Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

FAMILY LAW ORDERS

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege. You will recall that the other day I read into the record a paragraph from a letter from the Solicitor General (Mr. McMurtry) to Miss Marilynne Glick, a practising member of the bar in Toronto, and that paragraph stated: “As with other civil processes, such orders are enforceable by the sheriff. It is only in cases where a breach of the peace beyond the capability of the sheriff is anticipated that the police should be expected to respond and only by way of assistance to the sheriff.”

According to Instant Hansard of yesterday, and I am referring to page 42, which deals with the answer of the Solicitor General to that question, the answer was this:

“I don’t know that the member for St. George was suggesting the police should be used in those circumstances; but, obviously, when there is any question in relation to a breach of the peace or where there is any apprehension in the courts with respect to a possible battered wife, as the member for St. George states, then we think the court should make such an order. This is what is contemplated by the particular section that deals with this in the Family Law Reform Act.”

We thought the situation had been covered. The directive and the letters from the Solicitor General indicate different procedures. This means, in effect, that the House is faced with, shall we say, ambiguity, if we aren’t to use the word “misled.” We have the ambiguity of the minister making one directive available to the practising bar and one statement in the House which varies it.

This is creating confusion in the administration of justice in this province and I am of the opinion that the Solicitor General should very quickly clarify that situation, not only for the members of the House, but for those who are practising in this province, including the judges who are making the orders.

Mr. Speaker: As the honourable member knows, the Solicitor General is not here and has to be given an opportunity to respond to the alleged point of privilege. We will await his arrival.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

ELEVATOR LEGISLATION

Hon. Mr. Drea: Later today I will be introducing the Elevating Devices Act, which will replace two statutes that now exist: the Elevators and Lifts Act, and the Construction Hoists Act.

Since the Elevators and Lifts Act was introduced in 1953 and the Construction Hoists Act seven years later, there has been considerable technological change in the industry as well as a significant growth in the number and types of installations. In 1953, for example, about 7,500 elevators were registered in Ontario, while last year that number had increased to about 24,000. I am sure I need not add that the variety of installations has increased substantially over the past quarter century, as well.

The new act has been designed to address the current needs of the building and construction industry, while maintaining the consistently high standards of public safety for the people of Ontario. The regulations will set out clearly and concisely the required standards for all elevating devices, their installation and their maintenance.

It strengthens the requirements for design submissions, placing the onus on engineers to meet those requirements in order for the design to be certified. At the same time, it allows for variances in design where safety standards can still be attained. An appeal mechanism is also provided in cases where a design has been rejected.

To ensure that safety standards are maintained, the Elevating Devices Act allows for the sealing of any device that an inspector determines to be unsafe. In addition, there is a requirement that information regarding the device, its design and its maintenance history be kept on site. Accident reporting provisions have been strengthened, with stiff penalties facing those who do not comply. For the first time, the concept of contractor registration is extended to the construction-hoist field.

The Elevating Devices Act is a modern instrument of legislation which reflects the current thinking of the Ontario government towards deregulation while continuing to provide protection to the people of Ontario. In drafting the bill, the staff of my ministry met with those associations and unions directly affected by the legislation in order that these groups could provide needed input and express any concerns.

In summary, the Elevating Devices Act will improve the system for design certification, as well as the quality of maintenance and inspection, while providing the public with safe elevators, ski tows and lifts.

ORAL QUESTIONS

Mr. S. Smith: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I did have a question for someone in the front row, and since there is nobody there --

Mr. Speaker: You can only ask questions to ministers who are present.

Interjections.

Mr. S. Smith: It is nothing to be particularly proud of.

USE OF HERBICIDES

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I will ask a question of the Minister of the Environment, who I think is there in the second row.

Our office has been in touch with a Mr. Roy Krueger in the operations branch of the pesticides and toxic substances division of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. This gentleman has told us his agency intends to destroy 800,000 gallons of the toxic herbicide 2,4,5-T by way of high-temperature incineration aboard a ship at sea. Could I ask the minister, therefore, whether in view of this he would consider, rather than spraying the 2,4,5-T in order to get rid of the existing stock, shipping it to the United States and asking them whether they could add our 35,000 gallons to the 800,000 gallons they are going to be destroying? Wouldn’t that be a more reasonable way for us to get rid of our stocks?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, I have tried to consider that proposal very carefully. There are two things that have bothered me on waste in general. I have had that proposal presented to me on other subjects. It was quite possible for us to have shipped PCBs to the Third World and they were very keen on receiving them. But I have --

Mr. S. Smith: We are not recommending that.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: No, I know that; and I will come to the point raised by the Leader of the Opposition. I rejected that on the basis that there was a moral obligation on the part of the government, on the part of the people of this province, to deal with those hazardous toxic substances that we have used, that we have produced and that we own and control. I believe this is so whether it’s in government or the private sector, and that we should not put those substances into an unsuspecting world.

2:10 p.m.

The Leader of the Opposition takes his time sometimes in posing questions, so I think I should have the same privilege in responding. I’m suggesting that in just taking that material and putting it out to sea, that there is a good deal of confusion as to whether that could be done adequately. Indeed, there have been a lot of countries which have decided just to take other materials out past the 200-mile limit and dump them.

Mr. S. Smith: That’s not what I’m saying.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I know the Leader of the Opposition is not saying that. However, he is not proposing that it can be guaranteed that the material and all its harmful effects would be eliminated. Somehow or other he is suggesting -- and I reject the suggestion, if he wants the bottom line -- that we pass off to other countries our problems; I think we must look after our own.

If it’s safe to incinerate 2,4,5,-T here, then why don’t we accept the responsibility of burning it here and not somehow or other believe that 200 miles out to sea makes it safer; it doesn’t. If it’s safe to do it -- as the Leader of the Opposition proposes, and he’s proposing that it is safe -- I’m telling him in response that we could incinerate that material here just as well as we do it at sea, so why then do we not accept those responsibilities of dealing with our own wastes and not try some magic way, as the Leader of the Opposition would propose, of putting it on to someone else?

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Let me hear him make the case then that it is somehow or other safer at some distance. It’s out of sight but it’s not a bit safer.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary, I have to ask whether the minister has heard the question. Surely the minister recognizes that since the American government is already going to incinerate, or burn, 800,000 gallons of this material out at sea -- not dump it at sea, not ship it to the Third World, but incinerate it out at sea rather than near population areas -- since they are going to do 800,000 gallons, doesn’t it make more sense for us to send them 35,000 gallons of our own to join that fire out at sea rather than spray it over northern Ontario? Does that not seem like a reasonable thing to do, given the fact that this kind of cross-border transfer still does occur, as he well knows, from Upper Ottawa Street? Is it not reasonable to send the 35,000 gallons to join the 800,000 gallons being burned out at sea rather than spraying it over northern Ontario?

Mr. Speaker: The question has been asked.

Mr. S. Smith: Yes, but one would wonder from the answer.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The problem with that is that one could use the same logic on other materials. I’m saying to the member --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The sad point is, Mr. Speaker, that when this government, and I as minister, have tried desperately hard to get those kinds of facilities in place in our province we didn’t get much support.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The Leader of the Opposition sees it so simplistically. The problem is that somehow or other if one puts it far enough removed, the hazard no longer exists. I have a little more understanding of --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I have never suggested that and I’m not making that rebuttal to the member’s remark.

Mr. Cassidy: If you want to save the fish, what about sparing the people in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Members can make as light of this as they want over there. They can suggest it should be done someplace else. They can suggest it be done 200 miles out at sea and somehow or other the problem disappears but that is not the way to go; you decide whether it can be done safely. If you do make that decision, you accept the responsibility for your own waste in your own province and you don’t try to palm it off on some unsuspecting sea, some unsuspecting country, some other society. You deal with the problem here.

The honourable member has been demanding that we deal with our liquid industrial waste problem and I agree with him. I’ll even give him enough credit that he has raised --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: You want a little credit, Stuart? I was going to give you a little credit.

Mr. Speaker: Have you anything further to add to the answer?

Ms. Gigantes: Mr. Speaker, could I ask the minister directly, is it his intent to see this material sprayed in Ontario this year, and if it is, will he be informing women in conditions such as I am now about where it’s safe to go camping with their families this year?

Mr. Breithaupt: Harry, you ought to be defeated for that alone.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I’ll worry about that; you worry about it at home too.

Mr. Breithaupt: You are incompetent.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: How many investigative trips has the honourable minister made to Miami?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, let me say that if I am incompetent, I happen to have the strong advice of the Pesticides Advisory Committee. I am going to read that advice into the record now. I have done that once; the honourable member apparently hasn’t heard it, so he should listen to it. I think it’s time that we now read into the record --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Go ahead, have fun. I don’t consider it funny. If members opposite think our liquid industrial waste --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Does the minister have a direct answer? We don’t need any lectures.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Yes, I do.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister of the Environment has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The letter is dated March 28 and it’s from the Pesticides Advisory Committee. I’ll table all of it, Mr. Speaker, but it reads in part:

“It is our opinion that these additional reports and reassessments do not support the conclusion that 2,4,5-T or 2,4-5-TP constitutes a public health or environmental hazard as regulated and used in Ontario.

“The committee is concerned over this considerable quantity of formulated products in the hands of users. The deteriorating condition of the stored containers has been brought to the committee’s attention. It is only a matter of time before disposal or cleanup operations will be needed.

“Accordingly, the committee recommends that you give further consideration to allowing the use of permits in accordance with regulations under the Pesticides Act, 1973” -- I will be pleased to give the member for Carleton East those conditions -- “and secondly, that applicants for permits be required to provide evidence of a qualified applicator on each piece of spray equipment.

“It is the committee’s opinion that the issuing of permits would allow the orderly utilization of the chemicals in a safe and controlled manner. In view of public concern, you may wish to consider the recommendations as interim measures for existing stocks.”

On their advice -- and they are far more qualified on this particular subject, I would suggest, than any of the members opposite -- I have done exactly as they suggested.

2:20 p.m.

There is one other bit of information that I think the House needs to know. I was concerned about this issue, I understood the difficulty of making the decision and I knew that in the final analysis I, and I alone, would have to make that decision; but I also took it upon myself to consult with my two critics. I have a letter here that I would like to read into the record because I think it’s time that the Liberal Party came to a position where it didn’t flip-flop whenever it was convenient for it to do so.

Back on February 19 I wrote to the Liberal critic. I will be glad to table this; the letter is very short. It says as follows:

“Further to our recent telephone conversation, I write to confirm our understanding that you would be in agreement with the following policy with respect to the herbicide 2,4,5-T, that the existing stocks of 2,4,5-T, which are sufficient for the 1980 spraying season only, may be used by application in remote areas of the province under careful government control. Following this application of current stocks of 2,4,5-T, this herbicide will thenceforth be banned in Ontario. I believe this sums up our agreement. If it does not, then please advise at your earliest convenience.”

I respect very much the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Gaunt), the Liberal critic. I have sent that letter to him but I have not had a response, and I suspect it is about time the critic and the leader of that party got together and formulated one policy that is consistent.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary, since the minister knows full well that the critic of the Liberal Party accepted that position believing there was no other alternative, and having been told there was no other alternative, and since I have presented to the minister a clear alternative of sending the 35,000 gallons out to sea with the 800,000 gallons of American waste to be incinerated there, why does he not answer my question intelligently instead of trying to put the finger on the critic for some letter he has written to him?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I have considered that alternative. I think it is not a good alternative because if we have a method of disposing that is so appropriate, then we should do it within our own boundaries and not ask somebody else to take the responsibility for our products.

Ms. Bryden: By way of supplementary, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister whether he would also place on the record my letter to him in response to this consultation with the opposition critics. I do not consider it a proper form of public consultation on a matter of this importance, but I did respond to him in a letter at the same time as the critic for the Liberal Party. I would ask that that letter be read into the record as well.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I did not think it was necessary to do that; however, I am happy to do so. I think it was about March 6 I intimated to the member for Beaches-Woodbine that I would not be accepting what she said -- and I said that directly to her -- and that I would be subsequently making an announcement. Of course, immediately she issued a press release. I remember very distinctly our conversation of that day and I think that the member will recall that I reminded her that I was perhaps going to say this some day in response to a question.

If she remembers correctly, and I think she does, she said to me, “You really would never expect our party to take the responsibility of those kinds of decisions.” No, I don’t; I understand that I have to take that. Being a responsible party, one has an obligation not to suggest that one of --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, I have refrained from answering the interjections.

I think one of the alternatives that was suggested at that time was that on those huge rights of way the alternative would be a scythe. Maybe some of the members opposite would like to take a scythe and contemplate mechanically clearing hundreds of miles of right of way with a scythe. I don’t think that’s one of the viable alternatives as proposed. It may be to them, I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like a logical one to me as an alternative. For them then to say immediately, “We’ve suggested reasonable alternatives,” isn’t so. I’m afraid I just don’t concur with the member opposite.

Ms. MacDonald: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: The minister rose and said he would read the letter into the record. Then he gave us another lecture and deliberately did not read the letter into the record.

Mr. Speaker: No.

Mr. MacDonald: He did.

Mr. Speaker: No, there was no commitment to read anything.

Mr. MacDonald: Oh, yes, he did.

Ms. Bryden: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, apparently when the minister discusses the letter from each of the environment critics he must read both --

Mr. Speaker: Order. It was the honourable member herself who suggested that the minister read the letter. There is no compulsion upon him to put anything on the record.

NAKINA FIRE

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Solicitor General regarding two agencies within his ministerial responsibility with respect to the Nakina fire tragedy.

First of all, regarding the fire marshal’s office, is the minister now prepared to admit to the House that the fire marshal did not conduct an investigation into that fire as required by law? Can he inform the House what action he took, or has taken, in that regard?

Regarding the Ontario Provincial Police, the other agency, can he explain to the House why he took no action when a relative of one of the fire victims complained to him that investigations by the OPP were “either insincere or subverted”?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, first, it’s my view that the fire marshal’s office did carry out the statutory mandate. Second, in my view the Ontario Provincial Police did carry out a proper investigation.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary, has the fire marshal’s investigation consisted of anything more than what is referred to by the report signed “J. Taylor,” dated October 12, 1979, entered in evidence and read into the record on page 160 of the transcript? If there is some other report from the fire marshal indicating that an investigation was done, I’m sure the House would be pleased to hear about that and to receive a copy of it.

If, however, this is the sole report and the matters referred to in this report are the sole investigation, surely the Solicitor General will admit to this House that this consists merely of a record of the fact that a Mr. Taylor examined the positions of the bodies, sought to see whether there were any belongings of these individuals, and did nothing more than that. Surely that does not meet the statutory obligation.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: The other day I indicated I would be obtaining as much as I could in the way of particulars of the fire marshal’s investigation and would be making this information available to the House. The gentleman who spent two days at the site gave evidence at the inquest. I think that evidence is on the record. I intend to review it. I just repeat what I said the other day, that this information, when it is gathered, will be made available to the members of the Legislature.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Can the Solicitor General give us some definite time when he expects to be in a position to be able to table those reports and that information in the House?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I would hope it would be in the very near future, but other than that I can’t assist the member further.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary, regarding the matter entered into evidence on page 160, referring merely to the marking of the positions of the bodies and nothing more than that, a matter which was referred to by Detective Inspector Corbett as not being a fire marshal’s report when he was asked for his testimony, would the minister make clear whether he believes that to be the fire marshal’s report, which meets the statutory obligation, or whether he’s referring to some other document that we don’t know about?

2:30 p.m.

Would he please be clear about that and would he explain why it was that he took no action when a relative complained to him? It is all very well for him to say that he believes the Ontario Provincial Police conducted a proper investigation, but why did he take no action when he received that complaint?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: When the information is gathered it will be made available.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Will the minister explain why it is that in the investigation of the tragic death of seven people in a major miscarriage of operations by the Ministry of Natural Resources, only an inexperienced employee of the fire marshal’s department was sent up to do a very short investigation, the kind of investigation that might have been carried out on a house fire or some other much more minor affair? Why were more experienced employees of the fire marshal’s department not sent to follow up and establish whether or not the initial report was adequate?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I have nothing to add to what I have replied previously, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question: Further to the questions asked of the minister, could he tell us whether he discussed any aspects of his investigational report with Commissioner Graham?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I haven’t discussed the matter with Commissioner Graham.

USE OF ASBESTOS IN SCHOOLS

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations relating to the Ontario Building Code, which was promulgated in December 1975. According to subsection 6.2.4.10(1) on page 270, it is required that where fire stop flaps are used in air duct systems, they be constructed of steel and be covered on both sides with asbestos paper at least one sixteenth of an inch thick.

Would the minister confirm that this requirement is the same requirement that led to the asbestos-coated dampers being installed at Harbord Collegiate, and would he also confirm the fact that every school built since 1975 would be required to comply with that particular section of the code and therefore have the kind of dampers that led to the Toronto Board of Education closing Harbord Collegiate?

Hon. Mr. Drea: I will take that question as notice, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Cassidy: Is the minister aware that some 25 schools in the Toronto area have been built or renovated since this section of the building code was brought into force in 1975? Would he be able to tell the House just how many schools across the province have been renovated since 1975 and have been required to use asbestos-coated dampers of the type referred to, despite the dangers of asbestos to school children?

Hon. Mr. Drea: I will take that as notice too, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, will the minister recall the question I raised with the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson): “Would the minister see to it that we do not allow this type of asbestos to be used in any building, because according to this morning’s paper we are now having the problem in many other buildings, public and private”?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker: I will include a reply to that question. I’ll take it as notice as well.

Mr. Cassidy: A supplementary question to the Minister of Education: Since the minister’s inspection manual to school boards indicated that exposure to asbestos at any level is considered to present a health risk, or in other words there is no acceptable level of exposure to asbestos, can the minister explain why there has apparently been no objection at any time from the Ministry of Education to the fact that these asbestos-coated dampers have been required in every school built or renovated across the province since 1975?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that certain companies have developed alternatives in terms of fire-retardant capacity, and I believe that school boards have examined those. I do not know at this point whether the statement made by the honourable leader of the third party is correct, in terms of the schools that have been built since 1975. We shall attempt to determine that and provide that information for the House.

Mr. Cassidy: Could the minister explain how school boards could use the alternatives she has referred to -- if, in fact, they were available -- when the section I quoted from the building code of 1975 refers specifically to covering both sides of these fire dampers with asbestos one sixteenth of an inch thick?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I am not at all sure that air and damper system has been required in all schools that have been built since 1975. I shall attempt to collect that information for the honourable member and report it to the House.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY COMMITTEES

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Labour relating to the mandatory health and safety committees required under Bill 70, which was passed on December 15, 1978.

Could the minister explain why both he and the Minister of Education refused to respond positively to the request of the Canadian Union of Public Employees that they encourage school boards to establish these mandatory health and safety committees, in particular given the fact that one of the school boards that was dragging its feet on this mandatory requirement was the Scarborough Board of Education, where a death related to occupational health factors -- that of Clifford Grant -- occurred back in the fall of last year?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of any reluctance to get involved in giving advice regarding establishing occupational health and safety committees in areas covered under Bill 70. If the member will give me some reminder of that matter, if it was brought to my attention, I will be glad to look into it again.

Mr. Cassidy: In his letter to Jack Bird of CUPE, dated March 24, just a week ago, the minister states: “The minister is presently recruiting and training staff to carry out inspections in these work areas” -- that is, the areas of schools.

Since it is now some 16 months since Bill 70 was passed, will the minister say when it is the ministry or the government will start to ensure that the mandatory safety and health committees required under the act are established, and how long must school board employees go without that protection, given the hazards of asbestos and other work-related hazards in their work places?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: As the member well knows, the act was proclaimed last October, but I can assure him that there is no reluctance on the part of this minister to encourage the setting up of occupational health and safety committees, nor will there ever be.

Mr. B. F. Johnston: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: On the matter of the seriousness of this matter, I am wondering why the minister has not replied to my question of Friday as to when he knew that Mr. Grant was compensable. What was the date? For how long was the minister not informed and, therefore, did not get to people in the work place to establish a proper committee?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, let’s not have any suggestion that I am evading that. The member will have his answer on Thursday.

NAKINA FIRE

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Solicitor General, and it’s back on the same topic I was questioning him about earlier.

Would the Solicitor General explain to this House how he can tell us that he believes the fire marshal’s report to be adequate when he has admitted he has not yet reviewed the fire marshal’s report? If he has not yet reviewed it, how does he know that it is adequate?

How does he know that the Ontario Provincial Police investigation was adequate if he has now admitted that he never asked the commissioner of the OPP about it and never bothered to take seriously, or do anything about, the complaint he received?

How does he know that both of those are adequate if he hasn’t reviewed them?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Dealing with the second part of the question first, Mr. Speaker, the commissioner is not my only source of information from the Ontario Provincial Police. I have indicated there was quite a voluminous OPP report that was handed over, not only to counsel conducting the inquest, but also to counsel representing various of the families, indicating the nature of the OPP’s investigation and containing some very objective comments the OPP made about their concerns about the likelihood of human error having contributed to this tragedy.

2:40 p.m.

It is therefore unfortunate that certain people, for reasons best known to themselves, have tried to suggest that the OPP in some way has attempted to protect the Ministry of Natural Resources and its employees. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reports were turned over to the counsel at the inquiry. Without going into the details, which are going to be considered by a jury, I would think the findings of the OPP will be very relevant to the winding up of this particular inquest. I have indicated on several occasions that when I have all the relevant information, it will be made available to the members of the House pursuant to the undertaking I gave last week.

Mr. S. Smith: The minister has neglected something, perhaps because of the length of the question, so by way of supplementary I will ask the minister again: If, according to his statement in this House the other day, he has not reviewed the fire marshal’s report, how does he know it is adequate under the law if he has not yet reviewed it? I ask again, what action did he take when he received the letter of complaint from the uncle of one of the fire victims?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I have already indicated what will be made available, Mr. Speaker.

FORD CASTING PLANT

Mr. Bounsall: Mr. Speaker, a question for the Minister of Industry and Tourism: In his response to the question of my colleague from Windsor yesterday about the great concern of United Auto Workers Local 200 and the Ford employees there, was the minister aware of their total loss of employment from the casting plant with all but the 351 engine casting patterns being removed for a feasibility study into the ability to have them built elsewhere? Is the minister aware that on February 26, J. A. Betti, vice-president of Ford, in an address in Cleveland, Ohio, guaranteed the continued level of employment in a press release to the Ford workers in Cleveland? If Ford can do that for employment in Cleveland, what is this minister doing about guaranteeing that at least present levels of employment will continue to exist in Windsor for all those who work in the casting factory and in the two Windsor engine plants?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Obviously a great part of the consideration that went into that statement made, I presume, in Cleveland, depended upon the products being made at that Cleveland plant. It is rather simplistic, I would suggest, to pretend that Ford or anyone else is being unfair to Canada because it has indicated that at one plant, as opposed to another, employment will be maintained.

I want to repeat what I said yesterday, and that is: We have had no indication there will be a net loss to Canada as a result of the work that is being done and the study that is being undertaken.

As I said yesterday, what is happening is a reassessment of all that is going on at Ford, and they must do that in order to continue to compete with imports -- and indeed compete better than they have done until now. The end result of that process should mean that Canada will continue to come off relatively well in terms of jobs. Obviously, one can’t give specific answers as to whether the net jobs will be the same after this process, because Ford isn’t yet at the position at which it has made certain decisions that will affect Ontario.

To be fair, certain of the steps we have taken have ensured that at least 2,500 to 2,600 new jobs will be secured in Windsor, and that is already en the books. That is because they are at a stage of making a decision on the V-6 engine plant. Continuing discussions are going on. I will be meeting Mr. Bennett in the next short little while to review his current investment plans and his future investment plans. This is the way one ensures that the net employment figures remain adequate, and I still expect they will surpass what they currently are in Ontario.

Mr. Bounsall: Is the minister not concerned? I quote the minister from his answer yesterday: He said Canada has done relatively better than the United States in terms of layoffs resulting from the downturn in the market, and that obviously there was going to be pressure to build in the United States. Is the minister not concerned when Cleveland is running at 75 per cent capacity and Flat Rock at 50 per cent capacity, while the stamp and casting plant is down to 50 per cent and the two engine plants are down to 50 per cent in Windsor?

If those patterns go anywhere -- and that’s what the feasibility study is about -- that casting plant in Windsor will go down to zero; with only 351 castings left as a pattern in Windsor, that could be easily shifted to Cleveland where the patterns are already there and 351 engines are being produced already. Is the minister not concerned at all that the entire casting could disappear from Windsor as well as the 351 engine? When he meets with Mr. Bennett in the near future will he ensure in that talk that guarantees are made for the Windsor casting and Windsor engine plants, as Ford did in Cleveland?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I really want to confirm for the member that we really are quite concerned about that. I needn’t have volunteered the information yesterday, because it wasn’t implicit in the question, that the layoffs in the United States have been relatively worse than ours and this caused me to have even greater concern with regard to the future. I am, in fact, very concerned about it.

Mr. Bounsall: But not in these plants.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: No, the member can’t suggest it isn’t the case with those jobs, because that’s part of the reason that we have asked them to come in and talk, because these studies are going on. What he doesn’t know is the number of units of equipment, for example, they have called in from their various plants throughout the United States to do the same kind of testing as they decide where to reallocate their equipment.

It’s precisely because we are very concerned about all of that and precisely because of the situation now. It’s hard to imagine it, but the member lives in Windsor and he knows it’s true, the layoffs in Windsor have not been as severe as those in the United States.

Mr. Bounsall: Not in the engine and casting plants, they haven’t.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member for Windsor-Sandwich wants to take one segment of the industry and suggest that isn’t the case but, with respect, those of us in the public sector who have to worry about a whole wide range of issues and how they are going to impact on the ultimate decision have to be sensitive to the simple fact that the United States is moving towards protectionism and that will operate adversely with regard to the Canadian auto industry. So far, the American legislators have been strong enough and courageous enough to resist that temptation.

The more we emphasize the fact that the Canadian industry has done relatively better in terms of layoffs, the more we put pressure on the United Auto Workers in the United States and the families affected by the layoffs there to put more political pressure on the companies to begin now to make the layoffs hurt Canada worse than they have up to the current time. So it is a very delicate situation.

It is very easy and convenient for me to stand up and berate the companies for the layoffs that are occurring. In fact, I suspect I would be a lot more popular in Windsor and other areas if I did that. But the fact is that my long-term responsibility is to ensure that our response is quite responsible and that we communicate with the companies and try to understand what is motivating their investment decisions. I say to the member, in fairness, and he knows this is true, one of the things that is motivating their investment decisions is the degree of pressure they must get from the union and others in terms of how the layoffs are going.

So far we have done relatively well, and the more we emphasize that fact and the more we bring that to light and heap upon that an unusual level of public criticism to the companies while they go through this process, the more difficult it becomes to get long-term investment into Windsor. We are working on it. We have done a heck of a lot of things to make sure it happens, including, quite frankly, some initiatives which I haven’t agreed with, but we are working on it and in a very responsible manner.

I don’t mind the member disagreeing with respect to some of the steps we take. That’s his right and privilege. I wish he wouldn’t suggest, though, that we aren’t terribly concerned about that particular initiative and all of the other initiatives that are going on, because we are and we are acting on them.

Mr. B. Newman: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: When the minister talks about political pressure, doesn’t he realize there is a presidential election which will be taking place in the United States and as a result there will be more political pressure on that side to move certain Canadian industries or Canadian plants to the United States?

Can the minister assure us that none of the machinery or equipment at the Ford foundry is being transferred at this time to the United States, and can he also assure us that the 2,600 jobs at the Essex plant of the Ford Motor Company will be 2,600 additional jobs added to those that are currently working at the Ford casting plant?

2:50 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, to the best of our information from the Ford Motor Company, I can tell the member the answer to his first question is that those kinds of movements are not now occurring and those layoffs are not happening.

I must tell him, as well, that our extensive discussions to date with Ford, GM, Chrysler, and one major auto parts firm -- one of the major ones whose representatives were in to see me this morning -- all indicate the situation is so very fluid in the North American automotive industry that the kinds of answers everyone gives in very good faith and in all honesty today may not be operative two or three months from today. That is a situation we are really working very hard to stabilize.

I must also say to the member that one of the things we can do when this sort of situation is happening is to work as hard as we can to attract new investment in the auto parts industry into the Windsor area and into this province. I have to tell him that I share his concern. I know that of all the members who have spoken on this issue, he is one who has one of the longest-standing records of concern for the automotive industry in Windsor. However, every time we talk about giving some money to an auto parts firm to locate in Windsor or any other part of this province, his leader comes out and not only opposes this government, but also jumps all over the firm involved, tells them they are cheating and ripping off the taxpayers. Let the member tell his leader about his longstanding concern.

MIDNIGHT HAULERS

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. Could the minister inform the House whether it is the policy of the Ministry of the Environment to lay a charge the first time the so-called midnight haulers dump industrial waste and residential waste into sewer systems, streams and ditches in Ontario? Is it the policy of his ministry to charge these people the first time they are caught?

If it is, is he satisfied with the reaction of the director of engineering of the regional municipality of Niagara? He said: “No charges have been laid against midnight haulers caught so far. They have just been subjected to a stern talking to. We have got their promises they won’t do it again. If they do and are caught, we will press charges.” Is this satisfactory to the minister?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I haven’t seen that, Mr. Speaker, but I can’t understand how that could be said. Quite frankly, there are 138 charges against what was assumed to be a midnight hauler in the city of Hamilton. Those charges were laid. They were not accepted by the court in their fullness, but we certainly do believe in charging those haulers who dump illegally.

Mr. Bradley: Would the minister then give assurance to the House that he would send instructions to the various directors of engineering of the municipalities around the province, asking that if they are aware of such dumping taking place they will insist that charges be laid the first time someone is caught or, alternatively, they will inform the Ministry of the Environment so that the ministry can lay those charges?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: There is no problem there at all. We would be more than pleased to do so. I think it is absolutely imperative to lay those charges. If we can get the cooperation of the municipalities to supply that information, we will be very co-operative.

Mr. Cunningham: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: May I ask the minister, notwithstanding the 138 charges he just made reference to, how many charges are currently on the books respecting these midnight haulers?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I don’t have that information at hand today, Mr. Speaker, but I will supply it to the member.

WINDSOR SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCIES

Mr. Cooke: I have a question, Mr. Speaker, for the Minister of Community and Social Services. Considering the very high unemployment in the Windsor area, I wonder if the minister or his ministry staff in the Windsor-Essex area have bothered to form any kind of a task force or working group to meet with the social planning council and other social service agencies which are experiencing a very high level of use and demand, but because of the shortfall to the United Way, because people are not able to fulfil their pledges, the money is not coming in and many agencies are having to cut back on staff. Has the ministry done that kind of work yet? If not, why not?

Hon. Mr. Norton: To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Speaker, no task force as such has been established. The staff of the ministry in that area has been in contact with a number of local agencies, and I have had reports on some of those.

The honourable member will be aware, since he has brought to my attention a specific problem relating to one agency, that I am attempting to find a way -- although under our present legislative structure we do not have a way -- of assisting them further. I am exploring the possibility of a special purchase of service arrangement or something of that nature that might assist them through this difficult period of time.

Mr. Cooke: Would it not make sense that the ministry staff in Windsor should have initiated meetings months ago with the social planning council and the United Way people to find out exactly what the situation was, because many of the agencies, as I have said, are cutting back staff? Credit counselling, as I have told the minister before, has a one-month waiting list before a client can even see a person on a first visit. This kind of problem needs immediate action and --

Mr. Speaker: Is there a question there?

Mr. Cooke: The minister has good experience with task forces. Why doesn’t he set one up and get familiar with the problem and find solutions in Windsor?

Hon. Mr. Norton: I appreciate the compliment from the honourable member. I would also point out that our ministry has very good field staff in the member’s community. In fact, I was there recently and had a number of agencies complimenting them for the good relationship they have with the staff of my ministry in Windsor.

I would suggest to the member that the staff of my ministry -- whether they have an organized task force or not -- have in fact been in communication. As a matter of fact, the same day the member raised the counselling agency case with me, a few days ago, I received a report from our field staff on the difficulties being experienced that brought that matter to my attention. Therefore, obviously, it had been initiated by my field staff before the member had an opportunity to bring it to my attention, although he discussed it with me prior to my receipt of that report. We are trying to find a solution that will assist that agency and others in difficulty.

NOISE GUIDELINES

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Housing. In view of the fact that in May 1979 the minister put out, by way of the release of a statement in this house, what the minister calls Guidelines on Noise in New Residential Development Adjacent to Freeways, which guidelines were put out in conjunction with the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, would the minister advise whether the regional and municipal governments are bound by these guidelines, which stated that 55 decibels was the tolerable level? If they are bound by these guidelines, would the minister tell us why it is that the minister and his colleagues in other ministries are tolerating the construction of the Vanier arterial road in the Overbrook section whereby, as a result of this construction, the guidelines are flagrantly violated in the sense that there are more than 60 houses that will be facing intolerable noise levels?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, first of all, they are exactly as the member for Ottawa East describes them: guidelines for municipalities to try to establish programs and construction operations within their jurisdiction to comply with them.

If I understand correctly by reading the newspaper and talking to some of the local representatives -- indeed, with the regional and municipal council last Wednesday -- the Vanier arterial road is in a standstill position for a period of about three years or until such time as it’s taken off the back burner and put forward by, again, a political source at the local level.

The guidelines have been circulated to all of the municipalities in Ontario in compliance with those guidelines established by the federal government and accepted and adopted by the provincial government.

Mr. Roy: In view of the fact that the Overbrook section is currently under construction, and there is no moratorium on that particular section -- and that’s the section I’m referring to about violating the ministry’s guidelines -- would the minister advise why it is, when guidelines are put out in conjunction with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications -- in fact, according to my information, that ministry is funding 60 per cent of this Vanier arterial road -- that he does not feel bound by these guidelines? The citizens along the arterial road will be facing noise levels of up to 72 decibels. Is the minister prepared to put out guidelines by which his own ministry and his colleagues within the government and inferior governments are not bound?

3 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I will admit that a portion of the contract to which the member is referring in the Overbrook area is under construction. A portion of it has been deferred for a period of time -- I don’t know how long -- to be constructed.

The same group of people who are now asking me this afternoon if we put out guidelines and would then want us to take the mallet or the sledgehammer to force municipalities into line, I have heard these same members of this House say many times, not only to the Minister of Housing but to ministers with other portfolios as well, that we should try to encourage municipalities to do things without dictating to them and that the provincial government shouldn’t constantly be dictating its philosophy to these communities.

We have put out guidelines; we have talked to municipalities and we have encouraged them to use them in order to put in the safety factors in this area and in other areas of construction. My ministry has many other areas of guidelines in the development of communities. Some of the municipalities have accepted them.

As I have said before, we will give them all the advice and guidance possible, but it is not my intention to legislate to drive them into line. That’s the philosophy we have taken in this party. It’s one in which the opposition parties constantly have said this government is wrong in trying to do so.

CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food if he would take his seat. While he is coming to his seat, perhaps I can ask him if he is aware that the price of chemical fertilizers has taken a dramatic increase this spring. The price list I have here from a major supplier shows that urea is up 28 per cent; ammonium nitrate is up by 33 per cent and formula 8-32-16 is up by 40 per cent. The increase by other suppliers is in the same percentage.

Coupled with the increases in gasoline and interest rates, is the minister aware of the triple whammy this will give the farmers and, ultimately, the consumers of food in this province and nation? Has he done an investigation and has he plans to deal with it?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the member’s question, yes, we are fully aware that most of the costs to farmers this year have increased by approximately 30 per cent. My staff and I spent an hour together this morning --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Within the next 15 days, the federal Minister of Agriculture and myself will be meeting to see if something can be worked out that will help the farmers of this province.

Mr. Swart: Can we expect a detailed report on this matter, with some remedies, to be tabled in this House within the next two or three weeks? Recognizing that natural gas is the feedstock for nitrogen, has the minister urged the Minister of Energy or the cabinet to make strong representations to the federal government to remove all the taxes and markups on natural gas when it is used for fertilizers, so we can keep these prices down?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: The Minister of Agriculture and Food of Ontario is fully aware of that. I am sure the member is aware that the natural gas to make these fertilizers is stored 10 miles from my home. I am fully aware of the total situation. The agenda that the federal minister and I will be speaking about is not fully put together yet, but I can assure the member that these will be priority items.

OIL COMPANY BOOKKEEPING

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Premier. In view of the fact that most Canadians feel they are being ripped off by the oil companies and that the Ontario government is doing nothing to question them, will the Premier please advise why he can’t move immediately to empower his Ministry of Energy to freeze the books of the oil companies, a parallel to what is going on in the United States, where the books of the oil companies are audited for overcharging and illegal bookkeeping practices? Is he aware that the Standard Oil Company has signed a consent decree to pay a penalty of $690 million? If he is aware of these facts, why can he not empower his Minister of Energy to take steps to protect the people of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I will not presume to say that the policy of the Liberal Party of Ontario is to move in without any justification to seize anybody’s books. I could suggest that, but the member’s leader is smiling because he doesn’t take the member’s suggestion very seriously.

Mr. S. Smith: I am only smiling because I am amused by your --

Hon. Mr. Davis: I know what amuses the Leader of the Opposition and what does not. His only problem is that there is not enough that amuses him. He would be a lot better off if there were a lot more that amused him.

Mr. Peterson: We all have to laugh a little bit.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I say to the member for London North, if I can provide him with a laugh or two to ease his day, so much the better. I know that, living in the environment that he does, he doesn’t get much opportunity; so if I can help him out mentally I will be delighted to do so.

Dealing with the specific question, I would suggest to the member that if the government of Canada felt there was some need or reason for the seizing of books et cetera, I do not think they would be reluctant to take such action. We have had no indication here that there is a need to move in and seize books.

Mr. Sargent: Is the Premier aware that Gulf, City Service, Amoco and Standard Oil have all been charged in the United States, revealing untold practices in overcharging and bookkeeping? The fines of hundreds of millions of dollars are going to help the poor people for fuel. This embraces not only gasoline, but also heating fuel, propane, the whole ball of wax. It’s time somebody stopped these bloodsuckers. The Premier has to do something for the people of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Certainly we have had no indication of any illegalities or improprieties. If the honourable member is saying to me that he knows something I do not know, relative to the Canadian companies, then let him please tell us. His leader is always telling us how we should be dissociated from the United States. Here is the honourable member trying to relate us more directly to the United States. I wish the Liberal Party would make up its mind what direction it wants to go.

I would say to the honourable member that, if he has knowledge of anything where he is concerned, if he would convey it to the Attorney General of this province, of course we would deal with it. I have not had anything brought to my attention.

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

Ms. Gigantes: Mr. Speaker, I would like to serve oral notice under standing order 28(a) that I am dissatisfied with the answer given to my question by the Minister of the Environment, and I seek to have a discussion of that matter after the business of the House is concluded this evening.

MOTION

SELECT COMMITTEE ON COMPANY LAW

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that the select committee on company law be authorized to meet concurrently with the House on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 8, 1980.

Motion agreed to.

3:10 p.m.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

TELEPHONE AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Snow moved first reading of Bill 32, An Act to amend the Telephone Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, section 96 of the act permits telephone systems to enter into agreements providing for joint operations, reciprocal use of lines, et cetera, and the portioning of tolls and expenditures. These agreements are not valid until approved by the commission.

The act currently authorizes the commission either to approve an agreement in its entirety or to reject it. One of the new provisions authorizes the commission to approve an agreement with amendments. The other new provision permits one party of a proposed agreement to apply to the commission to have the commission specify terms to be included in the agreement where the parties themselves are unable to agree and where it is in the public interest that an agreement be formed.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENT AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Snow moved first reading of Bill 33, An Act to amend the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Snow: There are several sections to this bill, Mr. Speaker. I will just outline them in general.

We are proposing to include a public utilities commission in agreements to operate public transit systems, to carry out planning studies and to carry out public transit demonstration projects.

The bill also establishes new terms for suburban roads commissions to coincide with terms of council, and allows municipal councillors to sit on commissions.

Also, the bill increases fines for encroachment on zoning control regulations on King’s highways and controlled access highways.

ELEVATING DEVICES ACT

Hon. Mr. Drea moved first reading of Bill 34, the Elevating Devices Act, 1980.

Motion agreed to.

ESTIMATES

Hon. Mr. McCague: Mr. Speaker, I have a message from the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor, signed by her own hand.

Mr. Speaker. P. M. McGibbon, the Lieutenant Governor, transmits estimates of certain sums required for the services of the province for the year ending March 31, 1981, and recommends them to the Legislative Assembly, Toronto, April 1, 1980.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

TAX EXPENDITURES DISCLOSURE ACT

Mr. Peterson moved first reading of Bill 35, An Act respecting the Disclosure of Tax Incentive Costs.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, as part of the Liberal Party’s long, lonely crusade to extract some truth from this government and to get all of the facts in the situation, we are introducing this piece of legislation in my name to force the government to reveal the costs of any tax expenditure they make. A tax expenditure is any time an incentive is given or revenue is forgone for some other purpose. We want a complete analysis of those expenditures to make sure they are done for the public good and that the benefits far outweigh the detriments thereof.

EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Martel moved first reading of Bill 36, An Act to Amend the Education Act, 1974.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill is to provide for the establishment of schools for the trainable retarded children by Roman Catholic separate school boards. Individual boards are currently authorized, under the act, to establish schools for trainable retarded children. The provision of this bill parallels, with necessary modification, the provisions of the act authorizing individual school boards to establish these schools.

LIQUOR CONTROL AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Samis moved first reading of Bill 37, An Act to amend the Liquor Control Act, 1975.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Samis: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to enable independent grocery store owners in Ontario to sell beer and wine, and I am sure it has the full support of the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) again this year.

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

Mr. Speaker: I would like to notify members of the House that pursuant to standing order 28, the member for Carleton East (Ms. Gigantes) has given notice of her dissatisfaction with the answer to her question given by the Minister of the Environment concerning the possible dangers of 2,5,4-T. This matter will be debated at 10:30 this evening.

ANSWER TO QUESTION ON NOTICE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the answer to question 11 standing on the Notice Paper.

MOTION

SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE OMBUDSMAN

Hon. Mr. Wells moved resolution 7:

That the terms of reference of the select committee on the Ombudsman be amended to read as follows: That the committee continue to review and consider from time to time the reports of the Ombudsman as they become available and, as the committee deems necessary, pursuant to section 16(1) of the Ombudsman Act, 1975, formulate from time to time general rules for the guidance of the Ombudsman in the exercise of his functions under the Ombudsman Act, to report thereon to the Legislature and to make such recommendations as the committee deems appropriate.

Further, the committee may, with the agreement of the Legislature, be permitted to sit concurrently with the Legislature from time to time, and that the select committee have authority to sit during recesses and the interval between sessions and have full power to employ such staff as it deems necessary and to hold meetings and hearings in such places as the committee may deem advisable, subject to budget approval for such travel from the Board of Internal Economy, and to call for persons, papers and things and to examine witnesses under oath; and the assembly doth command and compel the attendance before the said select committee of such persons and the production of such papers and things as the committee may deem necessary for any of its proceedings and deliberations for which the Honourable the Speaker may issue his warrant or warrants, the said select committee to consist of 10 members, as follows: Lawlor (chairman), Campbell, Eakins, Havrot, Isaacs, Lane, McClellan, G. I. Miller, J. A. Taylor and Villeneuve.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE

Resumption of the adjourned debate on the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I have attempted to listen carefully to what the honourable members opposite have had to say in response to the speech from the throne. Not surprisingly, their remarks for the most part reflect a failure to recognize the real merits and strengths of the proposed legislative program.

I cannot let go unanswered the charges made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) that this government has grown indifferent and no longer has a vision of the Ontario of tomorrow. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. I am confident that the citizens of this province will not accept such a generally negative and abstract point of view. They, like this government, live in a real world.

I cannot emphasize too strongly that the proposals in the speech delivered by Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor represent a solid, credible, sensible program for the citizens of this province. They represent a realistic response to actual circumstances and to the real needs of our people. They represent recognition of significant new departures as well as consolidation and updating of ongoing concerns.

3:20 p.m.

Today I would like to touch briefly on the areas of northern affairs, tourism, agriculture, environment, housing and French-language services.

First, as the representative of a northern constituency, I was pleased by the announcement of a permanent pavilion at Ontario Place dedicated to the northland of this province.

Mr. Martel: They sure opposed it in Sudbury.

Mr. Ramsay: This is perhaps not the type of dramatic panacea that the members opposite continually insist we need in Ontario. What it represents is a recognition of a place in this province which comprises a significant portion of the total territory and is the source of much of our resource-based wealth.

One of northern Ontario’s traditional bugbears, and indeed often one of Canada’s, is its stereotyped image: the land of fish and game, of snow, tree and rocks. We in northern Ontario would like the rest of the province, and indeed the rest of the people who know Ontario, to see northerners and northern Ontario truly for what we are and what we have. Life goes on, north of Parry Sound -- or north of Eglinton Avenue, for that matter -- and not just in mines and forests.

To help dispel these myths, the Ministry of Northern Affairs has adopted a permanent theme park idea which consists of a set of linked pavilions to be constructed at Ontario Place under the title of Ontario North Now. This permanent pavilion will open August 13 this year to coincide with the opening of the Canadian National Exhibition. The planned activities at Ontario North Now will run concurrently with the 1980 CNE. Prime focus will be on August 20 and August 21, which will be northern days at the CNE.

In effect, what Northern Affairs is doing is building a showcase for northern Ontario. The showplace and the show are the responsibility of the Association of District Municipalities and of the people of northern Ontario. Supervision of construction and the maintenance of the pavilions and site, both during and after the CNE schedule, will be the responsibility of Ontario Place.

The real aim of Ontario North Now is education. We are looking to this display to open southern eyes to the character and indigenous beauty of the north, to reveal the variety of its attractions and the natural resourcefulness of its people. Ontario North Now will show that northern Ontario has economic and human resources that are yet to be fully appreciated.

Ontario North Now will consist of eight mini-pavilions and a 60-foot-diameter, geodesic type of dome, each unit depicting a different aspect of life in northern Ontario, including culture, industry, sports and recreation, natural resources, native people and wildlife.

The Ministry of Northern Affairs will be responsible for the capital cost of the project, estimated at $1.1 million. Interior displays and activities will be the responsibility of the Association of District Municipalities and of the people of northern Ontario.

The theme park will be staffed during the CNE period by senior high school students from northern Ontario who are familiar with the quality and style of life in this part of the province and who will be able to properly answer all inquiries from visitors.

An outstanding feature of Ontario North Now will be a battery of eight searchlights which will light up Toronto skies with a nightly presentation of the northern lights.

Through the audio and visual experience of Ontario North Now, organizers hope to highlight various aspects of life in the northern regions of our province and, above all, they hope to encourage a deeper appreciation of the richness and diversity of Ontario’s northland.

In my area the hospitality industries are a very important means for many people to earn their living. In fact, overall in the province, next to the automotive industry, tourism is our most important enterprise. Last year the industry boosted Ontario’s revenue by $6.6 billion. This year with the projected increase of 15 per cent in tourist expenditures, we expect the industry will be even more vital to our provincial economy. Tourism is naturally an important source of government revenue as well. Last year the industry generated $1.1 billion in taxes. It is expected in 1980 this amount will reach $1.3 billion.

There are many reasons why more and more people are choosing to spend their leisure time in Ontario. Visitors from the United States and Europe will undoubtedly be attracted to Ontario this year to partake of our less expensive and more available supplies of gas and oil. In addition, the lower value of the Canadian dollar can only reinforce a visitor’s interest.

While these same reasons will undoubtedly account for part of the reason that Ontario residents will choose to vacation at home this year, they do not fully explain why Canadians from other provinces, who account for about 10 per cent of our tourist trade, will come to Ontario.

The natural resources of this province offer environments which support a variety of activities that is hard to match. There is something for everyone in Ontario. While a well-articulated network of parks draws people to camp by a beach or follow the most isolated route of a portage, others come to enjoy the cultural activities in our cities and towns.

The government of Ontario is committed to maintaining and developing a variety of outdoor and indoor tourist resources. The image of a frame cottage built with no luxury in mind was once popular as a metaphor for a vacation in Ontario. This is now no longer applicable. Tourists are spending more money than ever before and are doing so in more attractive surroundings.

The government of Ontario created the Tourist Redevelopment Incentive Program to assist operators in renovating old facilities or constructing new ones. The program provides $15 million in loans and guarantees and $3.5 millions in direct funding to help pay for expansion and redevelopment in the tourist sector.

The Ontario Development Corporations have also been active in providing loan guarantees and other assistance to tourist operators. Over the last two years the Eastern Ontario Development Corporation has provided tourist operators in Peterborough with loans of $451,000 to assist them in enhancing their operating and service facilities.

Activity in and around our provincial parks was identified in the throne speech as an area for encouragement. Plans are under way for the Ministries of Natural Resources and Industry and Tourism to combine forces and together encourage a new kind of vacation package. Daily visits to our provincial parks will most surely be complemented with visits to our local dining and accommodation facilities.

To provide visitors and residents with easier access to our many resources, the Ontario government is reaffirming its commitment to actively and better promoting our resources, both at home and abroad. This spring, a tourism development program will be introduced in which we will concentrate our efforts to expand our market domestically and to promote it in Europe.

The tourism industry provided employment for 542,000 people last year, supporting 14.1 per cent of our labour force in Ontario. The government of Ontario is taking its leadership in the industry very seriously, and the task involves the co-ordination of all levels of involvement in the culture and recreation areas.

The leadership of this government is manifested in a particularly significant way in the many issues affecting our all-important agricultural sector. Ontario is rarely thought of as an agricultural region, yet farm production in our province makes it a significant contribution to the Canadian economy. For example, 90 per cent of the corn, 95 per cent of the tobacco, 64 per cent of the vegetables and 40 per cent of the fruit grown in Canada comes from Ontario. Our livestock sales amount to 33 per cent of the national total. Ontario farmers alone earn just over 28 per cent of Canada’s total farm cash sales.

With agricultural production making such a significant contribution to the Ontario economy, it is easy to understand why this government is so deeply committed to working with farmers, producers and processors to ensure that this vital industry is strong and to encourage its expansion. Proof of our commitment to agriculture may be found in the variety of programs announced in the recent throne speech. Promises were made to maintain an up-to-date inventory of foreign ownership of farm land, to establish an agricultural management resources centre, to research and develop improved energy management techniques for the farm, to develop a beef producers’ financial protection fund to ensure adequate return on beef production, and to create a resource centre for increased productivity. These highlights demonstrate our concern to reduce future challenges to the agricultural sector in our province.

3:30 p.m.

Our farmers have never made a habit of relying on the state for support. Ontario’s producers have proven themselves to be resourceful and innovative members of the private sector. It was our farmers who developed Red Fife wheat and McIntosh apples in the last century, and farmers today have taken a chance on soybean production and on developing the peanut. It’s worth noting that Ontario now is nearly self-sufficient in soybeans as a result of recent initiatives and that, in reaction to the success of the new peanut crop, the province’s first peanut processing plant is currently under construction.

As well, this government has taken steps to help Ontario produce to be consumed at home. For nearly three years, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food has operated the special Foodland Ontario promotion to encourage consumers to buy domestic produce whenever possible. In 1979, recognition of the Foodland Ontario symbol increased by four points to 43 per cent, while 86 per cent of consumers polled considered the promotion to be worthwhile.

However, while the government is encouraging the consumption of domestic produce, it is also encouraging research and development that will reduce our dependence on food imports. About 40 per cent of the food imported by Ontario can be and is grown here. Through development, such as the waste heat greenhouse project at the Bruce generating station, near Kincardine, it may be possible to reduce this dependence and further expand our province’s base of production. In terms of sales, Ontario’s agricultural sector is a $4-billion industry and, in comparison to other pursuits, has a greater beneficial effect on our economy as a whole than that exerted by other sectors. Agriculture is important to Ontario, and we are continuing to develop policies to enhance the performance and expansion of this industry throughout the coming decade.

As anyone who has visited the north of this province knows, we are blessed with a very large territory and many miles of forests and lakes and rivers and streams. We have a truly marvellous natural environment and endowment. Contrary to the point of view expressed by the opposition, this government has an excellent record in terms of its environmental protection legislation.

The Conservative government has served the people of this province well in developing and enacting into law the toughest environmental and pollution standards in any jurisdiction in the free world. That point bears repeating: We have in this province the toughest environmental and pollution standards anywhere in the free world. I want the citizens of this province to realize that the charges made by the opposition are frivolous. The whole issue is a very sensitive one, and quite rightly so, but I hope no one takes the negative charges too seriously. In the past decade or so, the package of environmental legislation is a very fine accomplishment indeed.

The legislation is being applied not in a fashion that would be unfair or insensitive but in a fashion that has promoted and advanced Ontario’s environmental wellbeing without diminishing the depth and capacity of our economic structure.

Once again, I believe it’s important to point out that when the members of the opposition speak in criticism of this government’s record, they do so out of an abstract and frequently doctrinaire point of view which would render the people of this province a great disservice by misinforming and encouraging frustration and discouragement rather than the optimism which the situation warrants. The province’s pioneering commitment to environmental protection has resulted in the development of legislation, research programs and policies which have made the province a recognized leader in the field.

Allow me to point out to members one significant comment that Her Honour made in the speech from the throne, one which I would not want anyone in this province to miss. “My government,” Her Honour said, “is proud to record the assessment of the recent report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, which showed Toronto to have the cleanest environment of any heavily industrialized city in the western world.” We may all justly feel quite proud of that achievement.

The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Parrott) has enunciated very clear goals for the current phase of our battle to protect our natural heritage. If I may quote again, this time from the minister’s annual report, he has stated that goals for the present and immediate future are: “to control contaminant emissions, to establish environmental safeguards to protect human health and the natural environment, to manage Ontario’s water resources and to manage waste, and to develop and maintain measures to preserve, restore and enhance the natural environment.”

These are worthy objectives. They address themselves in a realistic fashion to the current situation. They do not trade off one advantage at the expense of another. On the contrary, the overall program of this ministry balanced the needs of all sectors of our society.

I believe it is important to keep a certain perspective in mind when we talk about environmental protection. No one would argue with the overall aim of maintaining and enhancing a natural environment that is as close to pure and unsullied as it is possible to be, but we must remember that many of the situations that we now regard as problematic have only come to light in recent years as a result of the rapid growth in scientific knowledge and, in particular, tremendous improvement in humanity’s capacity for very fine measuring.

Ontario is right on schedule with legislation to safeguard those aspects of our ecology that we have recently discovered need that form of protection, and I hope that no one in this province will permit any person to argue otherwise. We have a fine record and it is getting better.

For most Ontarians the largest investment they make in their lives is the purchase of a home. Housing is a concern that strikes deep into the hopes of every citizen, whether single or a family bread-winner. This government is well aware of the need to continually upgrade its housing faculties in order to meet the challenges of a changing market and ensure that Ontarians have adequate accommodation.

We are entering a great period of demographic change in our province. The number of senior citizens in our society is on the increase. Many changes are occurring in demand for accommodation. As well, rising energy costs are helping to develop a revival of downtown neighbourhoods. The Ontario Ministry of Housing recognizes that there is a need to help upgrade the quality of many of our downtown cores. Through the Downtown Revitalization Program and the Main Street revitalization program, small and medium-size communities will have the support to improve their core areas and assure the attractiveness of downtown residential neighbourhoods.

As well as providing support for communities as a whole, the government has provided more than $110 million to low- and moderate-income earners to upgrade their homes. This program, along with the Neighbourhood Improvement Program and similar initiatives, is ensuring that our communities will continue to be safe and secure places to live and raise a family.

In addition, the government is planning for the future. The Ministry of Housing has developed a joint program with the federal housing authorities to stimulate rehabilitation and conversion of private residential housing. It is hoped that this program will provide employment in the construction industry, increase the supply of rental units, stimulate improved insulation practices, provide income for those who are asset-rich but cash-poor, enhance life in town cores and contain urban centres within their present boundaries.

These efforts to improve Ontario’s housing stock are in line with the new reality of the 1980s, the need to use present resources in more effective and efficient ways, and the goals of these programs -- to preserve the home as a focus of family life and to develop downtown core areas -- are well worth the effort of both private and public sectors.

I would like to point out that from the days of Premier John Robarts the Conservative government of this province has led the way in Canada in expanding the range of services available to French-speaking citizens. This year’s program carries on that tradition. The Ministry of the Attorney General will be designating certain small claims courts for bilingual trials and continuing the development of French-language court services for criminal cases, family matters and minor offences.

This is quite a giant step forward, and again I hope that none of our citizens takes seriously any charges to the contrary. Thanks to the good offices of this government and its predecessors, Ontario will be noted by history as having risen to the call for social justice on the linguistic level.

3:40 p.m.

The speech from the throne presents a thoroughly thought-out program for 1980. Close examination reveals the working of a government that is alert to the needs of the citizens of this province on the many fronts that are of concern to people in today’s somewhat harried world. It reveals a government that is determined to deliver the maximum of services it can within the fiscal restraints imposed by the wishes and circumstances of its taxpayers. It reveals the commitment of a government to fostering a strong, viable, caring society in which the many and diverse nationalities which make up our provincial mosaic can live in peace and flourish in prosperity.

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, I, as do other members, appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate, such as it is, on the speech from the throne. I too want to join with other speakers in extending to you my best wishes for the way in which you discharge your responsibilities in the position to which you have been elevated. Of course, that goes without saying for your two colleagues and our good friend from Humber (Mr. MacBeth).

Mr. Mattel: Elevated?

Mr. Conway: The term “elevation” strikes me, because that’s what they say when you are called to the Senate.

It has been an interesting debate. Unfortunately, it is not one that has been as well-attended as I’d like to think these kinds of debates might be. I have particularly enjoyed the contributions of the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) -- whom I heard in his entirety yesterday -- as he related to us the findings of his three-week penance at Westminster.

In addition, I must say I thought the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) last night did very well in taking us through the maze of consumer issues which confront the community today. I thought he was somewhat more convincing and impressive on the Saturday evening network telecast, but c’est la vie.

I do want to make one comment about some of the things I see happening in this place. I was probably moved to that by the observation of my colleague from Brant-Oxford-Norfolk about the Westminster experience that he shared with us last evening. I suppose if ever there were a do-nothing Legislature, a parliament committed to inertia and irrelevance, it has to be this one. After three years, I reflect with not inconsiderable sorrow upon the never-ending waste of time that seems to occur in the debates such as this one. I think the attendance at any given time would bear adequate witness that they are of diminishing significance.

I hear about me, from time to time, the increased frustration of private members and sometimes the protestations of my friend from Sudbury East (Mr. Martel). I certainly enjoyed the contribution of my friend from Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Ramsay). But I really wish in a way that the standing orders were lived up to and that these prepared texts were done away with. It seems to make for a much less interesting place.

I dare say most of our problems are brought on ourselves. We all, as private members, must understand that. I have said for some time that the sort of social worker mentality that is increasingly dominant in this business will be the end of parliamentary participation that I thought was a centrepiece of why most of us were here.

Personally, I find select committees, not so much for their remunerative effect -- although that’s not unimportant -- but for the kinds of policy deliberations that they allow, much more important than the daily deliberations in this place. I see an increasing trend in that dialectic between the executive and the legislative -- to the executive victory.

As private members in the Legislature, we are losing the battle at an alarming rate in terms of our responsibilities to check that Treasury bench. I suppose what is much more alarming to me is not so much that we are losing the battle but that a considerable number of honourable private members aren’t even aware that there is or should be a battle, at least of some sort.

However, I think the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk -- on the basis of his extensive involvement in these matters -- is much more able than I to chart out some new reforms which will save us from ourselves.

I would like to be relatively concise and to cover a number of points this afternoon. I would like to deal at the outset with the blue document which we were all here to listen to Her Honour read on March 11 and which my friend from Halton-Burlington (Mr. J. Reed) speaks of as a travesty. I am never so unkind as to say those sorts of things.

I am always overpowered, as a backwoods politician from the hills of Renfrew county, to see the praise and poetry of these throne speeches. I am glad to know that Mr. Segal does do something for his $50,000-odd worth of public money. I see his deft hand on most of these pages, and the gaps, of course, can be filled in by imagining what George Gallup and Martin Goldfarb had to say in their latest dispatches.

Mr. Martel: They write his best lines.

Mr. Conway: Yes, they generally are the best lines.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate my colleague from Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid) for having fought the good battle and won it, having brought to our attention the kind of government that this minority environment is producing in terms of the leadership question.

I well remember, as a member of the select committee on health-care costs and financing some two years ago, seeing for the first time the involvement of the Minister of Health and his reliance upon the kind of polling that we have now seen to be endemic. There is, unfortunately, an increased tendency in this government -- and, I suspect, in many others -- to rely upon this sort of public opinion sample, to be led and not to lead, and I think that is a very regrettable set of circumstances.

Most of the polling data does not surprise me. I didn’t really see anything in most of those documents that surprised me to any degree; but the extent to which it was relied upon, to see the way in which this government allowed itself to be governed by these polling results, was truly of concern to me. It made me reflect upon Peter Raymond’s film, which I am sure many of you remember from a year ago. It was entitled The Art of the Possible. It was an in-house look at the way this government operated, and that told me, as one member here, something of executive leadership in the reign of the member for Brampton (Mr. Davis). It didn’t inspire a great deal of confidence in me as to the ability of this Premier and that cabinet to chart this province’s course through the shoals and the waters of the 1980s. Seeing what I did in the polling data brought forward by my colleague from Rainy River did nothing to inspire any more confidence.

I suppose it can’t really be expected of this government to exhibit the leadership which in the past was commonplace among parliamentary governments of this kind. I can only speak as an oppositionist from eastern Ontario. I can reflect upon the great traditions of Progressive Conservatives when I think -- as I sometimes do in my bipartisan moments -- about a region that over the past 75 years has been extremely generous to the Tory party, producing some of its truly outstanding Premiers and leaders, men like Howard Ferguson and Les Frost, and whole groups of cabinet strength along the way.

What we have now is really and truly a pretty lamentable group of cabinet representatives who do not, in any significant way, represent the great traditions, even of Progressive Conservatives, and there is the proof of it sitting in the House. I wouldn’t mind taking on a Howard Ferguson in his modern incarnation because, while I would object to that sort of Toryism, at least I could see it stand foursquare. But what are we asked to react to?

Now that my friend from Carleton (Mr. Handleman) is taking his retirement, such as it is -- it seems to be forestalled on a daily basis -- I suppose the government would be led in the eastern region by my cabinet friend from Ottawa South. That is one good indication of where this government has slipped in terms of its ability to recruit, to strengthen the regions, to bring those people around the cabinet table and to deliberate on the issues of the day and to exercise the kind of leadership that would make George Gallup and Martin Goldfarb very redundant indeed. Surely my friend from Brampton would agree it is the most important reason why it is a government that will be turfed at the time of the next election in this province. All the good Tories have gone indeed.

3:50 p.m.

On page two of the blue document, we are promised that this is a ministry and this is a government that will “embark on an extensive and ambitious energy program for the 1980s,” a program that will be based on energy conservation among other initiatives. One really has to wonder what is behind that kind of rhetoric.

I recall being in the press conference centre here last fall and seeing the poor member for Brock (Mr. Welch), recently appointed to his umpteenth cabinet responsibility, walk in and offer a document which was supposedly going to represent the kind of strength and energy initiatives for the 1980s. As my friend from London South (Mr. Walker) must privately and surely know, if that is the kind of leadership they expect to win the energy debate, then I really and truly do not expect much of a meaningful kind to occur.

When I hear of the conservation initiatives, I can reflect, as I know my leader has repeatedly, on the number of times during the 1977 election campaign that the Premier said, as I recall, that the state had little, if any, responsibility in the attics of the province. I am truly impressed to see on page three that a centrepiece of the government’s new energy initiative will be the “Edwardsburgh methanol feasibility project,” something to which I will return momentarily.

On page four there is a statement by this government that “the strategic importance of nuclear energy to Ontario cannot be overestimated.” By and large, that is a commitment with which I am in agreement; I have said so repeatedly, and I will watch with considerable interest to see how that strategic commitment is lived up to.

I was struck, largely because of my involvement on the select committee on Ontario Hydro affairs as it has recently been studying the questions of waste management in the nuclear field, by the comment on page four, and I quote: “One of the keys to achieving these standards is to ensure that the public is more informed and has access to those responsible for regulating and supervising nuclear energy.”

I have to say that in that sense this commitment of the government to keeping the public as informed as possible, or more informed, is not something we have seen a great deal of in our deliberations, which I hope will be concluded within a couple of days, in the waste management reference.

The record of this government, the record of Ontario Hydro and, more especially, of the Ontario Ministry of Energy, in so far as the waste management program is concerned, the record of this government in keeping informed the people of northern Ontario and eastern Ontario, those two regions not surprisingly designated for disposal, of what is intended --

Mr. Martel: That’s a federal responsibility.

Mr. Conway: Federal responsibilities indeed, as perhaps my friend from Sudbury East suggests but now, with his good neighbour the federal Minister of Mines close at hand, he will be able to deliberate these matters on a more cordial and personal level.

I say only that the evidence we have heard in that committee over the past number of weeks is a stinging indictment of a government unwilling or unable, or both, to do the job of keeping the public, wherever it may be found in this connection, whether it be in Atikokan in the northwest, in White Lake in the east, or elsewhere, informed as to what is going on, why it needs to occur and what the resolution of the question will be.

That is something that strikes me as anomalous to the commitment, repeated over and over again by this government, that it stands foursquare with the nuclear commitment.

If no one else does, at least my friend from Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane) will acknowledge that unless we are able to convince people in this province of the needs for nuclear waste management, of the process and the research and development, we will defeat ourselves in this commitment.

When I see what this government has done over these past years, when I see and hear the Deputy Minister of Energy come in and obfuscate as he did in terms of the government’s responsibility, when I see the kind of calculating -- dare I say the manipulative role -- that the Ministry of Energy has had in this province in so far as its responsibilities are concerned, I wonder how great its commitment is to the entire nuclear power program. I wonder, indeed.

So far as the conservation ethic of the government is concerned, spoken of again on page five, I have to think again about the Treasurer’s recent elimination, for the month of February, of the sales tax on automobiles. I understand that what remained on the car lots were, by and large, those belchmobiles not really standing as much of a testament to the conservation ethic spoken of.

If I might be allowed an aside, I heard the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) stand before us and admit, either through the channels of this House or the press, I forget which, that he was running around the park one winter morning when the idea suddenly overcame him -- a bit like Santa’s Village -- that this would be a good idea. This would be a tax cut in the interests of the people of the province without any real statistical evidence. In fact, what statistical evidence he had was surely to the contrary. I really have to wonder about the way in which public policy is made in the Treasury.

I have to think that the real credible advisers over there are still privately laughing and publicly embarrassed to have a Treasurer engage in this kind of silliness. We are told that it cost only $2.3 million and not the $10 million or $15 million that was initially expected. That’s neither here nor there. That tax cut was wrong. It was indefensible. I dare say the staff knew it was wrong. It was, moreover, in my view, silly. It holds the Treasurer up to the ridicule which he deserves for admitting, as he did, the reasons for engaging in such nonsense. I almost yearned and longed for the orthodoxy that was Chatham-Kent in some of these matters.

Mr. Nixon: He did it, in 1975, to the tune of $600 million.

Mr. Conway: I knew he did it in 1975, but I understand it was only the Premier’s intervention in the desperate grab to hold power in the pre-election budget of that year that led to such a program.

I want to talk briefly about an issue that is of great concern to me. It has been of great concern since my election here four and a half years ago from a county where we have an unacceptably high incidence of unemployment generally, and youth unemployment particularly; where, to the degree young people can get jobs, they are either very low-paying jobs or more likely jobs that involve their movement out of the region.

I see on page nine in this blue document: “The key area of focus will be to produce sufficient numbers of skilled personnel from within our own work force to meet the needs of the Ontario economy.”

Let me be more specific about this particular situation as I have found it in the nuclear industry in my part of eastern Ontario, an industry to which this government has almost grown weary of stating its support. We have the NPD reactor at Rolphton and, more important, the nuclear training centre, which over the past 16 or 18 years has provided the training facility for operators in our nuclear power program across the province.

A short number of days ago concern was expressed that there would be significant cutbacks at the training centre. It is accurate to say that some cutbacks will occur. I was interested by a report that appeared in the Deep River community paper known as the North Renfrew Times in which Mr. George Howey of Hydro was commenting on why it was that a certain number of people would have to be moved from the Deep River area to Toronto, that in itself being an unfortunate and, for me, an unacceptable set of circumstances. But more important perhaps is what he said as to why certain of these people had to be moved. “They had to be moved,” said Mr. Howey, “because there was now a different kind of problem in terms of recruiting people to the jobs in this particular sector.” Let me quote from the March 19, 1980, edition of the North Renfrew Times:

4 p.m.

“‘However,’ explained Howey, ‘with recent immigration restrictions and with the shortage of skilled Canadians, the job of finding and hiring people has become increasingly difficult and time-consuming. We used to be able to hire 10 to 15 people at one go. Now,’ laments Howey, ‘it is a much slower process. There are still the numbers of applicants, but they are just not suitable, and that applies to technical and professional staff.’”

I cannot imagine a more serious condemnation of the manpower policies of this government than that statement, which I accept as essentially true, not only because it appears there in that context, but also because I have heard it and I have experienced it repeatedly.

Here, in this province, where so much is said of the indigenous value of our nuclear industry, we are admitting to the people of this province in 1979 and 1980, fully 20 years after the commitment was made to go forward in a real and meaningful way to the nuclear option, that because we can no longer import the hundreds and thousands of people to fill the jobs in that sector, we are going to have very significant short-term and intermediate-term problems.

I cannot imagine a more deficient manpower situation, one which falls entirely, exclusively, within the purview of the Ontario government. What have they been doing, my friends from Brockville, who have sat in the ministry since 1962, the very time when this program was being steamed up, in a sense?

What were they doing in the early 1970s, knowing that they would not be able to provide people unless significant changes were made in this province’s educational network and program, the multi-billion-dollar program that it is? What were they doing not preparing that system, that multi-tiered educational system, to provide recruits, to provide graduates from Algoma, Manitoulin, from north Renfrew, from the Huron peninsula and elsewhere? Why were they not going forward with an Ontario-first program? Why have they allowed the situation to exist?

Why have we now got a situation, which has been publicly complained of by Hydro, that because of immigration restrictions they cannot, and presumably will not be able to, fill those vacancies in the short term? That alone for me is sufficient cause to vote no confidence, because it relates very directly, not to only the education question in this jurisdiction, but also to the critical question of jobs for Ontarians and jobs for people graduating from our very extensive educational program.

I can agree, as I know the member for Sault St. Marie just did, with the statements on page 12, that the marketing of Ontario provincial parks as a major attraction should be proceeded with. I have in my constituency, not only Algonquin Provincial Park, but also the Driftwood Provincial Park in Stonecliffe as well as other parks in the county. It is an extremely important part of our local economy. I would suggest it has been too long ignored by the government, which has tended to take these parks and their by and large unused potential, at least as it relates to the local economy, for granted.

I will be looking with some degree of interest, ongoing as it will surely be, to see what the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Auld) and the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) have by way of specifics to make this wonderful commitment in the throne speech a reality.

Mr. G. I. Miller: Is Calabogie in there?

Mr. Conway: Calabogie? Not precisely, I say to my friend from Haldimand-Norfolk.

I was glad as well to see the long and many protestations of my roommate, the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell), were dealt with in terms of some kind of meaningful inventory for foreign land ownership in this province. As one of the two members for Renfrew county, in which we have been told that we have a large percentage of foreign ownership, I feel that I want to know what is going on in terms of those transactions, and I think that is to be applauded.

Page 18 raises the question about the heartwarming verity of the role and future of small-town Ontario. One can just imagine Brampton Bill sitting there, writing that phrase himself and feeling, as he no doubt does like most of us from the hinterland, if one can call Brampton the hinterland any longer, which I doubt one can, that we must maintain the integrity of a small-town Ontario.

I don’t see anything very specific. I don’t see anything, and haven’t since, by way of government programs that will keep the good folk on Walton’s Mountain. I will be very interested to see what kinds of economic stimulus the government is prepared to offer to people in my part of the province, for example. We have seen in rural Ontario a systematic assault, much of which has been condoned and privately encouraged, I sometimes think, by the government in terms of our agriculture. Our cheese industry has been depleted.

At the risk of being boring, Mr. Speaker, I can take you very quickly through the story of Edwardsburgh again. Some of us weren’t here back in 1974, but we read the press with great interest. We were told then by the government of this province, the same government we have today, that it would move to protect the economic future of small-town Ontario. In eastern Ontario, it said, it had the answer. They were going to move to a large industrial area in the region, probably -- and as it turned out -- in the Prescott area. The Edwardsburgh land assembly would provide an opportunity for unheard of, historic developments in this connection. That was six years ago.

What does this throne speech talk of? It sings the virtue and the value of the Edwardsburgh methanol experiment. My friend from Algoma-Manitoulin knows the region fairly well. He knows we have our poplar and our pine. Some of us, in particular, have an interest of more than a passing kind in the forest resources of the east. Surely six years later it is something to be recalled that the government centrepiece commitment in terms of a future for the small towns in eastern Ontario has come to what? A swamp that will be now used for a methanol experiment. That is not the sort of thing to make me feel very confident about the sorts of palaver that are spoken of in this particular document.

I suppose one could go on, but I don’t want to stay unduly on those questions, because I am cognizant of the time restraints. I want to add to some of those comments certain perspectives which I have gleaned, having spent a considerable part of the winter recess visiting the many good constituents in the great electoral district of north Renfrew.

Like most members, I enjoy the opportunity to get away from this place for a sufficient number of days to reacquaint myself with many of the issues as they are perceived, in my case, in the hinterland of eastern Ontario. To that end, like my friend from Welland-Thorold, who was regaling us last night with the many and varied responses to his riding brochure questionnaire, I too have the advantage of guidance gleaned from a questionnaire which, by and large, was well responded to. I won’t bore my friend from Mississauga South (Mr. Kennedy) with the details, other than to say there is in that return sufficient cause for me to want to throw the rascals out, to coin a phrase.

In that connection, I might say I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to convene a series of town hall meetings in three communities which are not part of the more urban part of the constituency. I want to share with you, Mr. Speaker, and members present, some of the points that were raised for my consideration at that time.

In the community of Whitney, which serves as the gateway to Algonquin Provincial Park, there is an ongoing concern -- and I appreciate the opportunity to offer this concern in the presence of the Minister of Natural Resources -- about the Algonquin Park master plan review. He showed it to me. I was told not too many days ago that it would be made public by the end of March, not only in its own terms, but also with the ministry’s response. I expect of my friend from Leeds (Mr. Auld) that surely within a very short number of days he will table that document and save me the needless point of asking a question which I now serve in another way.

4:10 p.m.

I will expect from the Minister of Natural Resources that commitment to be lived up to. I expect we will see the Algonquin Park master plan review and get some indication of what his government intends to do about it -- particularly what, if any, plans he has for changing the program for the summer of 1980.

Again, in the presence of my good friend the minister -- if he is not aware of it, I want to tell him -- they are fed to the teeth in Whitney and Stonecliffe and elsewhere with the casual manpower policy of his ministry. They have discovered very quickly and very properly that the privatization ethic is nothing but a thinly veiled plot to turn over many of the responsibilities in terms of employment, which are justifiably his, to the burden of unemployment insurance. They are not very happy about it; neither, I might add, is the local member.

The good people of those communities are expecting our friend from Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller) to introduce some changes to the provisions for the northern licence fees. I certainly am expecting at least all of the district of Nipissing will be given the benefit. As it currently stands, the cute little discrimination that was struck some years ago to deal with the electoral requirements of my friend the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Maeck) is not adequate in terms of meeting the needs of those people living in the district of Nipissing, particularly around the Madawaska-Whitney area.

I expect, I demand, and as the petitions which I have presented here also assert, the extension of that provision, not only to the southeastern corner, and thereby to include all of the district of Nipissing, but also to that portion of the county of Renfrew which uses Mattawa as a service area. The conditions in those areas are no different from what they are in much of the rest of the covered zone. I know from discussions with the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) and the Treasurer that we can expect to see a favourable response.

There is very considerable concern about acid rain, and again I bring this to the attention of the Minister of Natural Resources. There is concern about the impact of that very insidious environmental threat upon the lands and forests and waters of Algonquin Provincial Park. I know that certain researches are being done. I want to see those encouraged. I want to see leadership which has heretofore been lacking, undertaken. I want to see the Minister of Natural Resources table in this House at the earliest opportunity the results of the winter research program, which I understand has been well advanced.

I want to be given assurances that we will be seeing some countervailing forces put in place to deal with the Inco fallout, which threatens so much of that unique natural resource that is Algonquin Park, as well as the headwaters of all our major Renfrew county river systems. I certainly would add that to the minister’s list of priorities, if it is not already there. I certainly hope it is.

A very justifiable concern of many people living in those rural communities relates to what is this government’s program for conversion from oil for home heating purposes. They find, as I quite frankly do, somewhat anomalous the position which says if you live, as most Ontarians increasingly do, in urban municipalities, we will as a government encourage you to convert to natural gas. What happens if you live, as so many of my constituents do, in communities where natural gas is not, nor ever will be, a viable option? What is this government suggesting to those people?

I have heard nothing, absolutely nothing. The only thing I can deduce is that those people will be forced to go to the electrical alternative -- not in itself, as I see it, a bad alternative. But what kinds of financial incentives are we giving them? I suspect we are giving them none. Moreover, it is much more likely we will be expecting those people to carry the burden for the economies which Hydro has not been able to effect. I suspect if something is not done, then for many people -- many people in the senior citizens’ category, many people living on fixed incomes -- that option will become as punitive as it will be necessary. They will have no choice, but they will pay through their teeth for an option that has not been supported to the degree it could have been for the purposes of home heating requirements. I have not yet heard from the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch) of any program to deal by way of incentives with that very vexacious aspect of the current energy debate.

I want to take this opportunity to express a very personal concern, one that was brought back to me by the March 27, 1980, press release from the Minister of Transportation and Communications, headlined: “Road deaths up slightly over last year.” I want to be very to the point on this. I represent a county in which we have traditionally had an unacceptably high level of motor vehicle deaths. I have found that very disturbing. I don’t want to recount the number of people I have known personally in the area who met their deaths by way of auto accidents. I was struck by the minister’s press release, and I want to associate myself with the concern outlined in it.

He has drawn our attention to the seatbelt legislation, which was properly supported by a vast majority of members of this assembly, and was the right course of action. It has had a significant effect in bringing down the number of accidents and fatalities -- by his calculation, 14 per cent for fatalities from 1975 to 1979, the four-year period during which there was an 18 per cent increase in the number of vehicles using Ontario highways. I think that’s a commendable statistic.

He goes on to draw our attention to a much less commendable statistic, and that is the rather sharp increase, 1979 over 1978, in the number of road deaths in this province. I can only say, from a number of weeks just passed in my county, that the carnage on our highways has been appalling. I am shocked to go home on a weekly basis, pick up weekly newspapers and see fatalities in numbers which I would like to believe are avoidable. I am disturbed and alarmed by the number of young people, in particular, who continue to drive in a way that jeopardizes the life and safety of their passengers, friends and neighbours.

What the remedy is for this problem, I do not know. I would like to believe that we can improve the kind of education that draws this situation to the attention of our young people and, where possible, to supplement this by a much more stringent enforcement of regulations. Like most people in this chamber, I probably drive much more than the average -- about 40,000-odd miles a year. I see too much death and carnage on the highways in my own county to make the comment only a local one, and I want to take this opportunity to support the concern that was drawn to our attention by the Minister of Transportation in his recent press release.

I want to conclude with an unrelated matter. I am pleased to have the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Auld) here for what I am about to say. It concerns an incident, a set of circumstances, which I am increasingly coming to believe represents one of the most serious and pressing matters to have come before this assembly in my four and a half years here. That concerns the Geraldton fire of August 22, 1979, a fire in which seven young Ontarians met their deaths in a way which has been related to us, particularly by the Toronto Globe and Mail, in the past few days.

4:20 p.m.

I want to say a few things today which I hope will flag my concern as a private member here, and as someone who has had an ongoing involvement well before my time as a member. One can’t grow up in the western part of Renfrew county and not be involved with natural resources, and as a member I have had a great number of opportunities to work not only with the ministry generally, but with its summer program and with the Junior Forest Ranger program as well. I support that program; I think it is a marvellous opportunity for young people, particularly from urban settings, to take advantage of the tremendous heritage that is ours in terms of resources.

I can only comment on this situation as I reflect upon the words of the Minister of Natural Resources, the words of the Solicitor General (Mr. McMurtry), the press articles which have appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail and other material, much of which I have examined only cursorily. I want to make that very clear. I want to review very briefly, as I see it, the fire and some of the questions it has raised.

This is not a political attack in that sense, but I personally find this, as I said earlier, a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. I am singularly unhappy, unimpressed and unaccepting of what I have read and, more especially, of what I have been told in this chamber. I am horrified at the grotesque quality of the ministry’s response to this tragic calamity which rests squarely on the doorstep of the Ontario government. We must, each and every one of us, remember what has happened and what we are dealing with here.

We watch with due concern the nightly news and see what might happen about the matter of asbestos in our schools, and my friends the members for Cambridge (Mr. M. Davidson) and High Park-Swansea (Mr. Ziemba) and my leader and others are quite justified in their expressions of concern about that threat, But I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and all members to reflect at this point on what happened in northern Ontario on August 22, 1979. Seven young Ontarians between the ages, if I remember correctly, of 17 and 25 lost their lives in the service of this province. Under what conditions do we think they lost their lives?

I am only reflecting upon what I have read and what I have seen. We are told that immediately after the tragic fire of August 22, the Ministry of Natural Resources told the families and the province that there had been a freak of nature, a wind shift that had blown across the escape route of these Junior Forest Rangers working on a very serious and threatening prescribed burn. I know, as do my friend the member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane) and a lot of other members involved with natural resources activities, what a prescribed burn is and what it can become if it is not properly and very carefully monitored. A more serious endeavour is not very often attempted.

After the tragedy, it is less important that we were told by the ministry that this freak of nature, this wind shift, had taken the lives of these seven people. It must surely have been much more important that the parents of those people at that particular point were told it had been a freak of nature that had taken the lives of their loved ones. That was the official story offered to those families under those conditions. As I think we would like to expect, the ministry also told those people they would be given every information, and that every co-operative gesture that would be possible from the government would be extended to those families.

People like Mr. Andrew Reid and others accepted in good faith that statement of this government on our behalf as the employers of those seven people. And what happened? It soon became obvious upon an examination of the site that there had been no wind-shift; there had been no freak of nature. It soon became apparent -- so we are told -- that many of the people involved should not have been there in the first place.

They were there in uncoordinated circumstances. They were there, not having had the benefit of going through the complete program that would have put them there had they been qualified in the first place. More important, and rather quickly, the families involved were being given a run-around that each and every one of them, according to the press accounts, felt very keenly, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say a number of them felt very keenly. Within days, they found themselves very unhappy, feeling that they were not getting the truth and feeling, as one of them -- Mr. Reid -- indicated, they would have to act as prosecutor because no one else would.

Then we find out that five families involved themselves individually with legal fees in the order of $30,000 at last report -- $30,000 to find out what had actually and really happened to their children in the service of this province in northern Ontario, a service that proved fatal for seven young people.

We know that within eight days of that fire a report had been done by one of the people in the ministry, a person of seniority, I might add, which disavowed the wind-shift theory. We know that. We know that when Mr. Reid and others went to Geraldton at the end of August, the ministry possessed information that contradicted not only what it had told the parents, but what it had told the province earlier in that eight-day period.

I can draw attention -- and I think I should -- to the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds), who on August 27 issued a statement outlining a series of unanswered questions at the time. The unanswered questions in this calamity are endless. They are as endless as they are annoying. Why didn’t Mr. Kinkaid take to the press conference route and tell those parents that the wind-shift theory, to use one question, had no substance?

That really is not what brings me to my concern in a most direct sense. Not in four and a half years have I been as outraged by government as I have been in the past number of days at hearing the responses of the Minister of Natural Resources and the Attorney General and Solicitor General.

4:30 p.m.

I want to be very specific about the Minister of Natural Resources, for whom I hold a very high personal regard. I have had many dealings with him and I want to say it publicly and I want to say it very personally, in all of my dealings with him I have had every assurance that he is a man who understands the government, who understands his department and who, by virtue of his 26 years in this place, affords seniority the like of which cannot be duplicated by anyone other than my good friend the member for Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry.

Outside of the Premier (Mr. Davis), this is the minister of ranking seniority. This is, I believe, the ranking minister in the government, and that is why I find the conduct of this minister in this case reprehensible. It is not only reprehensible but it is unacceptable that he can stand before us, knowing what he does, after these many days and weeks of press and other accounts, and say that he does not know, does not wish to know what his ministry knows about, I repeat, a tragedy that took the lives of seven young Ontarians working in the service of this province.

I am personally appalled. I want to say so. I want to tell my good friend the Minister of Natural Resources, and I want to add, while he is not here today, for the benefit of the Solicitor General, that his response, his comments, not only in the press accounts of recent days but certainly in this House as well, are equally unacceptable.

There is certainly the appearance at least that we are not getting natural or, what I would call, deserved justice in the discharge of this particular case. There are, in my view, so many unanswered questions about the role and the responsibility of senior ministers in this government about this question that we, as a Legislature, have an immediate and overriding obligation to convene ourselves in an examination of the role and the responsibility of the government generally and the Minister of Natural Resources and the Solicitor General more particularly.

I want to conclude by saying there is, in my view, a clear case for those parents, in particular, to argue that this government has broken faith with the people. They have not done what they said they would do, most especially in the Ministry of Natural Resources. It is simply not good enough for any minister to stand here and tell me or those parents or anyone else that he did not want to know what had happened, why it had happened, and if, and how, and why, and when, it would be brought to light most expeditiously, as was promised those parents on the day after the accident occurred.

We have, I fear, and I say it most personally and most seriously, broken faith with those parents and with those seven young Ontarians who lost their lives. As I said earlier, and I repeat in conclusion, from where I stand as one private member, this is a question and this is an issue more serious and more grave than any I have seen in my time in this Legislature. On that account I say again we have, as a Legislature, an immediate and an overriding obligation to convene ourselves and ascertain the role and the responsibility of the ministers involved in the discharge of their duties in this matter.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take part in the debate on the speech from the throne because it gives an opportunity to members to assess the government’s performance, to analyse the proposals for the session that were put forth in the throne speech, and to put forth our own policy proposals where we find government policy is wanting or not meeting the needs of the province. It also gives us an opportunity to indicate our priorities for action and our timetable for implementing new policies.

This Legislature has met for only eight days in the past three and a half months. That is why we think it is time to get down to the business of the Legislature and not defer it for another two months with an election that would simply be hashing over past records rather than debating new policies and putting them into effect.

I want to look at the areas where action is needed. My leader outlined a considerable number on which this Legislature can act in the next year: shrinking jobs, increased energy self-sufficiency in Ontario, housing shortages, opting out of OHIP, the economic slowdown and how to turn it around. These are some of the very serious problems on which action is needed right now. Our leader was not able to go into detail on all the areas where action was needed and so, as environment critic, I am going to go into more detail in that area, although he did mention a number of environmental concerns.

If one listened to the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Ramsay) one might think that all was well in the environmental field. If one read the throne speech one would find the statement that we have “one of the toughest environmental programs in North America.” This is where the credibility gap begins. I find that when this government cannot show it is taking action on the urgent problems facing this province it retreats to rhetoric and unsubstantiated boasts. Let me ask the government, is it being tough to continue to allow 2,4,5-T and Matacril to be used in this province despite many concerns about their potential effect on health?

I would like to read into the record my letter to the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Parrott) which was referred to earlier in the question period. This letter was written to him after he consulted the two opposition critics prior to making his decision to permit existing stocks of this herbicide to be disposed of by spraying them into the atmosphere. After I had been consulted by the Minister of the Environment on this proposed policy I wrote him the following:

“After discussing with my colleagues the question of retaining the ban on 2,4,5-T but permitting use of the present stocks on hand, we have come to the conclusion that we could not support such a policy because of the uncertainties about the effects of this substance on the environment and human and animal health. We are particularly concerned about the fact that dioxin, in the form of TCDD, is released as a result of the use of this substance.

4:40 p.m.

“I feel that it is the responsibility of the ministry to clearly establish that 2,4,5-T is safe in the applications proposed before any usage is permitted. I do not feel that this has been done. Your executive assistant, Carol Vaughan, reports that you have received correspondence from the federal Ministry of Agriculture saying that they are still reviewing methods of detecting the effects on crops and health.

“Your statement in the Legislature on May 11, 1979, indicates that a final decision on the continued use of 2,4,5-T cannot be made until lifting of the legal constraints on the US data on which the EPA’s ban was based. Appeals against the EPA ban are still tying up release of this information, I understand.

“I also think that government agencies should set an example in safeguarding the environment. Even if there is some financial loss to the agencies from not using up present stocks, I think the overriding consideration should be the safety of the operation.

“Moreover, the fact that there appeared to be effective alternatives is a reason for not using a questionable substance of this nature. We could consider use of the less dangerous 2,4-D if application was limited to skilled operators and no applications were allowed in areas frequented by people, like school yards, parks and golf courses. Drifting sprays must also be kept away from drinking water supplies.

“We could also go back to weed control on rights of way by scythes and cutting machines. It would provide some much-needed summer employment as well. Savings on unemployment insurance, welfare and student aid might offset any additional costs.

“As to the problem of disposing of existing stocks, we feel that this is part of the overall problem facing your ministry with regard to hazardous wastes. You are going to have to step up your efforts to find acceptable and safe disposal methods and develop secure storage in the interim.

“To suggest that the Ontario environment be exposed to an unknown risk from 2,4,5-T just because you have not developed adequate waste disposal or storage facilities for stocks on hand seems highly questionable. Better to work on the storage problem right away and start investigating new ideas for neutralization or incineration.

“For the above reasons, I feel that your only option is to continue the ban and plan effective disposal as soon as possible.”

That is the end of my letter. I think it indicates clearly where this party stands on the disposal of this dangerous substance.

I may say that the minister and I disagree on what constitutes public consultation on matters of this kind. I told him that simply consulting the two opposition critics privately, and trying to co-opt them into accepting responsibility for what is clearly a government decision, was not my idea of seeking public input on important decisions of this nature. If the minister wished public input, he should have held public hearings on the subject before making his decision.

Going back to the boast that the government has one of the toughest environmental protection programs in North America, I would like to ask: Is it being tough to pass the buck for action on acid rain to the federal government and rely on the snail’s pace of international agreements? Is it being tough to let Inco continue spewing out 3,600 tons per day of sulphur dioxide until 1982? Is it being tough to have a five-year-old Environmental Assessment Act on the books which has not yet been extended to the private sector, or to municipal projects on a general basis?

Only a handful of private projects and municipal projects has been brought under this act by designation. Even if application to the public sector has been riddled by wide-scale exemptions, in fact no public projects were dealt with under the 1975 act for about the first two years after it was passed. There was some delay in proclaiming it, as well.

A total of only 48 public projects, most of them of a relatively minor nature, have been assessed under the act in the five years to February 2, 1980, but no public hearings have ever been held on any environmental assessment under the act. I understand the first one is scheduled for April 16, 1980. This is the kind of tough environmental assessments we have: the act is seldom applied to major projects.

The act was not extended to the proposed conversion of the former sewage plant at Ajax, which is now, or soon will be, obsolete, because of the building of the big pipe for the York-Durham sewer. It is proposed to convert this sewage plant into a liquid-industrial-waste disposal facility. If there is any project that merits a full environmental assessment, this is one. This proposal is unique in the province; we do not have any similar facility anywhere.

This project is expected to handle at least one fifth of the liquid industrial waste generated in the province. It is not just a simple application for a routine domestic sewage treatment plant; it is a proposal for a new disposal facility and new methods of treatment of hazardous substances. Moreover, it relates to some very highly toxic substances, which may be included in the materials processed.

For these reasons it is imperative that this kind of new proposal be subjected to the most thorough environmental assessment. It is imperative that the residents of the area have a full opportunity to examine it and voice their concerns. It is imperative that the processes planned are demonstrated to be environmentally safe. It is imperative that it be demonstrated that such a plant is able to withstand storms and other acts of God, especially when it is on a flood plain.

It is imperative also that alternatives be considered. But this is not possible under the Environmental Protection Act, which is the act under which the present hearings on the proposal are being held. It may be that there is another site, not as close to residential homes and lands, which would be a better choice. It may be that alternative methods of disposing of liquid industrial waste may exist, but these alternatives cannot be discussed in the present hearings.

Just last week the Minister of the Environment extended the Environmental Assessment Act to another project -- the Red Hill Creek highway project near Hamilton. His reason was that the promise in the throne speech to extend the act to all major municipal projects would not be implemented in time for this project to be included. The minister said extension of the act to the project would ensure the Red Hill Creek community would have “an opportunity to consider all the aspects of this major project.” I would like to ask, why are the citizens of Ajax denied this same opportunity?

4:50 p.m.

The minister may say that the region of Hamilton-Wentworth asked for the extension, whereas the region of Durham did not. But a great many citizens in the region of Durham attended large public meetings, requesting extension of the Environmental Assessment Act to the project. Many other individuals and groups, such as Pollution Probe and the local chamber of commerce, asked that the act be extended to this project. Moreover, there is nothing in the Environmental Assessment Act requiring a request from the local government before the minister exercises his clear authority to extend the act to a municipal project.

I am not surprised that the region of Durham did not ask for the extension of the Environmental Assessment Act to the project. After all, it is the proponent; it has a surplus sewage plant on its hands and wants the hearings to be as short as possible in order to get it converted into an economically viable project. Naturally, it prefers to apply for approval under the narrower Environmental Protection Act. In fact, it asked the Minister of the Environment to issue a special order declaring that the Environmental Assessment Act did not apply to this project in case there was any doubt about it.

The Ministry of the Environment complied promptly, even though the real minister himself was out of town. A substitute minister was found to sign the requested order in double-quick time. This order was issued after a court action had been initiated, challenging the minister’s position that the project was not subject to the Environmental Assessment Act. I must say it looked very much like an attempt by the ministry to influence the hearing before the court. It certainly destroyed any semblance of neutrality for the ministry in the hearing. However, that neutrality had already been violated when the ministry put up $160,000 for the region’s cost in the hearing.

What this means is that provincial tax dollars are being used to oppose citizens’ groups in attempting to obtain as full information as possible about the project and to find answers to their concerns about safety and health and the protection of their environment before a decision is made for or against the project.

Citizens’ groups have no source of funds other than donations from their supporters out of fully taxed income. The proponent has his grant from the ministry and the possibility of future earnings from the plant to pay his costs. The citizens’ groups have made manful efforts to raise money, but their resources are certainly nowhere near the $160,000 that the proponent has. They have not been able to afford paid experts, researchers and top-notch legal help, although they have some legal help who are really donating part of their services by charging very low rates.

The citizens’ groups are fighting a one-sided battle with their own tax dollars being used against them. Under these circumstances, the hearings are really a sham. The public is becoming more aware that all public hearings by the government are a charade or a fraud -- except, perhaps, for the two royal commissions, the Porter Royal Commission on Electrical Power Planning and the Hartt Royal Commission on the Northern Environment, where public funding was provided for public-interest groups.

Today we have heard that the citizens of Maple, who have gone through more than two years of hearings and an appeal on the proposal to establish in their area the largest landfill and solid-waste disposal site in North America, have learned that their initial victory before the Environmental Assessment Board has been turned into defeat by the Environmental Appeal Board. They may wonder why the appeal board could find a project acceptable which the Environmental Assessment Board found wanting in so many serious ways. They may wonder whether the outcome might have been different if their resources had been more equal to those of the proponents.

Public acceptance of any waste disposal facility or control order, or of environmental standards and regulations, will never be won as long as the public doesn’t trust the hearings. If the public thinks it is being conned or snowed, it will cease to believe statements from the ministry. It will not accept future assurances that facilities are safe, and standards adequate, if it finds the contrary in cases where the hearings did not bring out all the facts and did not allow full examination of these facts by independent experts.

With regard to the Red Hill Creek highway the minister says he walked through that valley before he issued the order applying the Environmental Assessment Act to the project. Apparently that walk convinced him of the need for a full assessment of the environmental impact. Has he walked the flood plains of the Ajax sewage plant, or wandered through the planned community of Ajax? If not, perhaps he should look more closely at the community and tell it why it is not entitled to the same benefits as the community of the Red Hill Creek highway -- the benefits of a full environmental impact study “to provide the community an opportunity to consider all the aspects of this major protect.”

If the court challenge to the Ajax hearings succeeds, it is possible the present hearings will be invalid or have to be repeated under the Environmental Assessment Act. Does it make sense to risk the loss of time and money that will accrue if this happens, when the minister has the power under the act to start over again immediately with the hearings, and to make sure the various groups are on an equal basis by providing funding for the public groups?

5 p.m.

The present hearings are not acceptable to a substantial body of the community because they are more restricted than a full environmental assessment and because the public groups are not on an equal footing with the proponents.

If the minister would change that situation, he would be taking a big step towards removing the suspicions and the bitterness and the hostility that have been growing up around the proposal. Once this is done and it is clear that the hearings are fair and independent, then the acceptance or rejection of the proposal will be made on the basis of facts that are established by independent inquiry and hearing of all points of view.

I feel the minister’s judgement in this matter may have been impaired by his strong desire to establish some facilities for the disposal of liquid industrial waste in this province in the near future. The foot dragging by the various Ministers of the Environment in the past 10 years and their reliance on the private sector over those years have failed to produce the necessary facilities, as the MacLaren report commissioned by the ministry in 1979 has observed. I quote one paragraph from the report:

“Despite its efforts, none of the operations subsequently established by private enterprise proved sufficiently comprehensive to offer a full service for all of the waste generated in Ontario. As a result, inefficiency and poor practices still continue in the face of burgeoning problems.”

I can understand the minister’s embarrassment at the fact that we still have no adequate facilities for disposing of liquid industrial waste. It’s now 15 months since the resources development committee called for “a comprehensive plan of action for safe handling and disposal of toxic waste,” but the minister does not seem any closer to that objective than he was 15 months ago. He will not get any closer by continuing the hit-and-miss approach of a solidification plant there and a storage facility here and a converted sewage plant in Ajax.

What we need is a comprehensive plan for the province, a plan which includes the selection of sites according to a set of basic criteria which will ensure that the facilities are not in built-up areas or capable of creating a nuisance. The criteria must also set strict standards for health, safety and operating procedures. Even more important, the ministry must be geared up to enforce such standards.

I doubt very much if the Ajax site would meet any such criteria which might be drawn up for the proper disposal of hazardous or toxic liquid industrial waste, but until we develop the criteria we have no objective standards against which to measure it. If its main raison d’être is the minister’s reputation as an activist in solving the key environmental problem of today, then I am afraid it is suspect from the word go. Only if it fits in with an overall plan and meets established criteria can it he considered as a possible solution to the problem. Would the minister be so afraid of a full environmental assessment if he thought it was a really good proposal which was safe and not a potential nuisance? That is the nagging question that is bothering some people.

I will concede that waste disposal sites, like airports, are not popular with residents of any area. Some of the opposition is based on false information, some on unallayed fears and some on a conviction that property values would be affected, regardless of the safety or acceptability of the facility.

The minister will say we must all accept some responsibility for seeing that we have adequate waste disposal facilities. Agreed, but those asked to share the responsibility must have a say in how it is met. We must work very hard to see that facilities are developed which are compatible with our environment, which are safe and which are not a nuisance or something that will lower property values. That’s why we need an overall provincial plan. That’s why we need site criteria and standards spelled out. That’s why we need to explore alternative methods of disposal.

The ministry’s public education program talks about the four Rs of dealing with wastes. Those Rs are reduce, reuse, recycle and recover valuable products from waste. The most important one is reduce -- reduce the amount of toxic waste being produced by encouraging industry to develop other methods, using safer products, different processes and alternative materials.

Another area where legislative action is needed is the question of hazardous materials going into landfill and the problem of the unknown dangers in abandoned dumps. The minister had to back down on his target of closing landfills to toxic wastes by December 31, 1979, because he had failed to get the necessary disposal facilities in place. I hope he will be able to set a new target date as soon as possible, but that depends on the development of the comprehensive provincial plan I have been talking about. This is something on which we hope to see action in this session.

We are also still awaiting the promised perpetual-care legislation to prevent the emergence of Love canals in this province and to monitor closed sites. We need to know what is in the abandoned dumps that were located by student employees last summer. An intensive testing program of these dumps must be initiated. Legislation may be needed to affix responsibility for hazards arising from abandoned dumps and to provide funds for their cleanup.

Another area where we expect legislative and government action is in protecting residents who live in the vicinity of aggregate operations. Many of these operations make life unbearable for residents in the vicinity. They carry on 24-hour trucking and round-the-clock noisy operations, including blasting. They spread dust everywhere and discharge effluents into local waterways.

5:10 p.m.

A case in point is the quarries near Beachville in the Minister of the Environment’s own riding. Residents have been complaining about the degradation of their environment for years from quarrying operations, but they haven’t been able to get any action from the government.

Let me read a few sentences from a letter by two residents of the area, to a hearing of the Environmental Assessment Board on an application for another proposal in that area. Their names are Jean and Gerhard Emmerich of RR 2, Ingersoll. This is what they say:

“When we moved here, across the river from us was bush and some tall trees with hawks nesting in them. Then in moved the quarries, Cyanamid at first. Since then we have put up with blasting, dust and dirt, noise from trucks up and down, day and night, plus rocks showered on us on several occasions.

Further on in their letter they say: “We have put up with so much inconvenience in the past, we feel we are all entitled to enjoy our homes, also our gardens, in peace. We cannot walk on our lawns without our shoes being white with lime or open our windows because of the dust and noise, especially when the wind is in a northerly direction.”

While that letter was written in 1977, I have met with Mr. Emmerich in the past month and he says that conditions haven’t really improved and complaints seem to have no effect. We do have a new Pits and Quarries Control Act in the legislative process. I hope we will get on with it and get an act under which we can get these kinds of complaints dealt with and the environment of people who live in the vicinity of pits and quarries protected properly.

Unfortunately, in the past the administration of the Pits and Quarries Control Act seems to have been left almost entirely to the Minister of Natural Resources, who seems more interested in mining the resources rather than in protecting the environment; and we have not had much participation by the Minister of the Environment in this field.

Another area where government action is urgently needed is in response to the alarming report by the Federation of Ontario Naturalists last year on the disappearance of our wetlands and the environmental effect of their loss. The Port Maitland development proposal by the Misener Steamship Company threatens a very important marsh in that area. It is of sufficient size to merit a full environmental assessment, but since it is a private project it does not automatically come under the act. I hope the minister will extend the act to that proposal so that the environmental impact of the development can be fully assessed.

Other areas where we need action include improvement of water quality, enforcement of pulp and paper control orders instead of further time extensions, which are becoming all too common, and pressure to get the International Joint Commission involved in approvals for discharges into international waters, such as the discharge of 100 million gallons a year of treated effluent by SCA Chemical Waste Services Incorporated.

We also need new and stronger laws regulating the transportation of dangerous substances. This was one of the many recommendations of the resources development committee in its report on liquid industrial waste, tabled in the fall of 1978.

Another recommendation not yet implemented from that committee report is the need for pretesting of hazardous products before they are introduced into manufacturing processes.

These are areas where we can -- I think with minority government -- get some action. Certainly we cannot wait for the regulation of the transportation of dangerous substances after we have seen what happened in the Mississauga mishap. There are equal dangers on the highways which come under provincial jurisdiction.

An election now would postpone the opportunity to deal with these various problems and to get new legislation in these areas as soon as possible. The problems are urgent. They cannot wait. That’s why we say to get on with the business of the Legislature, but make minority government productive.

Mr. Kennedy: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to join in this discussion. It has been a period of time since I last spoke, and I can’t recollect if you held office at that point in time or not, but I do commend you for the way you conduct the affairs of this House and are able to adapt, as I suppose we do, in the turbulence of heated argument and those times of tranquillity when you still remain alert. I don’t think there has been a Speaker in the history of this Legislature who has fallen asleep. Maybe we can’t say the same for our honourable members, Mr. Speaker.

I listened with interest to the usual quality rhetoric of the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) but, as I reflected and listened through it, there was really nothing in the way of alternatives offered. There was a great deal of criticism of government, but nothing else. Which didn’t really surprise me, because that’s par for the course.

One thing he mentioned was that he had discussions with the people in his riding and the general consensus there was to throw the government rascals out. On this side of the House, we also meet with constituents, and I have done that and put out questionnaires. It’s simply amazing that I get the very opposite opinion. What I hear is incredible, and I’ll paraphrase. I’ve got a great deal of interesting material to convey to the House but, to reduce it down, they are saying, “For goodness’ sake, keep those rascal Grits out of power in this province” -- and so there is a difference of opinion.

Another thing he brought up was the auto sales tax rebate plan. The NDP came out to the riding on Sunday -- we had a very important meeting that I want to touch on later -- and issued a press release. The press release, printed on their own letterhead, said, “Let’s not have partisan squabbles over this very serious issue,” with which I agree. Their press release, which is very partisan, says “Don’t have partisan quarrelling about this,” but the Leader of the Opposition rattled the sabre and said: “We need an election, but don’t get partisan at this meeting.”

On the auto tax rebate, he was quite critical of the government embarking on that program to help the industry. It’s amazing that we have criticism from the opposition saying the auto industry is in trouble, do something about it and, when we get a positive, objective program going, we get criticized for doing this.

Correspondence has been received by the Treasurer from no less than Roy Bennett, president and chief executive officer of the Ford Motor Company, which I wish to read --

Mr. Renwick: Isn’t he one of your constituents?

Mr. Kennedy: He’s one of my constituents; I’m very fortunate to have such able people in my riding.

“I wish to advise you that the program was most successful in reducing excessive stocks of 1979 vehicles. The program met its objectives in every respect. Our 1979 stock was reduced by some 80 per cent, and this placed them [the dealers] in a far better position to order 1980 models and to prepare them for the impending spring market.”

That means jobs; that is what this is about. Not only that, that program encouraged them to join with us.

5:20 p.m.

As he says: “We followed up your program with our own rebate program in the month of March to capitalize on the momentum dealt by your initiative. We appreciate your action in assisting our industry.” That is the response and the sensitivity of this government to the needs of the people of Ontario.

I want to speak for a few moments on a couple of issues that are of deep concern in our province. I say this in a nonpartisan fashion to all members of this Legislature, because I think the throne speech is one of the most farsighted and comprehensive throne speeches I have heard here. It touched all the bases; everyone agrees on that. Not a ministry was left out, nor a region of interest in this province ignored. By producing a speech such as this, this government has demonstrated once again its understanding of the issues that matter in this province and its ability to develop practical and appropriate solutions to the challenges and problems that face us in the coming decade.

I know this will probably strike a nerve opposite, but the reactions of the opposition to the throne speech remind me of the story of the three bears, or two of them anyway. The Leader of the Opposition found enough in the throne speech to inspire him to try to throw us out, to plunge us into an unwanted and unwelcome election. We have had enough elections. The other, the leader of the NDP, finds next to nothing worthy of comment. These make quite a contrast. One finds the speech too hot to handle and the other finds it too cold to bother with. The real assessment and analysis of it is that it is just right. It addresses all the issues of moment and indicates the direction we are going to go.

This too was one of the other reasons why the voters in my area said they do not want an election, that they are pleased with the performance of this government and impressed by its plans to meet the challenges of the coming decade. They come to me and say they are happy with what the government has done and find the vision of the throne speech has presented our province’s inspiration for growth and confidence in tomorrow. I cannot find anyone in my riding demanding an election.

The people of Ontario are optimistic about the prospects of the province. They are not impressed by campaigns of gloom and doom. They want a government that shares their optimism. The members on this side of the House do also. They want a government that knows well enough when to leave the people alone to their own initiative and when to intervene to assist. That is what the auto rebate plan was about.

I do not know if the leaders of the opposition parties want to hear this. Usually, they do not seem to welcome it with open arms. I can understand that. I have been here for a number of years and have known about provincial politics for a period of time. I knew a lot when I was 21. As we get older, we learn less and less, but the NDP and the Liberals seem to know more and more. Age seems no barrier to them, young or old. I know that whenever the next provincial election is called they may find they are in for a surprise.

As I said, there will be no demands for an election; just the opposite. The government is working very well, we’re reasonably content with the programs in place, and certainly there is no need at this point to precipitate us into an election.

Mr. Ruston: What happened in the last election?

Mr. Kennedy: Since 1977, we picked up six or eight seats. That’s what happened.

Mr. Ruston: That’s a lot of money for a few seats.

Mr. Kennedy: Not when they’re Tories. That was one of the better investments.

In spite of the economic catastrophes that have shaken the world, the economy of Ontario has been growing. The government has continued to maintain its high credit rating on the world’s financial market.

Despite unemployment figures, we have, as the Treasurer has mentioned, more people working this year and in each succeeding year than in the previous one. That cannot be ignored. That’s fact. The government has brought public spending and public expansion under control and yet has maintained the quality of public service which our people now take for granted.

With the throne speech, the government has charted a new course for Ontario which will maintain and enhance productivity, prosperity, employment and the quality of life. I am proud that these efforts are meeting with success. It’s because we believe in the people of the province. We believe they know best how to manage their own affairs, and the government’s role should be to support and not dominate or stifle their efforts.

One of the fields where this philosophy is a demonstrated success is in housing. Housing and housing problems are things that I am very much aware of. It’s very interesting, at this meeting on Sunday in Mississauga there was criticism that we had too many houses. I couldn’t help but reflect back to the debates in this House when the demand was and is -- I believe it was mentioned today -- for housing. So there seems to be a contrast of opinions. But, with the development of the province, we can keep a pretty steady building industry on the go.

Our area is largely made up of residential housing, perhaps 50-50, with the others in apartments, but it’s single-family and multiple-family, and young couples have pinned their hopes and savings on the security of owning their own home. It’s not unique to say that probably the biggest expenditure that an individual family has is the purchase of their house. We are well aware of the need to ensure that our population is properly housed and that they’re paying only a fair rate for accommodation.

To quite an extent, we can be pleased with the recent announcement by the Minister of Housing when he quickly addressed the problem regarding mortgage renewal. We await more news from the federal government. We want to help the home owners under the Assisted Home Ownership Program who will face mortgage payments that are in excess of 30 per cent of their income. It’s interesting, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail, that the initiative was originally devised by the last government under Joe Clark.

Mr. Kerrio: Joe Who?

Mr. Kennedy: Joseph Clark, the next Prime Minister of Canada.

It’s an indication of the dedication that government had in trying to right some of the errors and sins of omission of the previous administration.

We in Ontario will participate as much as we can in any initiative that will lead to the reduction of the burden currently borne by home owners, particularly those renewing their mortgages. Certainly, a federal government-assisted scheme should be a great help to those who meet qualifications for whatever program is devised. But there are others not under AHOP who are meeting the same problem. The federal government’s announcement so far won’t mean anything to them. These programs won’t solve the whole problem.

5:30 p.m.

I know some of my Socialist friends opposite think the assistance programs will be only a minor expenditure, but they can’t be if they are to have any meaningful effect. They have got to be bigger; minor expenses won’t resolve the problem. Small leaks in a boat, Benjamin Franklin said, will certainly sink even a large ship.

It isn’t a lack of money that is causing home owners such a problem; it is the lack of value of that money. In the throne speech the government stated that in no uncertain terms. This seemed to be overlooked in the NDP press release, because it was right in there -- I think those fellows fell asleep when the throne speech was on -- and they haven’t read it yet. I can’t understand that. It was on page five, to be precise.

In the throne speech, the government stated its willingness to participate in meaningful programs to slash soaring inflation and interest rates. The Lieutenant Governor, at the beginning of this month, took special note of the problems caused by high inflation and high interest rates.

If we are to progress and prosper as a nation, Canadians must have the courage to set economic policies that are independent of those of other countries and appropriate for our own needs. The Bank of Canada recently abandoned its former policy of following the US Federal Reserve Board’s setting of interest rates and set the floating rate. I think that is an abdication by Ottawa. It might be good politics, but I am doubtful of that too; it is not good government. The Liberals in Ottawa are trying to wash their hands of this responsibility, and it is not going to wash.

The federal government has done nothing fundamental to change the situation with regard to interest rates. They will continue to be tagged to the fluctuations of those set by the US Federal Reserve Board and, as a result, will tend to cancel out the benefits that we would otherwise have gained from our present economic strength.

I believe, as was stated in the throne speech, and by the Premier, that Canada should follow a more independent policy on interest rates. This government believes that an independent policy can be accomplished without imperilling our economic future. Compared to present policy, an independent agenda for Canada on interest rates will be a definite plus for our economy.

There is no reason why our rates should continually follow those of the United States. The Bank of Canada and the Ottawa Liberals must show the initiative that our private sector has demonstrated over the years. The federal government must have the courage to set interest at appropriate levels that suit Canadian needs; then we may see some relief for home owners.

I am sure every member in the House has seen the effect that high interest rates have had on our communities and industries. They are acting like a brake on economic growth. They make loans too expensive for small businessmen and individuals. They are choking enterprise and initiative in the private sector.

I have just had two examples of that in the last two days. One small firm suffered a total loss of its manufacturing plant through fire. There was a heavy inventory and special equipment. The equipment had to be replaced. The insurance was on depreciated value, and so this source will nowhere near pay for replacement. Now that small firm is faced with the decision: “Do we go to the bank at these rates, or some other source, borrow to put our plant back in place and in production?” There are 30 employees involved. That is a decision that needs to be made. That is an example of what these high interest rates are doing in stifling progress and making investors think twice about investments.

The second case is simply a matter of replacing obsolete and worn-out equipment with new. Do they re-equip under the current economic situation? It is probably the tip of the iceberg, but these are some of the things that are going to escalate if this problem is not dealt with.

I want to touch for a moment on interest rates and the discussion at this meeting with respect to mortgage renewals. The rates not only are preventing many young couples from buying a home, they are also quite literally forcing people from homes they already occupy. I participated in this meeting in Mississauga on Sunday where a group came together who are perhaps suffering loss of their homes. They had the courage to bring this meeting together and let their feelings be known to all those who came -- federal, provincial, regional and municipal politicians. Their suggestion was a demand that interest rates be rolled back to 100 per cent. Though politicians were roundly criticized as not caring, I would have to say this simply is not so at any level or in any party. It just isn’t so that we don’t care. It is a great concern to us.

It bothers me that although families may have a low equity in their homes, they have worked hard probably for five years or whatever the time has been before renewal. Whatever term there has been, they have built up not only financial equity through meeting their payments, but they have what I perhaps inelegantly call a sweat equity. That has been their home, their hopes, their aspirations for the future. They see these possibly crumbling down all around them. That is something we must prevent by alleviating those situations.

There were people there from several locations in the province. I recall very well two of them mentioning: “We don’t specifically want a subsidy. We don’t want a free ride. We want a fighting chance,” or perhaps, more accurately, a chance to continue the fight towards home ownership.

The Premier has said in the Legislature we need to know what plans the federal government will have and we will co-operate fully with them. There are a number of precedents and options, I believe. I reflected on the Farmers’ Creditors Arrangement Act which was used in the west to alleviate the foreclosures at that time of farms whose owners couldn’t meet their obligations. Under certain conditions, these were stayed through applications to the court.

The province itself in the 1930s had what was called the Mortgagers and Purchasers Relief Act. The main thrust of this was a moratorium or a hold on payment pending a review by a judge. It wasn’t a mandatory thing by government; it would be in effect on a selective basis. Just how successful it was, I am not sure. I was quite interested to hear our Minister of Housing, who reacted very quickly to this quickly worsening situation, mention a program that would probably involve selectivity. I believe this is what took place at that time.

So there are some precedents. I hope the government will look at these both here and in Ottawa and do more than the NDP did in its paper. This government must tell Ottawa its rates are too high. We have done that through the Minister of Housing and through the throne speech -- it was right there. So platitudes are not going to be capable of dealing with the situation. It needs more.

5:40 p.m.

We should also consider that part-program, the tax-credit plan, and modify it if they like, to make it acceptable maybe to the current government. I think this has potential; I think there can be possibilities of deferment. But most of all, in dealing with both the homeowner situation and business, we need a direct frontal attack on interest rates.

I wish to refer briefly to the minister’s statement and proposals for a fund to cushion this interest blow. He met with Paul Cosgrove, the federal minister, on Friday. This meeting was Sunday; there was no reference to that by the opposition at all.

The minister has come up with two things: to use banks, trust companies and other mortgage sellers to identify Ontario home owners who are paying a disproportionate amount of take-home income to keep their homes; and to establish a joint fund from the federal and provincial governments and then set a list of guidelines as to eligibility. He thinks these should be selective in nature. This is the only way I can see it working. It must be on application, because we could have two individuals of similar means and similar houses, one who through frugality and dedication has managed to keep ahead of the bailiff and the other who hasn’t. As these people recognize, they don’t want handouts; they just want a chance.

I was quite interested in noting that this report seems to indicate the minister has addressed himself to that problem. He also said it’s not in anyone’s interest to see people losing their homes because they are unable to keep up mortgage payments through what I hope is a temporary difficult economic period. Whether it will be in the form of a grant, an interest-free loan or deferment is something that must be decided. I can only urge both these levels of government to get on with this: Address the homeowner questions but more important, address the larger one of interest rates.

These interest rates, as I recall it and understand it, were introduced to dampen inflation. Of course, this has been a total loss. They obviously have failed. Whether they held the damper down a bit for a while, I don’t know; but certainly it has escalated now. A dampening-down enterprise is what is happening now, and at a great social cost. It’s too high a price to pay for a policy that has failed to work.

The position of this government remains as it was in the throne speech. I would like to see the Liberals in Ottawa re-examine their position on interest rates and inflation strategy. We are prepared -- and have said so -- to participate in this constructively in any discussions that will lead to a new, vigorous and independent economic policy for Canada. Whether this solution lies in the direction of what is Proposal 89 -- which is the Mississauga proposal for lower interest rates -- I don’t know. I am from the rural area of Mississauga and not well versed in the world of international finance, but I sure as hell know what interest rates are doing to initiative and enterprise.

The high interest rates represent the greatest obstacle to private initiative in this province. I have cited a couple of illustrations to support that contention. They are the greatest threat to our communities and the high quality of life that our citizens enjoy in Ontario.

Mr. Wildman: Did you say the banks are the greatest threat?

Mr. Kennedy: No, the NDP say that. They say just print more money, have give-away programs -- all that stuff. Those do not work. Socialism doesn’t work. The NDP have never seemed to learn that. Socialism doesn’t work. I have given the things that work here. They see them demonstrated, or they would see them if they would open their eyes, but they won’t do that.

Steps to reduce interest rates are consistent with the philosophy that runs throughout the throne speech. Underlying each of the proposals in that speech is the realization that Ontarians must be prepared to meet the broadened and expanded economic opportunities that will occur in the 1980s and to take advantage of them. While capital and advanced technology are important elements in any economic action plan, they won’t replace the most important element of all: a well-educated, enterprising and intelligent population. We have that. We have the facilities to develop such a population.

I want to make a few remarks now on the reference to education in the throne speech. Graduates of our system are continuing to prove themselves to be valuable and productive citizens, not only in Ontario but also throughout Canada and worldwide.

I have believed, and will continue to believe, that we have one of the best education systems in the whole world. As we enter the 1980s, this government has pledged itself to maintain that quality of education. We know we must develop an educated and skilled labour pool in order to meet the demands of modern, high-technology industry. That’s why this government created the Ontario Manpower Commission.

We believe we have the brains in Ontario to develop a skilled labour force. We should not need to look outside our borders for skilled labour. For this purpose, more than $5 million in the Employment Development Fund was earmarked for colleges and universities for the employer-sponsored programs, and further training is in the works. The plan will draw on the support and expertise that already exists within the industrial sector.

It’s a pleasure for me to tell the House that the response to the provincial government’s skill training programs in the private sector has been very good. I have met, with the minister, with some segments and we were most encouraged. Industry and labour both realize these programs are an advantage to the province and they have co-operated in an unselfish, wholehearted manner.

Incidentally, with regard to that training, it’s not only in the community colleges that we must address the situation; we must also address it in the secondary schools and technical schools. With representatives of the two other parties, we are going to visit a couple of technical schools in the Metropolitan Toronto area in a week or so and have a first-hand look for the 1980s and see how we are doing. We are looking forward to that. We are going to Danforth Technical School and Central Technical School.

Mr. Breaugh: Why aren’t you going to Harbord?

Mr. Kennedy: They are not on the agenda. We may go there. The member seems to know all about that; we will deal with the issues at hand.

5:50 p.m.

We look forward to the expansion and continuing success of these training programs. I believe they will not only result in an increase in employment, particularly among the young people, but they should and will also strengthen our manufacturing sector, the industries that are the backbone of the province and our economy.

We hear from the opposition about the quality of education. They say it is in decline and poorly funded. This was never true, and it is certainly not true for the 1980s. The grants are up by $135 million -- this is in the announcement -- a 6.6 per cent increase above last year’s grant. In 1980, the government will be paying out $2,189,000,000 to local boards, with an extra $35 million added to smooth out equalization. This expenditure includes increases across the board for all types: French, grades nine and 10 in separate schools, programs for the disabled and the heritage program.

In general, therefore, the province this year is paying $1,546 for each elementary pupil and $2,154 for each secondary pupil, up about 9.2 per cent and 8.6 per cent if I recall correctly. Money can’t do everything. You can get the child into college, but you can’t make him think, and that is the bottom line. But these grants and grant increases will give the boards flexibility in keeping their budgets and expenditures in line and yet delivering the needed service.

On the whole, the policy on education is easily explained. It is described in the throne speech and is repeated numerous times by the Premier and the Minister of Education. It is committed to work with municipalities, teachers, school boards and parents, to maintain our elementary and secondary schools -- a firm dedication to excellence and achievement founded on a basic, solid core curriculum. I was most pleased to see that reference in the throne speech.

Interjections.

Mr. Kennedy: I know the members opposite don’t enjoy listening to these sentiments. They never seem to enjoy success, but it is there as a result of these government policies. The government policy speaks for itself. I make no apologies for it, and I am proud of it. These programs and the support we have among the public should silence these people across here who try to make waves. The wind that’s raised won’t make any waves because of that support.

I am very pleased, too, that there are arrangements to add support for special education. Local boards will be responsible for providing for students in need of these services.

I was somewhat taken aback when the Grits said off the top of their heads -- precipitately, I think -- that they wanted to abandon the parts of Bill 100 that gave the right to strike. I don’t know whether that should be pulled out, but I do know that the ministry took a look at this issue, as did the government, and said: “That bill has been in force for some five years now. It has worked reasonably well. But we will appoint a commission, a very competent and able commission, to hold hearings to look into this and come up with recommendations.” Wouldn’t it make sense for any member in this Legislature to await the report by that very able commission before catapulting into throwing out the bath water, the baby, or anything else because a hot issue arises and shows the instability of that party across the floor? If we are going to have flip-flops and changes --

Interjections.

Mr. Kennedy: The members opposite are for auto tax rebates; then they are against them. They are for Bill 100, which was unanimously accepted by the House; then they do their flip-flop on that, and out it goes. They should get their act together.

The environment came up in question period again. They should come forward with a credible alternative and let us have a look at it; more important, they should let the people of Ontario have a look at it, because right now they don’t know where in the world they’re going or which end is up or whether they have any program that makes any sense to them at all. They should lay it out and let’s have a look at it. They shouldn’t slide from day to day by the seat of their pants.

It’s no wonder -- we haven’t been all that close to the NDP, but by golly they weren’t going to join the Liberals and jump on the bandwagon to bring on an election as a result of a throne speech that touched every aspect of the economy of this province. It’s one of the best things they have done. The leader of the NDP shouldn’t get carried away by this. Very often we do understand where they stand even though we don’t often agree with them --

Interjections.

Mr. Kennedy: The fellows opposite are going to be statesmen if they keep this up. Where was I? I have three minutes to finish up 20 minutes of material.

What I want to say is, it’s indicative of the flexibility, response and sensitivity of this government that not only do we have a look at Bill 100, but we have also gone through the 1970s with secondary education in place based on the credit system. Other programs had this in place and the students in that decade passed through our educational system with that very good program.

In the 1980s we have announced, very properly, that the government is prepared to undertake another major review of the province’s secondary school system. This review, which should last about a year, will be aimed at ensuring the system meets the needs of the students it will be serving in the 1980s. There will be a steering committee and four other committees which will be dealing with this.

Before the members opposite go plunging off into some other half-baked idea, they should wait for that to come forward. Let’s join in this together. Let’s have a bit of nonpartisanship in this House and we will see what they come up with. It’s for their children too -- it’s for all the children. One of the strengths of this government is that regardless of age, station in life, background, or anything else, we provide for them all.

I have several other things I wanted to mention. I might have an opportunity to do so when the budget debate is on. They involve budgetary matters -- the grants to education, something of the programs in the community colleges -- but they will have to wait for another day.

I wanted to speak of the flip-flops of the federal Liberal government on transportation. It was arranged in the 1974 election that they were going to give us millions of dollars for urban transportation for the GO system. Trudeau did a flip-flop, and we received no money. Again, the throne speech says we are going to have electrification of our railways -- boy, I wish I could believe it; I’d like to get this documented -- it says in here: “We’re going to electrify our railways. We are pleased to record the project has been recently assured federal assistance.”

I must get around to asking the Minister of Transportation and Communications if that is in writing, because we don’t want another flip-flop. We want to go forward and see this province advance. We can use their aid, and I hope they don’t do another flip-flop on us on that issue.

Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased to have had the opportunity to bring a few things forward to the House today, and I look forward to another opportunity if it comes available.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The member for Sarnia is next; I assume this would be a good time for him to interrupt his remarks.

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

The House recessed at 6 p.m.