Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

DUMPING OF LIQUID WASTE

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, I have been in this House for a number of years now, so I feel pretty familiar with the type of political gamesmanship we all indulge in from time to time. However, on Tuesday the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) made some statements which I feel went far beyond that. Because of the seriousness of the allegations he made I would like him to clarify them for the benefit of the House.

During question period he stated my staff and I were aware of illegal activity at the Upper Ottawa Street landfill site in Hamilton and that my staff had decided to take no action on the matter. He also implied that a judicial inquiry could implicate ministry staff and that the charges we had laid in the situation were, in his words, a smokescreen.

According to at least three media accounts he then went on to say, outside the House, that the ministry had laid the charges to protect its own officials; that two top officials of the ministry were implicated in the plan to dump waste illegally; and that the ministry employees participated in a coverup of illegal dumping. Apparently he then refused to name either the two top officials or to supply concrete proof of his accusations.

As the members may remember, this is not the first time he has taken this tack. This incident has been characterized by his unsupported allegations that ministry staff have been involved in illegal activity in some way. He keeps making these statements, placing the integrity of the entire ministry under a cloud of suspicion, but he has yet to offer a shred of evidence to back them up.

In a letter dated January 5, I asked him to produce his proof. I repeated my request in the House on March 13. On March 27 I gave a complete report on the situation to the Legislature, and I again asked him to show his evidence or refrain from making such remarks. I told him that if he wished he could give his evidence to the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry), the police or the courts which were hearing the case. He chose not to do so on all occasions in favour of offering allegations to the media. He seems to be pursuing this same course again. Therefore, I feel it is imperative this situation be clarified today, once and for all.

I want to know if the Leader of the Opposition agrees that the media accounts accurately reflect his comments. If they do represent what he said, then in the interests of justice I would like to ask him to name the two top officials he feels have been implicated in illegal activity or a coverup of such activity.

I would also like to ask him to produce the evidence upon which he makes his charges. If he wishes, I will meet with him today for this purpose, or arrange for him to meet the Attorney General or other appropriate law-enforcement officials of his choice.

He has stated he will only give his evidence before a judicial inquiry. There has been no evidence produced by the ministry investigation, by the regional police investigation, by the municipality’s investigation or by the court case which indicates a judicial inquiry is necessary. If he has proof that this is not so, he is under an obligation to this House, and indeed to the citizens of Ontario, to produce this evidence for the appropriate authorities. If he has this evidence and does not produce it, he is responsible for allowing illegal activity to go unchecked.

If he does not have this evidence then I ask him, on behalf of my staff, for an apology for his attacks on their integrity. For him not to comply will leave a cloud of suspicion over the lawyers who filed the charges and prosecuted the case, over the ministry’s regional staff who participated in the investigation, and indeed over anyone in the ministry who was at all involved in matters relating to the Upper Ottawa Street landfill site.

Mr. S. Smith: I wish only to say, on a matter of privilege, that every word I have issued on the subject of the Upper Ottawa Street dump has been accurate and can be backed up. I wish to say further that whatever information has come into my possession with regard to the Ottawa Street dump will be provided to a judicial inquiry when such a judicial inquiry is held, as it should have been long ago.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, on the matter of privilege, I think it’s that simple. If there is evidence, the people of this province deserve to have that evidence --

Mr. Breithaupt: Then call an inquiry.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I will call an inquiry on one condition.

Mr. Breithaupt: There are no conditions in calling an inquiry.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I would suggest to the member if his leader is prepared to stake his seat on whether his accusations are founded --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister of the Environment, by way of a ministerial statement, has stated the policy of his ministry with regard to a certain series of events of an environmental nature in the province. By way of a request, he has asked the Leader of the Opposition to take certain initiatives. It is not the responsibility of one member to demand certain action of another member. The minister has requested certain information from the Leader of the Opposition. He has stated his position quite unequivocally and the matter should end there.

FEDERAL BUDGET

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, before I begin my statement I would like to ensure that the leaders of the opposition parties have received their copies. I would like also to apologize. There are only three copies at the moment; more copies will be coming through in a few moments.

Today I would like to make some observations about the federal budget. I do not envy the Honourable John Crosbie, the Minister of Finance, his task. He has inherited the cumulative problems of 16 years of misguided financial management of this country’s economy. The last five years in particular have added to the woes of any government for a Minister of Finance.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Members are not going to hear me because I am going to read.

The federal debt today --

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I hope the school children in the galleries do not act in the same way.

The federal debt today is eating up about 17 per cent of the government’s spending. Obviously, such a gigantic and growing bite out of the budget must be turned about. Thus, I accept in principle the objectives stated by the Minister of Finance to reduce his spending deficit, to reduce the growth in spending and to eventually bring his budget into balance. What I cannot accept are all of the routes he has chosen in order to do so.

Had the federal government the foresight in 1975 to do what this government has had the courage and the wisdom to do, to cut its spending below the inflation rate, then the problems faced by Canada and by its present government would have been far easier to manage.

In fact, as the Lambert report stated a year or so ago, under the previous government the bureaucracy was virtually out of control of the elected representatives. I sincerely hope that the action started by my colleague will signal the end to such a bad state of affairs. Having agreed with his objectives I must now comment upon his means.

There are some features of this budget, particularly those relating to investments and small business, which will lead to a healthier climate for investment. It is our belief, however, that the issue of energy pricing and energy taxation will lead to some difficulty and serious economic problems.

The members are all aware of the stand this government has taken with regard to oil and gas pricing. We have strongly opposed, and continue to oppose, price increases which go beyond the current federal-provincial agreement without any changes made to the distribution of oil and gas revenues.

Many of the proposals of the federal government will not help our economic performance and not advance the capacity of our economy to grow. In the view of this government, there must be a positive up-front offset, or massive reinvestment of the enormous energy revenues to ensure that the economy of this country does not receive a mortal wound in the next year; that the excise tax increase of 18 cents to the gallon, while better than the predicted 30 cents, is going to mean an additional $2.5 billion annually in tax revenues. Wellhead price increases next year are going to take another $2.2 billion out of the pockets of business and consumers.

The price and tax increases laid out by Mr. Crosbie mean that Canadian consumers could be paying $19 billion a year more by 1983. Ontarians will bear the brunt of these increases. We’re going to pay $1.6 billion more next year. That translates roughly to $575 for every Ontario household. In 1983 we’ll be paying $8.2 billion more for current volumes of oil and natural gas. What that means, Mr. Speaker, is that in the four-year period to 1983 our consumers and businesses will have paid more than a staggering $15.7 billion for their oil and gas than they would have without these announced price and tax increases.

I’m sure that the honourable members realize the gravity of the economic burden this places on us. There are two impacts which will begin to reverberate and echo through the economy, impacts that will damage the economic fabric of our society.

The first is higher levels of inflation. The federal Minister of Finance is predicting an inflation rate of 11 per cent next year. I find that particularly worrisome. I do not think we’re going to see an easy year ahead of us if that prediction comes true.

The second impact is that we expect to see a drop in consumer and business incomes. For those who say that the energy price increases will not be hard to take, let me outline the impact these increases will have on Ontario consumers.

In 1980 most people will pay over $200 more for their heating oil and gasoline. That’s about four day’s pay before taxes. What does this mean for the average Ontario worker? After taxes, the family breadwinner is going to have to work six or seven extra days just to maintain the 1979 standard of living, or they can all demand that wage increase -- and I think the members know what that would do to the inflation situation.

The situation will be more difficult by 1984. Individuals will be paying out some $900 a year more for their heating oil and gasoline. Even if wages rise by 10 per cent a year consumers will be paying out more than two weeks’ wages, and that’s before taxes, to meet these added costs. These increases are going to finance Ottawa’s deficit and to increase the already bursting treasuries of the producing provinces.

There is even some question as to whether these measures will produce the energy conservation the federal government is looking for. It has been estimated by some that for every 10 per cent increase in the cost of energy, particularly of gasoline, energy consumption drops by only one per cent. That is hardly enough to produce the goal of energy self-sufficiency, yet it will place heavy burdens on our economy.

[2:15]

There are four other reasons why we oppose this imposition of higher oil and gas prices.

First, there is a considerable time lag between the time energy price increases hit and federal offsetting programs begin to ease the burden. In 1980 there are no offsets announced. It is not until 1981 the energy tax credit for low income earners takes effect. That program will not be fully operational until 1982, two and a half years away. Because of this graduated timing its offsetting impact is far less than the cash loss of the higher prices. However, we are pleased that they have at least taken some action to cushion the blow. I might add this action was taken largely because of the urging of Ontario.

Although the revenues of producing provinces will literally be doubled and heritage funds will swell with new wealth, the federal energy bank will see no more than a trickle of money in its first two years and conservation incentives, like the expanded Canadian Home Insulation Program, will only get a small fraction of those massive revenue flows.

Second, the federal government has said for some time that all provinces are equal. If I remember my history, that was the basis for the foundation of this country. But what Ottawa has done in this budget is to say that some provinces are more equal than others.

I am extremely disappointed the Maritime provinces are being favoured at the expense of Ontario and the rest of Canada. The subsidy to those provinces to offset fuel cost and electrical generation will surely be paid for in large part by Ontario taxpayers. That will be in addition to the inevitable rise in equalization payment to the other provinces following these increases in oil and gas prices.

Third, our opposition to this energy policy relates to the traditions of taxation established in this country. As the members know, its original purpose was to subsidize the higher costs of imported oil used in eastern Canada. That is the excise tax.

Mr. Speaker, that purpose has now been lost. The federal government is now proposing to ease its budget deficit with those revenues.

Fourth, the fiscal balance within Confederation will be materially affected by this budget. The federal Minister of Finance said net petroleum revenues, excluding the excise tax, will amount to about $90 billion total accumulation in the next four years.

To get an idea of what that means, I would point out to members that Ontario’s annual gross provincial product is now a little over $100 billion a year. We are talking about cash flows that cumulatively rival the size of our provincial economy roughly every four and a half years. To compound that problem, the federal proposals would double the annual flow of cash to the producing provinces in four years.

Without any doubt, this will produce the most massive unbalancing of the fiscal foundations of this country we have ever seen. Some $40 billion in revenue will flow to the producing provinces over that four-year period. This sum amounts to some 45 cents out of every dollar earned going to the producing provinces.

The federal government has shown itself so far to be unwilling to discuss the redistribution of the wealth arising from the production of oil and gas -- a redistribution which the province of Ontario has, in the past, willingly shared in.

Federal levies have always been used for the benefit of all of Canada. Historically, when Ontario was the wealthiest of the provinces we supported the others through our taxes. Ontarians paid more so the poorer provinces could benefit from our wealth. There were never any strings attached.

Turning to the field of public transportation, I am greatly dismayed the federal government would levy a tax on fuels used in public transit while these fuels are subject to provincial gasoline and diesel taxes, that is more than compensated for by the heavy provincial subsidies for public transit.

I find it extremely difficult to square the federal actions with this loudly-proclaimed priority on energy conservation. I have already written to Mr. Crosbie, asking him to reconsider that ill-advised move.

My initial reaction to the energy aspect of this rather complex budget is that while some of the features meet Ontario’s proposals in principle, they do not go nearly far enough. The consumer is really left with the prospect of financing the federal government deficit I with higher taxes and higher energy revenues, while the producing provinces will get a larger windfall again. We have no guarantees the federal government will ensure the stability and growth of the national economy by planning for, and insisting on, the reinvestment of these large petrodollar revenue flows in our economic future.

Turning for a moment to the area of corporate taxation; I must say I was delighted with the proposals for small business contained in the budget. The development bond should be a valuable financing tool for small businesses and will complement the equity incentives which we have introduced in the Ontario small business development corporations program. This program will be particularly helpful in getting small businesses through this difficult period of high interest rates.

I am also very pleased with the tax treatment which the federal government will be according to the capital gains and losses on SBDC shares. In essence, the Ontario share credits will not be subject to capital gains tax. This and other tax provisions relating to the taxation of SBDCs that had previously been agreed to reflect the very positive attitude by the federal government to our SBDC program and we appreciate it.

With respect to the five per cent corporate surtax I will only mention that I would have preferred to see small businesses and manufacturing and processing exempt from that tax. Also, I would have preferred to see additional incentives for Canadian research and development contained in the budget.

Finally, on the subject of corporate taxation, I want to mention that the provision of rental accommodation in Ontario continues to be of high priority to this government and I am disappointed that the multiple urban residential unit or MURB incentive will not be continued.

There are other tax changes which will affect the consumer more directly. Before moving on to personal income tax changes, let me outline our reaction to the changes in the consumption taxes introduced by Mr. Crosbie. I have already dealt at some length with the increase in the gasoline excise tax. I have made clear that we view this increase as an intrusion into provincial jurisdiction. I have similar reservations, Mr. Speaker, about the additional federal occupancy of excise taxation of liquor and tobacco. While the federal government has played a traditional role in this field, it has now assumed the dominant role in tobacco taxation and is getting close to that position in alcoholic beverages. The squeeze play on provincial tax room concerns me a great deal.

I am more encouraged by some of the personal income tax changes introduced by the Minister of Finance. I have already mentioned the energy tax credit and said we are pleased the government has taken this step. However, I am concerned that this system of tax credits -- the energy credit, the mortgage-interest tax credit, the property tax credit, the child tax credit -- is becoming extremely complicated. While I am not doubting the worth of these programs, there is no question that the tax credit system is increasingly confusing for the average citizen. Because of this, I believe that Ontario will have to review its own position in the tax credit field. I will have more to say on that when I present my budget in the spring.

In the meantime, I was pleased with the capital gains changes proposed in the federal budget for promoting equity investments by individuals through RRSPs and the new common stock investment plan. Naturally, I was also pleased to see the easing of capital gains taxation on farmers. Canadians have often been told that they are a nation of savers. I hope that these changes get the money out of the socks and into the stocks where it will generate increased investment, more jobs and a stronger economy.

It was also encouraging to see the federal government proposing a major review of capital gains taxation, a review that I hope will lead to the improvements in that legislation.

Finally, while on the subject of personal income tax, I might note that I am pleased to see the exemption for allowances paid to volunteer firemen increased to $500. But that is not nearly enough. I personally urged the Minister of Finance to increase this exemption to $1,000.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn now to the fiscal projections made by the Minister of Finance. It was with some interest that I noted that he tabled a four-year fiscal plan, something that Ontario pioneered in 1977. These federal projections show a reduction in Ottawa’s deficit from this year’s level of 4.4 per cent of the gross national product to 2.1 per cent in 1983-84. While that is encouraging, it still will be twice the current Ontario deficit of 1.1 per cent.

Although we applaud Mr. Crosbie’s efforts to reduce the federal financing requirements from some $10 billion this year to $4.8 billion in 1984, the federal expenditure projections are a little disappointing. I am also concerned about the ability of the federal government to meet lower deficit targets. During the four-year planning period, the total federal spending is projected at a 10 per cent annual rate of growth. This hardly can be characterized as belt tightening on the part of the federal government. In 1980-81 federal discretionary spending, which is mainly on its own account, will grow by 10.6 per cent as opposed to the 6.3 per cent for statutory transfer payments to the provinces and to individuals.

There are two key reasons for my concern. First, the high growth in discretionary spending, which is primarily “own account,” could continue to place upward pressures on Mr. Crosbie’s 10 per cent spending target. If this happens, that target could be maintained only at the expense of federal transfer payments. In particular, those payments made to provinces to support social programs may be reduced.

The second, perhaps even more critical, dimension of the problem involves the structure of the federal revenue base itself. This federal budget is showing the cumulative effects of all the tax reductions which were undertaken by the previous federal administration. While there may have been good reasons for each of these reductions, the net result has been the creation of a serious revenue-growth problem for both the federal and the provincial governments. Both these factors together have produced a major gap in the capacity of the federal government to reduce its deficit.

This helps to explain what the federal government has really done in developing its four-year deficit reduction plan. It plans to achieve deficit reductions not primarily through cutting down expenditures, be they tax expenditures or otherwise, but by raising taxes on energy. In fact, a fair amount of what we have seen in this budget has relatively little to do with energy policy and a lot to do with raising taxes of Canadians.

As I said when I first stood up to deliver this analysis of the federal budget, I accept and admire the financial objectives stated by the Minister of Finance. As I said then, however, and as I think I have made clear, I can’t accept the routes he has chosen to do so. There are some considerable economic problems that will arise as a result of this budget.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. F. S. Miller: In the coming months the economic performance of the country will focus debate on four issues: the rate of inflation, the level of new job creation, the level of new investment in plant and equipment and the whole range of energy issues. What the federal budget signals, quite validly, is the difficult condition of our economy and the deep fiscal problems the country has drifted into in the past decade. However, this budget will result in a slower rate of growth across the Canadian economy.

At the recent first ministers’ conference on energy we documented the potential impact of various influences on the economy, including the effects of oil and gas prices and excise taxes. Based upon the information we have now, it seems that the economic impact of this budget will be significant in 1980, amounting to a loss in real growth of up to 0.6 per cent of the gross national product, and for some regions that could be a little higher.

Inflation will be as much as 1.5 per cent higher than it otherwise would have been. The increase in unemployment insurance premiums represents both an employment tax to business and a loss of income to workers. In 1977, Ontario taxpayers contributed $613 million more to the unemployment insurance fund than Ontario’s unemployed received in benefits. This will be probably closer to $1 billion by 1980.

The negative effects on Ontario’s employment will not be offset by the proposed new employment tax credit. The total effect of budget measures will mean that job creation across Canada will be less than it would have been. In Ontario, the loss of new job opportunities could be as high as 20,000 jobs. That is the impact in 1980 alone. The cumulative impact on the national economy of these measures will be much more serious over, say, a five-year time span.

The areas where our governments would be in conflict were, I believe, eminently predictable. We took our position on energy pricing back in 1973-74 and we have remained consistent. In the past, we have been both pleased and disappointed with the policies of the previous administration as we are with the current government’s. We will continue to press for broader reinvestment of energy revenues in public transit, conservation, energy exploration, economic adjustment and self-sufficiency. We will continue to defend the national interest as we see it. We have a commitment to the Ontario consumers and, indeed, to the economy of this province to protect and support these more specific interests. Whatever the government in Ottawa, despite our political affiliation, the government of Ontario’s responsibilities and duties remain constant.

MEDICAL CONSENT

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I realize the new rule of the House about the 30-minute limit on Thursdays. Had there been time today, I would have delivered a statement and then tabled a paper to do with medical consent. With your permission, I would like to distribute it and consider it as having been given inasmuch as I can’t be in the House tomorrow. I had promised at least one member of the House to say something about it this week.

[12: 30]

RESPONSES TO PETITIONS

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise a point of order under section 29(i) which says, “The minister shall provide a response to a petition within two weeks of its presentation.”

On Tuesday, November 20, members of this caucus presented a petition to this House. Some 275,000 people signed the petition expressing concern about medicare in this province. This morning the minister, again, received further petitioning of a sort, with another 75,000 names.

The minister has said in the House on two occasions now that he was going to personally write to each person who signed that petition. May I ask under this standing order when we might get the response to our petition?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, speaking to the point of order I have signed a general response which was filed in the cabinet office and I thought had been filed here. I have certainly signed it. It’s just a general response.

But on the other part I felt that my response to the members’ campaign and allegations was so widely covered that we’re going to help the Red Cross instead.

Mr. Breaugh: Very briefly, does the standing order not call for a response to the House within the two-week period? Since we have not received that response, what is our recourse?

Mr. Speaker: Has the response been tabled?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: On that I’m not sure.

Mr. Speaker: Unless it has been tabled it doesn’t meet with the requirement of standing order 29. Perhaps the government House leader could look into that.

ORAL QUESTIONS

FEDERAL BUDGET

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer, given that by his own analysis it is now clear to him as it is to everyone in Ontario that the economy of Ontario will be drastically, negatively affected by this budget.

We have lost on the matter of oil price, oil taxation and on the matter of redistribution of oil revenues. Is the Treasurer now then prepared to demand from Ottawa the $460 million accruing to Ontario by way of equalization payments under the existing equalization formula so we can use that money to cushion the blow of this dreadful budget on the middle and low income earners in Ontario?

Hon. F. S. Miller: That matter, of course, will be raised again. I have said that redistribution is the primary objective. To this point we still have Monday and Tuesday to discuss redistribution at the first ministers’ meeting and I think one should wait until we’ve passed that point.

The act is being administered as if the bill had been introduced, I have been assured of that. The federal Finance minister said in his budget that he has still not worked out the details of the energy tax, for example. I would hope that at the same time he hasn’t intended to work out the details of redistribution until after the arguments on Monday.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary: Given that there has not been a single word spoken on the subject of equalization in the federal budget; and given that the bill the minister mentioned the federal government will be bringing in is apparently not a bill which the people in the federal Ministry of Finance seem to be expecting in the next year or so, why does Ontario not demand the $460-odd million owing to the province?

We’ve paid our share in equalization, it’s time now for us to accept what’s coming to us. Why doesn’t the minister demand that money so we can use it in Ontario to cushion the blow of this budget for this winter?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member has always tried to make the redistribution of oil revenues and the equalization payments the same thing. They are not. If no change is made in the redistribution I have assured the member that the rediscussion of equalization formulae would subsequently likely follow.

Mr. Cassidy: Since it is now clear from the budget we had on Tuesday night that a major purpose of the increase in the federal excise tax on gasoline has been to raise the $575 million cost of the mortgage tax deductibility or credit -- which is going to high-income home owners in this province and other parts of the country -- will this government go to Ottawa and tell the federal government that it should take away that mortgage tax plan in order to take the $575 million and direct it to people on low incomes to protect them against energy price increases?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The energy tax credit of $80 per adult and $30 per child, unlike the property tax and mortgage-interest deductibility credit, is refundable. Therefore it will have some impact on people at the lower end of the income scale.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary Mr. Speaker: After reading this long statement to the House detailing the enormously negative impact this budget of his federal friends and brethren will have in Ontario, will the Treasurer now do what one of his predecessors, Mr. McKeough, did after a budget he didn’t think was very helpful to Ontario back in 1975? Will he bring in a counterbudget of some kind this session in Ontario to mitigate the effect of the budget?

I would remind the Treasurer what Mr. McKeough said at that time. He said, “No member of this Legislature can be unaware of the fact the government of Canada has tabled a budget, a surprising document, a document irrelevant to the needs of Canada and Ontario, a document that fuels inflation, that is mischievous in terms of the clear interest of the people in the provinces.”

He brought in a counterbudget. What is the Treasurer going to do now that it is his friends in Ottawa who have brought in a budget that has been destructive to the people of Ontario?

Hon. F. S. Miller: The Leader of the Opposition is a complex person. It is a happy season but he is not a happy person. I often wonder whether I am listening to Harold Smith, Stuart Greer or just good old SS himself.

If you look at the timing of them, Mr. Speaker, most of the impacts, except for the 18 cents on fuel, are phased over a period of time. That period postdates my budgetary period. I am going to take my time, as I should, to calculate the net impacts to my budget -- which, by the way, is doing very well and will continue to do well through this fiscal year. I will have whatever action is required in my budget.

Even under the Liberal regime we always tried not to take counterproductive measures unless we are totally committed they would be effective for our people.

INDEPENDENT GASOLINE DISTRIBUTORS

Mr. S. Smith: A question of the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch). He was here. Does the Premier know if the minister is coming back?

Hon. Mr. Davis: He is coming back in many ways.

Mr. S. Smith: I will ask the question of the Premier. He may know something about it.

In view of the discussions between federal and provincial officials as recently as yesterday regarding Gulf Canada Limited and the announcement it would be cutting back gasoline supplies to independents. Since the minister didn’t seem to know yesterday when that question was asked, has the Premier today any new information he can give to the House on what seems to be a situation where Gulf is cutting back to independents rather than to its own people in a situation where there is really no call for them to do that?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, in that the Minister of Energy has dealt with this related to another quite similar question yesterday with respect to another company, I suggest he will be here shortly and will be delighted to share whatever information he has with the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. S. Smith: Obviously I will have to wait for him, but I would just ask by way of supplementary, so it is on the record and the minister might wish to respond when he does get here, is the Premier aware that Gulf is dealing with its shortfall in supplies by cutting back independents by 40 per cent and only cutting back its own distributors by eight per cent when these independents are, of course, a source of competition for Gulfs own distributors?

By squeezing the independents Gulf is in a position to have much more control over retail prices. Surely it is up to the province to put whatever persuasive power it has to work to get Gulf to be a little more equitable in these matters.

Ms. Gigantes: Supplementary: May I ask if the Premier is encouraging the Minister of Energy to give us an answer on this question and the related one of cutoff of supply to Safeway Fuels in eastern Ontario? Can I ask him to inquire of the Minister of Energy whether he is satisfied to watch a firm of that size go under in eastern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think I can say in advance of whatever the Minister of Energy may or may not reply that he would not be satisfied to see that particular firm go under.

FEDERAL BUDGET

Mr. Cassidy: I have a question of the Treasurer on the federal budget which came out on Tuesday and in the wake of his statement today.

In the absence of any manufacturing strategy by the federal government in the budget that was presented by Mr. Crosbie this week, and in view of the Treasurer’s own admissions that this budget is going to cost us 20,000 jobs in Ontario, would the Treasurer say what plans this government has in order to protect those 20,000 jobs and make sure they are not eliminated?

Hon. F. S. Miller: In spite of the opposition of the honourable member’s party, we continue, through the Employment Development Fund, to make moves that create jobs. We have done so across this year. I would say that we have had perhaps the best year-over-year increase in employment Ontario has ever recorded. The latest figure I saw showed that over November of last year, which was not a bad month, we had 145,000 more people working in Ontario than we did 12 months ago.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: The Treasurer said he is prepared to do nothing to replace the 20,000 jobs which will be eliminated from the federal budget. Could the Treasurer say what the government is prepared to do, since there are 13,000 automobile workers who are right now on indefinite layoff and since there are 11,000 auto workers in Windsor alone who will be without work next week because of layoffs? Since all of that occurred before the federal budget started to have an impact, what action is the government prepared to take in order to restore those jobs within the automobile industry that affects so many communities across this province?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the other day I believe you ruled that was not a matter of urgency and a debate did not follow, but I happened to follow in my estimates. Mr. Speaker, you may have read the transcript of

Hansard that day to discover that the debate took place within my estimates. I think a lot of the information was given that day, a lot of the points were raised. There were a lot of questions about the cyclical nature of that industry.

Of course we are concerned about it. Of course we are concerned about the current drop in sales, but I would argue with the honourable member that one of the best ways to support that industry is to have a reasonable supply of fuel and see that people are economizing. They will get their confidence back, because right now it’s a matter of confidence in the buying side and basically in the States, not in Canada.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, yesterday on CFRB, I thought the minister -- I don’t know whether I heard him right or not -- said that this new budget would cost each man, woman and child in Ontario -- eight million people -- $4,000 per capita debt. Did the minister say that yesterday?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Over the time, not in one year.

Mr. Sargent: Will he tell me what he said then?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have a calculation in my statement today that says the net amount is somewhere around $570 per family per year at the present rate. By the time we are in our fourth year we are reaching the higher levels. The cost of energy per person per year is in the range of $1,000, by rough calculation.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, even though the Treasurer has talked a great deal about the jobs created this year, since the forecasting agencies including the conference board are predicting as few as 30,000 will be created next year, and that was before this budget came out, is the Treasurer now prepared to tell us what his predictions are for 1980 for job creation, since he promised several times that he would do so? Is he prepared to table any plans he has to put in place for job-creation projects in Ontario?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I hope a good number of the jobs are going to be in the small business side. Looking at the complexities of the budget, it would be foolish today to give the member a figure, because obviously we have to put a lot of input in, for example, the differences the small business bond plan makes to the investment and expectations of little companies. That’s important, very important.

In an area like mine in Muskoka, it can have a tremendous impact upon the kind of construction programs or expansion programs that go on. With small businesses it will do the same thing all across this province. I have to net out the positives and the negatives that are going to occur through this. I haven’t got that figure yet; as soon as I do have one, I will be pleased to share it with the members.

[2:45]

Mr. O’Neil: I would like to ask a supplementary of the Treasurer. I wonder if the Treasurer could tell me, since I find it very hard to understand the reasoning in his statement today, where was he, where was the Premier and where were some of his party’s members when they supported these Tory federal members? Did the Treasurer not discuss with them, prior to supporting them in the last election, what their stand was on some of these things we have heard in this latest budget?

Hon. Mr. Davis: How did you vote, Hughie?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Did the member ever get a commitment from Pierre Trudeau? The only commitment he would have got from him was to hospital.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question was, “Where were you?”

Hon. F. S. Miller: Where was I? I was here.

Mr. O’Neil: No answer.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Di Santo: In view of the fact that the Treasurer said the other day he was unable to answer questions about the automobile industry because they were questions pertaining to that sector; and in view of the fact that industry is the most important is the manufacturing sector in Ontario and is in a crisis, not only because of oil but also because of the inability of this government to negotiate with the big three companies for Ontario to have a fair share of the North American market, can the minister tell us if he has any clear idea of how he is going to deal with this basic industry, other than telling us we must hope and that things will be good?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I hope I heard the question. There were two leaders talking while I was trying to listen. Was it on the auto pact and what we are going to do? I am trying to answer and if I make a mistake in my answer or don’t answer, would the member please stand up and repeat it? But one of the questions raised the other day and what I thought the member was implying is what are we going to do to get a fairer share of the auto pact? Is that what the member said?

Mr. Di Santo: Invest.

Hon. F. S. Miller: That’s the same thing.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Or it is one example.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Yes, it would be one example. There were a lot of people who said either the Canadian government, which is the negotiating agent, or Ontario, which has urged the federal government, should get out there and demand a renegotiation of the pact. That’s a very sensible thing to talk about until one looks at the unemployment and recognizes it is an election year in the United States. There is more unemployment in the automobile industry there than there is here and they are not likely to want to make changes that would move unemployment from Canada to the United States.

TABLE WINES

Mr. Cassidy: Before the House drowns in the indignation which the Treasurer has been directing towards the federal Parliament, I would like to ask the Treasurer a question about Ontario’s actions with reference to that federal budget.

Since the federal budget, which Ontario has resisted, is adding 13 cents to the price of a bottle of table wine, will the Treasurer undertake to dissociate himself from that particular measure by rescinding his decision to piggyback a 27-cent increase on to the price of a bottle of table wine? Will he stop ripping off the consumer by letting Ontario share in that federal tax increase?

Hon. F. S. Miller: One has to look at the whole budget to see what happens to the consumers of this province. As a result of three changes, we will have probably a net loss of something like $40 million in our revenue. It would be very foolish to make adjustments until budget time when I have the opportunity to look at markups on wine and liquor and the ability of the market to sustain them.

I would like to point out to the honourable member that for many distilled spirits the prices in fixed or constant dollars are considerably less than they were not too many years ago.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: How does the Treasurer justify adding this additional Ontario tax when the markup on table wines is already 123 per cent? If Ontario is so outraged over the federal budget, why is the Ontario government joining with the federal government? They are both putting their hands in the taxpayers’ pockets and taking money from liquor price increases.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, if the member looks at my comments he will find that is one of the very concerns I expressed. We have traditionally been the dominant force in certain tax fields. We’re concerned those fields are being occupied, more and more, leaving us very little room to meet our legitimate requirements at a time when this government has consistently demonstrated its ability to manage its spending.

Mr. Breithaupt: With respect to the increases and the 123 per cent markup referred to by the leader of the third party, will the Treasurer in his review of these taxing opportunities consider making some exemption or dealing with the rates of exchange and also the transportation cost matters so taxes added by the province of Ontario are not automatically added on to these other areas over which the importers, certainly, or the Liquor Control Board have absolutely no control?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, both parties have been hitting me quite hard about import substitution. Members should drink Ontario wine which has a 58 per cent markup.

METRO TORONTO CONVENTION CENTRE

Mr. Eakins: I have a question of the Minister of Industry and Tourism. In view of the great job-creation potential of a major convention centre for Metro Toronto, can the minister tell this House at what stage his plans are to bring about the realization of a major convention centre here in Metropolitan Toronto?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Discussions have now been held with representatives of the private sector to see if there is any private sector contribution possible. Discussions are going on between me and the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto council with regard to supplying him with enough information so he might approach his council with the request, I hope, for some major funding in order to match the funding offered by the levels of government.

Mr. Eakins: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Will the minister approach the federal government for a fairer share of their contribution toward the Metro centre? Is there any breakdown between the minister and the Metro chairman in regard to the division of costs in regard to the centre?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: No, there is no breakdown between me and the Metro chairman. He has not taken a proposition to his council as yet. I think he is hoping to do that within the next four weeks. After he has been to his council and we have seen the response of his council, then we’ll know whether or not there is a shortfall and whether we might not be going back to the federal government to make up the difference.

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister announced three weeks ago in Vancouver that they are going to contribute a third of the cost of the convention centre in British Columbia. In view of the fact they are going to contribute only 25 per cent to the convention centre in Toronto, despite the minister’s calculations on the value of the land, doesn’t the minister think that is detrimental to the development of the centre in Toronto?

Second, doesn’t the minister think this makes it very hard for the province and Metro Toronto to raise the money needed for the centre? Doesn’t the minister think he should make a representation to the federal government so we have at least an equal share, as in British Columbia?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Both the Metro chairman and I made very strong representations to the federal government, urging upon them the importance of contributing to our centre. That was done in the context of a commitment given by the former government and upheld by the current government that

they would go through with the previous commitment to Vancouver to fund one third. There was no commitment by the old government or the new government to fund anything in Toronto.

Both the Metro chairman and I very forcefully took the case to the federal government. As a result, they developed a new policy which, frankly, I’m not happy with but which does support, by their calculations, 25 per cent of the centre.

What I think would be detrimental to the situation would be if we took the position right now that it is going to be 33.3 per cent or nothing. That puts us in a position in which we risk some 2,000 construction jobs and 10,000 permanent jobs simply because we’re going to dig in our heels and say unless the federal government gives us exactly the amount of money they gave to Vancouver, there will be no convention centre for Toronto.

I don’t think that’s a reasonable position to take. I think the public looks for more leadership from this government and from the Metro government than to take an ornery position such as that, given the history of the situation.

I’m not happy with it, but I’m not prepared to see the convention centre go down the drain over the federal shortfall.

UNIFORM GASOLINE PRICES

Mr. Wildman: I have a question of the Minister of Northern Affairs. Is he aware that as a result of the federal government’s excise tax grab on fuel, gasoline prices for unleaded fuel in a number of small communities in northern Ontario have jumped to a range of anywhere from 31.5 cents per litre or $1.42 a gallon, to 33.1 cents per litre or $1.50 a gallon, compared with about 29 cents a litre or $1.30 a gallon in Toronto? If he is aware of that, is the minister now prepared to reverse this government’s policy and accept the proposal made over a year ago by one of his own back-benchers to set up a mechanism to establish uniform gasoline prices across Ontario to eliminate this 15-cent-a-gallon differential between the southern and northern parts of the province?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member is certainly aware that the Treasurer has just made the position of this government, as it relates to the increased costs for fuel and gasoline across this province, very clear. I would remind the honourable member that we in northern Ontario enjoy some very extensive benefits relating to the registration of our automobiles. He forgets those little benefits we get We also get increased municipal tax grants -- unconditional grants -- over and above what southern Ontario gets. There are a number of ways we in northern Ontario benefit from the high cost of living in that particular area.

Mr. Germa: Supplementary: Assuming a vehicle travels 15,000 miles a year, and assuming a fuel consumption of 20 miles per gallon, is the minister aware that the differential between the cost of operating that vehicle in Toronto and in northern Ontario is $112.50 per year, despite the differential in licence plates cost? What has his ministry got in mind to remove this discrepancy between transportation costs in the north and in the south?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: As the honourable member is aware, there are many areas of northern Ontario where the price of gasoline and fuel oil is equal to or less than that of southern Ontario. In Sault Ste. Marie, in Timmins and in many of the major centres the price of gasoline is equal to that of southern Ontario. The member mustn’t bamboozle me with those kinds of figures because they’re entirely wrong and the honourable members know it.

Mr. Speaker: A final supplementary.

Mr. Wildman: The minister will recall that in my question I said “the small communities.” I have a list of them here with the prices. What, if anything, is he prepared to do about the effect this is obviously going to have on employment in tourism and in other industries in the north when people from other parts of the province and from the United States are faced with these exorbitant gas prices across our part of the province?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: We on this side of the House are very concerned with this situation. We’ve shown that concern in a number of different ways and we’ll continue to react to it.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Agriculture and Food has the answers to several questions asked previously.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Mr. Speaker, I’ve sat in this office since we opened early in October. During the six weeks I was here I had two questions. Two weeks ago today I took ill -- I haven’t been here since then, until today -- and I find four questions have been raised during those two weeks. Agriculture is becoming pretty important.

Mr. S. Smith: We had a better chance of getting answers when you weren’t here.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: No, you had to wait until I came back.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Can we hear the answers please?

HOPPER CARS

Hon. Mr. Henderson: The members for York South (Mr. MacDonald) and Huron-Bruce -- no, Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell), sorry. I guess I’m too mixed up, Mr. Speaker, for some reason.

An hon. member: They’re close.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: They’re close. They’re pretty similar.

They asked: a question on December 7 about corn marketing. They were apparently concerned that 20 per cent of the crop would not be marketed or harvested because of the limitations of storage and transportation services.

The corn crop in Ontario is estimated to be 25 per cent above last year’s crop; about 170 million bushels. I am advised that the harvest is basically complete, except for the individual situation where the ground is too wet for harvesting.

[3:00]

In November the industry was very concerned about the availability of roadway equipment. I sent a Telex message to the federal Minister of Transportation and the president of the Canadian National Railway and their responses were gratifying. Before the situation became of concern there were about 250 covered hopper cars suitable for moving grain in the southwestern Ontario fleet. Following our presentation Canadian National added 130 cars, Canadian Pacific 26, Conrail 20 and Chesapeake and Ohio, 30. The fleet moved from 250 cars to 445 cars, almost double. A review of the car supply situation indicates that an adequate supply is available and all orders are being met.

During the critical November harvest season, several elevators were forced to store corn outside until it could be moved through the system. I am advised this is no longer the case.

I have been assured that we have not lost sales to the Atlantic provinces because of the shortage of rail equipment or storage facilities. The market outlook for sales in eastern Canada this year is quite favourable.

The supply of western feed grains in the St. Lawrence region is lower than previous years, which suggests good demand for Ontario corn.

The chairman of the Ontario Grain Corn Council has called for improved vessel-unloading capabilities in eastern Canada to reduce the dependence of the corn industry on rail shipments.

My government, over the years, has provided grants for the construction of grain storage and handling facilities on farms. Recently the federal government and my ministry offered a grain-storage program which involved grants of close to $15 million to Ontario farmers. There is also the inland elevator program, a federal program which provides a combination of loans and grants to commercial elevators locating in the grain deficit areas. The program operates in Ontario and eastern Canada. I am happy to report that the outlook for the crop appears to be very good.

Mr. Speaker, did you want to ask for questions on that?

Mr. Speaker: There don’t seem to be any supplementaries, so will you continue with the other questions?

LIVESTOCK PAYMENT DEFAULTS

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Mr. Speaker, I want to reply to the question the member for Huron-Middlesex asked in the House on December 10. His question was whether or not I consider the problem of default in payment for livestock to be of sufficient importance or priority to deal with in this session. it is true that discussions concerning financial protection for livestock producers has been going on for a considerable period of time. I assure you that it is not my intention to prolong these discussions, Mr. Speaker. I recognize the producers’ concerns and the reasons for them. A meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday for me to meet with the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association, the Ontario Livestock Auction Association, the Meat Packers Council and some representatives of firms at the stockyards to hear their recommendations.

I am ready to proceed to develop a financial protection program within existing legislation, if this would speed up the introduction of financial protection for livestock producers.

In answer to the member’s supplementary question, I am prepared to proceed with the plan for program protection against default of payment.

Mr. McKessock: Pertaining to protection, the minister says he is willing to proceed within existing legislation. Supposing he can’t do it within that and has to have further legislation, is the minister prepared to give us a certain length of time within which this can be done? This has been going on for several years now. Can he tell us whether this can be completed within two or three months?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: I have suggested to the delegations I have seen that if we could proceed under present legislation, we could possibly implement it about budget time. If we have to go ahead with new legislation, it would possibly take up to a year.

I am pleased to reply in detail to the question raised by the member for Huron-Middlesex concerning the chicken allocation in Ontario for 1980. I will now give him the facts in detail.

Mr. Speaker: How long is it?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: It is about two pages. I think it’s fairly important.

Mr. Speaker: It should be done by way of a ministerial statement then.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: It’s in response to a question, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: That’s right, but the standing order provides that if the response to an oral question is unusually long, the response will be given by way of a ministerial statement.

FRENCH-LANGUAGE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE

Mr. Belanger: I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. In view of the importance of the agricultural industry to the economy of Ontario and to the large number of French-speaking young farmers who would like to take a course in agriculture in their own language, would the minister undertake to have a feasibility study made to determine the establishment of a French-language college of agricultural technology in southeastern Ontario where there is a very large number of young people who wish to make their career in farming?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: In response to the honourable member’s question, we do have a report, a partial survey, on this particular situation. The cabinet has now authorized me to take an additional step, namely, to send staff within the area to make comparisons as to what students might be available there. The Centralia College of Agriculture could be used.

An hon. member: Centralia is too far away.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Just a moment. We have suggested that they go into that area and take the number of students out of a similar population to see what number of students might be available to take the course if a school was set up in eastern Ontario. That is now in process.

Mr. Belanger: Supplementary: Could the minister give us any indication as to when the study would be completed and when the results will be available?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: I would hate to give a date a month from now, but I would hope before the next session opens we might have some idea as to what the possibilities are.

Mr. Roy: If I may ask a supplementary to the very excellent question asked by my colleague from Prescott and Russell, when he is looking at possible demand for such a college, would the minister keep in mind that perhaps the number of francophone students requiring this facility may not be an accurate reflection, in view of the fact that over 100-and-some years they have not had that opportunity and therefore, some of them may have been reluctant to enter agriculture because the facility was not available? Secondly, in making a determination, would the minister please not consult the present Minister of Education?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Don’t consult the member for Ottawa East either.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: If I may respond in reverse, yes, I will consult the present Minister of Education. Her advice is always accepted by this minister. I think I pointed out quite clearly that we are not making the survey of what French-speaking young people might be available. We are trying to make a survey of what might be available in young people. It doesn’t matter what their background language is. We want to see the number of young people in that area who are willing to take this type of an education.

Mr. Samis: Supplementary: When the feasibility study is completed, would the minister not agree that it would be far preferable, since the majority of francophones are in eastern and northern Ontario, to have such a college or facility in eastern Ontario and if at all possible, to have a separate, independent, autonomous college and not made part of a greater anglophone institution such as Kemptville?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: That is what the question is all about -- do we need a separate agricultural school? That is what the question is centred around.

PENETANGUISHENE MENTAL HEALTH CENTRE

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health relating to a program that was on Metro Morning, CBC, yesterday morning, relating to Penetang and the story of two men who had been placed in that institution. I found what came out on that program very, very disturbing and horrifying.

Can the minister indicate if he is doing a study or a review of these two particular instances where these gentlemen were placed in Penetang, in that ward five I believe, which is usually reserved for people who are criminally insane, dangerously insane, and who have tendencies to violence, whereas these two gentlemen did not? Can the minister say whether he is investigating these two cases and whether he is satisfied that the present rules for incarceration or admittance for mentally disturbed people is satisfactory?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to point out for the benefit of the members and the media, that there are two facilities at Penetang: one is Oak Ridges, which is the facility for the criminally insane; the other is the regional centre. What we are talking about is ward five of the regional centre at Penetanguishene which is a secure unit, one that is maintained for patients who are difficult to manage.

One of the two people in question apparently had been on another ward and had proved to be difficult to manage, so was moved to ward five.

At our request the medical director and the administrator, Dr. Stokes and Mr. McKerrow, have reported that based on their review of the files about the patients -- which of course I am not at liberty to discuss in much detail -- the detention of these two patients as involuntary patients was appropriate at the time. One of the patients after being told that be could have his case reviewed by the local review board in fact did so. The board, comprising a lawyer, a psychiatrist and a layman, reported back or ruled that his detention on an involuntary basis was appropriate based on the information before them.

I can tell the members that even before these concerns were brought to the attention of the ministry, Dr. Stokes and Mr. McKerrow, both of whom are relatively new to Penetanguishene, had begun a complete review of procedures and staffing attitudes and the like on all wards. In the light of the concerns raised in these allegations they have paid particular attention in the first instance to ward five. They put together a team of people drawn from the rest of the hospital to act as a resource group, or whatever, to assist the staff on ward five in improving what is considered to be a less than desirable and less than optimal professional standard.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Supplementary: I understand from the minister’s reply that he considers the present admission procedures satisfactory because I gather that was part of the problem, that these people were in there because of some procedure that we now have, that perhaps the import of the program was that they shouldn’t have been there in the first place; (a) is the minister satisfied that the procedures for admission are proper; and (b) will he be reporting back to the House, in view of the wide public dissemination of this, what Mr. McKerrow and Dr. Stokes report to the minister?

[3:15]

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I’d be glad to discuss it further with the honourable member, Mr. Speaker. There might be some aspects that I’m really not at liberty to disclose publicly but that I could perhaps share with him and I know he’d keep them confidential as a member of this House.

I can tell the member that one of the people was sent there by the court and therefore, because the person was on a court referral was put in the secure unit. The second individual had been in ward two and because of acting out and evidence of management problems, was moved to ward five.

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, during the course of that radio interview, there were several allegations of abuse of the patients. Setting aside how they got there or whether they should be there, there were several rather serious allegations made of abuse of the patients by staff. Has the minister taken any of that as grounds for further inquiry?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Certainly, the material which was sent to us about six weeks ago highlighted those same kinds of allegations and those were, I’m assured, looked into by Mr. McKerrow and Dr. Stokes. They have reported back that they cannot substantiate that. They agree and have already determined that they want to work on the standards and attitudes that prevail, but they could not substantiate any indications of patient abuse.

Mr. Conway: In connection with the general subject area that relates in part I know to this particular instance, can the minister indicate whether or not he has proclaimed all sections of Bill 19; if not, why not; and when will he proceed with the final proclamation?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The sections that were unproclaimed, so to speak, a year ago remain unproclaimed. In the main, we are waiting on the Krever commission. There’s one section, as the member knows, dealing with confidentiality and the other to do with the involvement of legal aid. As the member knows, I expressed concerns about the appropriateness of that a year and a half ago, when that was considered by the committee, but essentially the position is unchanged from a year ago.

PILKINGTON GLASS LAYOFFS

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry and Tourism.

On Monday, the minister said it was not his job to take responsibility for the decision of Pilkington Glass Limited to lay off half its employees in Scarborough. Is the minister not aware that Pilkington Glass International spent an estimated $240 million buying out other glass companies this year and that it is now the largest glass manufacturer in the world? Is he aware that this Canadian subsidiary, the sole manufacturer of automobile glass in Canada, had a $2 million profit last year?

Does the minister not now feel that he has some responsibility for the 400 workers permanently laid off and to the industry in Canada to seek all avenues for maintaining its full operations at the Scarborough plant and to ensure that Canadians are not being used as patsys by this British-based multinational?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The fact that a company is large and profitable doesn’t oblige it to carry on operations in any division it finds to be unprofitable and that it feels, in the sense of its overall corporate strategy, does not amount to a profitable or sensible operation. That is, in fact, how companies are able to stay in business, make a profit, and create employment throughout their various different outlets.

If they begin to carry operations which in their opinion are not profitable, then pretty soon one sees a profitable company turned into an unprofitable one. Rather than the closure of one plant, one sees the closure of the entire operation and a heck of a lot more jobs lost. It seems to me that some of those things ought to have been considered when the member and others were dealing with the situation around the Pilkington strike at the time at which decisions were made by the union. Again the company alleges the strike was the determining factor.

Just to put it in perspective, what I did say the other day was that it is not my job to overrule the corporate decision of the company. It is not my job to assess whether the strike was the determining factor or not. Just as the member expects a degree of common sense to be shown by the company, I hope he would put the same standard of care on the union when it takes certain decisions. Ultimately both the company and the union have to live with the consequences of whatever actions either of them take.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: One of the major reasons this company is using for not being able to continue is that it is going to spend $23 million on a full repair of this tank. Yet all it has been proposing is a minor repair of this tank which could be completed by January much more cheaply, with no effect at all on their overall costs.

Why is it the minister will not now investigate this company and find out why it is making these decisions? It is the only company making automobile glass in this country. Four hundred people, some with 20 years’ experience, non-unionized workers, are being laid off.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We have a company here, by your admission and others, that needs to make a major reinvestment to keep that plant profitable. In the face of that acknowledged and needed reinvestment, they faced a strike which cost them $1 million a week. In the face of that enormous cost, obviously when they were deciding whether to put a great amount of money into that plant, that very same plant suffered an unusual and unexpected loss of up to about $16 million. I must tell the member, whether one is a socialist or a capitalist, one doesn’t need to be a genius to figure out when the company unexpectedly suffered a $16 million loss in its operation, it was bound to affect its ultimate decision.

I know it is very attractive for the members over there to try and somehow lay blame for the company’s decision on this government. I am not going to allow this government to take the blame for the company’s decision any more than those members would allow the union to take the blame for the strike which also was a factor in the company’s ultimate decision.

We aren’t going to take our share; we won’t put it on the union. But I will let the public draw its own conclusion and I will bet the now laid-off workers are drawing their own conclusions a lot more objectively than the ones the members opposite are trying to pin on this government.

Mr. Kerrio: A point of privilege, Mr. Speaker. A statement has been made here this afternoon that there wasn’t any other auto-glass manufacturer. I would like to correct the record.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Kerrio: May I not correct the record?

Mr. Speaker: No.

Mr. Kerrio: There is one manufacturer in Niagara Falls.

Mr. Speaker: If you had asked to correct the record, I might have listened to you, but you got up on a phoney point of privilege.

Mr. Kerrio: On a point of personal privilege I would like to correct the record. What I would like to say is, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: That there is one in Niagara Falls.

Mr. Kerrio: That there is?

Mr. Speaker: Yes.

CHRONIC CARE CHARGES

Mr. Conway: My question to the Minister of Health is a follow-up question to the concern I raised on Tuesday about the way in which the chronic care co-payment is being administered. I think it might be helpful to be more specific than I was on Tuesday.

Where does the Minister of Health see the justice and fairness of the application of his co-payment program in the case of Mrs. Betty Anne Graham of Downsview, Ontario? At age 68, like her spouse, she is a chronic-care patient in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Toronto; she is paying the full co-payment of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Toronto; she is paying the full co-payment of $300 plus while receiving less than $8,000 worth of annual income and knows that if she were three or four years younger with two or three times as much income, she and her husband would receive complete exemption.

Where is the fairness and equity in that particular situation? Surely the minister would agree that discrimination must be redressed in the interest of fairness.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: In addressing this matter, we spent a great deal of time in working on the exemptions to avoid the kind of a system in place in Quebec and in the other provinces where they have a co-payment system where everybody pays the flat rate across the board and if they can’t afford it they go on welfare. That is what happens in three other provinces. We were determined that wasn’t going to happen.

Taking into account that where there are children involved and young families generally there would have to be some form of exemption built in, but maintaining the basic principle that in those cases where income support is provided by government to maintain the individual in the community and the individual is no longer resident in the community but is instead, as in many cases, a full-time permanent resident of a government-funded facility, then those income funds should be applied against that. That principle has been basic throughout and we have done that.

In looking at the exemptions with respect to families, we purposely erred on the high side as opposed to some recommendations for exemptions at about half the level we finally adopted.

One had to take into account that previously, as the honourable member knows, the concern was expressed that prior to this system being introduced the children were the recipients of those incomes and pension money was building up in trust accounts or simply going to the children for whom it was never intended, rather than being applied to the needs of the individual. That was borne in mind.

Conversely, we feel in the very rare cases we haven’t covered in either the exemptions or what is known as a form 7 exemption for extraordinary personal expenses, the families do have a role to play inasmuch they will be the beneficiaries of the estates, home, properties and so forth for the individuals in question.

If there is a problem there, I have found, when it has been raised with me before, once we ensure the individual sits down with the hospital administrator and/or the social worker they find it is possible, using the existing policy, to --

Mr. Speaker: I really think that’s a fairly detailed response.

Mr. Conway: It does come to our attention as a very serious discrimination which uncharacteristically, given most government policies --

Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable member have a question?

Mr. Conway: Yes, I do, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister give me and this House his assurance he will undertake an immediate review of this discrimination which is driving people like Mrs. Betty Anne Graham to no other choice but to sell her house under conditions which are very, very unfair and discriminatory when one considers that exemptions allowed for those under 65, the two-person families, are at least $15,000 and here she sits at less than half that and she has none of these exemptions whatsoever?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: With respect, the honourable member is ignoring the background information I have given him.

As I indicated on Tuesday, and the policy has only been in for six months, we have not found -- and I can say we would be the first to know through the hospital administrators’ departments -- that is the case; quite the contrary. We have found it is possible to keep the families secure.

I can say to the member, as I did on Tuesday, we are keeping it under review. After we have had more experience with it, say three to six months, I intend to review the matter, report back to my cabinet colleagues and see if there is any need to adjust it. At this point there is no indication whatsoever that is happening regularly. In every case I have seen to date we have been able to point out ways the policy can be applied in a fair and equitable fashion to avoid disastrous impact.

Mr. Breaugh: I want to ask the minister as politely as I can, to get off his horse and look at this one case. Now two members have said -- and if he gives us time, more members of this House will say -- here is at least one instance where his co-payment scheme is clearly wrong, dumb, doesn’t work as has been carefully documented. Could he take the blinkers off just long enough to look at this one human being’s problem?

[3:30]

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I have already said -- the honourable member has selective hearing -- that if the honourable member would give me some of the details I will make sure someone sits down with the individual concerned and I’m confident the matter can be resolved.

Unfortunately, the member has selective hearing and chooses to ignore that sort of thing.

U.S. PROCUREMENT POLICIES

Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Industry and Tourism. In view of the fact that among other things, the buy-American policy requires that passenger rolling stock in the US must have at least 50 per cent US content and final assembly done in the United States in order to have federal aid, thus resulting in the virtual exclusion of Canadian companies from the $50 million US mass transit market, including the Urban Transportation Development Corporation, especially as a result of the present energy crisis, can the minister tell us if he has finally worked out a concrete procurement policy in order to counterbalance the negative effects of the buy-American policy?

Furthermore --

Mr. Speaker: The member is not going to get a response if he broadens his question any more.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: As the member well knows, because we discussed this at some length in my estimates, we have a study on procurement going on with management board which will be reporting in March. As the member also well knows from my estimates, we have discussions, undertaken through our ambassador to the United States and through our own separate routes, with the United States with regard to certain changes and amendments which might be made to that legislation to give us some added access.

RESPONSES TO PETITIONS

Hon. Mr. Wells: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In answer to the point raised by the member for Oshawa regarding the tabling of answers to petitions in the required time, as required by standing order 29(i), I have referred to Votes and Proceedings of December 4 and I see there that the answers to those petitions were tabled.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member has been made aware of that.

Mr. Breaugh: One small clarification. Is it true that in response to the petition by 275,000 people the minister’s answer is, “The matters raised in this petition are under review”? Is that the extent of the government’s answer?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I think that is a very clear and concise and easily understood answer.

HANDICAPPED PERSONS’ RIGHTS

Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, on a point of personal privilege. On Tuesday last, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elgie) announced to the House that he was withdrawing Bill 188, An Act to provide for the Rights of Handicapped Persons. In the course of his remarks he sought to blame the opposition parties for the consequence of this decision by implying that disabled persons are being denied protection against discrimination because of what he called the rigid position of the opposition parties.

As human rights critic for the official opposition; I resent and deplore these aspersions of the Minister of Labour. They are untrue and unfair. For the record, may I repeat the position of the official opposition on this question?

We have said for many months that we favour an amendment to the Ontario Human Rights Code to prohibit discrimination against handicapped persons. When Bill 188 was introduced, my leader said we would support it if the organizations representing handicapped persons found it acceptable. Those organizations made it clear to us and to the minister that they did not find Bill 188 acceptable. For good and valid reasons they want to be covered by the human rights code. We therefore proposed that Bill 188 be withdrawn and the principle reintroduced as an amendment to the human rights code. The New Democratic Party took a similar position.

Such an amendment could be drafted --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The honourable member has every right to stand up in this House and take exception to something that was said on the other side of the House. What the honourable member is doing now is just restating something that is already an official record of the House. He is just restating what somebody else has previously said. He has made his point; perhaps the Minister of Labour may wish to respond on a later occasion.

REPORTS

STANDING SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Mr. Gaunt from the standing social development committee reported the following resolutions:

That supply in the following amount to defray the expenses of the Provincial Secretariat for Resources Development be granted Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1980:

Resources development policy program, $3,696,300.

That supply in the following amount to defray the expenses of the Provincial Secretariat for Social Development be granted Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1980: Social development policy program, $2,395,400.

MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT ANNUAL REPORT

Hon. Mrs. Birch, on behalf of Hon. Mr. Parrott, presented the annual report of the Ministry of the Environment for the year 1978-79.

SELECT COMMITFEE ON ONTARIO HYDRO AFFAIRS

Mr. MacDonald from the select committee on Ontario Hydro affairs presented a special report on the need for electrical capacity and moved its adoption.

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

STANDING ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE COMMITTEE

Mr. Philip from the standing administration of justice committee reported the following resolution:

That supply in the following amounts to defray the expenses of the Ministry of the Solicitor General be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1980:

Ministry administration program, $3,378,900; public safety program, $12,464,000; supervision of police program, $7,233,000; Ontario Provincial Police management and support services program, $26,520,000; operations program, $124,888,000.

STANDING GENERAL GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE

Mr. McCaffrey from the standing general government committee presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bills without amendment:

Bill Pr18, An Act respecting the City of Sarnia;

Bill Pr28, An Act respecting the City of North Bay;

Bill Pr31, An Act to revive Sarnia Portable Equipment Rentals Limited;

Bill Pr33, An Act respecting the Town of Cobourg.

Your committee begs to report the following bills with certain amendments:

Bill Pr21, An Act respecting the City of Hamilton;

Bill Pr27, An Act respecting the City of Windsor.

Report adopted.

MOTION

COMMITTEE MEETING

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that the standing resources development committee be authorized to meet the evening of Monday, December 17, 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 368, 369, 370 and 387 on the Notice Paper. (See appendix, page 5493.)

MOTION TO SUSPEND NORMAL BUSINESS

Mr. S. Smith moved, pursuant to standing order 34(a), that the ordinary business of the House be set aside to discuss a matter of urgent public interest, namely the impact of the proposed federal budget on the economy of Ontario and on the Ontario consumers of energy, and for the purpose of urging the Premier of Ontario to introduce forthwith a resolution condemning the proposed federal budget.

Ms. Speaker: I want to advise the House I did get the required notice of this motion under standing order 34 and I will hear from the honourable member reasons why he thinks the ordinary business of the House should be set aside at this time.

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, tonight the Parliament of Canada will meet and a vote will take place which will determine whether or not the government of this country shall continue in office, or whether an election shall be held. It is absolutely vital that all members of Parliament elected from the province of Ontario, who have to consider which way they are going to vote in that particular meeting this evening -- that urgent and essential meeting this evening -- know how the people of Ontario and the elected representatives in this House feel, regarding a most iniquitous budget which has been proposed.

Anything that can be done to get that particular budget changed should be done, despite the obvious support it enjoys from the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman), who seems to be calling out on their behalf. Anything that can be done to show the members of that House how the people of Ontario feel, should be done before it is too late, because that particular vote is vital to the future of this province.

During the four years I have been here, I do not remember any time that Ontario has received a body blow of this magnitude: a drain from the revenues and from the people of Ontario of hundreds of millions of dollars going into the federal treasury, going into the Alberta treasury, and going into the treasury of the oil companies.

I point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that over the next four years the oil companies will receive $33 billion net of all production costs and taxes. There is no justification for that. That money will be taken from the pockets of Ontarians. That money will be taken from people this winter so they will not be able to spend money to buy those products manufactured in Ontario; so they will not be able, in point of fact, to purchase the products which would keep Ontarians employed.

Mr. Speaker, there seems to be a certain degree of disorder in the House. I can appreciate that the Conservative Party in Canada and in Ontario, that particular united party, is in some disorder today. I can appreciate the embarrassment of the people opposite.

They may think --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Every honourable member has a right to speak in this forum and a right to be heard.

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, as I look at the smiles on the faces of the members opposite, it may be that for the Ontario Conservatives 11 per cent inflation, eight per cent unemployment -- a recession -- is something they regard with amusement.

[3:45]

We know the first minister of this province went to a meeting and in front of the television cameras stated his opposition, generally speaking, to the kind of proposals which came forward in this budget. We know Ontario for the first time went to such a meeting and took a posture of begging. We know every single item asked for by Ontario has been refused by the government of Mr. Clark. If that posture didn’t work, one wonders what the next posture is going to be taken by the government of Ontario at the next first ministers’ conference.

The fact of the matter is the people of this province --

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr. S. Smith: How much of the time was utilized by my comments and how much by theirs?

I will say one final sentence. I should have known better than to expect a reasonable attitude on the part of Ontario Conservatives. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, this winter will go down as the worst winter for the manufacturing industry in this province. It will go down as a gloomy winter indeed for the middle- and lower-income people in this province. We have a right to have the viewpoint of the Legislature --

Mr Speaker: Order. The member for Ottawa Centre for up to five minutes.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the call for a debate on a matter of urgent public importance, namely, the impact of the federal budget on Ontario. This is an urgent matter that requires debate because of the fact that decisions being taken in Ottawa right now will affect whether or not this budget is going to be implemented to the disbenefit of the people of Ontario. It’s an urgent matter as well because of the extraordinary impact of this budget, which ranks with the former Liberal government’s introduction of wage and price controls as the most ill-conceived policy of our generation.

This budget is clearly a continuation of the policy of the previous Liberal government of attempting to control inflation and unemployment by absolutely total reliance on the private sector. It also continues the policies of the previous Liberal government because of the way in which Conservatives and Liberals alike want the multinational oil companies to take billions of dollars from the people of Canada in the hope that will somehow solve our energy problems. It is urgent that we bring that to an end at the earliest possible opportunity.

I trust the government is going to agree with this call for a debate and resolution, in view of the comments of the Premier on Tuesday night. It is worth noting, however, that this budget effectively translates to the federal level the kind of misguided economic policies we have had from the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller), and from his predecessor, the policies of cutbacks for their own sake and a preoccupation with deficits to the expense of all other priorities, whether national or in this province. It indicates a willingness, which this government shares with its federal counterpart, to make people on low and modest incomes the victim of the government’s fight for what it calls fiscal rectitude.

This budget must be urgently discussed in this Legislature because of the way it impacts on people in Ontario and Quebec more than any other part of Canada. We will be compelled to pay more than $1 billion a year because of a new excise tax on gasoline. Our transit systems are going to have to pay as well. The overall increase in oil prices will have an extraordinary impact on Ontario families, very quickly increasing the bill on those families from $600 next year to more than $1,000 a year in 1983. Even as the Premier has recognized our industries’ competitive position will be put in jeopardy. There is absolutely no action taken to counter the impact of these increased costs, particularly for small consumers.

The federal budget also fails -- and this is urgent for us in Ontario -- to take any noticeable action to implement an industrial strategy for the manufacturing firms of Ontario. It repeats what Tories have done in this House. The Tory promises about support for research and development at the federal level have been broken. The Tory promises of a $2-billion tax cut have been broken. The Tory promises of a simulated deficit have been broken. The Tory promises about combating high interest rates have been broken. The Tories were elected on false pretences on May 22, and this government, the “big blue machine,” the Premier (Mr. Davis) himself, went out and elected that government on false pretences. It is about time they turned around and took the other stand.

Now we have promises that the unemployment rate will rise from 7.5 per cent to 8.3 per cent. We have promises that we will get double-digit inflation and that is accepted by John Crosbie and even accepted by this particular government. As I said on election night, this is a pay now and a pay later budget. It proves that Tory times are hard times. It proves that Joe Clark is no better than R. B. Bennett was when he became the Prime Minister of the country back in 1930.

I want to make two final points. One is that Joe Clark is perpetuating Liberal economic policies and that is why I am puzzled that the Liberal Party should suggest having this debate rather than having the debate on the environment. The second is that broken promises have come from both the Liberal and the Conservative parties. They are not prepared to be sincere and carry through their promises in running the government.

The third point is that if the Conservative government wants to demonstrate to the people of Ontario that it has really parted company, it has to do more than bathe us with indignation and statements like the one we got today. It has to do more than oppose the federal government at the first ministers’ conference. If the Premier wants the public of Ontario to believe these Tories are not the same as those Tories up there, there is only one thing he can do. I challenge the government, if it doesn’t like what the federal Tories are doing then run independent Conservatives at the next election.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the other day during question period, the Leader of the Opposition accused me of having contempt for this House because I ran outside and said things different to those I said inside.

I was intrigued during the question period today, when I saw him disappear, to find that he didn’t have enough time to sit here and discuss what was an important issue. He was outside talking to the television cameras about his environmental problems. If he has the courage to stand up here and say this is an important thing, he should have sat through the question period today, as I did.

An hon. member: You went out yourself.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I went out because I wanted to make sure he wasn’t saying anything.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. This minister labels my leader with contempt, when the Premier of this province should be in his seat today, right here and now.

Hon. F. S. Miller: No, I said he labelled me with contempt.

Today’s statement clearly put Ontario’s objections to parts of the federal budget on the record. That was something we felt we had to do. It in no way stops us from being Conservative. We don’t really try to dissociate ourselves. What we do is say we can honestly find things at the federal level that we have to disagree with while, on balance, supporting the party.

Mr. S. Smith: Some balance.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Listen. The honourable member is a married man, I think. I am, and I have often found it necessary to disagree with even my wife’s wisdom. I have managed to carry on my marriage in spite of it.

Second, one of the interesting things is that, in spite of this great debate, in spite of the great urgency of the problems, I don’t recall seeing very many people here during the hours I have been here for my estimates lately. They are still on; in fact, we had to have a quorum call not long ago. I don’t recall the member’s being here for one minute, let alone one hour, of my estimate debates.

Today the federal House is properly debating a national issue. It is true the honourable Leader of the Opposition has federal aspirations. There is an opening in his old home riding; it might be one he’d want to go home to. Let us leave the decisions for the federal House to make tonight. It is their job to decide whether this government has the confidence of this country and the federal Parliament. I’m sure tonight it will be very close and I’m sure the measures will be seriously considered.

We, of course, are concerned about the matters but we had problems with other governments and other budgets and we’ve always used one basic technique, no matter what, and that is we go prepared to Ottawa to discuss, debate and make the changes in the orderly ways governments of all stripes have done in the past. I think we have as much chance or more to make our voice heard as time goes on.

At least I have openly laid it on the line and, I’ll say it publicly, not behind closed doors. One of the things the Leader of the Opposition has said is all these things are happening this winter. Again, if he checked my statement be would find the large price increases occur across the end of the summer and late fall next year.

That gives us some time for some of these negotiations. I would argue, Mr. Speaker, in spite of all he has said, we do not think this is a matter of urgency and we urge you to rule in that way.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have to advise all honourable members, this motion calling for a debate did give some problems. I think it meets one of the criteria. It is of urgent public importance, but one of the reasons the honourable member moved it was the impact of the proposed federal budget on the economy of Ontario. The second reason was the impact on Ontario consumers of energy. I must remind all honourable members that we did have an emergency debate all last Thursday afternoon that dealt very, very comprehensively with the energy situation in Ontario hinting to a large extent on what might be the actions of another jurisdiction.

On the matter of the emergency debate condemning the actions of another jurisdiction, I must remind all honourable members we do have members from this jurisdiction and, indeed, from all jurisdictions in Canada, discussing the impact of that budget in another jurisdiction. So I would have to rule that on the basis I that the honourable members’ concerns are already being aired and expressed in another jurisdiction, it doesn’t fall within the parameters of standing order No. 34. I would have to turn it down on that basis.

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, with regret and great respect for you sir, I believe this ruling is not one I can accept and I would ask that it be changed.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Hamilton West has challenged the ruling of the chair, so I would have to put the question.

[4:00] ,

The House divided on the Speaker’s ruling, which was upheld on the following vote:

Ayes

Ashe; Auld; Baetz; Belanger; Bennett; Bernier; Birch; Bounsall; Brunelle; Bryden; Cassidy; Charlton; Cureatz; Davis; Di Santo; Drea; Dukszta; Eaton; Germa; Gigantes; Grande; Gregory; Grossman; Havrot; Henderson; Hennessy; Hodgson.

Isaacs; Johnson, J.; Johnston, R. F.; Jones; Kennedy; Kerr; Lane; Laughren; Lawlor; Leluk, Lupusella; MacDonald; Mackenzie; Maeck; McCaffrey; MeCague; McClellan; McMurtry; McNeil; Miller, F. S.; Newman, W.; Norton; Parrott; Philip; Pope.

Ramsay; Rollins; Rotenberg; Rowe; Scrivener; Smith, G. E.; Snow; Stephenson; Sterling; Swart; Taylor, G.; Timbrell; Villeneuve; Walker; Warner; Watson; Welch; Wells; Wildman; Williams; Wiseman; Young; Ziemba.

Nays

Blundy; Bradley; Breithaupt; Campbell; Conway; Cunningham; Eakins; Epp; Gaunt.

Hall; Kerrio; McGuigan; McKessock; Newman, B.; Nixon; O’Neil; Peterson.

Reid, T. P.; Riddell; Roy; Sargent; Smith, S.; Stong; Sweeney; Van Horne

Pair: Edigoffer and MacBeth.

Ayes 75; nays 25.

Mr. Speaker: The ruling of the chair is sustained. The challenge is lost.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

ONTARIO ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACT

Mr. S. Smith moved second reading of Bill 185, An Act respecting Environmental Rights in Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member has up to 20 minutes and if he wishes to reserve any time for a windup or a response he can notify the table officers.

Mr. S. Smith: I would like to reserve five minutes at the end for a chance to respond to any other comments made in the course of the debate.

The occasion to debate this particular bill is one of very real importance to me and I believe it will go down as a day of some importance in the history of people’s attempt to come to grips with the industrial age and to make this planet a liveable situation for generations to follow us.

Whatever policies we may adopt on one issue or another, sometimes with the passage of the decades one looks back and the argument so important at the time seems less important later on. What we do to our environment, the kind of planet we leave for our children and the children who follow them is something that is very real, it’s something people will be able to look back on and either thank us for or blame us for, depending on the actions we take.

When I speak to my own children about this I have the feeling there’s nothing we do in the Legislature more important in the long run than the decisions we take with regard to the preservation of the natural environment. That is, after all, a trust and a heritage we are supposed to keep for future generations, not to exploit to the point where future generations will be without the benefits we received from those who have gone before.

The bill I have put forward proposes to do the following: To further the rights of Ontario citizens in determining the quality of their own environment; citizens would be allowed to take action to protect the environment without first having to prove that they had been personally damaged or injured. There would be a shift in the burden of proof concerning environmental contamination. Under this bill the defendant would have to show that an activity does not harm or does not have the potential to harm the environment.

Currently, as you know, Mr. Speaker, it is the plaintiff who shoulders this burden of proof and, given the technical information required in many environmental disputes, this burden is an unfair impediment to effective action. Furthermore, under this bill citizens would be given increased access to information so they may participate in a more meaningful way in environmental matters.

In spite of environmental legislation on the books for several decades, it is clear that serious problems have continued to occur. Violations of our laws are far too numerous and have become quite predictable. But let us look around us. We’re entering the 1980s faced with energy shortages, a huge provincial debt, a weak Canadian dollar, higher inflation and a continued reliance upon raw resource extraction and exploitation, much of which, if not carefully supervised, could be a disaster for the environment.

Companies and government are going to argue, falsely, I might add, that we will not be able to afford environmental protection if we are to stay competitive. They will argue that environmental controls are hampering production and squeezing profits. They will say industry will relocate. When asked to clean up they will shrug and say the technology doesn’t exist, even if they haven’t put much research and development money into trying to find solutions. Or, if the technology does exist, they’ll say it’s the wrong time to install it if they want to maintain a competitive edge. Those industries that have cleaned up will, in a real sense, be penalized for having done so.

Environmental legislation in Ontario provides the government with the power to act but not the duty to act. When the government fails to act there is no device that permits private citizens to act on their own behalf. The best legislation in the world, unless we can be assured it will always be acted upon, won’t save us from future examples of pollution such as those we’ve seen with Dow Chemical; the mercury contamination in the St. Clair River; Reed Paper in Dryden; arsenic in the Moira River; sulphur dioxide from Inco in Sudbury; excessive emissions from lead smelters, and so on.

It is very important to consider just how many of the aforementioned pollution episodes would not have slid by government completely if government had felt the pressure that comes from knowing citizens could have acted when government was not prepared to do so.

When citizens have a right to act, the government is then put in a position where it might be embarrassed if a citizen takes a polluter to court and shows plainly that polluter has been in violation of the reasonable standards and has not done what it was reasonable to do in the circumstances to clean up. The government would obviously suffer great embarrassment. Consequently, there would be an incentive to people within the ministry to take action before the matter is taken up by a private citizen in front of the court.

In fact, the Canadian Environmental Law Association has pointed out, in a recent letter to a Toronto newspaper: “It is quite clear this bill is meant to supplement, where possible, existing regulatory mechanisms, not displace them. The bill would at long last bring Ontario environmental law into the 20th century. At the very least, it should be subject to legislative standing committee and public review.”

Many have phoned in or written in to say they support the bill. Among these are the Conservation Council of Ontario; the Ontario Branch of the Consumers’ Association of Canada; the World Wildlife Fund; the Sierra Club; and Pollution Probe, to name a few. There is also the Algonquin Wildlands League; the task force of the major Christian churches; and the Canadian Bar Association -- particularly the Ontario branch of that organization.

There are also some who have written in to say it would be better to change the government than to attempt a bill such as this. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, I am all for changing the government. This doesn’t prevent me, however, from trying to introduce legislation that would improve the conditions between elections. The notion that there are no precedents for the kind of legislation I am proposing -- that it is somehow very revolutionary or whatever -- is actually drawn simply from a lack of familiarity with the events taking place around us.

Under Bill 69 Quebec bas granted its citizens, in a qualified form, a type of standing before the courts on environmental matters. In Michigan the very principles I am putting forth in this bill have been accepted and put into practice for the past 10 years. How has the Michigan Environmental Protection Act worked? Let me quote from one of the many reviews of the act, this one from the Journal of Urban Law:

“During the first six years the legislation was invoked 119 times and only 17 instances involved were appealed. Measured over the life of the act, the inescapable conclusion is that the 119 cases filed under this act constitute only a minuscule fraction of the more than 600,000 civil cases initiated in Michigan circuit court over the same period.”

I could go on to quote a very lengthy article here indicating that the Michigan experience has indeed been an excellent one. Those who say this is somehow a new departure, giving judges the right to make law, totally fail to understand that in fact we have two kinds of laws. We have laws that are passed by the Legislature and codified; we also have a judge-made law -- so-called common law.

When a judge makes a law in the sense of rendering a decision in a common-law case, of course, the standards he sets and the rulings he makes apply strictly to the people involved in that particular case. Each further case that may come before the courts is decided on the merits of each case successively, although judges will naturally look back on earlier cases from the point of view of precedent. it is not the same as saying the judges are writing codified legislation.

In fact, there are some who say that to give standing to ordinary individuals in front of the court would be a terribly revolutionary thing to do. I would point out there are several actions which already can be taken in the court. Individuals, for instance, can bring private nuisance claims to seek redress where they have suffered personal damage or injury. The Attorney General may bring a public nuisance case where harm is done to the public as a whole. The problem is that no individual may bring a public nuisance case himself or herself, unless either the Attorney General gives consent or that individual suffered injury of a nature and degree different from that of the general public.

Under the circumstances, the law of standing is clearly too strictly prescribed against the people who wish to bring matters before the court. I am happy to say that in the last decade the courts have actually been chipping away at that particular law.

For example, I show you the case where a person by the name of Thorson was suing the federal government to have the Official Languages Act held unconstitutional. He was granted standing, based on the importance of the issue, even though he couldn’t show that he himself would be in some manner dealt with in a way different from the other people in the population. He was not going to suffer more personal damage than his neighbour, for instance. But he was granted standing.

[4:45]

The same thing happened in the case of the Nova Scotia board of censors versus McNeil, reported in 1970. In fact, there again, a person who couldn’t show that he himself would be personally damaged was able to be granted standing on the matter of challenging the board of censors in the determination of what films could be seen. The same is true in the Canadian Broadcasting League versus the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, a judgement in 1979.

What I am saying is the ability of people to use the courts to argue general circumstances rather than personal damage is coming little by little, anyhow. The judges are becoming more liberal in thier interpretation of the law of standing. What I am saying is nothing revolutionary or radical. What I am saying is that we should put into law in the Legislature this tendency on the part of the courts. People are being given standing. It may well be that in some years people will be given standing on environmental matters with or without the law I am suggesting.

What I am saying is rather than wait for the lengthy and difficult and arduous way in which these things are done little by little over decades, we should take a good principle and establish it in legislation as soon as possible.

There are those who say that judges mustn’t make law. I point out that judges and courts frequently set standards in the most complex financial, technical and social issues. Look at obscenity laws, at patent laws, at matters of professional negligence, price fixing and securities fraud. In all of these instances, judges are asked to set standards which have a certain technical quality. In the act we are proposing the courts will have access to the environmental experts on the matter, not only as witnesses but also via the boards that exist under legislation.

It is a novel attempt on our part to in a sense marry the common law and the judges’ attempt to set reasonable standards with those boards that are presently under legislation responsible for gathering the information and the setting of standards.

The Ministry of the Environment has said that a person could sue a smoker under this bill. In fact a person could sue a smoker under existing legislation. This bill is clearly not designed for anything of that kind. The truth of the matter is that what we are talking about is public nuisance. Private nuisance can already be sued for by an individual if he so wishes.

There are those who argue we would be flooding the courts with cases. The experience in Michigan shows that simply is not so. There is a penalty for those who bring an action which is not meritorious and reasonable. Any case that is vexatious or frivolous would be thrown out. A deposit is required. It’s an expensive matter to go to the courts. Therefore I would say the courts will not be clogged with nuisance cases. There is no evidence of that whatsoever.

I say simply that some years from now, if the good Lord allows us to live some more decades we are all going to have to look at ourselves and our children and we are going to have to tell them, what we did to make this planet liveable, to stop fouling our own nest as only we human beings seem able to do. No other animal fouls his nest the way we do. We are going to have to tell those children when they are adults and we are elderly what we did.

This bill gives the individual the right to go to court on behalf of a very clear right that he or she should have, the right to a clean environment. He should be able to go and take action so that a company will not be able to hide behind some private conversation they may have had with a ministry official. They will have to show, in the light of day, everything they have been able to do to in order to clean up and if they took every reasonable action then, of course, that would be accepted.

I say to the minister I am proud to present this bill to the Legislature. I hope it will receive second reading and go to committee. I think that’s where it belongs, so others can bring testimony before such a committee. I am grateful to the many groups representing millions of Ontarians who have written in to give me their support for this act. I am grateful to them for their public interest and I hope this House will accept this bill.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat surprised that the member for Hamilton West did not consider his environmental bill of rights to be a matter of more urgent public importance than a two-day old budget now being debated in another House by the elected representatives from Ontario in that House and the people who are responsible for what happens to that budget.

At any rate, his attempt to adjourn the House this afternoon has resulted in the debating time of this bill being virtually cut in half.

Mr. S. Smith: That’s because of the way you voted.

Mr. Breithaupt: If you could have made up your minds as to how to vote, it wouldn’t have taken half as long.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order

Ms. Bryden: We make decisions with due deliberation.

Mr. Speaker, we have not more than 35 or 40 minutes for the entire debate on this bill, of which the Leader of the Opposition gets 20 minutes. I have only a very limited time to discuss this bill.

I will say it does embody a very important principle which is long overdue in our environmental legislation, namely access to the courts by citizens on environmental matters, regardless of whether they themselves have suffered pecuniary loss or direct damage but where their environment has been degraded.

I will support this bill because I have been advocating this principle of standing, as it is called, for all the years I have been environment critic -- which is almost three years. My predecessor, Dr. Charles Godfrey, not only advocated this principle but actually obtained from the then Minister of the Environment a commitment to bring in legislation to implement this principle.

I would like to read what the then minister, the member for Burlington South (Mr. Kerr) wrote to Dr. Charles Godfrey in October 1976, “I am recommending the amendment of our environmental legislation to provide wider scope for citizen prosecution and class actions, as I have stated recently in public.”

We have still not been able to get that commitment of the Minister of the Environment in 1976 fulfilled by either of his successors. If the members opposite should vote against or block this bill they are repudiating that commitment of the then minster and they will be unable to boast that Ontario leads in environmental legislation.

This kind of legislation, as the member for Hamilton West mentioned, has been in Michigan since 1970. It’s in a number of other US jurisdictions. It’s recommended by the bar association. It’s recommended by many environmental associations.

If the members opposite should block this bill, they are leaving the citizens of Ontario to protect their environment with one hand tied behind their backs. The other hand, unfortunately, is the Ministry of the Environment, which is a very weak hand. We do need the supplement of the opportunity for citizens to take polluters to court and to try to establish their right in that way.

As the member for Hamilton West mentioned, it is not the entire answer to the protection of our environment. It will be hit and miss. It will only work where there are flagrant violations, where the cases appear to be potentially successful, where there are people with the time and the money to go to court and to bring the polluters before the courts. It does not provide for the preventive action necessary when violations are discovered, unless the courts so order preventive action, but the courts may not go into all the ramifications of the prevention that is needed. So it is complementary legislation to a committed Ministry of the Environment; to a Ministry of the Environment with the political will to set strong, tough standards and enforce them.

It is also complementary to the spills bill which we have just passed and which the government is taking some credit for, although I think the committee that worked on it also should take some credit. But, Mr. Speaker, if you’re going to have a spills bill to compensate people after the event, when accidents occur through the use of toxic substances, you should also have a bill to protect people before the event, to protect them from dangers that may result in damages to them.

We also need a third kind of legislation. That is an overall compensation bill for the people who suffer from environmental degradation or lose their livelihood because of environmental effects like the fishermen in the St. Clair River. They lost their livelihoods but under the government’s suit against the Dow Chemical Company for $35 million they got $250,000.

While I support this bill I should point out I hope it will go to committee and we will have an opportunity to improve it, because there are a number of shortcomings in it.

First of all, there is no specific provision for class actions. There may be group actions if this bill is in effect but in this province we do need more adequate legislation regarding class actions. My colleague, the member for Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor), has brought in a bill for the past two years to introduce the principle of class actions into our legislation.

Another glaring weakness in the bill is the lack of any provision for funding of people who will use the courts as a remedy for the degradation of their environment. We need either legal aid extended to this area, or a fund into which all users of hazardous substances would make a contribution that could then be allocated to people who produced a prima facie case against the polluter. Some form of providing a fund is needed so it is not, as I have said many times, a David and Goliath affair in the courts; so people do have an opportunity to use their access to the courts without having to run horrendous risks of very high costs. We know cases can go to appeal to the Supreme Court and the costs can be prohibitive if somebody loses. Therefore, the use of this legislation will be greatly inhibited unless there is some limitation on the risks the litigators have to take.

In this bill there is also a useful requirement of freedom of information. You cannot go to court if you do not have the evidence or all the rulings that were made; how the standards were arrived at; what kind of studies were made in setting the standards and whether you can challenge them. But the exemptions in the bill under the freedom of information clauses are very sweeping, much more sweeping than in the proposed bill before the federal House. I think they should be looked at very carefully because we may end up with very little more freedom of information than we now have.

Also in the bill, it is permitted that a person who is sued has a defence. If he is fulfilling a standard that has been set, he is more or less let off; it is a defence against the charge, regardless of whether the standard is good, bad or indifferent. I think that’s a weakness in the bill.

[5:00]

Mr. Speaker, I will support the bill but I hope we will have an opportunity to improve and clean up the very serious deficiencies in it. I think it is perhaps the only way we are going to get the government to look at the necessity of extending access to the courts for all citizens in environmental matters.

Mr. McCaffrey: Mr. Speaker, I think it is a crime -- and this is not a criticism of the Leader of the Opposition in that he didn’t have total control over this matter -- that we didn’t have an opportunity to have more people participate in this debate in view of the importance of the topic. I just share that with them; it is not a critical comment in total directed at him.

When I first heard about the Leader of the Opposition’s private bill, Mr. Speaker, I was anxious to speak to it. Anxious, because I have deep and personal commitments as an environmentalist myself; anxious because the constituency I represent, Armourdale, is not atypical of a lot of constituencies in the urban and, more specifically, Metro Toronto area, where environmental concerns rank high on the list of daily concerns and outlooks for the future in that community.

It takes nothing away from the title or the principle of this bill to say that the issue has some political sex appeal in the urban centres, a fact which was not lost on the member for Hamilton West when he introduced the topic. I think the topic is important; I think the principle of the bill is important; I don’t think the bill, though, is worthy of our support.

When I heard about the topic several weeks ago, I was one whose initial reaction was that this bill should go to a committee. The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Parrott), for whom I have a great deal of respect, knows that. We talked about it at some length, then I read the bill.

It is the whole core of the bill, this borrowed piece of what I consider to be inappropriate US legislation, that makes me feel that it is not salvageable in committee -- indeed, that nothing would be accomplished by it, that the bill would not in any way do anything to improve the state of the environment in this jurisdiction. Had I felt otherwise, I would have persisted, I think -- and I know I would have been joined by a lot of my other colleagues -- that we would have pursued that route.

As an aside, Mr. Speaker, I think it might be appropriate right at the outset to get on the record that the number of people in this province and in this Legislature who have concerns about the environment is quite high; in my judgement it is a growing number. But the people who sit on this side of this chamber have every bit as much commitment to the environment as any member who sits on the other side of this room, and it is important that be acknowledged.

By the same token, this is not a private member’s bill like other private members’ bills. Clearly, because it is a bill introduced by the Leader of the Opposition, it has some special importance. One assumes, and I think properly, that he and his colleagues and advisors would have spent some time on finding the appropriate topic to pursue in the important time set aside for his bill and I am mildly disappointed, when I support the concept, to find there was not as much thought as I for one would have hoped would go into the bill.

In the very few minutes I have I want to get a couple of things on the record. I would quote very briefly from a Toronto Star editorial of last week entitled, “Smith’s Idea Fatally Flawed.” I think most members probably read it; it was dated Thursday, December 6.

“Opposition Leader Stuart Smith’s environmental rights bill would violate such basic tenets of our democratic system that the government is fully justified in opposing it.

“In effect, judges would be given legislative powers.

“This clashes with the primary principle of democracy: That laws can only be made by popularly elected legislators and that they are implemented by government ministers who are directly accountable to those legislators.”

The same editorial goes on: “Formulating an effective environmental protection policy is not a simple task. The authors of the environmental rights bill assume that the government lacks the will to combat pollution, but that a judge hearing an environmental case will take effective anti-pollution measures. There is, however, no basis for this assumption.” I think that is at the guts of the issue -- the guts of my criticism and concern about the bill -- Mr. Speaker.

If I can I will very briefly get at least one illustration on the record. The Minister of the Environment has an excellent record and if we were going to get in line around here as to who has real concerns about the environment -- commitment to environmental protection -- I submit the Minister of the Environment himself would be at or very near the front of that line. Even the most cynical opposition member would have to publicly acknowledge that. I know that, privately, this minister’s openness and candour and commitment are supported by virtually everyone in this Legislature. If he were any more open, he would be arrested for indecent exposure.

Let’s take a look at one fairly contentious issue, the matter of acid rain. The whole question of acid rain, Mr. Speaker, was brought to the forefront by the Minister of the Environment. He referred this topic to the committee where the opposition in the majority could address the issue. Experts were available to get information on the record and all of this was conveyed to the public by extensive media coverage.

I repeat, this government brought the acid rain issue to the forefront and it has committed $2 million to research on this topic alone. The minister has met with representatives from the federal government to get more progress on international abatement and he has had discussion with Inco in preparation for a new and tougher control order.

The daily accountability of the duly elected Minister of the Environment is a principle every single person in this chamber should uphold. You can see him, Mr. Speaker. You can reach him. You can touch him. You can pat him on the back when you think it’s appropriate, or you can even give him a little kick when you think that’s necessary. But the daily accountability is the central and important part of this system, and we want to protect it.

If the government errs, the government is daily on the line through question period. My goodness, when you look back at the order of questions in question period over this session, the lead question has come from one of the opposition spokesmen to the Minister of the Environment practically every single day. I think that’s a good thing.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member’s time has now expired.

The member for Hamilton West for a wee bit more than four minutes.

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, it is clearly regrettable that we have ended up with so little time for the debate of the private members’ bills. It was of course our intention to debate what we sincerely considered to be a matter of urgent public importance. We saw no particular reason why the bells should have been so prolonged in the discussion with regard to that particular question of public importance. Unfortunately, the way things have worked out, there is not much time here.

I want to comment on the two speakers who have spoken. I obviously realize that had they a more reasonable amount of time, as they might have expected originally, they might have made other remarks as well. I can understand it’s sometimes difficult to compress a speech into a brief period.

With regard to the member for Beaches-Woodbine, I want to thank her very much for the support she’s offered to the principle of the bill and for her willingness to see this bill go to committee. She has made a thoughtful analysis and has come up with a few comments where she feels there are deficiencies in the bill.

One is that it has no specific course for class action. I agree that class action would be valuable, but we feel that the way to go, perhaps, is with a bill like the member for Lakeshore’s, or some other bill to provide for class action generally, rather than specifically within this particular bill.

As far as the lack of funding for those who use the courts goes, we feel the legal aid system could be used. Again, we didn’t want to pu in funding because a private member’s bill is not supposed to allocate funds; we had a problem there. If you allocate funds with a private member’s bill there can be difficulty. In any event, we certainly agree that funds will have to be there. Legal aid is one possibility.

With regard to the exemptions in the freedom of information, I can assure the honourable member that we are quite prepared to look at that a second time. As to whether a defence should or should not be meeting the standard, we put a lot of thought into that, because I also have some suspicions about it. We decided to go with it, and figured that we could hear arguments on both sides in committee.

As to the member for Armourdale (Mr. McCaffrey), apart from some friendly statements about being in favour of the environment, it was very difficult for me to hear any specific points against the bill. The first thing he said, basically the only thing he said, was quoted from the Star editorial. One, judges would be making laws. I thought I dealt with that in my original statement. I pointed out very plainly that the Star editorial is simply, totally in error. Judges make laws all the time, in the sense of setting standards in the most complex issues. There is nothing new about this. It is simply something new to the person who wrote that editorial.

I have sent a letter to the Star explaining just how wrong they are in that instance. I trust that if it hasn’t been printed today it will be printed shortly. I haven’t seen today’s edition of that worthy newspaper. The Rylands versus Fletcher case is a perfectly good example of a judge making law.

In addition to that, there is the point he quotes from the Star editorial that judges may not take effective action. Of course they may not take effective action, but that is what judges are about, they have to make a judgement. Judges judge, that’s what their job is.

I fail totally to understand why the member for Armourdale, who is a very nice chap I am sure, even bothered to make an intervention in today’s debate. It is totally beyond me, since he didn’t say anything whatever other than to quote one line from a Star editorial, an editorial which as far as I am concerned is simply, utterly wrong.

Our laws certainly already allow judges to give protection to citizens in the form of setting certain standards, and they have done so for years. I am mystified by the apparent inability of the Star editorialist to understand something as basic as that. I will be glad to send the member for Armourdale a copy of the letter, dated December 11, that I sent to the Star,

What it comes to is this: Individual citizens have a right to a clean environment. They should be allowed to insist upon that right in the courts of the land. With such a law in place the ministry would be much more likely to act, knowing individual citizens could take things into their own hands if necessary.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That completes the time allotted for ballot item 11; it will be dealt with further at 5:50.

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Bounsall moved second reading of Bill 187, An Act to Amend the Education Act, 1974.

Mr. Bounsall: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to require school boards in Ontario to develop a definite, orderly, rational procedure and policy for determining, in this period of declining enrolments in Ontario, whether or not schools should be closed.

The Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson), in her opening remarks before the committee discussing the Ministry of Education estimates this year, indicated in over three pages of that report that she would be requiring school boards in Ontario to submit their closure policies and procedures for approval by the minister and the ministry. I felt very strongly, however, in looking at the remarks contained in the minister’s opening statement, that the requirements and procedures should be legislated. Hence my private member’s bill that it should not be simply left, in perhaps as non-detailed a way as was given in the minister’s remarks, to the school boards to come up with their policies and procedures.

[5:15]

I must admit, too, that the main points around which I wrote the bill were flagrantly plagiarized in the minister’s basic five points which she mentioned in her estimates. Basically there should be little disagreement in principle between the ministry and myself about the need for this bill. I have added some additional points which I feel to be important but which were not spelled out by the minister in what subsequently became the minister’s note to all boards of education in the province indicating that she wished to receive their policies and procedures. Basically the tone of the minister’s remarks in the estimates differed from the memorandum which was sent to all chairmen of school boards and directors of education.

The difference in tone between what I would like to see happen and what has happened in the directives sent around by the minister is that the minister, while requiring policies and procedures, seems to be embarked upon a course of encouraging closures. She mentions public input, but she does not provide for orderly public input and the provision of all information to the parents and citizens affected by a particular school closure, which is of particular concern when it is a community school. Her remarks seem to be encouraging closure rather than encouraging a policy of keeping community schools, in particular, open.

We differ, perhaps, in philosophy at this point. I think community schools should be kept open rather than closed and that there should be policies to encourage keeping those schools open.

What concerned me further in the minister’s remarks, and what took up a fair amount of discussion in the estimates, was that the minister had surveyed, through the regional offices, the surplus school situation to 1985. I was appalled to find that the best estimate of those regional directors was that there will be 352 elementary schools closed and 37 secondary schools closed by 1985. That is one secondary school every two months between now and September, 1985, and one elementary school per week between now and 1985. I find that number shocking and totally unacceptable. It is a body blow to communities, community schools and the quality of education across Ontario to have that many schools close in our province. We are clearly going in the direction of moving our children into large population schools outside their immediate communities and away from the often intimate settings of community schools not very far from their homes, which they have been used to attending. Certainly those children in the kindergarten to grade three level should be able to have the opportunity to continue attending those schools.

I asked in the estimates, roughly one month ago now, for the criterion used by the regional directors in arriving at that particular number. At the time the ministry said it did not suggest to the regional directors any particular number of students which would make school closures appropriate. At that time I asked that those numbers they had used in their own minds to arrive at the numbers of schools across Ontario that would be closed be given to us, and for the ministry to investigate what criterion they had used in their minds about community acceptance of the closing of a school. That has yet to come forth. That was one day shy of a month ago. Perhaps that survey of the regional directors has not even been taken by the Ministry of Education.

I have in my hand the memorandum to the chairmen of school boards and directors of education about school closure policies. Although it is more detailed than what the minister said in her, opening statement at the estimates, in some areas, particularly in the way in which input would be obtained from the affected citizens, it certainly leaves something to be desired. Again, when one looks at the tone of this memorandum and the way it is phrased, one gets the feeling the ministry is, on balance, encouraging the closure of schools rather than encouraging keeping schools open.

Mr. Wildman: Just ask them in the Sault about that.

Mr. Bounsall: When you go a whole month and this ministry somehow cannot determine from the regional directors -- and there aren’t that many of them -- what they had in mind in providing those numbers of 352 elementary schools and 37 secondary schools --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: It is the directors of education.

Mr Bounsall: It was stated in the minister’s opening statement and it was not denied throughout the estimates: “The regional offices and each director of education”; that still isn’t a large survey to be taken in over a month’s time.

They have already made that best estimate. They must have done that best estimate on some criterion. That criterion, therefore, is very easily gathered.

My private member’s bill certainly encourages full discussion with the community, and furthermore it would require that there be a moratorium on boards closing any schools until they have submitted their criteria, and that criteria is approved by the ministry. To me that is a very reasonable step to take.

Further, and rather important, my bill provides a means to allow an appeal process for the people of Ontario after procedures have been followed. In thinking very carefully about the various appeal processes available, I have chosen one which has been greeted with quite some degree of acceptance, certainly by the teachers’ federations and various groups across the province which are indeed having problems with their boards in closure of schools.

I have chosen the Ontario Municipal Board as the board to which a school board’s decision could be appealed. They would consider all the matters involved, not just whether the procedures as accepted by the ministry for that particular board were followed, and also listen to the arguments presented as to why the school should remain open.

I have indicated in my bill the type of analysis and report on the financial effects which the board should be prepared to present; such as the financial effects as well as the social effects of not closing the school or of altering the school programs and the effect that would have on school programs generally, the proposed combination of uses that could be made of that school building; and finally the financial effects on the taxpayer-householders and upon the board of closing the school.

The effect of closing the schools it is proposed to close in North York would have meant a very small increase to taxpayer-householders. If one takes into account the cost of busing students to somewhat distant schools, one finds this to be the situation that pertains. The cost saving in closing schools is negligible, if indeed it exists at all. There is money saved to the boards only if they are able to dispose of school buildings and dispose of the properties. If they have to retain a property because there is no particular sale for it in that particular area or for other reasons, there is virtually little or no saving to the board of education. Certainly where there is an expense, when one puts it on an average taxpayer-householder basis the cost is negligible to the average taxpayer-household. A calculation was made in North York and it is roughly 50 cents per year per taxpayer-household. If the electors of North York were asked by their board: “Is it worth it to close these schools for that kind of money saving?” I am convinced the answer would be a very definitive no.

In closing my remarks, because I am concerned that other members in the Legislature have a chance to speak on this bill, I would just like to indicate that today I received support for my bill from the Glenorchy residents association, some 20 signatures, and a communication that the Glen Avon Home and School and the Avondale community associations are very much in favour of the principles embodied in this bill, particularly those of citizen participation and that there be an appeal process and a moratorium on all school closings until the procedures and policies have been met.

In looking back at a few clippings over the last month from areas in the province that have had this problem, there are quite a few of them. I will read out the comments by the education writer for the Sudbury Star with reference to the Sudbury Board of Education’s decision on whether to close the Copper Cliff High School: “If the Sudbury Board of Education would expend as much effort to maintain Copper Cliff High School’s enrolment as it is expending to close it there would be no problem.” There has certainly been a problem with having enough time for citizen input in Sault Ste. Marie, in the proposed closing of Sault Ste. Marie Collegiate Institute. And on and on.

We need a very careful procedure for citizen input. The board must be required to provide all the financial information that would cause them even to consider designating a school for closure. We need citizen input throughout after the school has been identified. Again, there must be co-operation from the board in providing all figures they have available, including the average cost per taxpayer-householder resulting from the closing.

Finally, if an affected citizen feels strongly that the board has, after having had all the public input, made an error, he can appeal that board’s decision to the Ontario Municipal Board. If it is only one citizen who feels that way that would become fairly evident at the Ontario Municipal Board hearing and it would not need to be a long one. If it involves the majority of citizens of that community affected by that community school that would be a somewhat larger hearing, as it very well deserves to be.

I feel very strongly that school enrolments could get down as low as between 60 and 80 per cent of normal before programs are seriously affected. There is nothing wrong in our educational system today with the triple grading that might result from that. I wouldn’t want to be the teacher in a triple-graded class, but that was the academically accepted and recommended method of teaching prevalent in 1974-75, that is what it was felt should be done pedagogically in our schools at that time.

I have no aversion, in fact I think it would be of benefit, to see that sort of education come into our community schools, even if it meant triple-grading, so that our schools are kept open. Only when a majority of the parents of the children decide, for program reasons alone, that that school should close and there are other alternatives in the area acceptable to them should that school be closed.

The boards of educations that have closed schools have noticed there has been a falloff in attendance by children from those schools that are closed. This bill also requires the board to survey the parents of a school expected to be closed with respect to their future intention, for example where they would send their children should that school close. That would be rather interesting and relevant information. It would be information which has heretofore not been gathered across the province in determining what schools should be closed and where the children who had been attending those schools were likely to turn up.

[5:30]

We want to get away from the tendency of moving our children to large-population schools out of their community area. We want to keep them in the small schools in their community area, which in many cases is indeed a community school and a community facility.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member has two minutes remaining. Do you wish to reserve the two minutes?

Mr. Bounsall: No, Mr. Speaker. If that gives more opportunity for other persons to speak I would prefer that.

Mr. Eaton: Mr. Speaker, in speaking to this bill, it’s interesting to look at the bill and what has probably brought about its development. It’s interesting to look back and see a memorandum that came from the Minister of Education. Reading through the wording of that memorandum, I find it almost word for word with the language of the bill the member has proposed.

It’s interesting to go back just a little further on that and find that it came from a statement by the minister in the House on November 13, maybe even further back than that.

I know that in discussion with my colleague the member for Armourdale (Mr. McCaffrey), many of the items in the memorandum were items he proposed because of discussion in his riding regarding schools. Certainly he had great concern and wanted to speak on this bill; however, the way the time schedule has worked out today he wasn’t able to do so as he had another commitment.

I do point out though, that he gives considerable support to the principles involved in the memorandum. I say the memorandum because it went out to the boards as an item of discussion.

I might just quote a paragraph from that memorandum. “This memorandum is to advise boards and their officials that it is the intention of the minister to require that all school boards in Ontario establish policies and procedures appropriate to its own set of circumstances with respect to the closing of schools within a general policy to be established by the ministry.” I emphasize “to its own set of circumstances,” because to cover the whole province is something very difficult to do in one bill.

I think that’s very important. It is setting some guidelines but not imposing on the local board something which they find very difficult to deal with in their particular situation.

It would seem from our discussion and debate here this is something entirely new that has come upon us in the last year. I would tell members I served on a school board 15 years ago and we went through the closing of several schools in our community. Perhaps we were much closer to the situation than some of the larger school boards now facing this development. We had a lot of discussion. We followed a lot of the criteria in that memorandum and were able to work out our problems locally, dealing with our own local voters who elected us as members of that particular school board and to whom we were answerable. I think that is something that is very important.

All of us have become more aware, of course, of the complex arguments that can be brought to bear on the boards of education. They have been thrust into positions fraught with problems that challenge their very existence. My honourable colleague has been very closely involved with such a situation in his riding. I think that’s why he was so concerned and put forth some of the suggestions in this memorandum.

I think everyone has been given a fair hearing. School closures are a no-win proposition, no one is ever going to be particularly satisfied with the decisions that are made; but someone has to make those decisions, someone has to make them and that’s what the people elect their local board members to do. In my riding of Middlesex many students are bused to and from school. It might not always be possible to have another school within reasonable walking distance, as is stated here. There is no definition, either, of what reasonable is. If a high school is being closed, older students can travel a lot farther than can public school children. It would be ideal if we could maintain our community schools at any cost, but conditions do change and the school system must respond to those changes; and that response must be at the local level by the locally-elected boards.

School boards have little control over the direction or growth of a neighbourhood, especially in settled areas. Some parts of a city may experience a revival of a particular neighbourhood, but nowadays this is no guarantee there is going to be a new group of children in that particular community. I think we’ve all seen communities where people have established, their children have grown up and they now own their homes; they’re going to stay there for quite some time but the school population is not going to be quite the same for many years to come.

It’s not always possible for a board to prepare a detailed plan for the alternative use of school buildings. There may not be any short or long-term options for using the school resources in a constructive way. Some parts of a school, such as playing fields, tennis courts or a swimming pool of course can be put to good use in the community. To convert buildings into, say senior citizen centres, may be fine in theory but very costly to implement. Many schools in urban areas are situated on very valuable pieces of land. It may be quite sensible to sell the site to a developer or retailer. In some cases the building itself might impede the development of a property it sits on and the funds from the sale could be put to much better use in the present school system.

I think back to some of the schools we had to close in our particular situation. Two of them are being used for community centres; one was developed into a small apartment building; another one is being used as a small manufacturing building in the community; and another one is now our local Canadian Legion headquarters. So they all became of good use to the community. I think it is important that those things can happen so we don’t sit there with a white elephant.

Another thing; if a school stays open and has pretty much of a borderline enrolment the school board is going to be watching the attendance figures closely. To say a school should not be identified as a candidate for closure before five years unless the parents request it is particularly unworkable for the boards.

How many parents are going to write to the board saying, “Please close the local school”? It doesn’t matter how few students you have you’re probably not going to get that 50 per cent the member is talking about. Parents are hardly going to do it while their children are attending that school anyway.

What about program choices? If the school population is getting lower and lower is a board supposed to freeze the number of teachers or transfer them to other areas where they may be needed more? I think that makes much more sense.

What costs would be involved if the teachers and pupils stayed in a half empty building? Surely this type of situation does not have to deteriorate to the point where the parents have to tell the board to shut the school. It is not beneficial for the children, their parents or the board. Surely some kind of agreement can be reached before this stage is reached. I think, in many cases, this is what has happened; it’s been practical.

It is no easy decision to close a school; all parties have a certain reluctance to make such a move. Most schools have a tradition of academic and sporting abilities; and we all tend to remember our school days and our old school as a pleasant one we want to see retained. To close a school means the end of an important component to a lot of people.

While I do not dispute the usefulness of studies and hearings to determine all the factors that affect school closures, this bill drags out the process still further by involving the Ontario Municipal Board This really does get ridiculous. If any school is to he closed, “the decision for closure may be appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board.” How the devil are decisions supposed to be made when either the parents or the boards are supposed to appeal each others’ arguments to a body that has absolutely no educational concerns or authority? I think the OMB has better things to do with its time than listen to a rehash of all the board and parents’ proposals that were put forth. Who, pray tell, pays for this; the parents, the board or the taxpayers at large?

It may very well be, Mr. Speaker, that both sides of the presentation in a decisionmaking process have valid concerns; however, the boards of education have the ultimate responsibility for making such decisions. Their trustees are elected officials and they must answer to the local electorate, as we all do.

No decisions about the school closures are being made in an arbitrary fashion. This is a painful learning experience for everyone. Most of the larger school boards have worked out some sort of procedure for a meeting with parents to discuss the impact of school closures. Any interested parent has the opportunity to make his or her views known to the local board at any meeting.

The Ministry of Education is sensitive to these problems. This bill, if adopted, would impose unnecessary costs on the parents and the boards. Although I am not against boards having policies on school closures, I think many already do have a policy set up. I feel this amendment would add more fuel to a potentially delicate situation. We would be imposing on them, from the provincial level, a set of guidelines or rules they might not be able to live with.

The boards should continue to exercise their own judgement and their own discretion. I call upon the members to defeat this bill.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, I want to support the basic principle of this bill. I will point nut there is one section of it, however, with which I have some difficulty. I hope that if the bill gets to committee we will be able to make some amendments in that one section.

The basic thrust of this legislation, as I see it, is twofold. The thrust, first of all, is to recognize there is a serious problem in the province right now in particular with respect to the closing of small community schools. Secondly, there is a problem with the parents whose children go to those schools having sufficient input into the decision.

I noted with interest that in the Minister of Education’s opening statement when she presented her estimates to us, she said, “with respect to the local guidelines.” She also said, “However, since the policies of individual boards will be affected by provincial policies, and since the phenomenon of declining enrolment is province-wide and of an extent that requires provincial response, the need for provincial guidelines relating to school closure, in addition to and complementary to those prepared and applied locally, is recognized.”

I point that out only to show the need for provincial involvement. At the same time, I want it to be very clear that I recognize the final responsibility of the local board to make the decision. I believe there needs to be a review mechanism, but I think it is important for us to recognize that once we have very clear guidelines, and once there is evidence that the board has followed those guidelines, the final decision must be the board’s.

Where we need a review or an appeal mechanism is in those situations when any number of parents are able to demonstrate that one or the other set of the guidelines and the procedures, whether we are talking about the minister’s guidelines and procedures or the guidelines and procedures as outlined in this bill, has not been properly followed.

It is interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that when a school beard wants to open a school they very clearly must get the approval of the ministry. The ministry sets out to determine first whether or not there is a need, and second, the minister has to determine what the financial impact will be, whether it be on the local board or on the ministry itself. Therefore it seems reasonable that if the ministry is going to be involved in the process of opening a school it must also be involved in the process of closing it.

One of the things this kind of legislation requires is a clear understanding of the impact of closing of schools. We have discussed this with the minister previously but it needs to be repeated. We need to have some research to be sure we understand clearly what effect closing a school down has upon the quality of education given to those students and what effect leaving a school open with a smaller number of students has upon the quality of education. There is all kinds of speculation as to what it does, but we do not yet have any clear evidence.

Second, we need to find out exactly what the financial impact is when we close a school, There seems to be, not in the province of Ontario but in other jurisdictions, considerable evidence that there is very little dollar saving, that the offsetting costs, the fact you have to prepare another school to receive these students, the fact you have to make renovations and the fact you have to provide more busing result in the board saving very little, if any money.

This minister, on a number of occasions in her opening statement, indicated the importance of family relationships, school relationships, and parent and teacher relationships. We do not have any evidence yet what kind of conflict arises between parents and teachers, between home and school, when the local school is closed. These are very important issues.

We also have to understand the social impact on young children when their local community school is closed. We know that young children today are having a great deal of difficulty coping with family stress, coping with community stress and coping with social and economic stress. We therefore have to ask ourselves, “Do we need to put more stress on these young children?”

This bill doesn’t answer those questions, Mr. Speaker, but it clearly points out that we are going to have to understand this kind of an impact if we are going to have procedures and guidelines.

In closing I want to say that we need a review mechanism, but I do not think the OMB is the appropriate one. I think an appeal has to be made to some body set up by the ministry, so that when it’s finally decided that things are not going right that appeal body has to make a judgement.

ONTARIO ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACT

The following members having objected by rising, a vote was not taken on the motion for second reading of Bill 185.

Auld; Baetz; Belanger; Brunelle; Drea; Eaton; Gregory; Havrot; Henderson; Hennessy; Hodgson; Johnson, J.; Kennedy; Lane; MacBeth; Maeck; McCaffrey; McCague; Newman, W.; Norton.

Parrott; Rollins; Rotenberg; Rowe; Stephenson; Sterling; Taylor, C.; Villeneuve; Watson; Wells; Williams; Wiseman -- 32.

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

The following members having objected by rising, a vote was not taken on the motion for second reading of Bill 187.

Auld; Baetz; Belanger; Brunelle; Cureatz; Drea; Eaton; Gregory; Grossman; Havrot; Henderson; Hennessy; Hodgson.

Johnson, J.; Kennedy; Lane; MacBeth; Maeck; McCaffrey; McCague; Newman, W.; Norton.

Parrott; Rollins; Rotenberg; Rowe; Stephenson; Sterling; Taylor, G. E.; Villeneuve; Watson; Wells; Williams; Wiseman -- 34.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to standing order 13, I wish to indicate to the House the business for tomorrow, and with the consent of the House only for next Monday and Tuesday. Then next Tuesday I will indicate the further order of business for the House from Tuesday on.

Tomorrow the House will be in committee of supply to continue the consideration of the estimates of the Treasurer.

On Monday, December 17, afternoon and evening, the House will consider legislation, continuing the consideration of Bill 173 in committee stage, followed by Bill 174, second reading and committee stage if required; Bill Pr5 in committee stage; and Bill 154, second reading and committee stage if required. We will then go to the following concurrences, as time permits: Community and Social Services, Education, Colleges and Universities, Culture and Recreation, Attorney General, Solicitor General, Health, Industry and Tourism, and Agriculture and Food.

On Tuesday, December 18, we will consider legislation in the afternoon and the evening in the following order: Bill 204, second reading and committee if required; Bill 202 and Bill 203, second reading; Bill 127, second reading; and following that budget debate if time permits.

As I indicated, I will indicate to the House the order to be followed after next Tuesday. At this time it is considered that the House may meet Wednesday morning and Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday morning, in addition to its regular sittings.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.