Hansard Transcripts 1982-Nov-15 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Mr. Speaker: Before starting routine proceedings, I draw to your attention that we have a new group of pages with us today. No doubt you will have noticed the new faces. In recognition of the presence of the new pages, I will read their names into the record.

Jeffrey Anderson, Lambton; Jeff Bangs, Parry Sound; Leanne Cook, Peterborough; Mark Del Duca, York West; John Duff, Lanark; David Ellerby, Burlington South; Vicki Grossmann-Hensel, Ottawa East; Robbie Howells, Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry; Bradley Johnson, Scarborough West; William Kendrick, Windsor; Neil Keon, Ottawa South; Ryan Keon, Ottawa South; Derek Klein, Carleton; Lisa Madlensky, Waterloo North; Sara MacGray, Humber; Catharine Munn, London Centre; Carrie Neale, Oxford; Allison Oliver, Oriole; Marcy Osborne, Prince Edward-Lennox; Lori Paravia, Yorkview; Tracy St. Denis, Algoma-Manitoulin; Lana Wilhelm, Brantford.

I ask all honourable members to join with me in welcoming the new pages.

INTRODUCTION OF MEMBER FOR YORK SOUTH

Mr. Speaker informed the House that the Clerk had received from the chief election officer, and laid upon the table, the certificate of a by-election held on November 4, 1982:

Electoral district of York South -- Robert Rae; Province of Ontario.

This is to certify that in view of a writ of election dated September 27, 1982, issued by the Honourable Lieutenant Governor of the province of Ontario and addressed to Mrs. Nancy M. Head, returning officer for the electoral district of York South, for the election of a member to represent the said electoral district of York South in the Legislative Assembly of this province in the room of Donald C. MacDonald, Esquire, who, since his election as representative of the said electoral district of York South, has resigned his seat, Robert Rae, Esquire, has been returned as duly elected as appears by the return of the said writ of election, dated November 12, 1982, which is now lodged of record in my office.

(Signed) Warren R. Baillie, chief election officer, Toronto, November 12, 1982.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present to you Mr. Bob Rae, member-elect for the electoral district of York South, who has taken the oath, signed the roll and now claims the right to take his seat.

Mr. Speaker: Let the honourable member take his seat.

Robert Rae, Esquire, member-elect for the electoral district of York South, having taken the oath and subscribed the roll, took his seat.

2:10 p.m.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, before I ask the first question, let me, on behalf of David Peterson's Ontario Liberal community party, welcome our friend the new leader of the New Democratic Party. I am sorry the Premier (Mr. Davis) could not be here today. He is out having lunch with his pollster. I understand that he has a new one on the job.

I want to say to the member for York South (Mr. Rae) that I am very sure he will enjoy his experience here and I wish him much happiness, although not too much success.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the government caucus, I wish to greet the new member for York South, who is coming to the House fresh from victory both in convention and constituency, and indeed to reflect upon the democratic process from the recent consultation with the good people of York South who, prior to his election, were well represented by one who now decides to work with that particular group from without the Legislature, although I note that he is in the gallery today to enjoy something of the excitement of this occasion.

Mr. Conway: A deal is a deal.

Hon. Mr. Welch: That will go down in the Conway book of one-liners which our children will have the opportunity to reflect upon.

Before concluding these remarks, may I pay tribute to the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds), who as the new leader's deputy, along with others of the caucus, has carried the responsibilities of House with great confidence and dedication. We have not always agreed, but he has been prepared to accept these responsibilities and we would not want them to go unacknowledged.

I have one observation. When the honourable member was encouraged to take his seat and he approached the dais, I noticed that he moved to his right rather than his left to go to the Speaker. I do not know whether that indicates a new trend in that group; however, we will wait with some interest to find out.

May I simply say that as the new member prepares for the question period, on our behalf I would like to thank the members of the New Democratic Party caucus for the invitation to attend the two-hour reception which is scheduled for later on. On behalf of the 800 grape growers of my constituency and their families, we can only wish it was a three-hour reception rather than a two-hour one.

This party, which is dedicated to the great principles of freedom and enterprise in continuing to provide good and responsible governments to the people of Ontario, will do everything it can to ensure that the success to which I have made reference will be minimized in the future, if not completely eliminated.

We welcome the honourable member.

[Later]

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, before I ask my first question, I wonder if you would allow me to say a couple of words of thanks, first of all to you, sir, for having extended the hospitality of this House and this building to me during a time when I was not a member of this House. I want to thank you and the officers of this House for their hospitality and kindness to me.

I want to say to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson) and to the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch) how very much I appreciate their kind welcome. I have always found those words are offered first of all after an election and not during it and, second, always on the very first day before the very first question and very rarely afterwards. I want to savour those kind words. I will keep them in mind. Now let us get down to business.

ORAL QUESTIONS

SALE OF RENTAL UNITS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), this being his first time in the House since the great flips of the subject apartment buildings.

I have a very simple question for the minister. How much will the rents go up in those apartment buildings, some 11,000 units, subject to the Cadillac Fairview-Greymac transaction?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I think we probably know the question that is more on everyone's mind, including mine, in that issue. I think the honourable member well knows that ultimately the decision on that will rest on the contents of the statement that I will be making in the House tomorrow and what the decision of the Residential Tenancy Commission will be when the matters are heard before it.

Mr. Peterson: Will the minister not agree with me that it is distinctly possible, given the vendor takeback mortgage, that rents could go up by $121 per month on that transaction alone, and that, given the new financing as a result of the third mortgage, the rents could go up by $185 per month per unit on average, for a total increase of some $306 per unit per month, excluding maintenance, taxes, energy charges and a variety of other costs?

What we could easily see here is a possibility of a doubling of rent in those subject units over the next three years. If the minister agrees that is possible, what is he going to do to prevent it from happening?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: It is interesting to start speculating. The fact is as I indicated very clearly a few moments ago and as I did last week. I will be making a statement on this matter tomorrow.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, will the minister have us believe that the statement he made on November 4, namely, that there would be only a $30 to $35 increase for an apartment that rents for $400 a month, is not true, and that there may be much larger increases? What is the minister prepared to do to stop this kind of thing?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, let us just go back a few steps and clarify exactly what I did say on November 4. I said that on that transaction, if one speculated about the average rental being paid --

Mr. Foulds: Speculation is a particularly bad word, isn't it?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I do not want to speculate on the honourable member.

I said that if one speculated that the average rental being paid by the average tenant was $400, on the basis of the financing of that deal the increase would work out to something in the neighbourhood of $30 to $35 per unit if the costs were phased in over a three-year period.

In that statement of November 4, I also said I had received a clear indication from the former president of Greymac -- I understand his wife now is the president -- that he intended to sell those properties. I said further that the particular issue of reselling those properties, along with the impact of the whole thing on tenants, was of grave concern to me.

I indicated in a subsequent release that we would be addressing those issues, and I will be discussing them tomorrow in a statement to the House.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, the minister met on November 1 with Mr. Rosenberg and at that time should have known pretty well what was happening in the transaction. I have a simple question for the minister with respect to the meeting he had with Mr. Rosenberg: Who else was present at that meeting, how long did it last and what topics were discussed?

Also, did the minister question Mr. Rosenberg about foreign involvement in the transaction? Did he ask Mr. Rosenberg about the Greymac convictions for violations of the city building code? Finally, what was the minister's reply when Mr. Rosenberg alluded to a further resale of the buildings?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, that is such a simple, short question, you will forgive me if I dwell on it a little longer than one might ordinarily expect. I trust you will understand that.

In short, the nature of the discussion was pretty well as it was documented in the statement I made to this House on November 4. As to who was there, my deputy and two of my assistants were present. The matters discussed were those matters reported to this House.

When I asked Mr. Rosenberg about the allegation made in this House about violations with respect to buildings previously or currently owned by Greymac, he indicated those were buildings that had been taken over on a mortgage foreclosure basis and virtually all the violations had been withdrawn subsequently. There were some three or four he was not certain about. He gave me the name of his lawyer, and my staff have been endeavouring to sort that matter out in more detail.

2:20 p.m.

Mr. Peterson: My second question is also to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Did the minister at that meeting ask Mr. Rosenberg about the subsequent flips of those buildings? If he asked that question, was he told the truth, or was he lied to?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I am not going to get into the role of calling someone a liar. Let me say very precisely what the gist of the conversation was.

When asked if he intended to hold the properties and manage them, his indication to me was that he would be disposing of the properties over a period of time. On further questioning, he indicated to me it was likely that the first rent increase he would be requesting before the Residential Tenancy Commission would be filed on or about December 1.

Mr. Peterson: It is obvious the minister did not ask the right questions or he was not told what was actually happening.

I am asking the minister now, will he use section 151 of the Loan and Trust Corporations Act to stop this deal now and find out every single aspect about it before he lets anything proceed any further? Will he do that as the minister?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Let us just understand who is asking the questions. This is a party that has a resolution before this House in private members' hour to guarantee in the Charter of Rights what I am not sure needs to be guaranteed in any federal charter: that a person's right to property, disposition of the property and enjoyment of it are ensured by constitutional right.

This young man over here is suggesting that I should be able to stop transactions from taking place at the flick of a hand. That is not so. But if he thinks the obligations of this ministry with respect to the Loan and Trust Corporations Act will not be abided by, then he is sitting in the wrong chair and does not understand that we understand our obligations.

Mr. Philip: Will the minister not agree that while the Cadillac Fairview flip may be the largest we have experienced, his ministry has been aware of a number of quick flips over the past few years? Will the minister not agree that as long as landlords can pass 85 per cent of the cost of a building on to tenants through the financing, and as long as landlords can expect under the present act to break even by year three, they will continue to flip and exchange buildings and we will continue to have this problem over and over again?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Let me just say very broadly that the issue of quick resales of property is one of paramount concern to me and will be addressed tomorrow in my statement.

Mr. Peterson: Why is the minister always the last one to know everything in this deal? Why is that always the case? Why was he not forthcoming with this House when questions were asked of him, particularly when Mr. Mastin said the minister was aware of the deal three or four days prior to its becoming public knowledge?

Why was he not forthcoming with this House with respect to the details? Why will he not now expose this to a complete and thorough public investigation? Why will he not do that right now, or at least freeze the deal until that can be done? If he is not prepared to do it, then let a committee of this House do it.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I think I have pretty clearly outlined that the information I received from Mr. Rosenberg on November I was that he contemplated reselling the properties but it was not something that at that time was immediate enough to even suggest --

Mr. Peterson: And you believed that?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Hang on. I am talking about what he said to me. He talked about putting new carpets in the buildings, he talked about further refurbishings and he talked about a date of December 1. If it is not clear to the member what he was saying at that time, and whether or not it is true, I will leave it up to his contemplation.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. I want to ask the minister, given the fact of these extraordinary transactions -- I am referring, of course, to the subsequent flips and not to the original flop -- when did he become aware of these transactions, given that they were registered on November 5 of this year?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, let us just run through the sequence of events again.

From my conversation of November 1, I had no indication that there was going to be any quick resale. The leader of the official opposition will say I should have carried out an inquisition and found out more. I will leave it to others to make that decision. I was satisfied, on the basis of what he told me, that that is what he had said.

I recall that on the Friday there was information going around that some documents were being filed on November 5, I believe, and that this was again continuing on Monday. But the first indication I had that the buildings had been resold, to the best of my recollection, was on Tuesday morning.

Mr. Rae: Some of this does not make very much sense. If I heard the minister correctly today, in answer to the questions from the leader of the Liberal Party, he said he was told by Mr. Rosenberg that it was likely a resale would occur. In his statement to the House on November 4, the minister did not say that. The minister said, " ... should an attractive offer to purchase be made to Greymac, it would seriously consider it."

Does the minister not think, in the light of what he has just told the Leader of the Opposition, that he should have known a resale was being actively contemplated? And does he not think that as soon as he was aware that documents were being filed that provided for a resale, he should have told us about it and not waited until he told the public?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I welcome the new leader, because we have shared part of a riding on occasion in a very hospitable way, and I think that relationship will continue, but with the greatest of respect, let us be very clear. The day I made the statement I made it very clear that there was no doubt in my mind he would resell the properties.

What I have also said today is that he spoke of the first day that he would file for rent increases, that there would be further carpeting required for the buildings and further refurbishing. If the honourable member takes from this that an immediate contemplation of sale was in his or anybody else's mind, then he was not in the same room I was in. I say that with the greatest of respect.

Let us assume that on Friday, November 5, I had some indication that a further resale was occurring. Under what legislation does the member seriously expect that I could have jumped off my white horse and dropped down in the registry office and said, "Halt," even had I known?

The facts are pretty open. I am trying to be as open as I can about it with this House.

Mr. Peterson: Did the minister know or did he not know? Did he or did he not ask whether he would be turning those buildings over? Did he give the minister the impression he was going to turn them over? Did the minister ask the question or did he lie to the minister?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I have reviewed that in pretty great detail. The answer should be obvious to the member as to what the details of the discussion were.

Mr. Rae: The minister has just told us, which he did not tell us very clearly in his first answer to the question, that he knew on November 5 there was a resale.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: No, I did not.

Mr. Rae: The minister did say that. He said he had an indication that there was a resale on November 5.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: No, I did not.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I said in response to questioning -- and let us be very clear about this before silly things are said -- that I had indication on Friday afternoon, I believe it was, that there were some transactions being completed.

Mr. Rae: The minister used the word "resale."

Hon. Mr. Elgie: No, I did not. And if I did, I tell my friend that is not the knowledge I had, because I do not come to this House to tell stories; that is not why I am here.

2:30 p.m.

Mr. Rae: As he stated, the minister and I know each other because of the fact that we were geographically close at one time. I want him to understand that I am not here in this House to cast any aspersions on his integrity. That is not what I am doing. I am trying to elicit a straight answer from the minister -- and with respect, I do not think we have had that straight answer -- as to when he knew what he knew. If he did not know there was a resale going on, why did he not know when it was registered on November 5?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I think we forget the sequence of events. I believe it was on the Monday in this House when I was asked about the fact that documents were being registered and I said at that time that I assumed, to the best of my recollection, that it was the Cadillac Fairview sale to Greymac being registered. I have said that my own knowledge of when further sales occurred was on Tuesday morning.

LAKE SUPERIOR POLLUTION

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a new question to the Minister of the Environment. I would like to ask the minister how long his ministry has been aware that a highly toxic substance -- a pesticide called toxaphene -- was discovered in Lake Superior in amounts up to twice the level considered safe. I would like the minister to tell us how long his ministry has been aware that toxaphene was found in fish in Lake Superior.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, I would have to check with my staff to be certain of the specific date.

Mr. Rae: Is the minister aware of the fact that toxaphene has been found in fish in amounts of nearly twice the level considered safe? Is he aware of that, or is it the first time he has ever heard of the substance toxaphene?

Hon. Mr. Norton: It is certainly not the first time that I have heard of the substance. The specific reference to which the honourable member makes mention is not something that is in my sphere of knowledge at the moment.

Mr. Elston: Mr. Speaker, can the minister inform the House as to what steps he has taken to pinpoint the location of the entry of this material into Lake Superior and what he proposes to do to control these sorts of infiltrations in the future?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, I should think the answer to that question is obvious from the answer to the previous question. I will check with my staff. I am not specifically aware of the matter the honourable member has raised but I will undertake to inform the House tomorrow in question period.

Mr. Rae: While the minister is making his inquiries of his officials, I wonder if he could perhaps come back tomorrow and give us the answers to two questions: Why has the public of Ontario not been told about this substance when levels are almost twice the safe level? Is the minister aware that some scientists feel very strongly that toxaphene is as dangerous a substance in Lake Superior as dioxin is in Lake Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Norton: I shall so undertake.

CHILD ABUSE

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Community and Social Services concerning the judicial inquiry into the Kim Anne Popen case. We are all pleased that the inquiry report is finally public, although somewhat belatedly, and is available, as the minister said in his press conference, for child care workers across the province to read. I am most concerned that the recommendations carefully prepared by Judge Allen have some sort of impact as soon as possible on the child abuse problem in Ontario, and although some recommendations have been incorporated into the 1978 Child Welfare Act, as we know, others are still valid recommendations.

Can the minister guarantee to this House that, unlike the Cyril Greenland report which we have here and unlike the Garber task force recommendations of 1978, which are just now being implemented some four years later, Judge Ward Allen's 87 recommendations will not become, to quote from his own text, "the endless presence of studies, intentions, hopes and objectives, accompanied by so much seeking, looking to, development, beginning, varying, altering, restoring and recommending which has characterized the ministry in its treatment of this most important problem in the past"?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, if the member had paid attention to me the other day he would know I referred to that on page 6 or 7 of my statement. The member was there then.

Mr. Boudria: Yes, I was.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Yes, he was. As I pointed out the other day, a number of the recommendations pertain to legislation. They have been referred to my colleague the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry). I pointed out that many of the recommendations of Judge Allen had already been acted on in whole or in part by either the ministry or the children's aid society. The judicial inquiry presented some very good recommendations. Those areas that have not already been totally taken care of will be strengthened and brought up to date as soon as possible.

One of the things I did point out was that in the consultation process now going on for the Children's Act, the recommendations for legislative change by Judge Allen will automatically become part of that. As I understand it, His Honour Judge Allen is very pleased with my approach to his report.

Mr. Boudria: I detect from the initial part of the minister's answer that the situation is improving and some things have been implemented. If that is the case, will he tell this House who made the decision to keep a ward of the crown who was being cared for by the Sarnia-Lambton Children's Aid Society in a foster home which was considered by the local CAS to be unsuitable for the child? This is a recent incident he may be familiar with. Whose decision was it to deny this girl the much needed evaluation she could have received from CPRI in London? The loss of evaluation and care by the CAS has been called regrettable.

Will the minister explain to this House why the president of the Sarnia-Lambton Children's Aid Society resigned over the matter? Why has this ministry's role in the matter been described, according to the same person, as being blackmail? Why is it that the past president of the CAS says the decision to keep the girl in the home was made for political reasons? Those are her words, not mine. Were those made with the best intentions for the child?

Hon. Mr. Drea: I am going to have to caution the member. He had better be careful about that type of question, particularly since this case was before the courts.

Mr. Mancini: He can ask anything he likes in the House.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Oh, he can ask me anything he likes in the House even though the decisions were made as part of a court case? That is very interesting case law. Now that the member has opened it, we will answer.

Mr. Speaker: Answer the question, please. Never mind the interjections.

Hon. Mr. Drea: The honourable member asked about a particular case involving the Sarnia-Lambton CAS. It will take a long answer. I am going to give it --

Mr. McClellan: Table it.

Hon. Mr. Drea: No. I will table it, but I will answer it here. If the member wants it tabled he should ask for that in the first place. There was no blackmail and I would ask the member to withdraw that remark. He has accused the ministry of a criminal offence. Second, there was no undue pressure --

Ms. Copps: Oh yes there was. He was quoting.

Hon. Mr. Drea: From whom, and who said it?

Ms. Copps: From the past president of the children's aid society.

Hon. Mr. Drea: And he did not say it in public either.

Ms. Copps: It is a she; and she did say it.

2:40 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Drea: There was no blackmail; there was no undue pressure. The simple facts of the case are that the girl was placed in a free setting, on a free-home basis, which was similar to a foster home. It was a trial placement. The CAS had an assessment from a physician at CPRI that was made before the placement in the home. They did not tell the member that, did they?

On the basis of that assessment, the CAS wanted to remove the child from the particular home she was in. The people refused to give up the child. They then went to court. As part of the court proceedings, His Honour Judge Kent ordered a hearing on August 25 to determine the placement. He left the child with the family pending the decision. On August 25 he reserved judgement. He asked for written submissions from both sides.

In the meantime an independent assessment was ordered. The independent assessment confirmed that the child would be better off in the home and not at CPRI. There were meetings with the CAS, the family that was providing care and the lawyers, and the case was settled out of court with the child remaining in the home. If she does require additional care or assessment at CPRI, it will be provided.

There were two aspects to the case. First, the CAS argued before the courts that it did not have the jurisdiction to handle the matter; second, the CAS accepted the findings arid so forth of the ministry. So, far from being blackmail, far from being undue interference, it was merely the normal settlement of a dispute where the CAS wanted to remove a child from a temporary placement and those who had the temporary placement obviously argued very successfully that this would have been the wrong decision.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, it is with some trepidation that I rise to ask a supplementary. I would like to go back, if I might, to the original question regarding the recommendations by Judge Ward Allen.

Given that one of those recommendations is that the definition of what constitutes child abuse should be broadened from that which we now have to include psychological and social abuse, can the minister give us his response to that recommendation? Can he give us some kind of guarantee that we will find a broadened definition in the new Children's Act as it goes through the process?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I do not really think I can give the honourable member a guarantee, because in the first place I have referred it to the Ministry of the Attorney General. However, I will give him a commitment, which I think is the same thing, and I said this the other day: I am very interested in broadening that definition to include emotional, social and other than physical or sexual abuse, and I am prepared, if the consultation process on the new Children's Act becomes prolonged, to move such a definition within the existing Child Welfare Act as quickly as possible.

I think this is a most significant area, because most of the reporting to the child abuse registry depends on definitions. Second, with the admonition to the public, particularly those who do have some knowledge of some things going on in particular families to report these facts, I think that defining abuse is only fair if they are to be expected to respond. I would like to have a practical and realistic expanded definition on the books as rapidly as possible.

CANADIAN GENERAL ELECTRIC

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Labour regarding Canadian General Electric and the high incidence of cancer at its coiling plant. Can the minister explain if CGE's press release of Wednesday last was correct wherein it said that the Minister of Labour was informed on December 12, 1980, about the situation in the coiling plant and that the company on a regular basis has kept all parties informed of the situation?

If the ministry knew about the situation 22 months ago, why has the government not followed up at all? Why has it allowed this alarming situation to go on without any answers to the women who are affected by the high incidence of cancer in that plant?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, the officials of my ministry are meeting at this very moment with representatives of the union involved and officials of the company. I hope to be able to make a complete statement on this whole matter and address the points that have been raised by the honourable member at that time.

Mr. Martel: The minister still has not answered whether they did in fact advise the ministry 22 months ago, and possibly he could do that in answering the supplementary.

In view of the seriousness of the situation, why was an epidemiological study not ordered immediately if the ministry was notified? Why did it not have someone qualified in the field get in there immediately to determine whether it was the work place processes that were causing this high incidence of cancer, whether it was the chemicals or whether it was some other substance that was causing these synergistic effects?

Why have no charges been laid against the company, which for two years has known about 24 cases -- and it is now 25 or possibly 26 cases, two more having come to light in the last week -- of the high incidence, which now represents over half of the women in that work force who have some type of cancer? How long is this going to be tolerated in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I agree with the member that this is a very serious matter, and for that reason I do not want to make any inappropriate or premature statements at this time. That is why I am trying to gather all the facts and consult with all the parties concerned to find out exactly; then I will reach some conclusions and report them accordingly.

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, because of the gravity of this situation, when the minister is looking into this matter is he going to see that these companies provide some kind of bonding or some kind of insurance arrangement so that in the future these very serious cases will not be left to be handled by the people of Ontario when some plant moves to another jurisdiction? Is the minister looking into that aspect as well to guarantee that these people are going to be helped by the companies that caused the problem in the first place?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I will certainly take the honourable member's comments under advisement and consideration.

HOSPITAL EMERGENCY SERVICES

Mr. Ruprecht: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Health. Does the minister know just what conditions exist in the emergency wards of our hospitals across Metro Toronto? For instance, last Wednesday I saw 16 people waiting for beds at the Toronto East General and Orthopaedic Hospital. Mrs. Marcis and Mrs. Turner had to wait on stretchers for over four days in the hallways of the emergency ward. Can the minister assure us that this condition does not exist in any other hospitals in Toronto?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, of course we have some pressure points in hospitals, as was pointed out in the district health councils survey last week, which I expect to be on my desk some time this week.

We do have some problems in the case of East General. As the member may know, we have already indicated that we want to see a complete plan for an increase in the emergency ward capacity. The hospital has engaged Woods Gordon to do a role study for that facility and I am expecting that study in March. When it comes in, we will be able to go ahead with an expansion of the East General emergency, which is badly needed.

2:50 p.m.

The member might be interested in knowing that last Sunday, November 7, at midnight, we checked the situation at the East General and found that 572 patients were in the hospital; the hospital has a bed capacity of 582. There are situations such as this occurring more often than we would like at East General, hence the plans with regard to the emergency department.

East General has 68 closed beds. If all those beds were open, we would not have had even that crisis situation arising on a short-term basis at East General last week. The ministry offered some funding for the East General to open those beds on a chronic care basis which would have been sufficient to alleviate the problem. The East General initially felt the funds being offered were not sufficient. It chose not to open them immediately but to continue discussions with us regarding the amount of money.

The hospital decided to go ahead with the opening of 24 of those beds and, with that, the situation was entirely alleviated. Therefore we do not expect too many more occurrences of this kind of problem at East General.

There are still 44 beds available at the East General and discussions are going on between the hospital and our ministry to determine which, if any, of those beds ought to be opened to further alleviate the problem, and what the funding level ought to be. All in all, I think the situation at the East General is now relatively well under control.

Mr. Ruprecht: Let us look at some other hospitals too. I have been informed today that, until last week, at least two other hospitals had some wings closed and they have been just recently opened. I know of at least one other hospital that even today has at least six beds closed because of the lack of adequate funding.

Can the minister assure this House that our hospitals in Toronto are operating at full capacity and that they are not being hampered by his cutbacks in spending?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I am not quite sure where the member has been in the last couple of weeks. He talks about cutbacks in spending. Our ministry's budget this year was increased from $5.6 billion to $6.5 billion.

Mr. Ruprecht: I have been told of cutbacks by the administrators themselves.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I could reflect on the people the member has talked with, but I shall not. I can only say our funding has been increased by about $1 billion this year.

Mr. Bradley: He has been talking to Morley Rosenberg.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Or perhaps Mike Bolan, His Honour Judge Bolan. One can never tell who he has been chatting with.

The funding for my ministry alone has been increased by $900 million this year in spite of the fact that the federal government has decided to cut back the amount of money it was intending to give us, or in our view was required to give us under the arrangement struck in 1977, in part to protect health financing and cover health costs.

I should also point out that two weeks ago I announced an additional $110 million in funding, which my colleagues have been kind enough to assemble and dedicate only to hospitals and hospital operations. In my statement at that time, members will recall I indicated that, given that funding, the hospitals should have no reason whatsoever to withdraw or affect health care to the public in any way or under any circumstances. Hospitals are now operating with that new funding and cannot withdraw services to the public.

If the member suggests there are two or three hospitals that are still saying they are underfunded, we have not had that indication to the ministry. I would have to believe that their first point of contact would be with the ministry.

The member talks about six beds being closed in one place and two or three wards just being reopened. Were any of them closed as a result of renovations or additions? Was anything being done with government money that necessitated an improvement to be undertaken and that therefore required the beds be closed for a period of time? What hospitals is he talking about? If he will give me the information, we can chat about them. Indeed, my estimates will likely start next week and I would be pleased to review that situation with the member regarding any particular hospital.

Let me make it very clear to the member that funding for hospitals has been increased well above inflation for the last several years. In addition, the $110 million given two weeks ago should solve all the problems in that regard. There should be no examples where alleged underfunding of hospitals by this government is causing a withdrawal or removal of beds in this province. In fact, this government has explicitly forbidden the closure of beds where that would in any way affect patient care. If the member followed all that, it should alleviate any alleged concerns he expressed.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, the minister is perfectly aware one of the factors causing the logjam in emergency departments in our hospitals, particularly in Metro, is the lack of available active treatment beds because of the number of long-term care patients who are wrongly placed in active treatment beds because of the shortage of long-term care beds.

I want to ask the minister whatever happened to the promise made by his predecessor the member for Don Mills (Mr. Timbrell) on December 1, 1981, when he promised 1,000 additional nursing home beds, an already inadequate number since the Hospital Council of Metropolitan Toronto had identified over 2,000 patients in Metro alone who were wrongly occupying active treatment beds?

Can he at least explain why the already inadequate promise of 1,000 additional nursing home beds has not been implemented and, as in the answer to a question tabled October 15, less than half those 1,000 beds have been set up?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, the promise is well in place and the funding is available for those beds as soon as the process is completed.

Mr. McClellan: Show us the beds. Never mind the process. Where are the beds?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Most of the beds are in the process either of beginning construction or are well into construction, as the member well knows. All of the 1,000 beds he referred to are in some stage of construction or have already been opened. There are 400-odd which have been opened.

The member will understand the process. If we are looking only to add some beds in an existing facility, those beds can be opened almost immediately, but in the case of large announcements such as my predecessor made last year, this often results in entirely new facilities having to be built. That requires a fairly extensive process which, unfortunately, often takes as much as a year.

Mr. McClellan: Never mind the process. You cannot put a patient in a process.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. McClellan: This is a lot of nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member has acknowledged that well over 400 beds are already in place. He knows very well all the other 600 beds are well under way. He knows very well we announced a further 100 beds for Metro this year. I think proposal calls will go out on December 8 for those 100 beds. The member will be aware that Etobicoke General Hospital currently has 94 beds under construction.

At Northwestern General Hospital -- I turned the sod there a couple of weeks ago -- there are another 120 beds. With respect to chronic care facilities, the member knows we have approved Queensway General Hospital for 120 beds, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care for 154 beds, Scarborough General Hospital for 165 beds, Scarborough Centenary Hospital for 88 beds, and it goes on and on.

When we are building that many at a time, it simply takes some time to get them built. If the member is suggesting there is a quicker way to run that process, making sure there are full and open tenders with proper construction and proper surveillance by the ministry, I should like to hear it. Perhaps next week he will bring in a McClellan plan for speedy building of nursing homes. I look forward to that. Of course, I suppose the member will suggest that if only government did it it would go up more quickly. That may be his solution. I look forward to hearing it.

RESIGNATION OF MME GISELE LALONDE

Mr. Cassidy: M. le Président, je voudrais poser une question au Ministre de l'Education. Could the Minister of Education explain why the government has been so eagerly trying to persuade Mme Gisèle Lalonde to withdraw her resignation from the Conseil de l'education Franco-Ontarienne when the same government has been so reluctant to implement the recommendations of the Joint Committee on the Governance of French-Language Elementary and Secondary Schools, of which Mme Lalonde was a co-chairman?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, Mme Lalonde has been involved in many education related activities and not simply that one committee. She has demonstrated a real commitment and leadership in the area of education. We therefore have simply requested that she reconsider her submitted resignation.

3 p.m.

Mr. Cassidy: Is the minister not aware that the reason Mme Lalonde has submitted her resignation and wants to get out is because she has come to the view that there is no sense in collaborating any more with a government that refuses to recognize the cultural identity and the fundamental rights of the Franco-Ontarians?

In view of the fact that Mme Lalonde was a Conservative candidate back in 1977, and the minister cannot keep the allegiance of her own people in the Franco-Ontarian community, is it not time that the ministry move forward and give fundamental education rights to Franco-Ontarians in this province rather than trying to fob them off with sweet words?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mme Lalonde's in-depth reasons for this are not available to me. I do know that the statements made very recently, or in the past few moments by the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy), are not Mme Lalonde's reasons at all.

I should like to have those reasons and those words directly from that estimable woman. I did not have those words from Mme Lalonde.

I would like the honourable member to look very carefully and very critically at the progress which has been made in terms of education for our francophone students in this province, not over just the past 100 years but specifically in the past decade and a half.

If the member would make that examination, he would realize that indeed a great deal more has been done for francophone students in this province than is currently being done for any anglophone student in the province of Quebec.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, could the minister tell us what promises, if any, her government made to Mme Lalonde in order to attempt to get her to withdraw her resignation in the past, which the minister spoke about?

We do know that Mme Lalonde said a number of months ago there was no question about her resigning. She wanted everyone else to resign with her.

Further, could the minister tell us if one of those answers is the adoption by her government of some sort of governance of French-language schools by francophones?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the only commitment which I gave to Mme Lalonde when I spoke to her was that I would be pursuing the course of action outlined by the Premier (Mr. Davis) in a letter to M. Aubé in October, that the consultation process regarding the report would be completed by December 31, 1982, and that there would be draft legislation related to the matter of francophone education which would be widely circulated, before March 31, 1983, I believe, in order that the appropriate legislation might be put in place in time for the next municipal election.

POOLING OF ASSESSMENTS

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Education on the pooling of commercial and industrial assessment.

As the minister is aware, opposition to the Martin proposal, or nonproposal as the minister prefers to call it, has been expressed by, I believe, three trustee organizations at the provincial level and by all but one of the affiliates of the Ontario Teachers' Federation in this province. Why is it that the minister has not responded to a joint letter from the Association of Large School Boards in Ontario and the affiliates of the OTF that agree with the ALSBO position on this subject?

Would the minister assure the House that she is prepared to meet with them in consultation on this particular subject with a view to establishing a steering committee which would develop a model which would reflect the mutual objectives of these organizations?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, what we really need is yet another steering committee.

I would remind the honourable members that in his report on declining enrolment as a result of a very carefully executed commission, the late Dr. Robert Jackson suggested strongly, as one of his recommendations, that the Ministry of Education seriously consider the pooling of industrial-commercial and institutional assessment for the purposes of support of education, elementary and secondary, across this province.

In our response to the Commission on Declining School Enrolment, Issues and Directions, the ministry committed itself to an examination of that proposal. We said very clearly that we would explore that possibility. There was a great deal of effort carried out, not only within the ministry but with some advice from the Advisory Committee on Financing Elementary and Secondary Education, which is made up of trustees and teachers and representatives of supervisory officers' associations, so that a model could be developed and shared with the school boards. That is precisely what has been done. It has been widely shared.

The implications of that model were not available to us through the computer mechanism until the last couple of weeks. That information is now being shared with the school boards, so that the impact of that suggested model can be assessed by each individual school board, including all the members of ALSBO. They have been making their recommendations on the basis of inadequate and incomplete information.

It is not a proposal. It is simply the pursuit of a commitment which we made in 1980. We are looking at it very carefully to see whether the model is appropriate, in the hope of getting some reasonable response that is not simply a flat "no" from all of those bodies that have very real concern about the delivery of educational programs in this province.

Mr. Bradley: Would the minister assure the House that when she does come forward with a firm proposal on the pooling of commercial- industrial and institutional assessment, she will submit that proposal to a committee of this House so that there can be public hearings and meaningful discussion of the final proposal before it is implemented, rather than simply having it implemented by regulation? Would she is able to do that somehow?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: The honourable member knows very well that it is impossible for this government to move in that direction by regulation.

Mr. T. P. Reid: You bought Suncor --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is a red herring, if I may say so.

At any rate, the Ministry of Education does nothing without full and complete consultation. We have been accused of spending so much time in consultation that it takes a great deal of time to have anything implemented. We will continue to consult.

If it seems appropriate to consider a mechanism other than simply consulting with all of the trustee groups in the province, all of the parent-teacher associations in the province, all of the teachers' federations in the province, as well as groups of ordinary citizens who make up part of our advisory committees, then I will certainly consider that.

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, I did not hear whether the minister gave the assurance requested in the letter which the Association of Large School Boards in Ontario has sent to her and which was signed by every trustee group and every teachers' group in this province.

Will the minister meet with those people? Or will she consult with them in the same way as she consulted with people on Bill 127?

Does she not understand that the people saw what she had planned and that they said, "Absolutely not"? They have rejected that kind of plan. Will the minister not admit that her particular proposal is nothing but a tax grab by the province with a view to reducing educational services in this province?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande) has one of the most fertile and vivid imaginations of any member of this House. He has flights of fancy which are unparalleled.

The consultation process regarding Bill 127 was extensive. As yet, I have not responded to the letter which was mentioned by the member and which I would like members to know was not signed by every trustee group in Ontario, but by all of the teachers' federations except for one, I believe.

It will be a matter of discussion with both the OTF and Ontario School Trustees' Council, both of whom we meet with great regularity. And that has already been discussed, at least in a preliminary fashion, with OTF.

3:10 p.m.

SAFETY OF OFFICE EQUIPMENT

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. It concerns video display terminals and in particular the need for radiation shielding for low-frequency radiation and the right of pregnant women to withdraw their services from machines.

Given that the Speaker has allowed the right of withdrawal to the women in the library, and we have found that there has been excessive low-frequency radiation in some of the machines there; given that the Ontario Public Service Employees Union now has an agreement with the provincial government that allows women to withdraw themselves from the machines; given that the federal task force has also recommended that women have the right to withdraw themselves from these machines if they are pregnant; and given that my Bill 18, if I might humbly say so, suggested this many months ago --

Mr. Speaker: And now for the question.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: -- what is the position of the ministry? Is it Dr. Muc's position that this is so much superstition and should not be followed? When can we expect the minister to make a statement about his point of view on this matter?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, my ministry appointed a task force on the possible health hazards of video display terminals some time ago. That task force is made up of a group of very distinguished people, a tripartite group of academics, management, labour and so on, and I have a great deal of confidence in their deliberations and their studies.

It is my understanding that the task force is expecting to have a preliminary or interim report within the next few weeks and a final report in the early part of 1983. Therefore, I feel it would be most appropriate to wait for that information before making any statements.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I will await that report as well. I presume that the interim report will be tabled with the Legislature.

Is the minister aware that one of the things that triggered a lot of this discussion was, of course, the cluster of birth defects in the Attorney General's office at old city hall? Is he aware, and can he confirm for us, that Dr. Harkins, who was appointed by the Ministry of Health with such urgency in that matter, has not yet begun his investigations, has not yet developed his methodology for his investigations of the women at old city hall?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of the progress that Dr. Harkins has or has not made. Perhaps that question would best be responded to by the Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman).

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would ask that it be redirected if he is here.

Mr. Speaker: The minister is not here.

Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that it is suggested the final report will be tabled at the beginning of next year and may potentially take much longer than that, could the minister give this House the assurance that he will at least follow the example of the Speaker of the House and offer interim regulations covering the issue of women who are forced to work on VDTs, and particularly pregnant women, bearing in mind that the final results of the report may not be ready until well into the new year?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I agree completely with the fact that this is a very serious matter. There have been so many conflicting reports. For every report that is of an alarming nature there are others that state there is no problem.

I really feel that until it has been established correctly one way or the other, we should err on the side of caution. But with respect to the introduction of regulations or any changes to legislation I cannot see that in the immediate future. I do want to see and be able to study the report. Incidentally, not very many weeks ago I made an attempt to expedite the delivery of that report because of the seriousness of the problem.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, concerning the redirection of my question: I was not aware, as I think you were not, that the Minister of Health is in the chamber at the moment; although he was not sitting in his seat. It is our normal custom to allow the minister time to find his seat and then be able to react to a redirection. I would ask your indulgence in that matter so that he might respond to the question.

The question was, essentially, is it true or not true that Dr. Harkins, who was set to do the work on the Attorney General's office at old city hall regarding the women who had the abnormally high rate of cluster birth defects, has as yet not begun?

Mr. Speaker: I must point out to the honourable member that this is not a point of order as such. I looked over at the minister's chair, as did the member, and he was not in his place; therefore, he cannot answer a question.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: What do you mean?

Mr. Speaker: Just a minute. In addition to that, the time for oral questions has expired and I would suggest that you hold that question until tomorrow.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I just want to say I will be here tomorrow.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge in the gallery the presence of my good friend, the former Minister of Revenue and former member for Parry Sound.

Mr. Bradley: We could use you now, Lorne.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, has it not been our practice in this House to allow a minister a chance to get to his seat when that kind of a redirection has taken place? There was a supplementary that intervened, which made it impossible for us to do so.

Mr. Speaker: It has been the informal practice in the House; however, like you, I was not aware that he was in the House. Nobody pointed it out until well after the member for Hamilton Centre (Ms. Copps) had started her question. Therefore, I must rule it out of order.

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

CITY OF ORILLIA ACT

Mr. McLean moved, seconded by Mr. Kolyn, first reading of Bill Pr46, An Act respecting the City of Orillia.

Motion agreed to.

MOTION TO SET ASIDE ORDINARY BUSINESS

Mr. Rae moved, seconded by Mr. Foulds, pursuant to standing order 34(a), that the ordinary business of the House be set aside in order to debate a matter of urgent public importance: namely, the unprecedented sale of almost 11,000 apartments by Cadillac Fairview, which is likely to be followed by sales by other large development firms; the consequent flipping of these properties within days, resulting in huge speculative gains which add nothing to the value of the rental units, but which clearly threaten thousands of tenants with economic eviction as a result of the financing costs allowed under Ontario's rent review program; the complete inadequacy of a rent review program that permits rental property to be priced beyond reach in order to secure speculative gains for owners and purchasers; and the prospect of further massive disruption in the rental housing market as other firms take advantage of Ontario's lax corporate disclosure laws to trade buildings.

Mr. Speaker: I wish to advise all honourable members that notice of the motion has been received in time and I will be pleased to listen to the honourable member for up to five minutes as to why he thinks the ordinary business of the House should be set aside.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, the events which have transpired over the last few days have caught the minister by surprise. They have caught tenants in 11,000 units in a difficult, if not impossible, situation.

The situation that has arisen with regard to Cadillac Fairview and the sale and resale has placed in question this Legislature's commitment to rent review and to the control of rents. It has clearly embarrassed the government because so many of its friends have been involved in the sale and resale. I think we saw some of that embarrassment on the minister's face today.

3:20 p.m.

I know it has been difficult for the minister, having spent half the weekend on the phone to Miami and the other half on the phone to Mecca. I appreciate the minister's difficulty but I want to suggest to him and to you, Mr. Speaker, that while this House debated on October 28 a motion which was moved by the leader of the Liberal Party, the situation we face today is substantially different from the one that was faced on October 28.

I also suggest to the minister that the situation that exists today is very different from the situation that existed on November 4 because, whereas the discussion on October 28 and the subject of the motion that was debated by the House at that time was the original sale of these 11,000 units from Cadillac Fairview to Greymac Credit Corp., the matter that is currently before this Legislature and currently is facing the minister and thousands of tenants is the flip and a reflip of those same properties. For that reason, I think this is a question of urgency.

When the minister was answering questions from the leader of the Liberal Party on November 4, he stated that he thought the average increase would be about 15 per cent. He got an average rent increase of $30 to $35 per month each year. Mortgaging is now up to $375 million at least and, according to some estimates, is as high as $500 million. Interest rates are at roughly 16 per cent for most of the financing. Do not ask me why it is at 16 per cent; it should not be at 16 per cent today, especially not at the market rate today.

The minister's same logic produces an average increase of about $150 per month in each of the three years. When the security and property rights of literally thousands of tenants in this province are being threatened in this way by increases of this magnitude and of this kind and when we have so many conflicting answers over a period of time with respect to what he knew, when he knew and when he did not know it, I say that we have a matter of urgent public importance, a matter that does require the suspension of ordinary business of the House, and I so respectfully submit to you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion of the leader of the New Democratic Party. I recognize that in your deliberations you are going to have to contemplate what has transpired in the past as we have discussed this issue. We have not had the benefit of complete knowledge in this case. Unfortunately, it is unfolding in little dribs and drabs every day, as there are a number of groups and individuals contributing, from their perspective, knowledge to this complicated and difficult situation that we face.

I remind you, in support of the leader of the New Democratic Party's position, that it has changed today from the last time we debated this issue. I know you felt originally it was not a matter of urgent public importance because the House leader for the Conservative Party had certain other priorities; then we agreed the second day, as I recall the chronology of events, on mutual assent of all parties to go ahead with that debate.

But I would try to persuade you, sir, that it is indeed a crisis. It is a crisis not only for the 20,000 or 25,000 people affected or potentially affected by this sale; it is also potentially a crisis for every tenant in this city and in this province, and it bears thorough and complete scrutiny.

We are very frustrated in the opposition. We know we have been ahead of the minister, as many other people have, in knowledge of this situation. We did a considerable amount of research into this situation, working all this weekend looking at the land title documents, looking at the registry office, trying to piece together a very complicated situation.

There are a number of very serious questions that still go unanswered. I know of the minister's explanation. We have no idea how he got the information he got, but we do know that he cursorily gave this House his impression of certain transactions. We do know from discussions today and in the past that the information he was given by certain of the principal players was, to be charitable, less than adequate in the circumstances. Either we have a person who did not understand that he was going to sell his building some four or five days later because he was going to lay rugs in the meantime or we have the fastest carpet tacker in Canada buying those buildings.

We have a right to know. This deal is so large and has such an effect on the rental market that we have a right to know, and we from this side of the House have been trying to push the minister into a complete and thorough investigation.

But that is only the first step. We must understand this deal in the context of what is happening in the rental market today not only in Toronto but also in a variety of other areas. I know there are those who would say that rent controls have caused all of this or at least some part of it. That may or may not be the case; that is not the point. The point is that we do have a crisis and we are obliged to deal with it here in this Legislature. Unfortunately, the only power we have on this side of the House is to try to focus public attention on this issue and to try to develop an emergency debate. Obviously we would rather see it in committee, but the government has consistently, in this session at least, used its six and five rule, its majority, to crush any legitimate opposition inquiries into almost any subject.

I implore you in these circumstances, Mr. Speaker, as we all sit back passively and watch the soap opera As the Apartment Turns, at least to allow us to discuss it today, to force the minister at least to stand up and defend a series of virtually indefensible statements he has made. He has equivocated, he has been late, he has not been forthcoming and he has not shown very well on this deal. When you look at the list of regulatory boondoggles of this government, the Astras, the Re-Mors and a variety of others of that ministry --

Mr. Cunningham: Argosy.

Mr. Peterson: Argosy has a big relationship to this whole thing, too, which we want sorted out. When you look at all of that, it calls into question the regulatory authority and the regulatory competence of this government in the hands of that ministry. That is one aspect we have got to look into.

The immediate, short-term emergency is the fate of those tenants. I suggest that today we have the possibility of increases in financing costs alone on an average unit of some $306 per month, consisting of $121 from the vendor takeback mortgage and $185 from the third wraparound mortgage. That all adds up to a potential doubling of rents in three years if we do not address it.

I remind you, Mr. Speaker, this money does not build new apartment buildings; it does not go anywhere except into the pockets of certain speculators. It is of no social value right now. Given this emergency, I implore you, sir, to use the fine judgement you have always demonstrated in that chair to approve this emergency debate.

3:30 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, as indicated by the mover of the motion and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson), this matter has already been discussed once under the rule concerning emergency debate. The motion was turned down at one point, and then was allowed by unanimous consent. The motion was not worded the same as this motion, but the debate centred around the same type of discussion that would occur during any debate of this one.

I think this House is wrong in its criticism of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) in this "very complicated and difficult matter," to use the words of the Leader of the Opposition. The minister and his staff have followed it very carefully and have reported from time to time to this House. I believe he has kept the House well informed on this matter. He has given full answers when questions have been asked.

My friend the leader of the third party, the member for York South (Mr. Rae), whom I welcome very warmly -- I know he is here to co-operate and make this House operate in the manner in which it should -- asked only one of his two questions on this matter today. That is certainly his prerogative, but the minister has always been very frank in answering questions.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: That was the third question asked on it.

Mr. Martel: We cannot get any answers.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The point I am getting at is that while we have debated this subject, I would not say we would not be prepared to engage in a debate on this subject at some future time, but well before this motion was filed at 11:08 this morning, it had been determined that after a full discussion of cabinet tomorrow, my friend the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations will be making a full statement to this House. I think it behooves the House to wait for that statement to debate this motion fully.

Also, I understand that by agreement, at the start of the minister's estimates, which begin on Wednesday, five hours will be taken to discuss many of the matters concerned in this motion. Therefore, I submit that given the fact we have broadly debated this issue already, we should not debate this issue this afternoon.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, on a point of personal privilege: I unwittingly misled the House. I want to apologize and go back to the chronology of events.

As I recall, in the original motion for emergency debate that we put forward, you did accept the motion, sir, and then the Progressive Conservatives voted not to hold the debate. I want to make that clear for the record. The next day -- a Thursday, I recall -- you took the position that the matter had been thoroughly debated and would not support that debate. That being said, on the unanimous consent of all parties in the House, we did proceed. I just wanted to correct the record.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

I want to advise all honourable members that I have compared the motion of the member for York South carefully with the motion of the member for London Centre, the one that was debated on Thursday, October 28, and I have listened very carefully and attentively to the submissions of all three parties.

I have come to the conclusion that while the basis of the two motions is similar, namely, the sale by Cadillac Fairview, the present motion deals specifically with an event that is alleged to have taken place since the former motion was debated; that is, the alleged subsequent sales since the sale to Greymac Credit Corp.

To be quite honest with you, I do have some reservations about this motion. However, I have to find in favour of the motion and allow it to go before the House for a decision.

The House divided on the question, "Shall the debate proceed?" which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Allen, Boudria, Bradley, Breaugh, Breithaupt, Bryden, Cassidy, Charlton, Conway, Cooke, Copps, Cunningham, Di Santo, Eakins, Edighoffer, Elston, Epp, Foulds, Grande, Johnston, R. F., Laughren, Lupusella;

Mackenzie, Mancini, Martel, McClellan, McGuigan. Miller, G. I., Newman, O'Neil, Peterson, Philip, Rae, Reid, T. P., Renwick, Ruprecht, Samis, Stokes, Swart, Van Horne, Worton, Wrye.

Nays

Andrewes, Baetz, Barlow, Bennett, Birch, Brandt, Cousens, Cureatz, Davis, Dean, Drea, Eaton, Elgie, Eves, Fish, Gillies, Gregory, Grossman, Harris, Havrot, Henderson, Hennessy, Hodgson, Johnson, J. M., Jones, Kells, Kennedy, Kolyn, Lane, Leluk, McCaffrey, McCague, McLean, McMurtry, Miller, F. S.;

Norton, Piché, Pollock, Ramsay, Robinson, Rotenberg, Runciman, Scrivener, Sheppard, Snow, Stephenson, B. M., Sterling, Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, G. W., Taylor, J. A., Treleaven, Villeneuve, Watson, Welch, Wells, Williams, Yakabuski.

Ayes 42; nays 57.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS (CONTINUED)

On vote 601, ministry administration program:

Mr. Chairman: Continuing with the estimates of the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs, it is my understanding that the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) possibly had finished his remarks.

Mr. Boudria: Yes. He had finished.

Mr. Chairman: He had? Then I will now recognize the member for Oshawa.

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, I want to say a few words at the outset of these estimates to cover what is often a rather mysterious portfolio. Most of the ministries have a clear role to play and all members understand what it is, but this one is a little different because it appears from time to time that Ontario has its own external affairs department. Although the ministry is not high-profile most of the time, on occasion the very gallant form of the minister emerges somewhere when Ontario is engaging in dialogue with other provinces.

4 p.m.

As we go through the estimates we find that Ontario is indeed spreading its wings around the world. More and more it is establishing offices of agents general around the world market. That role is not too clear except we do know there generally are very high-profile people in expensive office accommodation, doing what we are none too sure but they are there and we at least know who they are.

Some of the opening remarks in the minister's speech caught my eye as being things which would be worthy of some reaction because there has been a good deal of discussion lately about matters concerning our relationships with the other provinces and the federal government. In his opening remarks, he established a number of areas where he was interested in developing this theme of our relationship with the remainder of this country and with other nations as well.

One of the things he mentioned was the provision of French-language services. This seems a rather strange ministry for this matter to rest. In fact, as we go through the minister's speech and the various responsibilities which the minister has, we find time and time again rather unusual things entering into the picture. There does not appear to be a collective rationale for all the things the ministry does but it does appear that, every once in a while, almost special purpose matters are dealt with through this ministry. It is almost as if we have a minister in charge of hot potatoes, or if we cannot fit something into other ministries we give it to Intergovernmental Affairs.

The provision of French-language services is one of those. Of course, in other ministries we see a kind of on-the-ground provision of French-language services. It must be rather difficult for the minister to adopt a position this House has debated on a number of occasions now, that is, to establish finally, once and for all, in a formal and legal way that this province has two official languages.

This House has said that. A number of other provinces have adopted variations of that theme. I guess the latest and most notable one is New Brunswick. Different provinces have attempted to address themselves to the matter of two official languages in a formal and legal sense to give that some status. In Ontario, we continue with a technique which provides for some gains in terms of the provision of services but always remains back from the initial desire that was expressed by this House some time ago, that there ought to be two official languages.

Mr. Samis: There is a Tory government in New Brunswick too.

Mr. Breaugh: Yes. It is a rather remarkable thing that even in New Brunswick, with a Tory government quite similar to the government here in Ontario, they took that step. It remains a bit of a mystery as to why a government of Ontario, which has heard a great deal of debate on this matter and which in effect has attempted to provide those services, remains so reluctant to provide that formal acknowledgement of two official languages.

It seems to me that is something which is inevitable. Other provinces have had the courage and the foresight to do it and in many ways it has something to do with the fabric of this nation. There are two official languages at one level and yet at the provincial level there is a patchwork quilt of that stuff.

There is one other little thing I thought was remarkable in what the minister had to say, since much of what he says in here is to indicate how low-profile his ministry really is. One remarkable little statement I found was that the minister saw fit to point out in his speech that these estimates now under consideration total only $7.1 million. Perhaps that says something about the affairs of government in Canada and about the priorities of this government that it can use the words, "only $7.1 million," and feel comfortable with that, feel it is not a substantial expenditure. I find it quite remarkable.

It goes back to the old line, "What's a million?" Except in this instance the minister is saying: "What's $7.1 million? It is peanuts." Then he went on at some length to try to develop that it really was peanuts. It strikes me that any way one cuts it, an expenditure in excess of $7 million is not peanuts; it is substantial. When one looks through the various types of office accommodations and the types of programs which the ministry runs, all the way from something that is mentioned here in the back as protocol services, and we see the kind of receptions that are run, we begin to get an understanding that this indeed is not peanuts.

This ministry may not have a great many activities under its belt, but when it decides to throw a party, when it decides to set up a new office for an agent general in Paris, it sure does know how to spend the money.

Mr. Boudria: Has that office been filled?

Mr. Breaugh: Yes, unfortunately that office has been filled.

There are a couple of other things I wanted to speak to as we went through. The minister has from time to time given the House an opportunity to debate relations between Ontario and the remainder of Canada. In fact, the constitutional debate we had was one of those rare times when all members on all sides enjoyed the opportunity to participate in putting together their thoughts about what Canada is all about, what the constitutional debate should have been. One thing that I find happens infrequently here is an opportunity for the Legislature of Ontario, for members on all sides, to debate something of that nature.

This afternoon we again had an attempt at an emergency debate. It seems to me that it would do this government some good to provide opportunities for the members of the Legislature here in Ontario to address themselves not just to bills and not just to sets of estimates, as we are doing this afternoon, but to larger questions. It seems to me that this would be a good way for the government to get some sounding of where individual members and the political parties in Ontario put their priorities, and I would welcome other opportunities to do that kind of thing.

In many ways the minister in his opening statement went through the highlights, the major activities of the last little while in Canadian politics, and I guess the constitutional debate and all the ramifications there are matters that we have been preoccupied with, but he touched on a couple of other areas that I want to note.

One is the rather convoluted way in which tax moneys are gathered and disbursed in Canada and how complicated this formula is. It is true that if you go out into the street and find what is laughingly known as a government building somewhere in Ontario, almost all the time you will see in that building at least three levels and sometimes four levels of government participating in the funding for that building, and in most of the programs that are run as well. Very few of them are operated and initiated by one level of government. It seems it is a requirement now that all levels of government that can be found participate in those structures.

The minister in his opening remarks spent some time talking about how the federal government has unilaterally removed the revenue guarantee from the established programs financing entitlements. I do not mean to be too critical, but I want to point out that the provincial government moved unilaterally to remove rather substantial amounts of money from the municipalities in the last budget with sales tax and licensing, and it is now moving unilaterally -- so we are told by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett) and others -- to put the grab on grants from the province of Ontario to the municipalities.

I really find some difficulty in understanding how you can call the federal government names for moving unilaterally in putting a lock on or making changes to the established programs financing and turn around the next day and do the same thing to that level of government for which you are responsible, that is, the municipalities. It seems to me that at many different levels, from many different ministers now, I have heard that this is a no-no, that the federal government should not be doing that; that if the federal government has financial obligations it should keep them, and that if it wants to change those financial arrangements it should do so only after consultation with the provinces.

If that is really the way the government feels and if it feels very strongly as a point of principle that you should not be changing your financial arrangements with partners who provide programs or services, this approach should be consistent and the provincial government ought to be just as consistent in going to municipalities and consulting with them.

The ramifications of what has happened in Ontario are rather dramatic. For example, look at the minister's opening statement where he talks about variations at the federal level and try to trace that through. He says in his statement, "Ontario will lose $1.9 billion over a five-year period in funds for health and post-secondary education." We should also point out that there are a number of other areas where there is federal funding involved, and by the time this whole process settles down we are going to see that impact.

4:10 p.m.

I want to point out that the exact same argument can and is being made at the level that is closest to the people, the municipal level. In most municipalities with which I am in contact now, their first-run review of next year's budget shows an impact of between 15 and 20 per cent. For many of the school boards it may even be higher than that.

They are looking at options which are extremely limited, because they are looking at programs which, in many cases, are mandatory. The municipalities must provide them. This cost pass-through, cost-sharing from the federal government to the provincial government to the municipal government, leaves the municipal government at the bottom of a very awkward totem pole.

They are not even invited to the conference, let alone told what is going on. They are not sure right now whether Ontario is represented by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who goes to their annual meeting at the Royal York Hotel and says to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, "For next year, do not expect any percentage increase in grants, maybe." We are at the beginning of the municipal budget-setting process. What a way to treat those partners, those people who may properly fall within the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs because they are another level of government.

If we go through the estimates, we do not find municipalities mentioned too much even though the ministry is called Intergovernmental Affairs. What a way to treat those folks. At the beginning of their budget-setting process they have no concrete knowledge of what percentage increase will be passed through next year, whether any will be passed through or not.

If we go back to the minister's opening statement, we see he has earmarked the initial problem. The problem is that on its own the federal government is changing some of its financial commitments, both short-term and long-term, in certain specific kinds of services. If we trace that through as it goes through Ontario, they seem to be grabbing a bit more here and there as well. In their budget last June, and there was not much consultation on that, they simply repeated the same sin of the federal government. If it is a sin at the federal level, in my view at least it ought to be considered a sin as well at the provincial level for them to do the exact same thing.

One of the things the minister might do in all of the great wonderful things that are proposed in this year's agenda is to take a look at the municipalities. If he wants to be a Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, he might look at that level of government and provide some decent treatment for them.

One of the things he also mentioned was the relationship between Ontario and Quebec. I think many members spoke to this matter in our debate on the Constitution. We have not really had much opportunity since to do so in the Legislature itself and I wanted to say a few words there.

I think there are ongoing problems with Quebec. There certainly are ongoing problems with, for example, states in the northern part of the United States now, where we have trucking agreements back and forth between Ontario and Michigan or New York state. There are difficulties there and it is often tough for a member to find an occasion when he can address that kind of problem at any length.

It would be worthwhile, more than once a year during the course of the estimates, to open it up for that kind of debate rather than to leave it to question period when the time is really a serious factor. Many of us are aware of that kind of long-term problem: whether it is under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or whether it is an interstate-international trucking agreement. those all have ramifications for us back home.

In my community, where the transportation industry is a major part of our local economy, truckers are having difficulty with that. It is difficult to find a forum where we can address that kind of problem. Without going into that specific one at any great length, I want to simply make the point that it would be useful to have the members of the House participate in debates of this kind.

A little more specifically, dealing with Ontario and Quebec it is difficult to judge whether those relationships have improved, changed or altered at all in the last year or so. Certainly, the role that was played by Ontario in the formation of a new Constitution for Canada. while it may have produced effects which in this province some see as being positive in nature, we will have to admit that in relation to Ontario and Quebec it did not do much to cement a relationship there. It did not do much to foster any kind of good feelings between the two provincial governments and there remain some outstanding differences between the two provinces.

The minister mentioned an example which shows that this mix of responsibilities does not apply only in economic matters, although it certainly is there. The minister pointed out that the new Constitution calls for a first ministers' conference on aboriginal and treaty rights to be held before April 17, 1983. I simply want to put on the record the concern I have for the first citizens of Canada, the native peoples, who for a long time have run into great difficulty in several areas.

I guess the most notable one would be in the matter of treaties. The native people feel that treaties which were signed a long time ago should be honoured. Various levels of government, particularly the federal government, seem to have great difficulty coming to that conclusion. They even have great difficulty in coming to a resolution in negotiating current agreements. I urge that Ontario take the side of our native people and go to bat for them. They often have a difficult time putting forward a solid case.

Among the native people whom I have had a chance to chat with, it is a matter of great concern that their people have never had original treaties honoured. They continue to have economic difficulties and a range of problems for which no level of government seems prepared to take the responsibility. I urge that the province participate in the resolution of those problems, because like all citizens of this country the native people have a right to fair treatment and a negotiated settlement which they think is fair.

The problem is having to deal with a monster like the federal government of Canada. It is very difficult for any group to do. For any group, trying to convince the federal government to negotiate fairly and to honour previous commitments is often an extremely difficult task. It puts people who do not have the financial resources, the legal staff and, certainly, the political clout of the federal government in a difficult position in matters of negotiation. I urge Ontario to participate on behalf of the native people in Ontario and across the country to see that treaties are honoured and negotiations brought to a conclusion which is fair and reasonable to all.

I want to conclude my remarks by referring to another area referred to in the minister's opening statement for these estimates. The minister established that a number of difficult issues have emerged in our relations with the United States in the last few years. I want to put the matter into a context of not only the United States, for example in the auto industry, but with offshore imports in general, because we have clearly determined the kind of impact other countries can have on Ontario's economy.

From many debates and questions in this House, we see that Ontario cannot be content to be just an observer of the actions of other nations. It has to be an active participant. What the auto makers do in Japan and the United States has an impact on jobs here in Ontario. The province can no longer afford simply to say, "That is the responsibility of another level of government."

In my time in this House I have seen the government of Ontario turn around quite substantially on matters like the auto pact. I recall that in my first days here when we would ask questions about the ramifications of the auto pact between Canada and the United States, the usual reply was: "That is not our responsibility. That is the responsibility of the federal government." At least now we have the province paying some attention to the dramatic impact of that kind of question.

In a sense, I am making the argument that the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs has a large job to do and should get at it. There are problems now between Canada and the United States which centre on the auto industry. They are obvious to those who are interested observers of the industry itself.

4:20 p.m.

There is strong anti-Canadian feeling present in the American Congress. Perhaps that is just a normal gut response of American congressmen to their constituents who are having the same things happen to them as are happening to mine, that is, substantial numbers of layoffs and plant closures and a local economy which is getting flatter every day.

Part of what is happening in Washington these days is an initial response that says, "We had better take out all of this hostility on somebody else." I am sad to say some of that is being directed at Canada. The auto industry is one example. When one talks about the Canadian auto industry one is really talking about the Ontario auto industry, because this is where the heart and soul of the auto industry in Canada resides.

Whether the minister chooses to get into that field or not, he has to recognize that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade has an effect on textile plants in Ontario and on most of the goods we produce in this province and try to sell as exports to other countries. The Japanese auto industry moving into Canada has an effect.

It is not good enough to say, "We sent a telex to Ed Lumley and he is doing something about it." In my experience, the federal government seems extremely slow to respond to the needs of Ontario. That being the case, I think the government has no option other than to move to some position which allows it to be more active and allows it to represent Ontario in a more concrete way than gathering facts, as we have traditionally done as observers, and putting forward almost a mendicant position to the federal government as to what we think needs to be done. I am making an argument that this minister and this government need to be more active in that regard.

I do not want it to be seen that we are always attempting to put forward such positions in a protectionist way, because I think that response is not really one which has any long-run prospects of a positive nature for Ontario. For example, trends in the auto industry have now clearly established that there is a need, not just for what we traditionally called research and development, but to develop new product lines and new techniques in terms of management and production, new equipment inside the plants and a new sensitivity to a changing market which the auto makers themselves have had great difficulty with.

When we see nations like Japan or Germany move products so effectively in and out of Ontario, the biggest single market in Canada, our government here in Ontario needs to be able to respond to that. It needs to he able to track that and to be a participant in that process. That is the role, according to the minister's opening remarks, of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. I want him to be more active in that regard.

There are a couple of other matters I wanted to raise. One thing which has fascinated me for some time now is, exactly what does an agent general do in all those positions we have established around the world? Aside from the fact there seems to be a clear trend that the basic qualification for an agent general is to have a strong connection with the Progressive Conservative Party, there does not appear to be much else in the way of qualifications.

For example, Mr. Ward Cornell was the agent general in London. He is a very fine man. I used to watch him on Hockey Night in Canada and I thought he did an excellent job there, but I was always at a bit of a loss to explain how one goes from Hockey Night in Canada to being agent general in London. The connection escaped me slightly. When I pursued it a bit more and asked him what exactly he did as agent general, I have to admit it was not too clear either.

Mr. Stokes: He greets you at the airport at Heathrow.

Mr. Breaugh: He is a very pleasant man. A few years ago he did meet me at the airport and was very nice. He gave us a nice tour of London. It was a Sunday and I really appreciated he would give up his Sunday morning to do that. We had a nice chat and a pleasant lunch and we spent a little time trying to figure out what an agent general does. I am not too sure. I appreciate he would get out of bed on Sunday morning and pick up some visitors from Ontario, but is that really what an agent general does?

When one looks at agents general in other centres of the world, they seem to come from a variety of backgrounds. One of the most recent and most unusual ones in a sense, because it caused me some mixed emotions, was Adrienne Clarkson being appointed agent general in Paris. I am always overjoyed when a woman gets an appointment of that kind, particularly a woman of such talent as Adrienne Clarkson, who comes out of the broadcasting field.

Maybe that is another clue. Maybe one has to have some television in one's background to get appointed to a position like that. What puzzles me somewhat is that I find Adrienne Clarkson is not only Ontario's woman in Paris, she is also Westin's woman in Canada and continues to participate in a series of advertisements for Westin Hotels.

When I first saw that ad I thought it was rather strange. How does one maintain a position as agent general representing Ontario and at the same time represent a private hotel company? Is there not a hit of a conflict there? It would he rather unusual, for example. to see that with the deputy ministers of the crown, who I guess are parallel because Ward Cornell came from being agent general in London to become deputy minister here. What if all the deputy ministers decide they want to be Westin's man in Canada and we see them turning up in advertisements in Time and Maclean's? Is there not a conflict in that?

What would happen if civil servants at a different level or, not to confuse the terms, people who work for the government of Ontario at some other level decided to go into advertising as an offshoot? I investigated that a little and I understand Ms. Clarkson entered into some kind of agreement, as do many people in the entertainment business, to participate in this advertising campaign. It appears the arrangements for the ad campaign and her participation in it were finished and pretty well wrapped up prior to her being appointed agent general. That leaves us with the embarrassing thing that the agent general for Ontario continues to have her picture used in an advertising campaign.

It really struck me that an honourable, scholarly and dignified gentleman like the minister would have no difficulty in convincing probably one or two people, including Ms. Clarkson, that it was not appropriate for an agent general to continue to participate in that kind of advertising campaign. Perhaps he might even have used his many skills and charms on Westin Hotels to point out that it was a bit of an embarrassment to have someone in almost a diplomatic post for Ontario participating in an advertising campaign for a commercial company like a hotel chain.

It is true that Adrienne Clarkson is a prominent citizen of Ontario and now agent general for Ontario in Paris. This really should preclude her participation or the use of photos or whatever by Westin Hotels to promote a commercial entity. That is not appropriate. I think some gentle suasion might be in order on the part of the minister, because if that precedent is left to stand it raises a number of very interesting difficulties the government could get itself into.

This is a matter which is not really appropriate. This is not to make a big deal of it but to say that if the government is attempting to establish these quasi-embassies with agents general of high calibre around the world, one of the things we have to do is to recognize that one cannot be in Paris representing Ontario and in magazines in Ontario representing Westin Hotels. There is a clear conflict there that needs to be resolved.

One other thing that came to my attention last year was that a gentleman by the name of Hugh Segal, a prominent fellow a lot of us have met and many of us like, went to work for Intergovernmental Affairs.

Mr. Laughren: Jonathan Livingston's brother.

Mr. Breaugh: I am not sure he is Jonathan Livingston's brother. Because I have an abiding interest in his activities, and seeing he is rather successful in most of the things he does, I tried for a while to find out exactly what it was he was doing.

Mr. Boudria: Concerned about his wellbeing?

Mr. Breaugh: Yes, I am concerned about his future. I wanted to know what it was he was doing because it appeared to me he was extremely active. He was moving about from province to province and was very busy. It is not too clear, though, exactly what the role is and we keep coming back to that central problem with this ministry. We can find out who the players are. They are often prominent, high-profile, political entities. We know they are very busy because they are here and there, at airports across Canada and now around the world, but when we try to ascertain exactly why they are there, we come up with some rather loose answers.

4:30 p.m.

The best explanation I have had is that Hugh Segal, devoted Conservative that he has always been and always will be, was spending a good deal of time going about Canada, from province to province, testing the waters to see if the nation desired the Premier (Mr. Davis) to be drafted as the next federal leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. It seems to me that explanation is rational in some respects; but not rational if one assumes he was supposedly doing some wonderful work for Intergovernmental Affairs.

I know the scope of involvement over the years by men such as Hugh Segal has always been virtually unlimited. When the Tory party needed something done, it always seemed to have lots of these people around, usually bright, usually young and usually men who were very active in the legal field, in advertising or entertainment. The list of prominent Tories who turn up in top government jobs is almost endless.

It is interesting to test that and to see what Mr. Segal's position was with the ministry. Exactly what was it about the government's business in Ontario that required him to tour Canada extensively?

Mr. Boudria: A gopher.

Mr. Breaugh: I would not pay that kind of money for a gopher. I believe he must have had a serious mission and there must have been a good explanation as to why he was criss-crossing Canada at such an alarming rate being very busy. Was he working for Ontario, for the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs, or was he fulfilling some higher call and attempting to get our Premier to run for federal leader?

Not that it would not be an act of mercy for someone to run for the position of federal leader of the Progressive Conservatives. That certainly continues to he a problem and there seems to be a succession of Premiers lining up to be drafted. I find it a unique situation that none of them, not the Premier of Alberta nor the Premier of Ontario, is actively seeking this. They are all just grooming the nation to get ready for this second coming. It will be interesting to see that as it goes through.

There are a number of other matters that other members want to get into, but I did want to respond to the minister's opening remarks which I found quite fascinating. It appears to me they lay the groundwork for something that would be substantial even if, in his own words, he only spends $7.1 million. He seems to be embarking on a program which seems to ensure that in the future he will not be so modest with his expenditures.

We have a chain of offices set up around the world and the groundwork is there to expand those offices. Once you have set up shop in downtown London or Paris, and you are paying the freight for that high-rent district anyway, you might as well fill the joint with some classy furniture and classy staff people. You might just as well expand it into a full diplomatic operation. One can see the potential is there and, if you keep at it, the list of defeated Tory candidates is there too, so there is a pool of people to draw upon.

Now that you have branched out into the entertainment industry, the world of news and Hockey Night in Canada, there is almost an unlimited field of what seems to be the kind of potential candidates you are looking for. There is lots of room to expand and I am sure in future years the ministry will do exactly that.

I do think there is an important role for this ministry to play. I would like to see it more active in some respects and not so active in others. One that I mentioned previously which I think is worth the minister's time is to be more active with this Legislature in terms of intergovernmental affairs and relationships.

I know that it is not often he has the legislative responsibility of taking a bill through the House and that once a year we will get a shot at him during the course of the estimates, but from time to time, when there are matters involving other provinces or other nations, I would be happy to see this minister take some initiative so that one of the things done in the order of arriving at a final position is to involve the Legislature of Ontario, at least in having debates about matters that are of great concern to us.

I went through them earlier. In economic terms, social terms and in developing the nation, the impact is there and we have set the precedent. We have had debates on the Constitution and some other matters. It would be useful if the minister would provide this Legislature with the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process even if it is only at the debate level.

One thing which does concern me from time to time is that Ontario takes positions in relation to other provinces, to the federal government and to other nations on which the members of this Legislature have only the media as an information source. The members of the Legislature have no real opportunity to discuss in any detail the ramifications of the changes that have been made by the federal government on established programs financing or the ramifications of our relationship with the United States around trucking agreements, or around the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or the auto pact, or any of these other matters.

While I am not asking the minister to drag legislation through all the time, I do think it would be appropriate if, from time to time, when there was a major matter of that kind on the minister's agenda, one of the things he might like to plug into, one of the things which might be useful for him, is to ask the members here, on all sides, not just on his own side, to participate in a little afternoon session about whatever the issue of the day might be.

I do have some other questions which I would like to ask if we have some opportunity. The time scheduled for this debate is a little on the short side, and I am aware that other members wish to participate. So I will conclude my opening remarks here.

Mr. Chairman: In consideration of rotation, the member for Prescott-Russell may have some questioning. Do you have questions on some specific votes, or is there general agreement that we will just discuss it in general?

Mr. Boudria: As far as I am concerned, Mr. Chairman, I am quite agreeable to discuss it in general terms, if the minister agrees. Sometimes it is rather difficult to identify whether a thing belongs specifically to one vote or another.

I have a few questions. Perhaps I can just list them and the minister might like to respond to them all at once, if that is okay, Mr. Chairman.

First, as a Franco-Ontarian member, I would like to start by saying that I think -- as a matter of fact, I am sure -- the Franco-Ontarian population have great admiration for the minister. They. of course, do not agree with a lot of the policies of the government but they certainly have a lot of faith in the minister and in his deputy, who I see on the floor of the Legislature at this particular moment. They have quite a bit of confidence in the minister and they are hopeful he will be able to convince some of his colleagues to enact some of the things they think and I think should be done in this province.

The few questions I have are in regard to the relationship between Quebec and Ontario. As we all know, if we go back far enough in history, where we are today used to be part of Quebec prior to the Constitution Act of 1791. What was known later as Lower Canada and Upper Canada was all joined together into what was known then as the province of Quebec. In 1791, to the west of the seigneury Vaudreuil, the province was then separated into two parts forming Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Since then, we have had what I consider to be very close co-operation between the two provinces dating from the days of Baldwin and Lafontaine, and throughout the reform movement and after the British North America Act of 1867.

In the past few years we seem to have seen a deterioration of that rapport which used to exist between the two provinces. I would like the minister to comment further upon that. I know he has done so to a certain extent in his opening remarks, and I recognize how difficult it is to deal with a government whose primary objective is to destroy the Confederation that we know today. That, of course, is the philosophy and the ultimate objective of the Parti Québécois government. That does not make dealings between the two provinces easy to undertake.

4:4O p.m.

The one issue that I would like to get some response to is one I raised last year in the House, and it has to do with the labour dispute between Ontario and Quebec, contractors' disputes and so forth. The minister is probably aware of the situation in my constituency, that it is very common for the people of Grenville, Quebec, to work in Hawkesbury and the people of Hull to work in Ottawa, and I would imagine that the member for Cornwall (Mr. Samis) could tell us that a lot of people living in the Vaudreuil area come to work in Cornwall.

The people of Quebec have free access to come and work in our province, especially those in the construction trades. However, the opposite does not work very well. As a matter of fact, the minister is aware that it is almost impossible for tradesmen from our province to seek employment in Quebec. I have written to the minister on a few occasions on this subject, and I would like to know what progress he is making in negotiating with his Quebec counterpart to allow a freer movement of labour, contractors and machinery between our two provinces.

He will remember the incidents of three or four years ago when the heavy equipment association of Ottawa threatened to seal off the interprovincial and the Macdonald-Cartier bridges in Ottawa in order to prevent traffic from crossing the river until their grievances were settled. The issue seemed to subside at the time, probably because for a while there was no work on either side of the river, therefore there was not much point in challenging anything.

We did not see a solution to that problem, and now, with the construction of large projects in Ottawa, such as the Rideau Centre and other things like that, and in Hawkesbury the construction of the hospital, there is still a certain amount of work, at least in eastern Ontario on the Ontario side; but there is very little work on the Quebec side, and the Quebec labourers are crossing the border. Of course, we are all in favour of that in principle, but what disturbs me is that there does not seem to be any reciprocity there. It is possible, as the minister well knows, for Ontarians to obtain special licences allowing them to work on the Quebec side. They are almost like work permits; they are obtained through the different trades and they are very difficult to get.

I would like to know what progress, if any, the minister has made with his Quebec counterparts or with the Quebec government. I recognize that dealing with them is not all that simple, but just what has been achieved to improve matters with that government and for the people, principally those of eastern Ontario and to a certain extent northeastern Ontario? As we get into the area of Timiskaming and so on, where there are also communities close to the Quebec boundary, there is a similar situation.

Mr. Chairman: Is that the question now?

Mr. Boudria: Well, that is one question. Perhaps I can let the minister respond to that one.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I would be happy to answer that, Mr. Chairman. This certainly is a problem that has occupied much of the time of several ministers in this government over the years. My perception would be that as a problem it has to some degree vanished at the moment. That may be because it is not getting as high a profile, and I am sure the honourable member, whose riding is down on the Ottawa River, is more aware of it than I am at this time.

I am now just recalling some of the events from memory. Most of the meetings that went on were between our Minister of Labour and the Quebec Minister of Labour, because it basically concerned labour problems.

Mr. Samis: Dr. Elgie and Dr. Johnson.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That is right. Dr. Elgie and Dr. Johnson met many times on it. And, of course, the meetings occurred at the time that Quebec brought in new policies regarding who could work where in Quebec. As the member is aware, there is not the completely free movement of the construction industry trades around that province as there is in this province.

This presented some problems to the people from the Ontario side going across to the Quebec side. We talked about certain arrangements that could be made, at the same time also introducing in this Legislature what could have been termed a retaliatory type of bill; in other words, a bill that would have done some things that would have put us in the same category as Quebec and allowed us to stop certain things from happening, as I recall.

I believe we all breathed a sigh of relief when that bill did not have to be proceeded with, because a basic bedrock of the policy of this province always has been not to retaliate in like against other provinces. We believe in the free movement of goods, services, capital and people across this country, and we believe in the Canadian common market; we do not believe in setting up barriers.

We know that Quebec has set up barriers; indeed, some of the barriers were set up long before the Parti Québécois came to power.

Mr. Boudria: Some?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Some of the major policies -- and let us get away from all the new ground rules about where, who and what you need to conform to if you are a construction worker and working in a certain industry -- policies such as those that did not allow Ontario contractors to tender on municipal or provincial jobs across the border were set up in the early 1960s, as I recall. Therefore, you had Quebec contractors coming across the Ottawa River and doing work up and down the valley, and at the same time their fellow contractors located in my friend's constituency, or in Ottawa or in the Renfrew area, could not go across and bid on municipal jobs. That kind of restriction came in well before the present government. We have talked many times about trying to get some relief from that. At this point, I am not sure we have arrived at any solution to that problem.

That leads to the ultimate question: If you cannot negotiate any solution to the problem, do you then do likewise? We have always pretty well decided in this province that we would not do likewise; in other words, we would not prohibit Quebec contractors from bidding on jobs in this province.

I do not have all the facts and figures here, but my recollection is that after about a year or a year and a half of the new labour arrangements being in place in Quebec, there were actually just as many Ontario workers going into Quebec as there had been before. In fact, the new rules had not cut off a number of people from moving from this province to work in Quebec; things were really very much as they had been before.

I recall very well the heavy equipment problems. I do not know that we have arrived at any solution to those problems, except I have not been made aware that there is any really great problem at present. I would assume that the heavy construction association in Ottawa would have made us aware if there were still some really dire problems there. I have to think that probably the discussions and talks that went on have allowed for some alleviation of the really major irritant points and that perhaps things are moving along fairly well there.

Having said that, there are still some very major Quebec-Ontario trade problems that are looming: the idea of barriers, the idea of whether you give a job to a firm in your own province even though it is not the low bidder; these kinds of things are still there. There are several of those problems sitting right on our doorstep at present, and they are going to be the basis of some talks that I am going to be having with the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs of Quebec.

There has been some publicity in the newspapers about the intravenous solutions used in hospitals. There are some problems in the pharmaceutical area with regard to intravenous solutions; Baxter Travenol Laboratories of Canada Ltd. in Alliston, Ontario, and Abbott Laboratories Ltd. of Quebec are two firms in this area. That is a major problem, and there are some items associated with it that will be the basis of some of the discussions we will be having.

4:50 p.m.

I emphasize to you again that, underlying what we have tried to do in this province, we have not brought in retaliatory legislation. That would be like saying, "If we cannot get any agreements in Quebec" -- and it has been very difficult in some of these areas -- "we will do the same thing in Ontario." We have not to this point done that.

Mr. Chairman: in terms of rotation, the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) indicated his desire for some questions.

Mr. Samis: On this particular one?

Mr. Stokes: On the estimates: We are dealing with the whole estimates, are we not?

Mr. Chairman: Yes. The member for Lake Nipigon had indicated that to me quite a bit earlier.

Mr. Samis: I just have one point.

Mr. Chairman: Would the member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) allow one supplementary, and then the member for Lake Nipigon?

Mr. Samis: I have a brief supplementary on the question since it affects my riding as well.

I agree it is not a high-profile issue any more, but I call to the minister's attention that about two weeks ago in my riding office I had to deal with the case of a tradesman from Cornwall who had got some work in St. Jerome, Quebec, and was fined. I do not recall the exact figure, but I think it was $600. He was sent packing very quickly when they found out he was working in Quebec.

A major construction project is to be initiated in our area in the spring, I think. It will be a source of local controversy if workers are brought in from Valleyfield, Quebec, or from anywhere on the other side of the border. The minister talks about the issue not getting much publicity any more, but the fact is that border is effectively sealed when one gets out of the Outaouais region.

Mr. Minister, has any progress been made? You talked about retaliatory legislation. I introduced a bill, but we in Ontario have achieved nothing. However, I understand Quebec interests got exactly what they wanted; they have done it and gone ahead. The system is in place and is working very effectively for them. There have been no concessions or compromises with respect to the construction trades working outside of the Outaouais region, with the end result that Quebec gets all the marbles and we get nothing. If I am incorrect, I would ask the minister to correct that impression.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I do not have the figures here but, as I said, my impression is that after having been in operation for about a year -- and I will be glad to check this -- the number of Ontario tradesmen who are working in Quebec now is the same as it was before the new Quebec legislation came into effect.

In other words, while it was suggested that a wall would be built and the border would be closed, that did not happen. I was told, and so was the Minister of Labour when he talked with Dr. Johnson: "Don't worry about this. There will be special arrangements and permits will be issued so these people can come over."

Mr. Samis: That was, what, two years ago?

Hon. Mr. Wells: But I understand the same number of people have been going over. There may not be more of them going over, but we have not been hurt to any degree. The people who were moving over the border to work are still able to do so.

With things being as they are, it is probably not a good time to use that as an example because times are tough all over. There certainly have not been more people trying to cross the border, but I suppose there will be cases where more people will try to do that.

Let me also tell you, one of the big impediments to our discussions of these matters is the desire of the people of Quebec to change the way we operate in this province. We have had to tell them there is no way that we could change; that we would not want to interfere in that particular area by government decree or by legislation. That, of course, has to do with union hiring halls, so I am told.

I am not as familiar with that system as my friends over there probably are, but in the system which is used in this province to determine who will be hired in certain areas, it is all done through the union hiring halls. That is one of the impediments to discussions with Quebec. They would want some quid pro quo on our methods of handling that and we have just had to say to them, "Look, that is not an area where we have or would wish to have any control or jurisdiction."

Mr. Boudria: If I could proceed with the same question, I have one final thing.

Could it be that the minister is, perhaps, confusing the issue of organized labour from Ontario working in Quebec with the issue of small contractors? I think that is an issue which the member for Cornwall (Mr. Samis) -- not that I am trying to paraphrase what he was saying -- and myself find to be the biggest part of the problem. In my area are tradesmen who are working for themselves, the self-employed types of people: the small contractor with his two sons, who gets a job reroofing the arena someplace on the Quebec side, 20, 30 or 40 miles away. He puts his ladders and equipment in the truck and goes over there and comes back not paid and with a big fine or something.

The statistics you have indicated are probably accurate in so far as people who belong to labour unions or people working on large construction sites are concerned. It is probably true that we have as many as before, but do you have any figures as they relate to individual contractors and the number of arrests made on the Quebec side and the number of fines levied on small Ontario contractors going there to work? I believe that is a somewhat different issue. I am sorry if the two trends of thought got somewhat confused when I asked my previous question, because one really does not have much bearing on the other.

I am worried more for those small businessmen where work is scarce. We have had this experience lately at the church at L'Orignal, which is in my constituency. A contract to repaint the church was given to a contractor from Grenville, which is okay: but if a contractor from L'Orignal were to seek the same job at the church at Grenville, he would not have got it. Had he tried to do the job. he would have come back with a fine and nothing else. That is the kind of thing that worries me.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Chairman, my friend is quite right. There are the two problems. The construction labour problem is one; the other is the small contractor. As I indicated, even in 1962 there were some restrictions on those small contractors. For instance, in roofing a municipal arena, probably those kinds of jobs were not open to the contractors because the government said Quebec firms were supposed to tender on anything where provincial or municipal money was involved.

I do not believe that any progress has been made in those particular areas. I would also have to say that it is not because of any want of trying on our part, but we have been singularly -- I guess, unsuccessful; unsuccessful is not the word, but we have found the other government particularly unmoving in some of these particular areas when it comes to jobs like this.

Times being what they are today, it is even more difficult to get any agreement. You will always get the general platitudes when we sit down to talk, such as: "We really do not want to interfere in these particular areas. Low bids should be the way you get a job," and so forth, but it always ends up much the same as what my friend has said. In some cases, people are fined or licensed.

The best thing I can say to you is that we will put it on our agenda for discussion. We are having a discussion with intergovernmental affairs people on economic matters in the next little while, because some of these pharmaceutical ones I have indicated to you are really pressing at the moment. We will have a discussion about these matters also.

The best thing would be for you to get us some exact examples. If you have a couple of exact examples where we can say: "So and so went to this place. He had the job there, but they would not let him do it; they fined him," or something similar; we can then use that and get them looking into it and trying to give us the reasons why so and so and such and such happened.

Mr. Stokes: I want to get back to something the minister referred to in his opening remarks. It was pursued a little further by my colleague the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh). It has to do with the role that this ministry will play in setting up the first ministers' conference to deal with native rights, something that was promised when the Constitution was patriated.

The minister will well know that all the native associations, whether they are treaty or nontreaty, in fact right across the country, including the territories, tried their level best with this government and the federal government. They made several representations to Westminster when they were dealing with the bill which would have the effect of patriating our Constitution, or the successor to the British North America Act, back to Canada.

5 p.m.

We all know that the responsibility for native affairs at this level of government belongs to the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Henderson). We just concluded the estimates of that secretariat within the past couple of weeks and my colleagues were very chagrined, indeed they were surprised, to see how little the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development knew about the whole process and about his responsibility for looking after the best interests of our native people and acting as a liaison, a co-ordinating mechanism, between this province and the federal government.

If the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and his very able and competent deputy, who is sitting in front of him, were to go back over the Hansard reports of the estimates of the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development and see how he responded to the questions that were put to him about that secretariat's involvement in native affairs, I am sure it would be not only quite a revelation to the minister but also an embarrassment to him, because when the provincial secretary was asked what they were doing, he said: "Well, I want to make it quite clear to the committee that native people in the province are really children of the federal government."

When anybody who presumes to speak for and accepts the responsibility for native affairs makes a paternalistic statement like that, we know there is nowhere to go but downhill if that secretariat is going to carry the responsibility of this government for speaking about the very sensitive issue called native rights, whether they involve land claims, treaty and aboriginal rights, the right of our first citizens to use our fish and wildlife resources in the traditional way or the 1924 agreement.

We asked the provincial secretary for some kind of elaboration on the role that his secretariat was playing. We did not get any answers at all.

The only indication we have had that there may be some hope in the upcoming first ministers' conference dealing with native rights is the fact that this ministry will be involved. While I do not like to put the finger on people who seem to be incapable of grasping the magnitude and importance of native rights in Ontario, we have to realize that it is probably the last chance this government, and indeed all governments across Canada, will have to pursue an opportunity to demonstrate to the first citizens of this country that we are prepared to accept our collective responsibility for living up to those treaties that were signed by commissioners, a good many of them appointed by Her Majesty Queen Victoria during her reign.

if the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development or the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and his very capable deputy wanted to find out where it is at with a good many of the native groups and individual bands, all they have to do is go into some of those remote northern reserves and ask them their perception of the treaties they signed. I refer particularly to Treaty 9 and its adhesions. These people have a very vivid recollection of what was intended when that treaty was signed.

I have correspondence with constituents from many years ago when we were dealing with land claims and treaty and aboriginal rights. I would get a copy of a letter actually addressed to Queen Victoria. I have copies of letters addressed to me with copies to Queen Victoria, and to the Right Honourable Robert Stanfield when he was the leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party.

It may sound a little strange and bizarre talking about those communications in 1982, but I want to assure members that their perception -- not of all but some -- of those treaties goes back to when they were first signed many years ago. Their perception of what they meant has been passed down from generation to generation. These are not fables or legends; they are the very real perceptions that people living in Ontario in 1982 have of what those treaties meant.

There was an iron-clad commitment made by the first ministers when the Constitution was patriated that the first ministers would sit down in a very constructive and sincere fashion and discuss the very important issue of native rights before the year had expired. What has happened since then? I have raised the issue on a number of occasions with the Premier, principally in question period, and asked him to assure us, as I have asked the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) to assure us, that these meetings would be held in good faith and with a sincere desire to resolve these very important questions that have been bothering our first citizens and many of their organizations and the federal and provincial governments.

5:10 p.m.

When we pursued this with the minister's colleague the provincial secretary, he became very defensive and pointed to one of his staff members of native descent who happened to be in the room. One wonders just how embarrassing it must have been for other people in that secretariat to have the provincial secretary say: "Mr. So and So in the back of the room, you are a native person. Get up and tell these people, these infidels, what your nationality is."

How embarrassing it must be to anybody who is at all sensitive to the problem that we have a minister, the lead minister responsible for native affairs, asking a person of native descent to get up and tell everybody what his nationality is. That is the state of the art with regard to native affairs as it involves the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development.

I happen to know there was a meeting of deputy ministers not many weeks ago. I believe it was held in Winnipeg. Two of our deputies from Ontario were in attendance. One of them was the Deputy Provincial Secretary for Resources Development. I think the other was the Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. That is very heartening because if anything meaningful, useful and productive is going to happen, it will have to be under the auspices of the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs.

I know that in terms of land claims we have had one that has been going on for several years that affects the satellite communities of the Fort Hope Indian band up on the north shore of the Albany River. The residents of Webequie, Lansdowne House and Summer Beaver have been trying to get reserve status by negotiating for additional land upon which they could formally establish a reserve. It is not that they have not been living there -- they have been living there for decades -- but legally they do not have the status of a reserve. When they ask for capital funding from the federal government, it has to be through the Fort Hope band on Eabamet Lake.

This province realizes it has a responsibility to attempt to resolve this problem, as does the federal government. I think they have even gone so far as actually to have defined the area that will he designated as the Webeqiue reserve, the Lansdowne House reserve and the Summer Beaver reserve, but it is provincial crown land that must be ceded to the federal government and held in trust for the native people. I am told the one thing that is holding it up is that this government says, "We will turn that land over to the federal government to hold in trust for the native people as long as the federal government compensates us at fair market value."

Webequie is up on the Winisk River in the midst of a proposed provincial park, Lansdowne House is up on Attawapiskat Lake and Summer Beaver is not very far away. Those people want to establish a reserve for purposes of conducting their affairs in the same way as one of the 800 municipalities in Ontario wants to become incorporated as a legal entity for purposes of doing business on behalf of its citizens with the provincial government or the federal government; they want to become a creature, if you will, of the federal government, by virtue of having established a reserve in the same way that the 800-plus municipalities in Ontario wanted to become incorporated into villages, townships, towns or cities for purposes of doing their business.

There really is not very much difference. If you looked at a good many of the statutes that exist in Ontario right now that have been amended over the years to allow for reserves to participate in cost-sharing agreements, it is a legitimate pursuit. It is enshrined in a good many of our statutes that being established as a reserve is worthwhile in the same way as it is to establish a town like Kirkland Lake or Sarnia or any other of the municipal organizations across the province.

We got so close to signing that agreement, but the federal government said no. If the province is going to dig its heels in and say, "The only way this is going to happen is for the federal government to compensate you people at fair market value for the lands you are going to turn over to provide this reserve," that is not the way to do it. If the province wants to be seen as acting in good faith to assist our first citizens in coming into the mainstream socially and economically in their own good time while maintaining their own cultural values, that is not the way to go.

I know the minister is not aware of these details; I could stand here for the rest of the afternoon indicating other instances of where this government is not only turning its back on the legitimate aspirations of our first citizens but also actually standing in the way of the kind of development that is going to bring our first citizens into the mainstream.

Let me give one more example; it deals with a 1924 agreement between the federal government and the province on behalf of our first citizens. In that agreement is a clause that states that wherever there is mineral exploitation and development of mineral values on an Indian reserve, a certain royalty payment will have to accrue to the Treasury of this province before our first citizens can exploit the mineral values that are on their reserve. They are the legitimate owners, but before they can exploit those values they must make a payment to the crown in the right of the province for the right to harvest or to exploit those mineral values.

5:20 p.m.

I know that a good many of the minister's colleagues, including the present Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier), agree that it should be waived. That provision of the 1924 agreement has been waived in a good many instances with other reserves in southern Ontario. Our colleague the member for Kenora, as I say, agrees with it; the former minister and member for Cochrane North, René Brunelle, agrees it should be waived; I am told that even a former Treasurer thought this provision should be waived in order to foster economic development based on the mineral wealth that is found on a good many of those reserves up north. But the present Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) will not do it, so it sits there idle.

The Provincial Secretary for Resources Development has not pursued this vigorously. Maybe they have talked about it in cabinet; maybe the rascals over there collectively have said. "We are not going to do anything for our first citizens," and so that is the end of it.

I do not believe that to be the case, but if it is, I think they had better come clean and say so. If they are genuinely interested in looking after our first citizens with regard to native rights, they had better at least inform themselves of what is involved so that we as Canadians can live up to the treaties that were signed on our behalf many decades ago, because if they are going to go ill informed into the first ministers' conferences they are going to hold next March, if they do not know what is involved, I think they are going to come out with egg all over their faces, they are going to be embarrassed and our first citizens are going to be even more disillusioned and disenchanted than they are at the present time.

There was an answer to a question that my colleague the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) put on the Order Paper. He asked the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) how many outstanding problems there are where at least some degree of negotiation is going on between the province and our native citizens. As I recall, something like 47 were enumerated.

I do not know who does this, whether it is the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development, the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) on behalf of the crown, the Attorney General on behalf of the crown or whether this minister has some responsibility; I do not know and the native people do not know. But I can tell the minister that if he wants to lose his credibility as a proponent of native rights and as somebody who is going to play a very key, active, physical role in those first ministers' conferences or this meeting that he is committed to holding next February, he had better get somebody in there who is much more dedicated to the whole process and much more aware of the problems so that when he sits down he can speak with authority and conviction on all the things that are troubling our first citizens. Whether they be treaty, nontreaty or Métis, at least he should know what he is up against.

I have one final comment. He has had since last February, I think, to consult with native organizations. I know his government has provided them with some funds, but I think they were generally dedicated to assisting them before the fact, before we had a Charter of Rights and before we had our own Constitution as a successor to the British North America Act; but little or nothing has been done since that commitment was made to hold the first ministers' conference within a year.

I know there has been no dialogue in this House. I know there has been no attempt by your government, your ministry or the provincial secretary to get members of the House who are concerned about these things, and perhaps a little knowledgeable, to sit down and say: "What should we be doing? How should we be addressing this so that we can at least appear to be sincere and knowledgeable about the magnitude of this whole problem?"

Why would you not have convened a meeting of maybe eight or 10 members of this House who deal with our first citizens on a regular basis, such as the member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane), the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid), the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) or the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon)? I am sure we have at least 10 members of this House who deal with many aspects -- oh, the member for Raintree, is it?

Mr. Laughren: Shining Tree.

Mr. Stokes: Shining Tree; the member for Nickel Belt. We all have a genuine concern and a genuine hope that this first ministers' conference that is going to take place in March will be meaningful and will at least indicate to our first citizens that we understand the problems and are prepared to sit down and, in concert with other first ministers of other jurisdictions, including the Prime Minister, come to terms with this problem -- which will not go away; it is going to continue to get worse.

I am pleasantly surprised to see that this ministry is going to play a part in setting up the agenda for that meeting. I see no hope for our first citizens if it is left to the machinations and, in fact, the ignorance and the indifference of the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development. The only hope I see is this minister and his very capable deputy, and I would like some assurance that they are approaching this very important problem in the way in which I have attempted to explain it here this afternoon.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Chairman --

The Acting Chairman (Mr. Barlow): I had the member for Prescott-Russell down first.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The member has kindly allowed me to follow on this topic and I, too, will be very brief. I would like to associate myself with most of the remarks made by my colleague who has just spoken.

Last year during the Premier's estimates I raised some of these problems, particularly the one which bothers me, and it is more of a procedural, mechanical thing, but the minister has indicated that there is going to be a conference next February. My friend has alluded to the fact that the people most directly involved probably are not going to know what is going to take place in that. Certainly, if history is any teacher, the members of this Legislature are not going to know what is on the agenda and if we do know what is going to be on the agenda we are not going to know Ontario's position.

I do not want to reiterate unnecessarily, but my point to the Premier is that the Premiers of the provinces and the representatives of the federal government basically wrote a new Constitution for Canada without a great deal of reference beforehand to this assembly, or to the House of Commons or to any of the other provincial assemblies. In fact, most of us woke up -- I believe it was a Saturday morning -- to read in the Globe and Mail that the Premier of Ontario had thrown a chip on the table, showed his cards in some respect and said, "Ontario is willing to give up its veto over provisions in the new Constitution if we can arrive at some consensus and get on with the job."

5:30 p.m.

I am glad the Premier did that. It is to his credit that an agreement was reached probably because of that move. We are caught in a dichotomy in that we applaud the Premier's efforts in solving that particular impasse, while the Premier, without any reference to this Legislature or any real debate on these matters, played Ontario's cards. We were left to bang our desks when the accord was reached, but we never had a full-scale debate or even an accounting of what happened in regard to our own Constitution.

I realize there is a problem here. How does this Legislature accommodate to these kinds of talks without a show of cards beforehand? We all know of the manoeuvring and negotiating that takes place. I felt this Legislature had largely become irrelevant, because on the big issues of the day, such as the new Constitution -- let alone a lot of the minor ones like Suncor -- this Legislature is not consulted, nor does an exchange of views take place in a debate on these matters; and there is no accountability after the fact except, presumably, somewhere down the road when we have an election someone can stand up and say, "I did not like what you did on the Constitution; therefore, I am going to vote against you."

We know very well that by the time the next election comes around, and the government always counts on it, people will have forgotten the sins of omission and commission of the government and will be pressed with more immediate matters. These things will go by the board.

I do not pretend to have any easy answer to this, but it seems one answer might be for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs to say during his estimates, or in a statement to the House, and perhaps provide time for a debate: "These are the topics we intend to discuss on the subject of native rights and the Constitution. These are the positions we intend to put forward. This is Ontario's agenda."

If I am frustrated and feeling somewhat irrelevant to the whole situation, you can imagine the frustration of native communities across Ontario whose rights and privileges were a matter of some backroom negotiating and bargaining while they themselves remained almost irrelevant to the whole process and really were not asked what they would like.

I would say the native people themselves have a problem in that they cannot always decide exactly what they want or what their position should be. It seems to me that for years the senior levels of government have used this indecision as a means of dividing the native people and ensuring that they do not speak with one mind and tongue. It has been used as a ploy to avoid having to deal with their concerns at all.

I would like some kind of commitment, beyond that which we have had so far from the minister, that there will be full discussions with the native people before the meeting in February; that the minister will come back to this House and lay before this assembly their concerns, as put on his agenda; that he will put on the agenda of Ontario the priority matters as he sees them, and perhaps some that are not so important but ones which will be discussed; and that he will give us some justification for the position being put by Ontario.

I say this so that we can give some guarantee to those people who will be most directly concerned, the native people, and to restore some relevance to the political process so that we on this side, and some of your own members who represent native communities, will have some kind of input and opportunity to discuss these matters. It would, for them and for us, make us feel a little more whole in terms of the new Constitution of Canada, in that we might have some small part to play in representing the people and putting forward their views so we are ensured that they are considered.

Nobody is suggesting that each and every thing that is asked for, by either the native people or anybody else, is ever fully addressed, but it certainly would do the process a great deal of good if these matters were brought before the people who are most directly concerned and the legislative process.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Chairman, I will comment on these two presentations about the ongoing discussions that will lead up to the first ministers' conference on native peoples which will probably be held, as I indicated in my opening remarks, some time in early March 1983. Let me just sketch for you exactly what is happening at the present time.

It has always been and will be the intention of the delegation from Ontario to involve the native people and the native organizations and groups of this province in our discussions. I have indicated that we have made some financial resources available to them so that they can prepare reports and documentation and do some research leading up to their participation with us, and there will be ongoing participation from the status organizations, the Ontario Métis Association and the Native Women's Association of Canada.

Following the meeting in Winnipeg of deputy ministers, which my deputy and the Deputy Provincial Secretary for Resources Development attended, four working groups were set up. These working groups cover four areas of concern as we work up to the agenda for the conference.

The subject area of the first working group is political issues. That working group is going to look at certain things such as a charter of rights for the aboriginal people -- should it have a preamble and should there be something of this nature in the Constitution? They will look at the area of women's rights. They have been asked to look at the area of representation or guaranteed representation in elected legislative assemblies, an amending formula that might include consent and the issue of participation in international issues. You can see that there is a pretty broad range of issues being looked at under the overall heading of political issues and some of them go pretty far afield. They are perhaps further afield than anyone would like to contemplate at this time.

The point I am making is that there is to be a look at a fairly broad range of issues in the political area by this working group and out of that will come some suggestions for what issues should be included on the agenda of the first ministers' conference.

The second working group will deal with economic issues, mobility rights, hunting, fishing, trapping rights, affirmative action programs, economic aspects of services delivery and other issues that are in the broad area of economic issues.

The third working group is dealing with social issues, language and cultural issues, social aspects of service delivery such as education, and in the area of family law.

The fourth working group is dealing with what we would call process issues. In other words, after the first ministers' conference has concluded, where do we go from here and what should be the process, because obviously there will have to be an ongoing process of discussion of a number of these items. They will not all be solved in a three-day or four-day conference.

These working groups are expected to prepare comprehensive reports which will set out the issues relevant to these particular areas. The reports are to narrow down the issues; they are to indicate where possible areas of agreement or consensus exist. These reports will then go to the Deputy Ministers of Intergovernmental Affairs and the federal people, who will bring them forward to one of the ministers' meetings. I would assume that ministers' meeting will take place some time next January and that the ministers who will be meeting then will be the group that was the continuing committee of ministers on the Constitution, which met for many meetings before the last constitutional accord.

5:40 p.m.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) and I will be attending from this province as the ministers at that body, where we will sit through the various working group reports and will attempt to suggest some agendas and do some of the ground work so that the first ministers will have before them agendas and materials on which to carry out their discussions.

Just to give an example of how these working groups are operating, there is one meeting this week in Ottawa starting tomorrow. The first three working groups are holding their meetings in Ottawa starting Wednesday morning. My deputy, Don Stevenson, Anne Ritchie and Larry Kearley will be there from our ministry, Judy Clapp and Dan Russell will be there from the Provincial Secretariat for Resources Development and Carole Creighton will be there from the Attorney General's department; they will all be there taking part in the discussions at these various working groups.

As part of the working groups there will be representatives from the three national native organizations, the Inuit organization, the national Native Council of Canada and, I hope, the assembly of first nations. I say I hope because we are not sure whether the assembly of first nations is or is not participating at this time, but I hope they will be. They will be working in these groups together with the provincial and federal delegations.

I would say very clearly that as the process continues towards the first ministers' meeting, there will be involvement of the native peoples all through the process. While it may be determined that around the table at the conference there will be the first ministers, that is the Premiers and the Prime Minister of Canada, along with representatives of the territories and the three national native groups, the Premier (Mr. Davis) has guaranteed that the Ontario native groups will be in the Ontario delegation, they will be part of the Ontario delegation. But at the present time it looks as if the native people will be represented around the table by the three national groups.

I do not know that I can tell the member anything more except that the work that has been going on is quite extensive, the look that is being taken at all the kinds of issues that will come up is really very extensive and has only begun.

I have here a document. It is not a public document at this time; I would like to peruse it a little more to make sure it should be. I really do not know any reason why it should not be, but it is a study paper that was done for our ministry over the last eight months by a Cathy Lace. It is not a poll. It is a study by Cathy Lace, who is a lawyer working on contract for our ministry. It is called The Constitution Act, 1982: Potential Impact of the Provisions Regarding the Aboriginal Peoples and the Options for Ontario. She has had a fairly extensive look at the various options and areas that could form part of any presentation or any positions this government puts forward. Obviously more work will be needed on a number of the areas, and policy decisions will have to be made as to whether they are the policies this government would put forward as its official positions.

I can say to my friend that I will endeavour as far as is humanly possible to see if we can share those positions with you. The logistics sometimes become difficult. If the first ministers' conference is in early March and the House is not sitting, it becomes more difficult to assemble everyone from wherever they may be during the winter months to inform them, but I will try to work out a process whereby we can involve those members who are keenly interested in the positions that will be put forward by the government.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Could I ask a question?

The Deputy Chairman: I will allow a follow- through, but the member for Nickel Belt is next.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I will be brief. I have three questions. First, have the Indians been sufficiently funded and have they set up four committees parallel to the four you have discussed which are your working groups? Second, are there any native people on your working groups provincially? Third, have they assisted you in setting the agenda and the topics your working groups are working on. Have they assisted in setting Ontario's or the working group's agenda for the first ministers' conference?

Hon. Mr. Wells: The funding of the native organizations is done through the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development. They were funded for about $200,000 last year. I do not imagine the funding will be as extensive as that this year because --

Mr. T. P. Reid: That won't get them much.

Hon. Mr. Wells: A lot of that was connected with the research and some of the work they wanted to do, and the conferences they held to formulate positions.

It is my understanding there will be money available for travel so their participation in all the meetings will be taken care of. The participation of the native people in the various meetings, task forces and so forth will all be funded.

The Deputy Chairman: The member for Nickel Belt is next and then the member for Prescott-Russell is anxious to have a chance.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Chairman, I will try not to be intimidated by the list of speakers to follow.

I believe there has been a phenomenon in Ontario which is a function of having majority governments. It is that governments take upon themselves the role of having the responsibility of deciding all the policies that will flow from this place. That bothers me because there are a number of areas where I do not think that should be the case. Native people's rights are one area where I believe the government would benefit from the opinions of both opposition parties on this side of the House. The other is one that was raised in question period this afternoon: Franco-Ontarian rights.

I suspect this minister is not the problem in either of these areas. Quite frankly, I am probably as partisan as anybody in this Legislature but, nevertheless, I really believe there are some issues on which the government should be prepared to take the opposition into its confidence and to establish working committees that will help come up with policies acceptable to the people involved. This is one of those issues. Perhaps the suggestion of a three-party committee is one the minister should think about in terms of native rights.

For example, I know when it comes to one major issue the native people are very concerned about, this government itself has been found wanting. It is fine for you to sit on a committee and to work with the federal government on matters involving native people's rights, but it is another matter to put your own house in order before you do that. I am referring to the matter of wild rice.

The Premier announced four years ago, I believe, there was going to be a moratorium on wild rice development by non-native people in the whole area of northwestern Ontario where most of the wild rice is grown. That moratorium is coming to an end. As a matter of fact, the last harvest of wild rice has occurred and there has been no extension of the moratorium despite repeated requests from native people's organizations that there be a moratorium.

Out of those four harvests, there were a couple of years when the harvests were not very good, another year when water levels were not conducive to a good crop and so forth. Also, at the beginning of the moratorium, the Ministry of Natural Resources did not show the co-operation they have been showing in the last year regarding the assistance promised to the native people for harvesting.

5:50 p.m.

I do not know how this government expects the native people to develop an integrated wild rice industry in four or five years, when I can tell you, coming from the community of Sudbury, that in the last 75 years you have not been able to develop an integrated nickel industry in this province. That is okay for you people, you still plug away, but for the native people, they have to develop an integrated wild rice harvesting industry in four or five years.

I find that outrageous and I really believe the government has an obligation to extend that moratorium. It depends who you talk to on that side as to whether or not there will be an extension.

I questioned the Premier in the Legislature last spring and he sounded very receptive to the idea. Then I questioned the Minister of Natural Resources and he was not quite so receptive. The idea suddenly does not seem like such a good idea for the minister.

During the last couple of weeks, I got into an exchange with the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development, who is supposed to be responsible for native rights in this province. That experience was mind numbing.

When the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) objects to the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development -- the one who has the responsibility of dealing with native rights -- because there is a lack of sensitivity and, I think he used the word ignorance, on the part of the ministry and the minister, I think the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs should take notice.

The reception I got in the estimates debate of the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development was very negative; somehow, I was personally attacking the provincial secretary. That is a lot of nonsense.

If this government wants to have any credibility at all in dealing with native rights, it must do so in a sensitive way. It must deal with those people in a sensitive way, and that is not what is happening.

I hope the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs will take my comments in the right light because I believe he is going to get into trouble if he leaves native rights within the jurisdiction of the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development. I really believe that, and I believe we will all be embarrassed.

I hope that this does not occur because we have absolutely nothing to gain on this side with that kind of scenario. I am not saying this in a highly partisan way. We all will lose if that happens and I hope the minister understands that.

When this minister is dealing with Ottawa -- which I assume he does quite a bit in his present portfolio -- I wonder if he is ever able to talk turkey to them about the sharing of grant moneys for one-industry communities. I do not know whether that is within the jurisdiction of the minister or not.

The federal and provincial governments are both involved in aiding the economy of the Sudbury basin because of what has happened up there in the last year. To this point, there have been no long-term commitments made by this government on what is going on in Sudbury.

There was a commitment made by the provincial government to aid the private sector in the development of a mining machinery industry in Sudbury. That commitment was undertaken, then the federal government said: "We want a piece of the action, too. We want to get in and help on the mining machinery development in Sudbury." Quite frankly, it was politically sexy to do so at the time and the federal Minister of State for Mines wanted to be in on it. Now we find out, because of objections from the federal member for Nipissing and the provincial member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris), that it is not going to happen.

On the weekend, the federal Minister of State for Mines had a press conference and said, "Because of economic conditions, there is not going to be this development of a mining machinery corporation in Sudbury."

It was to be Inco, Noranda and a private developer named Norman Clark from North Bay, who helped build the Jarvis-Clark power corporation along with the federal and provincial governments. Here we have a situation where yet again no mining machinery will be built for the Sudbury community.

Mr. Boudria: Is this intergovernmental affairs?

Mr. Laughren: Yes. The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs does not seem to understand that when they allowed the federal government to get involved in the grant for that operation our hopes were dashed of having a mining machinery operation in the Sudbury community.

Mr. Mancini: You want to speak to the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker). That's why they can't get anything done in Sudbury; you speak to the wrong people.

Mr. Laughren: No. It had a lot to do -- I was just going to sit down and allow that member's colleague to stand up but his heckling has prompted me to carry on.

The member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) perhaps is a little sensitive that his federal colleague from North Bay was one of the ones who threw a monkey wrench into the potential of Sudbury having a mining machinery development. Perhaps that is what is making him a little annoyed.

I end my remarks there but encourage the minister to think about the question of wild rice and about having the respect of the native people; show them that this government has done something that is within its jurisdiction. The government can do that in a very short period of time by declaring an extension of the moratorium.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman, I had a question on the Franco-Ontarian issue but it being near closing -- I will start to explain my question, or perhaps the minister would like to respond to the last member and then we can adjourn for the dinner hour.

Hon. Mr. Wells: All I would like to say is that I would be happy to discuss with my colleagues the member's observations on the wild rice matter. I think they are very interesting, and I would be happy to discuss them.

I do not think they legitimately fall within this ministry, certainly not at this time. There is no question that it is a matter of prime importance to the native people of this province. But as speakers have pointed out, the responsibility for those issues in the government is with the Provincial Secretariat for Resources Development. Our responsibility is to do the negotiating leading up to the first ministers' conference on aboriginal rights.

The Deputy Chairman: I remind the honourable members there is approximately one hour and 20 minutes remaining in these estimates.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.

November 15, 1982