feel very uncomfortable, not just for myself but for everybody concerned. Probably the simplest way, to be sure, would be that instead of having eight cabinet ministers there would be maybe six and two people from the opposition. It may sound like a small point, but I think it is an important one.

The other problem I want to bring to the Premier’s attention, one where he has a bit of a conflict of interest, is I think we are paying lawyers too much.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Not that story again?

Mr. W. Newman: Back on that old kick again, eh?

Mr. Nixon: The more I am involved with the business of the House and its committees and royal commissions, the more I am concerned about this. Quite often people in opposition can see a sort of black-and-white situation. They say what they’re doing is black, and we know what white is.

I’m sorry I don’t have an easy solution. It seems to me that the leaders in the legal field who are asked to advise committees, royal commissions and so on, might consider that aspect, if not totally as a public responsibility at least not an occasion when it is sort of open season on the public treasury. I am sure the leader of the government, or the minister who has to do with a certain area of review, is very unwilling to say, “We want you because you’re the best in the field, but, by the way, we are only making a cut-rate payment.”

I’m not sure what the alternative is, other than I personally feel, and I am constrained to say so, that if the Premier uses the phrase “copping out” with regard to Quebec, I use the phrase “ripping off” with regard to the lawyers. I really feel that when I see the bills that are presented for select committee work. I have no complaint with the quality of the work, but I just don’t feel any person is worth that, even our mutual friend John Clement who is deciding how tall a cop should be downtown, at $750 a day. The small print says he has to hire his own secretary.

Mr. Mancini: I believe in short policemen.

Mr. Nixon: Maybe he hasn’t got a secretary; I don’t know. There will also be a junior in his firm who is going to do all this. The thing that concerns me is that there was some indication he wanted to see what they do in Abyssinia and Thailand. I think those were the places he expressed concern about.

It’s a part of being a red-necked farmer member, but I am bringing this to the attention of the Premier and I will continue to do so --

Mr. Mancini: It’s falling on deaf ears.

Mr. Nixon: -- because there has to be an alternative to simply handing these birds blank cheques. I really feel that very strongly.

Another little aspect that comes from the same source: It has come to my attention that part of the conditions of employment for senior government personnel is a free car.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Shame.

Mr. Nixon: I don’t like that either. I feel there is every justification for a person with heavy pressure on him to have a driver, and in most instances, like the Premier himself and the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the third party, the car can be provided. But why do all the deputies and the senior people in various government agencies have to have cars provided as they trundle down from Rosedale to work? It really is just incredible.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Point of order. I don’t want to speak for all deputies, but my deputy is here, and it’s Etobicoke, not Rosedale.

Mr. Martel: So much for that point.

Mr. Nixon: I don’t really feel we are unfair in dealing with them. To have an understanding for salary and then a little footnote at the bottom saying, “plus car of your choice within categories,” I think is just crazy.

John White said, as minister, he was going to drive a little old Chevy; it was the most elaborate Chev I ever saw rolling around here.

I happen to have a copy of a speech here that I may refer to later in these estimates, but like the Premier I don’t want to occupy too much time. The remarks are by W. Darcy McKeough, chairman of McKeough Sons Company Limited, entitled the Political Realities of Government Restraint.

There are a couple of phrases in here I will refer to on another occasion. Essentially, he says the real problem of government restraint is government itself. And the Premier must know that.

I tried to convince the Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet, that in the vacuum that seems to exist in the absence of Mr. McKeough, he could very well move into that. He would become a very unpopular chairman of the management board.

I don’t think we should have a popular chairman of the management board. It’s got to be mutually exclusive. There’s nobody over there really riding herd, so it’s got to be the Premier.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Just dealing with the last point first, if you think management board isn’t being difficult, I would invite you to ask every single ministry of the government and they would be delighted to share with you their experiences of the moment.

I won’t comment on automobiles, except to make one point. If the House leader for the Liberal Party, the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk, were to look carefully at what deputy ministers were being paid, related to the federal government, for instance, or to the private sector, which is not totally valid but has some validity, I think he would find that in terms of total compensation the senior personnel in this government, on whom we are quite dependent, are not being paid an exorbitant amount of money. I think most would argue that it is probably below market, if there is a market that can be determined. We’ve studied this very carefully.

There’s no question what the automobile is worth per year. I guess if you were to calculate an automobile as being worth, say, $10,000 and money worth 15 per cent et cetera, there is a benefit. No argument about that. But I think if the member relates it to their total compensation package, my guess is you will find that our senior deputies are not overpaid. I say that very advisedly because I know the members opposite wouldn’t want to see them underpaid. They want to see them properly paid. I think it would be hard to argue that they are receiving more than they are worth. I really say that quite sincerely.

I won’t deal with the dinner, if the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk won’t object strenuously. I read some observations from some members in the press. There are some things that might be said, but I think they are perhaps better unsaid. Members opposite have heard themselves, and unless they want to explore it further I don’t intend to do so, unless others wish me to say something more about it. I would be quite prepared to, but unless members really want it, I think perhaps we should say people have said what they felt and let it go at that. If the members are not content with that I would be delighted to take them through the whole history.

[4:45]

With respect to the disaster relief program, the member pointed out that his concern did not relate to the specifics of the one that we experienced this past summer but sort of a general policy.

The problem I find is that, at one moment, he wants a very tough chairman of management board. I guess I’m rather less than a tough Premier when it comes to things like disasters. I went down there and, frankly, when the formula was in the back of my mind and people said to me, “Can you enrich it” I took one look at the devastation there, and although I didn’t put a figure on it, I said “yes.” I don’t think the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk would want me to have been like a chairman of management board saying, “No, we’ve got to restrain it. We’ve got to be tough,” et cetera.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The Premier is mixing apples and oranges.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, no. So many of these decisions do relate to particular situations. All I’m saying is the frustrations we have felt with the disaster relief fund is tying to find disasters that are comparable. We’re not out looking for disasters.

Mr. Mancini: There’s a disaster right over there.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member is provoking me.

Mr. Mancini: It’s way over there on that side.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I may be provoked into saying something that might get the members upset.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The Premier will never upset us but he might leave us here until 10:30.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no. I’m told eight o’clock; nine o’clock at the latest.

All I’m saying is that if the members opposite have any suggestions, I know the minister would be delighted to receive them. I really don’t know that you’ll ever find a formula that will deal with each individual situation. I don’t like ad hockery if you can avoid it, but then I wouldn’t want to be locked into a formula that wouldn’t work in some situations either.

On the question of the first point the member raised, I just look at my statement, “I will speak for Canada.” I have to look at page nine. I am not speaking for Canada in the context of the government of Canada. It might be better phrased as, “I will speak in support of Canada,” or something of that nature. It really related to the paragraph preceding it. I wanted to point that out. I’m delighted the member finds, by and large, he can support what was said.

The term “cop out” is used by those who are of a more contemporary age. Members have heard it used around their houses; I’ve heard it around mine. It is, perhaps, a more descriptive word. It really says what is intended to be said. It is a little stronger than what I normally use,

I won’t comment any further. I did comment to the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon on the question of how we might discuss this further. I think we can give that some further thought.

With respect to the debates in the House, I recall how it used to be, partially because sessions were shorter and estimates didn’t take as much of our time. I’m not saying that they take too long. I guess we always look back and feel things were different. I’m not sure if you were to take the numbers, et cetera, you would find that the situation was that much different, but it appeared to be.

I think part of the reason was that two or three significant debates during the session, the throne debate and the budget debate, were held on one day. Some members are much too young to remember this perhaps. We moved away from that. I don’t think it was at the initiative of the government. I think it was really due to television. We wanted to give each opposition leader a day because we did some of it live, if you recall.

I think we moved to say if a throne speech was on Tuesday, the movers and seconders would then be on on the Thursday and the Leader of the Opposition would go on Friday. I think the feeling was that Friday wasn’t a great day; they wanted the weekend to prepare. So it was moved to the Monday and then the leader of the third party moved to Tuesday.

I would have no negative reaction at all to the concept of trying to condense this process. I guess the problem would be in getting the opposition leaders to telescope their observations into a shorter period of time so we could deal with it all in one day and, maybe, even have a vote on that day. I don’t know. I have no quarrel with it because I think the House leader for the Liberal Party is correct. On those occasions where everybody is participating, they are stimulating. They are, from my standpoint, kind of the fun times in the House and if the members can find some better way of dealing with this, I would be quite agreeable to consider it.

I was delighted to hear the House leader of the Liberal Party say that he sort of understands the cut and thrust of debate here in the House and that having been part of it for a number of years he doesn’t object that strenuously to it.

Just to go back to your leader on Friday; I really thought very carefully about some of the things he observed. I think we have to understand about politics that, much as we maybe don’t like it on some occasions, it is an adversary system; it is not a question of sort of running a government by consensus. It is not a question of the leaders of the three parties sitting down for breakfast and sorting out what the government is going to do next day.

Mr. Mancini: That would be very interesting.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That would be very interesting, but I have got news for you, it wouldn’t work.

Mr. Nixon: I thought you decided at breakfast every Tuesday.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I decide what I am going to have for breakfast every Tuesday, there is no question about that. No question about that whatsoever.

Mr. Conway: The caucus is still going to figure out where it belongs.

Mr. Nixon: It is not asked to breakfast very often.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, I am not asked to breakfast very often myself. As a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman, I usually have it at home, most days of the week. Do you want the menu? I’ll share it with you too. I’ve shocked you. If you ask me, I try to answer.

Mr. T. P. Reid: And they say vaudeville is dead.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have something I could say to you but I won’t.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Johnny Carson should be worried.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Chairman, I thank the House leader of the Liberal Party for his observations. I hope I have touched on all those matters he raised. If there is anything I have neglected, I am sure he will find some occasion to remind me and I will try to respond at that time.

Mr. Martel: I want to speak to the Premier on three different topics.

First, I want to talk about the rules and the private members’ hour. As one of those who worked on the select committee, I really object to what is now happening.

Private members’ hour is supposedly for the private members to have their say on some piece of legislation they’d like to see come about. I can understand the government choosing to veto when there’s a private bill that’s totally opposed to government policy, but I’ve reached a bit of frustration because it’s no longer a private members’ hour with the government party. When we have tried to discuss private members’ hour at our caucus, fortunately our chairman has said, “No, this is the private members’ hour.”

I can understand the government having to do it a little differently, but not every Thursday. The former House leader encouraged us to move to resolutions, which the government doesn’t have to act on. Even those are being vetoed. They are slowly but surely destroying the Thursday afternoon debates. I’m sure both opposition parties in the House now feel that maybe we should start to block or veto. We attempt not to; we prefer to see it go to a vote.

I can understand if it’s something directly opposed to government policy, but when I think back to the bill of the member for Cambridge on the pituitary gland --

Mr. Samis: A good bill, too.

Mr. Martel: It was vetoed.

Mr. Mancini: Which one was that?

Mr. Martel: The bill on the pituitary gland.

Two days later the government introduced it. It had nothing to do with Conservative policy. That’s chintzy. But it’s even worse than that now. Even the resolutions are being vetoed.

For example, a resolution moved by the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Havrot) which called for the retention of crown land for lease purposes only. There have been more statements -- and I documented them this spring -- by this government that it was going to keep crown land for lease. I happen to agree with that policy. The very day we voted on it, half the cabinet voted for it. You make such a sham of it. The very next day you have government deciding it is going to sell crown land on some pretext that it is going to increase the development of the cottage industry in northern Ontario.

That is a lot of nonsense. As fast as crown land was coming up for lease, it was being taken up. In Sudbury a couple of years ago in the last auction before the sale this year, there were 500 people who applied for 41 lots to lease. The contradiction is that one day you are voting on a resolution of one of your own colleagues and supporting it and the next day you are introducing a different policy. The dates are immaterial. I just use that as an example so that I won’t be held to the very next day.

It makes a mockery of the private members’ hour. We spent a lot of time on that select committee trying to make a meaningful role for back-benchers. You can’t make a mockery of it. If you are going to continue the present route, then I suggest we should abolish the private members’ hour, as much as I hate to. If items are going to be constantly vetoed and everything, then I suggest we cancel it out. I have listened to members from all sides of the House who think it has become a farce. As I have said, I can understand the government’s moving against policy that is totally against its own, but beyond that, surely if it is private members’ hour we shouldn’t be skewering it every Thursday. I ask the Premier to come in and watch the votes.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have something I would like to say on that subject.

Mr. Martel: Fine. I hope the Premier responds. I feel strongly about it. If there is a way we have to improve it, then I am prepared to see it improved. If it continues on the route it is going now, we will destroy the private members’ hour and that is the last thing I want.

The other thing I have to say on the rules is about the budget debate. If you think the throne speech is bad, the budget stretches until Christmas.

We had the former Treasurer come before the select committee. He felt we should condense it into seven or eight days, vote and get it over with. It becomes what I like to call polyfill. On a Thursday night or a Tuesday night if you haven’t got something, you can put a speaker up, but it is totally meaningless. Sometime in December we vote on it. If we want it to have some impact, we should condense it into four or five days, make it meaty and get to the vote or do away with it.

The other thing I want to talk about is the Premier’s budget.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It’s modest.

Mr. Martel: Yes. I don’t object to the budget. I say that quite frankly to the Premier. The reason I bring it to the attention of the Premier is that I want to tell him that trying to discuss this matter with the Board of Internal Economy is absolute frustration. As the Premier knows, there are several budgets in the legislative assembly the way this place works. For example, we get so much per member to provide staff and we get so much to provide research.

The Premier gets so much for his office, and I agree that he needs it. I don’t question it. He has to go through management board like everyone else, if he needs an increase. I know that his increase last year was greater than what my leader got. It was $112,000 or something like that. There is a third formula which I offer to the Premier, and there should be, but not the existing one.

As it now stands, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the third party get the funding for their offices in a crazy, convoluted way. Again, I use a rough figure because it breaks down to a little less. They get $7,500 per member times the number of members, plus 40 per cent. When the House leader for the Liberal Party and I tried to get an increase this year, we were virtually stymied.

For the Liberals, it comes to about $100,000 for the Leader of the Opposition’s staff. For my leader, it comes to less than $100,000. In fact, it comes to about $97,000 and change. I can’t make a total comparison between the offices and I don’t intend even to try to make a comparison as to what the Premier’s responsibilities are and the leader of the official opposition and my leader. One can’t make that comparison. I would be foolish to stand in my place and attempt to do so.

[5:00]

However, there are some similarities. The Premier goes out as Premier. He comes to Sudbury, he comes as Premier. He takes the occasion to be a little political. I know this and that’s fine. I understand it’s an adversary system. I’m not so naive as to believe that it’s not.

Mr. Conway: Charlie McCrea was the last Tory out of the Sudbury basin.

Mr. Martel: The Premier must attend many different types of functions. He has many different types of responsibilities that my leader or the Leader of the Opposition don’t have. I understand that. But at the same time there are similar things they do. All I am suggesting to the Premier is the foolishness that goes on with the Board of Internal Economy has to end.

We get less than $100,000. Does the Premier know what is happening? We have to take from the caucus appropriation. In other words, we have to deprive the caucus of some of the $7,500 per member we get; roughly, $70,000. About $70,000 this year, in order to give my leader adequate staff.

If the Premier took the same 27 per cent I have to take from our budget to finance his needs as Premier, it would be crazy. He would have a budget of about $175,000. If he had to take from his colleagues what we have to take from my caucus, then he would take about $110,000 to $115,000 out of their budget for caucus functions in order to meet the need. That would only give him a budget of $280,000 or thereabouts.

The figures are really immaterial. The point is, we have to take from the caucus appropriation to provide staff for my leader. That doesn’t happen over on that side of the House and it shouldn’t. The Premier needs staff to do the job he has been elected to do. Surely in a democratic process the functions of the opposition parties are vital to good government. Over here there should be a third budget, somehow controlled. I really don’t get that hung up on how it is done, provided it is done.

We go to the Board of Internal Economy and the House leader nods and the rest of the Conservative members vote that way. It is as simple as that. We get arguments that some of the roles are different. I understand the roles are different. It’s argued that there never used to be even the 40 per cent of the caucus allocation. I understand that. But I also understand that the Premier has a budget to meet his needs.

Surely it isn’t asking the Premier too much to indicate to his representative on the Board of Internal Economy that the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the third party need an adequate budget to meet their staffing needs. It should not come out of the Premier’s budget now, why should ours have to?

I look back at the travel times of the Premier a couple of years ago. I didn’t bother looking lately. His office I think, spent $69,000. I don’t dispute he must do that in his capacity as Premier and as leader of his party. What I do dispute though is we don’t have an allocation here for the leader of the official opposition or the leader of the third party. There is no allowance for that, because there is no budget except the silly little formula that we have. I say to the Premier that surely in all fairness, that type of formula which sees us taking funds from caucus to provide the leader’s needs, is ridiculous.

There must be a formula; Ottawa has one. I happened to check what Ottawa had to ensure that there was adequate --

Mr. Conway: Didn’t Jerome invite you to breakfast?

Mr. Martel: No, I’m afraid not. But even before the last election, the leader of the Conservative Party in Ottawa had a staff of 37, I believe. He could go to the Board of Internal Economy and, based on need, make a request for additional staff. The leader of the New Democratic Party had a staff of 15. He could go and make a request, but under our formula, you are held. It’s such a mealy mouthed point of view.

Let me just take a couple of examples, and I don’t want to name personalities so I am going to be very vague, very deliberately.

Mr. Conway: I bet we could guess.

Mr. Martel: Two or three of the jobs in the Premier’s office would wipe out my leader’s staff allocation. I am making that point very deliberately. He can take any number, because the Premier’s office was good enough to supply me with those figures and I indicated I would not make them public. It’s not for me to do that.

Well, we have to hire competence for our leader as well, and when you hire competence, you pay a price. If you are going to hire competent people, you have to pay. I am not comparing them or coming close to what the Premier is paying, because his people have different requirements -- we would not, after three and a half salaries, have any funds left.

That’s where we start to dip into the caucus appropriation. I don’t think it’s fair that the funding provided by the Board of Internal Economy at the present time allows us to hire about three people. It’s less than $100,000 for the leader’s complex. I just find that trying to discuss this before the Board of Internal Economy is a virtual impossibility. It is completely impossible.

I ask the Premier, because I think he believes in the democratic process and the role of the opposition parties is fundamental, surely there should be funding adequate to meet the needs without drawing from the caucus appropriation? I know the Premier wouldn’t want to take $110,000, if he had to take the same 27 per cent I do from his caucus to staff his office. It doesn’t work that way over there and surely, in fairness, it shouldn’t work that way over here. I ask the Premier to give that very careful consideration.

I have been at this now for quite some time and I have to admit I haven’t been able to get to first base with the board. They don’t even want to talk about it in terms of fairness. I documented this very very carefully to the board, spent a considerable amount of time on it and it didn’t even dent. The nod went out and that was the end of the matter. I feel pretty frustrated by it.

Mr. Conway: Makes Bud Gregory sound very effective.

Mr. Martel: The other thing I want to talk to the Premier about briefly is multinationals, because I happened to spend four years on the select committee the Premier appointed. I want to tell you after 21 reports, the only thing that’s really -- well, I shouldn’t say the only thing, there were a couple of areas -- the 50 per cent on the board of directors was a cop-out; it really doesn’t change a thing. It’s much further, by the way, than your colleagues over there were prepared to go because they would only go 20 per cent.

There are 21 reports with some major recommendations that are as basic today as they were when you established that select committee in 1971. It ran until 1975. The only trouble is the public isn’t clamouring and we have allowed it to take second seat to other things. The problems are as fundamental today as they were then. I suspect in some areas they are even worse.

A couple of weeks ago, I put a question to the Premier on the financial statement of Hanna Mining and I asked the Premier if he would answer some of those questions. He indicated to me the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie) was going to answer them and the Minister of Labour didn’t know he was supposed to answer and I am still waiting for the answers.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have got them.

Mr. Martel: You have got them? Good. You will have an opportunity -- I won’t be that much longer. First of all, let me say I appreciate the work. There was some effort by the government and in particular the Minister of Labour to help resolve the problem as it pertained to one small municipality with a work force of only 250 individuals. You are going to get your advice now: I appreciate the fact the Premier got involved and I appreciate that he met with certain companies and I appreciate that the Minister of Labour took me to Cleveland with him where we talked to the president of Hanna Mining and tried to convince him he shouldn’t close.

Mr. Conway: Who is the real Minister of Labour?

Mr. Martel: I think the real Minister of Labour is over there. What disturbed me is that I thought the president of Hanna Mining thought he was talking to country bumpkins when he spoke to us. I really do.

Mr. T. P. Reid: You and the Minister of Labour together are a good pair --

Mr. Martel: That might be so, but when I raised with Mr. Anderson the point that there seemed to be a demand for nickel at that time, his response to us was, “There is a big strike at Inco, and that is what is creating the demand.”

Those of us who know Inco knew they had a 13-month stockpile. The fact that Inco was on strike didn’t affect the market one jot. They were supplying all that was necessary. They couldn’t alter their position on Capreol. They couldn’t keep it open, they said. They had to let it go for a variety of reasons. The reason that was announced by the government, of course, was the glut in the United States. There was so much in the United States that they could sell it.

I want to quote to the Premier again, just to refresh his memory, from a report signed by Anderson, the same president I mentioned earlier. In the report to the shareholders on August 3, 1979, he makes the following comments, “Demand for iron-ore pellets in North America remains strong and four Hanna-managed domestic pellet projects operated at capacity throughout this first half.”

He goes on to say, “The sales outlook remains good for iron-ore pellets in North America for the balance of the year.” Then he indicates in the statement that they increased imports from Brazil in the first six months by 10 per cent. In that six months that increase was equivalent to what was produced by National Steel in Capreol.

The argument that will be coming forward, of course, is on the type of pellets. I have spoken to the Minister of Labour about this and we know that National Steel, for an investment of $688,000 could have brought the silicate dust count down to about 5.5. I have it in writing from two of the officials that they could have brought it down to 5.5, and that for about $2 million they could have got it down to about three. The argument that was given to the Minister of Labour, was that it was largely silica and the Q factor. My understanding is that for another small investment of a couple of million they could have improved the Q factor, which would have been sufficient to keep the mines operational.

I remind you that this little operation last year made $6 million profit with 250 employees. I managed to get hold of Hanna’s book on silicate counts. Although they bemoan the silica dust from Moose Mountain or National Steel, they have an operation in the United States called Belmont, where the silica count is 9.24. That is significantly greater than the 8.01 at National Steel in Capreol. We know that they could reduce Moose Mountain pellets to a silica count of 5.5 for about $688,000, which is the figure I have and that if they wanted to get it down to about three, they could do it for an investment of a couple of million.

[5:15]

I find it strange that they can continue to operate mines in the United States with silicate counts at 9.25, or that they can increase their importation from South America. It’s part of the con game that goes on with the multinationals that the government, whether the Premier likes it or not, has to get involved in because the other factor in closing National Steel, of course, is that the American federal government wanted a mine mined out -- an underground operation -- so they could store oil.

What’s even more significant though is a figure I got the other day from the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Auld) and I say to the Premier that he can’t ignore it any longer. We called over to see how much we were importing, how much we were utilizing in Ontario. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, one of the policy analysts over there indicated to us, and I’m quoting, “Ontario iron ore mines and mills are now in a position to supply only 42 per cent of the net demand for iron-ore pellets of Ontario’s three integrated steel companies: Stelco, Dofasco, and Algoma Steel.”

We’ve had four or five iron mines close down in the last year. Atikokan has Caland and Steep Rock. The men up there maintain there’s still a good deal there. There’s St. Josephs; that’s some distance.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Elliot Lake.

Mr. Martel: They closed National Steel in Capreol and yet in Ontario we’re only meeting 42 per cent of the needs of the steel companies. I got that from the Ministry of Natural Resources. It says, “The total yearly requirement of the three companies in 1980 will amount to approximately 15 million short tons. The Ontario mines remaining in production have a capacity of 6,270,000 short tons.”

If there’s a place that the Premier has to get involved it is there in northern Ontario because if we’re meeting only 42 per cent of the demand of Algoma, Dofasco and Stelco there’s something wrong, particularly when we have seen four or five iron-ore mines close down this past year.

As I say with respect to National Steel, we can improve the Q factor, we can improve the silica count for a small investment. Just from last year alone their profits were much higher than that investment which leads to the whole problem of the mining sector.

I well recall the signatures on the select committee report on mining. I always chuckle when we’re being chastised by the Premier, “You socialists take over everything,” but his colleagues, the former Minister of Agriculture and Food and the Minister of Correctional Services signed a document saying, “We should be in a position to take up to 50 per cent equity in all mineral developments.” They had spent a couple of years on that select committee --

Hon. Mr. Davis: But you want 100 per cent.

Mr. Martel: I put that in the report. I don’t hide from that fact, because Capreol wouldn’t happen.

Two hundred and fifty men have moved out. Some of them are going do lose their homes because they can’t sell them; they’re working in southern Ontario and can’t afford to buy another. And, this outfit wants to come back three years from now. Those workers can’t even rent their homes.

The worst part of it is if they rent and can’t sell, if they eventually sell and have bought a home in southern Ontario they are going to have to pay capital gains tax. I’ve checked that out. I’ve checked it with the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Maeck) here and with Ottawa. They have one year. If they can get rid of it within the year, fine. If they hold it for more than a year they will have to pay capital gains. They’re not trying to make money with their house.

But it’s the attitude of companies. One can move in southern Ontario, difficult as it might be to find a job in another municipality, but in those one-industry towns a person can’t. One has to relocate. You can’t leave your family in Capreol, work for Dofasco down here and go home every weekend; it is just impossible. But that is what we’re asking those fellows to do. And this company is going to come back two or three years from now and open the door.

You see, multinationals just don’t care. In Brazil they increased by 10 per cent for six months, which is equivalent to what we produced in a year. It leads me to take it one step further, Mr. Premier. It just doesn’t tie in with National Steel. It ties in with what you said during the Inco layoffs.

I well recall several important things which have never been acted on. I hope you will still act on one. I know my friend from Elliot Lake will be very unhappy with me. The Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) at that time was the Minister of Natural Resources and he talked in terms of a rapid transit system to Elliot Lake during the layoffs at Inco. It makes sense.

I don’t want to downgrade Elliot Lake’s need, but rather than plough a lot of money into infrastructure, more than is already there with all of those men who are just going to relocate from Sudbury to Elliot Lake, we should be negotiating with Canadian Pacific Railways to try to upgrade that rail bed and move those miners living in Sudbury, who were laid off at Falconbridge and Inco, to Elliot Lake by rapid transit in an hour or an hour and 15 minutes.

The technology is there, but once again we are making a key mistake always made in northern Ontario. We plough great amounts of money into new townsites rather than running rapid transit for 50 or 60 miles and retaining one functional town site.

We all know that Elliot Lake, just as any mining community, will die some day. I don’t know how long it will take, but it is inevitable. I am not saying we should destroy what’s there or that you shouldn’t put in sewers or water; I am not saying any of those things. I am saying you have a lot of men laid off at Inco who now commute. I am sure my friend from Manitoulin will agree that many of them can’t even find a place to rent.

It was this government that suggested rapid transit. We agreed and encouraged the government to consider it before they put a lot more in infrastructure at Elliot Lake, because we knew it was going to die some day. We urged them to move to rapid transit, not just because it affects Elliot Lake but because it affects every new development.

If you have a townsite within 40 or 50 miles, don’t put another town beside the mine site. Move in with rapid transit and move the workers back and forth. I suspect it takes much longer to get across Toronto at times by automobile than it would take to get to some of those communities.

The government mentioned it, but it hasn’t done a thing about it. The layoffs have occurred and the men are moving out of Sudbury when they could have stayed there and kept Sudbury in a much healthier financial position. Many small businessmen, apartment owners and so on, have had some difficulty because people have to get out; they can’t commute the distance by car. But we haven’t moved one jot, which brings me to the other point.

The Premier appointed a cabinet committee and it came up empty-handed. It was interesting when I raised it with the Treasurer, who was formerly in charge; he didn’t even know who had taken his place. That gives me an indication of how frequently that cabinet committee has met; very infrequently. And the problems of one-industry towns still go by the board.

I remember the former minister, now the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier), getting up and saying, “Well, we in northern Ontario are tough. We’ve overcome adversity before, and we will overcome adversity again.”

I well recall reading Saul Alinsky, who is a bit of a radical from the United States. Isn’t it funny how we’re tough enough to endure the sufferings of others? You can come up and spout platitudes that Sudbury is tough and Sudbury will endure and they’ve been through it before. But what are you doing about it? What are we doing to prevent those one-industry towns? What are we doing to prevent them from going under?

The only people who lose, Mr. Premier, are the working people, the guys in my town. The community is suffering because they haven’t got the funds. They had built a second arena and they haven’t got the funds to operate those things now. The school is suffering a bit because we expanded the school to meet the needs of the industry. They have moved away for three years.

We can’t tolerate that. Forgetting ideology, we just can’t tolerate that in our type of society -- a corporation that is so callous, it says, “We’ll just move out for thee years and then we’ll come back.”

We lose; the workers lose; the community loses. The people who don’t lose are the mining companies. I remember when I raised this with the Premier, he said, “It has to be attractive enough.” They made $6 million last year, with a work force of 250 workers. They made $6 million profit. Is that attractive enough?

What is the price we demand so we don’t have these industries that just uproot families? Many of those men have been with that company 22 and 23 years and they’re having great difficulty in finding a job, but the company is going to come back three years from now.

I just find the whole thing offensive, not simply because I represent that community, but because I’ve seen it in a number of communities in northern Ontario, as have the Premier’s colleagues. I just don’t think it can be tolerated.

One of the ways we can avoid it is to move people back and forth, rather than build new communities, where there is only going to be a one-industry townsite. Sudbury, with its university and its community college and other things, will still be there, even when the nickel runs out, because it has something ongoing, but some of those other communities don’t.

The final point I want to make -- going back again to the two select committees -- is the select committee the Premier introduced on economic and cultural nationalism recommended, as one of its points on mining, that the government of Ontario work to establish the development of mining equipment in this province.

The Inco select committee during the layoff said exactly the same thing. The trade deficit annually is over $1 billion. I have encouraged 2001 to look seriously at this, and they are. We invited Jarvis Clark Company Limited, from North Bay, probably one of the most successful Canadian operations in that field, to a recent meeting. In fact, I give them credit. They’ve done a super job. There are now at least 300 jobs in North Bay,

Interestingly enough, they went to the federal government to get a second loan to expand. Do you know what the federal government said? “You’re too successful.” We’re looking for jobs in northern Ontario and here’s a company that now produces mining equipment. Everybody thought, and certainly the presidents of Falconbridge and Inco when we had them before the select committee said, “If you produce mining equipment in northern Ontario, it’s too cyclical, it’s like the mining industry, you’ll go down the drain. That’s why we’re not supportive of it, although we’ll help.”

We asked Jarvis Clark about that, and they said: “It was difficult. Almost all our eggs were in one basket, but we went out to the foreign market and we captured a major chunk of it.”

They get successful, they go to expand; they go to the federal government for a loan and the federal government says, “No, you’re too successful.”

I want to tell you it boggles the mind when I hear all of these nitwits who come up to northern Ontario and tell us, “We’re all for secondary industry here.” When we’ve got one that’s viable and it wants to expand, and it’s in the field we’ve been advocating for years -- mining equipment, because we’ve got the greatest testing beds in the world and we also produce, they turn it down. We’re the third largest producer. We’re also the greatest importer of mining technology in the world, of mining equipment. The greatest. There isn’t another country that compares with us, despite the fact we have the internal market to develop.

[5:30]

We’ve had two select committee reports, Mr. Premier. We have now interested 2001 to look into it, and they have asked Jarvis Clark to sit with them to help them advise. I’ve been pushing this for almost a year now. We have presented some material to them. I’m hopeful that because we do have a large mining capacity, the government in its wisdom will do something other than attend an exhibition the day after tomorrow in Sudbury. I hope, based on two select committee reports, they will start to look seriously at providing the leadership and at providing tax concessions and loans that will see a development much broader than that of Jarvis Clark. We should continue to move ahead in that field as it’s a natural for Ontario. We should not fail to grab the bull by the horns on this one and move ahead. We’ve been advocating this in two select committees since 1974.

It seems to me we’re missing an important find. I’m not saying the government has to get involved, although this is what the select committee said. The report was signed by the Premier’s colleagues. It said that if no one else wanted to get involved, the demand is so great and the potential is so great that the government should get involved foursquare. We on the 2001 committee invited Jarvis Clark to come individually, although there is a seminar up in November. The reason for inviting them was that we’re inviting many of the American firms to the seminar in November. I wanted to talk to someone who was successful and did it on his own hook before all the American companies tell me why they won’t locate in Ontario,

Hon. Mr. Davis: If one of them says it will, will the member say yes?

Mr. Martel: Yes, but I would prefer it to be Canadian-owned.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Even if it’s a multinational?

Mr. Martel: I have some reluctance, if it’s Ingersol Rand.

Hon. Mr. Davis: What is a multinational? Is that a company with more than one office?

Mr. Martel: No. It’s a company with more than one head that locates nowhere and has no allegiance to any one except the corporate board.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s pretty broad.

Mr. Martel: It might be, but that’s the way they function. I spent four years listening to people tell us about multinationals and so did the Premier’s colleague. In fact, that’s why some of them signed a document calling for a 50 per cent takeover in the mining industry.

Mr. Conway: I suspect there were other reasons.

Mr. Martel: No, four of them are now in the cabinet. They can’t hide from that any longer, but they saw it as a real problem.

Mr. Conway: That’s the best hiding place I can think of.

Mr. Martel: If you were going to look to a field in Canada to develop, it’s got to be mining equipment because there’s an internal market sufficiently large for a domestic firm.

It’s also got the potential for research and development. If you locate it in Sudbury, it’s got a mining course that should be the focal point for Laurentian University. It’s got the possibility of getting the research and development. It’s got the potential of selling worldwide.

Jarvis Clark has proven that it can be done. That’s why I’d like to see it Canadian. That’s why I’d like to see this government bring certain people together. I don’t care who they are. There’s a lot of wealth to move in that field. It’s a natural for Ontario and for northern Ontario, I say to the Premier. That’s why, after five years, it’s the first time I’ve engaged the Premier on this particular subject. I spent four years on that select committee. There’s a lot in their reports that we haven’t acted on and it’s time that the government of Ontario did, because the problems for which it established that committee are as great today as they were then.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I will respond briefly for 26 minutes to the member for Sudbury, although I won’t take that long because the member for Rainy River probably wants to talk about polls. He knows exactly the response he’s going to be getting.

Mr. T. P. Reid: My friend from Sudbury East knows the response he will get as well.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will go in reverse order. The concern the member for Sudbury East has raised with respect to one-industry communities or the question of our mining communities is a very valid concern and is one that we’ve been attempting to help resolve -- the member for Sudbury East can say so far with limited success. I think some progress has been made and I’m optimistic we can make further progress.

I was in at the inception of the 2001 committee and I have been encouraged, as I am sure the member has, with the initiatives they have taken to date. You will have no trouble persuading me, Mr. Chairman, as to the desirability of a mining equipment operation in Ontario. I would prefer it be Canadian. But I would say to the member for Sudbury East that if one of the multinationals which might only have two headquarters were to take an interest in this field, I know I could count on his support saying, “I’ll forget about multinationals in this particular instance.” I think you would, wouldn’t you?

Mr. Martel: I am not sure. We need research and development here.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am sure. I am sure, but I am just asking. Now if it were to happen, you might just sort of set aside that concern for the time being. I can assure the member for Sudbury East that we will continue to pursue these matters.

I am delighted to hear about this gathering they are having; I have heard about the invitation extended to a number of other companies to come up and share their point of view. Perhaps something tangible will emerge. Certainly from our standpoint anyway, if we can be helpful, we will do so because we are as anxious as you are.

I have some material here on the Moose Mountain mine. I have one, two, three, four, five, six paragraphs. I really want to digest them before I read them all to you, because I want you to get the true story.

I want to digest the material that relates to the Moose Mountain mine. There is some material here that won’t solve your problem but it does go a little further than what you have suggested here in the House. I will get this in a way that is intelligible to me, which means that you will have no trouble whatsoever in dealing with it. I might still have trouble but you wouldn’t.

I can’t deal with the budget, as we say, in legal terms -- and that is one matter on which I didn’t reply to the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon), who is concerned about the extent of legal fees. I really had intended, Mr. Chairman, to ask him to take it up with the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt) and others within his own caucus. I know nothing about legal fees any more as you don’t sir.

The member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) probably is the most updated one on those matters.

However, with respect to the budget of the Premier’s office, I will just speak for those who work so hard. They will be delighted to hear the member for Sudbury say that we need all that staff; that they are doing a worthwhile job in the public interest, and you have no quarrel with it.

Mr. Chairman, I have had communications with the member for Sudbury East as it relates to not the caucus office but his leader’s office and the discharge of his particular responsibilities. I don’t pretend to be knowledgeable in this but I am prepared to refer it back, as we go through this process, to the people involved on the Board of Internal Economy.

I just point out that there are certain distinctions. We all do political things. It is always difficult to make a judgement as to what is public business and what is partisan political business.

I am sure, as with the leader of your own party, our party assists in terms of the political activities that I carry on as leader of our party as distinct from those expenditures which are in the estimates as head of government. I would assume that your party has the same arrangement with your leader as I know the Liberal Party does.

Now to what extent, as a person in the process, your leader is not receiving enough support, as distinct from his responsibility as leader of your party, to go out and be modestly critical of the great government we experience or enjoy in this province and those things, are very tough judgements. I would think it would be tough for the Board of Internal Economy to make these judgements, but certainly I will raise them.

With respect to the question of the budget debate, from the government’s perspective if some decision were made to shorten the time frame of the budget debate, we would be prepared, within the rules of the committee or whatever, to discuss this.

Once again, you go back a little in history. The member for Sudbury East has been here for a number of years. I think it is fair to state that the budget debate wasn’t used just for a filler. I think it was used really for members to express general concerns about government policy, but also to deal with local constituency matters and for the member for Wellington South (Mr. Worton) -- great, great riding -- to extol the virtues of the great royal city of Guelph. To take that away from the members would be unfortunate.

So how do you do it? Whether you have a more restricted budget debate and then have periods set aside for members, perhaps in some order by way of party, to speak on some issues -- perhaps that could be arranged. I have no hang-ups on it. I say to the honourable members, if they see some better way of doing this, I am quite prepared to have our members participate in this sort of discussion.

I come around to the private members’ hour. I have some figures here. The government members have used the veto; that is part of the procedure. Whether it is understood across the House or not, I had made a deliberate policy of not involving myself in the private members’ hour, either to speak or to vote.

Mr. Cassidy: You bring out the torpedoes after the vote is taken.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, I really don’t. I should explain to the leader of the New Democratic Party, it is a little easier for you in terms of your perception of this than it is for me. You see, it is great for people in this House to say, “Let’s have a free discussion, let’s everybody express a point of view.” The public sometimes doesn’t understand the subtleties between a private member’s resolution and bill and a government bill. They really don’t.

I am not being critical of the media or anyone else, but when the average person in Brampton for instance reads, “House votes in favour of a resolution to do such and such,” they don’t know that resolution may never be acted upon, or that the purpose of the discussion here was to express points of view. It creates an expectation which may not emerge and which may be, on careful reflection, not the kind of policy the government wishes to follow.

You can tell me the number of vetoes but I think I can also trace for you the number of resolutions and private members’ bills that do have very significant financial implications inherent in them. You can’t introduce a bill like some of your colleagues have done, with a financial impact in terms of policy, without expecting some sort of reaction.

Mr. Martel: That’s what I said -- as long as it wasn’t contrary to government policy.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, I know, but there are a number that have. I think if you go through it carefully, you will perhaps find the subject matter, if I can phrase it this way -- I don’t say they aren’t valid subjects, don’t misunderstand me, but in terms of trying to follow the spirit of the private members’ hour these really reflect, shall we say, not a party policy, but a private member’s particular interest. I think I could argue fairly effectively that a number of resolutions and a number of private members’ bills really relate to the rather comprehensive policy you may have in some subject areas.

I don’t quarrel with that, except I don’t think you can quarrel with the necessity for us to either express a point of view, or, if there are financial implications inherent in it, to resort to those things available to us under the rules.

If you look objectively, and it is not easy for any of us, at the subject matter of a lot of these discussions, you will find they do have financial implications, sometimes very significant ones. What was the one on special education? If one were to have pursued that, no question, we are talking in the millions and millions of dollars. That is not its function, at least it wasn’t mine when I read the report and had discussions. That was never, from my understanding at least, the intent of the private members’ hour. It was really to deal with those matters that didn’t have a significant impact on finance. The member for Ottawa Centre can shake his head.

Mr. Cassidy: You never like to share anything with the Legislature, in spite of --

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am trying to conduct this in a constructive -- not a friendly way, but at least in a constructive sort of way.

[5:45]

Can I say something to you? You don’t share with us any of the problems we have as a government. If we take a policy initiative with which members on that side of the House may or may not quietly agree and where we get flak, I don’t see the leader of the third party or the Leader of the Opposition -- and I understand it -- standing up and saying, “We did all of this.” In fact, I find on some occasions some people who even voted on some matters head for the hills when it becomes a matter of controversy. There is a distinction.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, and I have to tell you, you fellows are a little more guilty of that over there than those other members over there, Sean. Ah yes, just a wee touch.

Mr. Conway: I read the press reports.

Mr. Cassidy: We are as accountable as any other party in this House.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Of course, you are as accountable. But that is not what the public understands. It is the government that does something.

I don’t see the honourable member signing his name to all of these things. When we have to take a tough decision with which you sometimes agree -- not too often -- if it’s a tough one I don’t see you sort of standing up on the nearest soap box and saying, “We support the government totally in this particular position.” I understand that and I don’t expect the member to do it, but don’t expect us to, shall we say, assume the responsibility in terms of what we have to do by bringing his party into the consultative process on the good things and then let them escape on the tough things. That’s not the way the parliamentary system works.

Mr. Martel: That’s in private members’ hour?

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, but the honourable member’s leader was suggesting this, that we don’t consult him on how we do some of these things. I am getting back to the private members’ hour. I can only give him the reaction I get from our own private members. They enjoy it, they participate in it, I think it is a useful --

Mr. T. P. Reid: Did you hear the member for Oriole last week?

Hon. Mr. Davis: He was great, I am told.

Mr. T. P. Reid: A disgrace to the party.

Mr. Cassidy: Did you hear Mickey Hennessy on domestics?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I didn’t hear that particular thing but the member from that great part of the province of Ontario always has a constructive point of view. It is always well stated.

Mr. Warner: You haven’t lost your sense of humour.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He can never be misunderstood; where is he? Members always know where he stands on any particular issue. He is right there.

Mr. Martel: The veto is used too frequently.

Hon. Mr. Davis: All right, I would say to the House leader -- he is the House leader?

Mr. Martel: I think I am.

Mr. Cassidy: He is the House leader.

Hon. Mr. Davis: If he is concerned about the private members’ hour being eroded in terms of how the government members react, I suggest that at some time the three House leaders sit down, reassess the report itself and, in sort of a general nature, those subjects coming forward. If the House leaders opposite enter into this discussion in a way that recognizes the practical and political limitations on this side of the House, because we have to assume the responsibility ultimately, then I am prepared to see if we can’t improve the hour. But let’s not kid one another.

Mr. Martel: I expect the political ones to be shot down.

Hon. Mr. Davis: All right, okay. Why doesn’t the honourable member introduce more that aren’t as political and then the percentages will alter somewhat?

Mr. Martel: We introduced more resolutions at the House leader’s request.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think one has to look very carefully at the content of those bills. The member for Rainy River interjected here. I have all the figures here.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I’ll never learn.

Mr. Martel: You want the veto to work both ways and you have destroyed the hour. That’s what’s going to happen.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no. Listen, I am getting advice here from three people now, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. T. P. Reid: These pages are confused, they didn’t know government ran this way.

Mr. Deputy Chairman: I’d interrupt, Mr. Premier, but I think you are enjoying it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Chairman, I don’t know how you ever would get such a feeling.

Mr. Conway: I have a speech to give and I intend to give it.

Mr. Cassidy: I’d like to know if the Premier would undertake to bring Bill 3 back for third reading.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t even know what Bill 3 is.

Mr. Cassidy: It’s a bill that provides for equal pay for work of equal value.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No. I can’t undertake to do that.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I think you’d better hear the public hearing.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I thought the honourable member wanted to go through the whole process.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He wouldn’t want me to short circuit the process would he?

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That isn’t what the member said just a moment or two ago. He said would I bring it back for third reading. Here he is circumventing just what his colleague has been suggesting we go through.

Mr. Chairman, I am quite serious about this discussion on the private members’ hour. I hear what the member is saying; he is concerned about the numbers of vetoes. This has been expressed before; that’s fine.

We are prepared to meet with some measure of understanding and co-operation what was the intent of the private members’ hour. If we can meet the intent, if it is not a case of dealing with monetary matters, or trying to take a partisan stance -- and I know there are some partisan polities in it, don’t misunderstand me, but in ways that are not calculated to make life difficult for the government where you can anticipate the reaction, then I would be quite prepared to see if we can improve the private members’ hour.

I really am quite committed to it. We didn’t have to endorse this enthusiastically a number of years ago. I would like to see it become more productive, but you have to understand our point of view on it. I am sure you do, but that could reflect itself on what emanates from members in private members’ hour. Perhaps we can make it more meaningful.

Those were all of the matters raised I think. If I have missed anything raised by the member for Sudbury East, he will certainly remind me of it.

Mr. Martel: You missed the 42 per cent of production in Ontario now, to meet the needs of the steel workers.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am going to get that further information for you.

Mr. Deputy Chairman: The member for Rainy River and then, if he has a desire to speak, the member for Renfrew North.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had a number of things I wanted to discuss with the Premier but, time being of the essence, I will try and keep them relatively short.

First of all, I would say to the Premier that the estimates situation around here is in terrible condition. The estimates aren’t being handled well and the Premier can say with same justification a large part of that is the fault of the opposition. But when it comes to accountability and responsibility for the taxpayer’s money, it’s not being well handled.

I would make two recommendations. I realize this is a matter for the interest of the whole House, but I have put these before. One is that the 420 hours of estimates is much too long. I think it means that Parkinson’s law is in effect; the work tends to expand to fill the time available for its completion. I think that the opposition, as well as the ministers, need the discipline of having 240 hours maximum, perhaps, to deal with those estimates.

I won’t go into great detail, but I think it also might be helpful if we dealt with five or six estimates a year in a cycle, setting aside the others to be done, hopefully in a four-year period. The ability of the public accounts committee to work into that cycle as well so that every year, five or six estimates are done and done early; right from the beginning of the process, from the time they are introduced in the House to the time the public accounts has an opportunity to look at them.

Interjection.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Well, we mentioned that before.

I want to mention two things very briefly. One is that I share the concern of the member for Sudbury. We have spoken about one-industry towns in northern Ontario in the past. I say to the Premier that from my perspective the biggest failure of the Conservative government in 36 years is in its dealings with communities in northern Ontario. It’s not entirely your fault, but certainly you have to accept the responsibility, as you seem to be prepared to do in other things today, of keeping us primarily drawers of water and hewers of wood.

I say this in a very personal sense, Mr. Premier. I give you full credit for assisting with the Hydro plant and the shutdown of the two mines in Atikokan; Steep Rock and Caland Ore. I say this very personally because I was raised in Atikokan. I grew up there. I went through grade one to grade 12. My father was a businessman there and the first reeve of the town. I am very attached to the place. I don’t mean to denigrate anyone else, but it was probably or is, the best community in northern Ontario in terms of community spirit; in getting together and doing things on their own and not necessarily going around and asking for handouts. I will restrict that to Rainy River district if you like.

Mr. Martel: All right.

Mr. T. P. Reid: It really was and is an excellent community, and I think there are certain things that should be done. I think we have touched on some of them. Something has to be done about the transportation costs in the north. There has to be something done about the cost of living in the north. This could be handled, I think, by tax credits, of which the Premier seems to be fond.

I think there have to be incentives to industry, perhaps a tax-free series of years. There has to be an easier access to capital, because for years we have known that while the government has certain programs the financial institutions are not fond of lending money in northern Ontario.

The other thing I wanted to touch briefly on in that regard is the tourism business, because it is obviously going to be one of the most important in Ontario, if not in Canada, in the next few years. I throw this out very quickly because of the limitation of time, but I hope the Premier would look at the whole concept of the use of crown land in the province of Ontario.

We are trying to build a tourism industry. Your Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) announces loans and grants, but what incentive is there for a tourist operation to expand or a new one to start up when foreign tourists to our shores can camp on crown land for 21 days at a time and can bring everything with them across the border, if they are coming from the States? They can camp right beside a million-dollar tourist resort for nothing.

I would suggest to the Premier, it should be a requirement that tourists stay in licensed tourist camps, provincial parks, licensed trailer parks, and that sort of thing, to give the tourist industry in northern Ontario a boost, because it is something that could happen and happen immediately.

As the Premier, prescient as he usually is, is aware, I wanted to spend the bulk of my time talking about public opinion polls. I am a little short of time, but obviously the Premier knows, because we have had this discussion in the House, that from January 1, 1975, until April 1, 1978, the province of Ontario spent $1,273,000 on public opinion polls. The Cabinet Office, interestingly enough, commissioned some of these, the titles of which are Survey of Policy Perspectives; Survey on Policy Reactions and Future Needs; Survey of Current Problems and Issues.”

Also, in about a year, between April 1, 1978, and April 1, 1979, the province spent $434,312 on similar polls. At the same time, the Premier has set up the Royal Commission on Freedom of Information and Individual Privacy to look into this whole matter, at which point in the fiscal year, according to Public Accounts, 1977-78, they spent $329,241. I imagine by the time they report they will have spent at least $1 million of taxpayers’ money to tell us we should have a freedom of information act and that things like public opinion polls, paid for by taxpayers’ dollars, should be made public.

In response to questions from this side of the House, the Premier’s only answer when we ask, “Why are they not made public?” is simply, “Because that is government policy.” I suggest that is not good enough. I suggest he could very well set an example by releasing these public opinion polls, making them public and in fact, giving some impetus to the royal commission he set up on public information. I give him a minute, if I may, to reply.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will just reply very briefly to the two or three issues raised.

The question of the one-industry town: the honourable member isn’t going to get any debate from me as to the need to find solutions to this in many parts of northern Ontario. We have discussed this on other occasions and I certainly am not going to add anything further tonight other than to say we are still and will continue to make an effort.

The part on the tourists I must assess a little more carefully.

Mr. Cassidy: They are ghost towns that were created after your government came into power.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, yes. But this government has also been indirectly involved in a lot of good things, too, Michael. A lot of growth has taken place and a lot of people are employed. The province is really a better spot than it was 10 years ago. It has not been all had.

Mr. Martel: Except for those who have been affected.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You’d have a happier frame of mind if you’d understand this and say it on occasion.

Mr. Martel: Why don’t you publicize it?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I really want to cheek on the question of the tourist industry. I realize how sensitive it is in the area represented by the member, but it also is in many other areas as well.

As for polls, I understand what the member is saying. I just ask him, being the reasonable person he is, to understand our point of view.

Mr. T. P. Reid: You just keep saying policy.

Mr. Cassidy: Let the public pay and keep the information to yourself.

Mr. Conway: Jed Baldwin tells us not to believe you and I believe Jed Baldwin.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, I’m sure that Jed Baldwin would believe anything that was said to this House.

Mr. Conway: He wouldn’t believe a damn word your government tells us.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I assure the honourable member that we’ve made a note of his observations. I understand why he continues to raise it, but I’m sure he understands, while he disagrees with the policy of the government --

Mr. T. P. Reid: All you’ve ever told me is that it’s policy.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s right. Policy is policy.

Mr. T. P. Reid: At least it should be based on something.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It means the policy is that these polls were conducted on the basis that they would be confidential.

Mr. Conway: If we could squeeze it out of the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell) I’m sure we can get it out of you.

Hon. Mr. Davis: If it makes you feel any better, I will restate what I’ve said many times. In terms of partisan political interest, we do our polls, and I think they do theirs. I know you do yours. I won’t tell you what’s in yours, but I can make a guess and you’d be surprised. Perhaps you wouldn’t be surprised. Anyway, the issues are there. They’re very clear. The polls that we do -- I can only speak for those related to Cabinet Office -- don’t relate to the partisan political involvement I have or members of cabinet. That may not help the member very much --

Mr. T. P. Reid: It doesn’t.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- but it is an assurance that we don’t use them for purposes other than government policy.

Mr. Deputy Chairman: I recognize the clock but I see there are 27 minutes left for the estimates on votes 201 and 301. The member for Renfrew North has indicated that he would wish to speak to it.

Mr. Conway: I don’t really like to keep the busy Premier and bring him back. I had only five or 10 minutes of remarks. If it’s the agreement that we adjourn now and reconvene at eight o’clock, that’s fine with me.

Mr. Deputy Chairman: I think when we start running over the clock we get into problems.

The House recessed at 6:03 p.m.