Hansard Transcripts 1982-Nov-23 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Mr. Bradley: The point of privilege is this: It is my understanding that the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) has in his possession a report from the Ombudsman concerning the Re-Mor reference that was referred by the Re-Mor investors to the Ombudsman for investigation. It is also my understanding that the minister has had that report available to him since July and has not responded to it.

I am not asking a question to which he may wish to respond. I am asking whether you, as the Speaker, could intervene with the minister to ensure that the report is made available to the House very soon.

Mr. Speaker: I must rule that is not a point of privilege because your privileges have not been abridged in any way. However --

Mr. Nixon: On the point, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: Just one moment, if I may. I was going to suggest that perhaps the minister has taken note of what you have suggested and it might better be raised in question period.

Mr. Bradley: He may want to respond now.

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I tend to think you have missed the point that was raised. I am not sure we should be going to the minister. The question is about the negotiations that go on between the Ombudsman and a minister of the crown. Instead of these reports going to the minister, they should be made available to the Legislative Assembly, to which the Ombudsman reports.

Mr. Speaker: I am not aware that any report has gone to the minister. As I suggested earlier, that is something which would be more properly handled in oral question period.

Mr. Cooke: I didn't know we could ask questions of the Ombudsman.

Mr. Nixon: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker: What are we supposed to do when we go through the procedure of passing a statute establishing an Ombudsman who is the servant only of this Legislature?

He undertook a review of a matter of public concern and of concern to individual members of the Legislature and reported to the minister some months ago. The minister will not table the report. I suppose we can come down on the Ombudsman when we get to discussion of his estimates, but surely if the minister has a report that should be in the hands of the Legislature, he should table it.

Mr. Speaker: As I mentioned earlier, I do not have any knowledge of that, and obviously you have some question, too.

Mr. Martel: On the same point, Mr. Speaker, one has to ask the Speaker which minister should one ask, because in fact the Ombudsman does not report to a minister; he is responsible only to this Legislature through the Speaker. If we ask a minister, it is unfair in the sense that it is not supposed to be reported to any minister; the Ombudsman is supposed to report to this Legislature through you. I think we have to ask the Speaker this question, because he ultimately is the person responsible for this Legislature itself. It is my opinion that this matter should go to the select committee dealing with the Ombudsman, but certainly not to a minister of the crown.

Mr. Speaker: I thought I had made myself perfectly clear on that matter. I do not have any knowledge of any such report.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, on a point of information to clarify the issue: The Ombudsman, as members know, goes through a certain series of steps under the bill; I think it is section 19(1) initially and then section 19(3) -- various stages. I do not recall the exact date the report came in, but clearly his recommendations have implications not just for the government but for those who have lawsuits pending. My deputy is in consultation with the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) to clarify some matters before a final response to the Ombudsman's report is sent. Everything is being done in compliance with the legislation and there is no attempt to deprive the House of any information whatsoever.

ORAL QUESTIONS

METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE PRACTICES

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the Attorney General, if I may have his attention, which has to do with our continuing series of questions on the Proverbs matter.

We have been provided a two-minute video of some of the tapes. This two-minute segment is a conversation between the two police officers in the absence of Mr. Proverbs, and I would like to make it available to you, Mr. Speaker, to make it available to whoever may wish to view this evidence.

I am sure the Attorney General has had occasion to review the transcript of the video, and I would like to ask him if he was aware that during the conversation of the two officers some exchanges took place. I will just read briefly where one officer said, "He didn't know who was coming through the door." At another point the officer said, "But up to that point he had cause for grief." Finally, at another point officer Reynolds said, "I dressed it up a little bit," referring to the evidence, and the other officer said, "Of course."

Was the Attorney General aware of this evidence at the time the prosecution took place, either at the preliminary hearing or at the trial? Was he aware that apparently one of the police officers admitted in the absence of Mr. Proverbs that his evidence had been doctored at the preliminary hearing? If he was aware of this evidence, could he advise us why he decided to continue the prosecution, given this evidence?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, first of all I have not reviewed all of the transcripts -- as a matter of fact, very little of the transcript relating to the some 37 hours of tapes that were handed over. I just found two pages on my desk that the honourable member sent over to me, and I had not seen this before.

2:10 p.m.

I would like to say, first of all, that the defence counsel have announced their intention to appeal and therefore, as the member can appreciate, I assume that some of these matters will be the subject of argument in the Court of Appeal in due course.

I would like to make this general observation. There was a great deal of pressure brought upon the crown attorney's office not to proceed with these charges on the basis that these tapes had discredited the police officers who would be giving evidence for the crown. That is pretty much public knowledge.

It was also suggested in a memorandum that Mr. David Humphrey sent to Robert McGee -- and apparently released to the press, because I saw a good portion of it the Toronto Star -- that, first, the police officers had discredited themselves and, therefore, the crown did not really have much of a case to proceed with.

Second, he referred to the tapes. I have seen large portions of the memorandum reproduced in the press in which it was reported that a lot of the garbage contained in the tapes would smear innocent people and that he felt all of this should, and would, simply be dumped in the lake where -- according to Mr. Humphrey -- garbage such as this belongs, if the crown did not proceed with the charge against Proverbs.

It was the view of our crown law officers that, despite the fact that this type of garbage could embarrass a number of innocent people, they still had a valid case against Proverbs and they simply were not going to be intimidated against proceeding because of all this "garbage." Whether or not the police officers' evidence was credible was obviously the subject matter of a cross-examination by Mr. Proverbs, which took some five or six days.

The jury had the credibility of officer Reynolds put to them, I am advised, in almost six days of cross-examination. His credibility was very much in issue throughout. The advice we received from the law officers of the crown about the propriety of proceeding may have been borne out by the decision of the jury, who obviously felt there was evidence upon which they could convict Mr. Proverbs. That evidence was substantially the evidence that came from police officer Reynolds with respect to this particular point.

I say this at this time because I know that despite some of the flamboyant rhetoric that comes from the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) about some of these matters, when he applies his mind to some of these issues he has an understanding of what we are concerned about. I have to say I was somewhat disappointed in him when he suggested that the Attorney General of this province was not concerned with the credibility of the administration of justice. The whole point in proceeding with this case was to demonstrate that, notwithstanding the so-called garbage that could embarrass people in public life, including the Attorney General, we were not going to be intimidated against proceeding with a charge which we felt was valid.

There are a number of other reasons, which I am not at liberty to discuss at this time, why we felt it was very much in the interests of the administration of justice to proceed with this charge. The fundamental consideration was that there was sufficient evidence. We were simply not going to be intimidated against proceeding because of a lot of rather sensational revelations surrounding the conduct of the police, which obviously has to be of great concern to us.

The two issues are of continuing concern. First of all, there was the issue of whether we had sufficient evidence and whether it was in the public interest to proceed. It was the view of my advisers, and my personal view, that we should proceed with this charge and not be intimidated against proceeding. The conduct of the police officers is another important issue that has been addressed and is continuing to be addressed through the investigation of the Ontario Provincial Police and all the allegations contained therein. When that investigation is concluded, we will have something more to say about that.

I hope that on reflection -- and I appreciate that the member for Ottawa East does not have all the facts; I am quite aware of that -- I am confident that when he appreciates all the circumstances he will agree wholeheartedly with the decision to proceed with the charges in this matter. In that manner the integrity of the administration of justice in this province was protected. I am confident that when he is aware of all the facts he will have no difficulty in coming to that conclusion in his own mind.

Mr. Roy: I do not want to get into an argument and start lecturing the Attorney General, but I want to say, if I may, that I hope the Attorney General realizes that we on this side fully agree that the Attorney General's office or the crown attorney should not be intimidated as to whether they should prosecute or not prosecute. We applaud that particular approach. We understand as well that if it was the Attorney General's decision to leave this evidence for the jury to decide, we understand that approach. Does the Attorney General not understand, though, that when police officers, on tape and in the absence of the accused, say they have doctored their evidence at a preliminary hearing, that is cause for great concern?

I would also like to ask the Attorney General whether the conduct of Mr. McGee, the senior crown attorney, in resigning his position just before the trial had anything to do with any suggestions he may or may not have made suggesting that this prosecution should not go forward.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: The second part is really another question, but I am quite happy to answer it as one of the overall concerns. The statements attributed to the police officers on the tape, of course, have given us very great concern, including the one the member referred to. It was for this reason that some weeks ago I requested Deputy Commissioner Lidstone to conduct a full investigation into the conduct of the police officers and the allegations contained therein. I want to make it very clear that statements such as that obviously have given us great concern from the very moment that we learned about them some time ago -- I might say some months ago.

With respect to Mr. McGee, who is one of our most respected crown counsel, the deputy crown attorney for downtown Toronto, he has publicly said two things. First, he was concerned about the level of compensation that was available to senior and very valued crown attorneys such as himself. Mr. McGee certainly is, I think, one of the finest crown attorneys this province has produced, in my experience, and I have nothing but the highest professional and personal regard for him.

Second, and this appears to have been lost, judging by a couple of things I have read in the last day or two, Mr. McGee said that some of the material that Mr. Proverbs was providing contained allegations against Mr. McGee personally. Mr. McGee felt there was a possibility that he could be a witness in the case because of the allegations Proverbs was making against him. Of course, Proverbs was making allegations about a great number of people. But because allegations had been made, as ludicrous as they were, it still raised the possibility in his mind that he might have to be a witness, and obviously he could not conduct the prosecution with the knowledge that he might have to be a witness as well.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, could the Attorney General tell the assembly when he anticipates he will make available to the House a report of the result of the police investigation by Deputy Commissioner Lidstone of the Ontario Provincial Police on this matter? Surely it should not take a great period of time and surely his decision about a royal commission and the decision of this assembly about a royal commission should await that report. Can he tell us when the report will be available to us?

2:20 p.m.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I cannot be precise. I hope it will be available in the near future. I would be disappointed if I could not get back to the Legislature on the report before the Legislature adjourns for Christmas. Whether or not we are going to adjourn before Christmas is a matter that is somewhat in doubt at the moment, I gather, but I would certainly hope that I could report to the House before Christmas on the results of that investigation. I am sorry. I simply cannot be any more precise than that at present.

Mr. Roy: I would refer to the Attorney General's comments about our criticism of his lack of defence of the administration of justice. Does he not realize that the reason for our comments is that there has been somewhat irrational conduct on his part? For instance, his making a comment about the background of the accused and the evidence during the course of a trial, or between the preliminary hearing and the trial, was conduct that in our opinion required some type of an explanation from the chief law officer of the crown.

Does the Attorney General not realize as well that there was a series of questions raised here on the conduct of the police officers, the crown attorneys and judges? Those should be matters for a judicial inquiry, an inquiry by someone having the type of independence this sort of inquiry requires. Does the Attorney General not understand the reason for our criticism of him is that we feel the police are not the proper vehicle for investigating the police in this case? Until we get a proper explanation for his conduct, we will continue to raise questions about who is defending the administration of justice.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: If there are going to be questions raised about anybody's conduct, I would ask the member for Ottawa East to examine some of the silly statements he has made throughout this unhappy episode, starting with the statement he made a moment ago. I have always believed that this member has a better understanding of law enforcement and the administration of justice than his questions have sometimes revealed, and I still do believe that.

For example, he mentioned the police investigating the police. We have had a number of judicial inquiries in this province during his time in the provincial Legislature and during his time as a member of the bar, and preceding any inquiry there has always been an investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police, whether or not it involved allegations of misconduct of the police or of anyone else.

I can think of two inquiries that I know something about because I was involved. One was the inquiry that the then Solicitor General John Yaremko announced of the disturbance outside the Ontario Science Centre during Mr. Kosygin's visit, which led to the inquiry headed by Judge Vannini. That was about allegations of police misconduct, and it was preceded by a comprehensive OPP investigation. Second, the Morand inquiry into allegations of police misconduct in Metropolitan Toronto, an inquiry which the member will recall lasted for more than a year, conducted by Mr. Justice Morand of the Supreme Court of Ontario, who is now the Ombudsman, was preceded by a very lengthy OPP investigation into the allegation of police misconduct.

I cannot understand why the member, with this knowledge, would suggest that there is anything unusual about the OPP being brought in to investigate allegations of police misconduct. That is the way it has always been done in this province. I think the OPP have continued to demonstrate, often in difficult circumstances, their independence, their integrity and objectivity in these matters.

RENT CONTROL

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. The minister is aware that his temporary legislation will protect for a year or so the tenants who live in the buildings affected by the Cadillac Fairview-Greymac purchase. He is also aware that a large number of tenants living in buildings where sales closed before October 31 will not be protected and that we are going to see a glaring disparity between the rents passed on in those situations as opposed to those caught after the implementation of his legislation. Does the minister not feel that is quite unfair in the circumstances?

Does he not feel that, to bring more equity to this situation, we should have a five per cent freeze for a period of a year, for the restraint period at least, to bring all these matters into line and let Mr. Thom look at these matters and report to us in a year or so about what should be done about the resulting circumstances?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, unless the Leader of the Opposition and I have a different understanding of the process, I would like to think he would acknowledge that some of his remarks probably are not quite accurate.

Let us go back to the process. Under our rent review program, if a landlord chooses to impose a rent increase of six per cent or less it is not necessary to go to the rent review commission to have that rent scrutinized and approved to make certain it is a cost pass-through.

If a landlord chooses for whatever reasons, in terms of his costs and so forth, to go to rent review for scrutiny and for a determination as to cost pass-through, and if those matters before the commission relate, let us say, to financing charges, the practice of the commission unti1 November 16 was that financing charges would be phased in over three years. Its new practice is to phase them in over periods up to five years. It is necessary for landlords to apply on an annual basis to have a rent increase above the six per cent guideline.

For example, if there was an application for a rent increase for a building sold in July, and the application for a rent increase was received prior to October 31, the initial hearing with respect to the sale and the financing charge related to it would be dealt with, in the first instance, under the new guidelines of the commission which phase things in over five years.

But next year, on the second application, remembering the bill covers a period of 14 months, the five per cent imposition on financing charges would apply, so those tenants are not left out in the cold. In fact, they will receive the benefit of the new guidelines and of the five per cent restraint on financing which would be imposed next year when they come back again for an increase.

Mr. Peterson: I call to the minister's attention the situation of the City Park apartments of which he is no doubt aware. I would like to ask him about that situation. He is aware that these three buildings at Church and Alexander streets were sold along with 580 Christie Street to a numbered company for $23 million on June 11, 1962.

One of these buildings, 484 Church Street, was leased to the four Greymac companies for $7 million at a rent of $1 per year. The term of this lease is 21 years less a day. It stipulates that the Greymac companies are to pay all the costs as if they were the owner and operator of the property. It also provides the lessee with an option to purchase the property at any time for $1. The Greymac companies obtained a $4-million mortgage from Seaway for this lease.

On September 24, the Greymac companies assigned their lease to Timothy Howard in trust. Mr. Howard is connected with Kilderkin. He was made a director of Greymac Mortgage when that company was bought by Kilderkin for an as yet undetermined sum. At the same time, the Greymac companies assigned their lease for this property and their portion of similar leases on two of the other City Park properties to Timothy Howard in trust, who in return mortgaged $8.75 million to the Greymac group at 17 per cent.

The owner of this building has applied to the Residential Tenancy Commission for an increase of rent but no hearing date has been set.

Would the minister not agree with me that the type of facts presented in this case, and I had to be very specific, are not unique, there are others involved, and that they should be treated pan passu, on an equal footing, in the same way other buildings rolled over after October 31 are being treated? Would that not bring more fairness and equity into his program?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I think we should always look at things that might improve what has the appearance of a lack of equity. I would like to say to the member that the account I have given him does indicate that the same equitable principles will apply to applications regardless of whether or not they were made before October 31.

2:30 p.m.

He and I both know that one could set a date of September 30 and there would be situations where a sale had occurred or an application had not been received prior to that. What I am saying to the member is, if there are financing charges involved, then that issue and the application of the bill will come before the commission during that period of 14 --

The member should not shake his head when he is hearing facts. I know the Leader of the Opposition has a role to play and it is an important role, but he should not do things he does not mean, because he does understand that when that comes up for application next year the rules will apply.

He also knows that the chairman of the Residential Tenancy Commission, Mr. Williams, has indicated that a co-ordinated effort would take place within the commission to make certain that a number of properties, including properties like this, would be examined in great detail to make certain of a number of issues; for example, the existence of arm's-length transactions and so forth.

I also would like to make it clear that transactions such as this will undoubtedly be matters that the Touche Ross commission will look into when it carries out its inquiry.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, could the minister explain to us why the new owners -- we do not know for how long or how speculative they are, but they are the new owners -- of the City Park apartments or, indeed, of the apartments in Ottawa that my colleague the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) mentioned yesterday, are going to be allowed to apply to the Residential Tenancy Commission to write off the refinancing costs over a period of five years? Under schedule A, if they were going to go in and ask for a write-off, or a write-down, of drapes, shingles, roof tops, furnaces or virtually anything else in those buildings, they would be required to write those down over a period of 10, 15 or 20 years.

Why is the minister giving them a deal on the refinancing, much of which is purely speculative, when he is not requiring them to write it off over a much longer period, as the Residential Tenancy Commission is requiring them to do with respect to all these other items in those apartment buildings?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I just cannot believe that the honourable member does not accept, as I am sure the public does, that the new guidelines that have been imposed with respect to financing charges occurring as a result of a sale or resale, with the resale financing having to stand aside and wait until the initial financing charges have been passed through and with the interest charges on those financing arrangements not being passed through, are a major intervention. These guidelines signal very clearly that the kind of process we have seen in this particular transaction is not something this minister sees as good for society, good for tenants or good for any of us.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, now that we have the minister's assurance that his SWAT team will determine if there are any non-arm's-length transactions, if there is anything untoward in these various transactions -- and we have nothing but his assurances in that regard, because he does not really have the power to investigate -- I gather in addition that he is saying --

Hon. Mr. Elgie: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: In saying that, the Leader of the Opposition is casting aspersions on a quasi-judicial body that is subject to judicial review, and he should not make those statements unless he means them.

Mr. Peterson: The minister is being a trifle sensitive here. It is not his style. He used to be such a nice fellow until he got this portfolio.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: The minister is now suggesting that he will catch up with these things when an application for rent review is made before the Residential Tenancy Commission. He is going to allow pass-throughs in the first year, on financing based on a five-year pass-through, which is much larger in many cases than five per cent; then he is going to compound that next year with another five per cent, still putting the group of tenants I referred to in disadvantaged circumstances.

The Residential Tenancy Commission has a massive backlog of cases -- as I understand it, applications from some 2,655 whole buildings have yet to be heard and the minister will not find out about a lot of these matters until they come before the Residential Tenancy Commission, and it could be a year or six months from now. Does the minister not agree with me that it would be far fairer, in administering this program, to get to the root of it now, to look at all aspects of it now, and to treat all tenants fairly in the circumstances?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I would be sincerely disturbed if I thought the tenants out there did not appreciate that the five per cent restraint on financing charges will apply to them when an application is received during that 14-month period. To try to mislead them to think otherwise is not fair.

I hope the member appreciates that the Thom commission will look at the adequacy of our rent review system in terms of protecting tenants and that, surely he understands, the processes I will be introducing in terms of a bill are to deal with the interim period of time until a report is received from Mr. Thom.

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, my first question is to the Provincial Secretary for Social Development, who is responsible for the Ontario Youth Secretariat.

Given that there are 192,000 young people now out of work, which is 68,000 more than a year ago -- 163 new young people are put out of work every day -- can the provincial secretary tell the House how she feels about the fact that yesterday's announcement by the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) did not contain any programs or projects directed specifically at young people?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member will know that in October we announced the winter experience program, a new initiative by this government. The Treasurer had indicated his concern in the area of providing something during the winter for those large numbers of young people who were unemployed. This is a new program that has been designed to help those disadvantaged young people, who perhaps have dropped out of school, who do not have the ability to develop résumés and to find positions. We anticipate that 1,800 young people will benefit from that program alone.

The member will also know the Treasurer has indicated that many young people will be applying through the Ontario youth employment program and some of the other programs. The jobs are not specifically for any one age group. Indeed, many young people will qualify for the jobs announced by the Treasurer.

Mr. Rae: I find it hard to believe, Madam Speaker --

Mr. Havrot: Madam Speaker?

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker; you must forgive me.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Eaton: I guess you think you are back in Ottawa.

Hon. Mr. Ashe: Things were easy there.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Rae: I am surprised at the outburst of sexism, but if I could move on --

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, please.

Mr. Rae: I am surprised to hear that the provincial secretary can find any satisfaction in the fact that a make-work project has created 1,800 jobs when the figures show that the need is so much greater, at 192,000. To describe it as a drop in the ocean would be an exaggeration. Surely the provincial secretary understands the severity of the problem.

Since the Treasurer has announced that job creation is principally the responsibility of the private sector, I want to ask the provincial secretary, as the minister responsible for the youth secretariat, which sectors, industries or approaches to skills training she has targeted as the source of jobs for young people in the future. I am sure she will agree with me that unless something is done, we are creating a generation of young people in this province who will not understand the meaning and satisfaction of work.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I am not really surprised that the member is surprised we are only providing opportunities for 1,800 young people through that particular program. I think he will agree with me that government is attempting to meet some of the needs. But I think it is totally unrealistic to expect that a government can do it all, particularly in times of high unemployment. There are many unemployed people who have mortgages to meet, who have families to raise and who are having great difficulty in finding employment. To focus in on the youth of this province is totally unrealistic.

2:40 p.m.

Of course, we are approaching industry. Over the past few months, we have been trying to encourage them, but when the employment opportunities are not there, I do not think we as a government can manufacture jobs. We have to continue to try to develop a climate that will provide jobs in the private sector.

We on this side of the House are just as concerned as the member about developing the work ethic among young people. We are very concerned about that. But, unfortunately, governments cannot provide job opportunities for everyone in the private sector. We are attempting to provide jobs through the winter experience program. When we see how that goes, we will take it from there as we can.

The Treasurer has been very helpful in making money available for us to try different approaches to providing employment for young people.

Mr. Sweeney: The Provincial Secretary for Social Development will be well aware that there has been an 84 per cent increase in unemployment among young people between the ages of 15 and 24. While we have concern for all people who are unemployed, this is one group which has been particularly hard hit.

The minister will also be aware that last spring, one of the findings of our task force was the disenchantment of the young people of this province with a series of short-time job opportunities, while they were looking for full-time work.

Has the minister provided opportunities in this job creation plan for these young people to gain skills which will enable them to have further opportunities for jobs when it is over, rather than them having just one more short-term job opportunity, one more dead end?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I am sure the honourable member is aware that at the present time we are funding 22 youth employment counselling centres across this province. Through these centres, we hope to be able to help young people identify gaps in their own education and, through counselling services, we hope to provide them with expertise in developing résumés and approaches in looking for jobs. Also through these employment counselling centres, we are arranging placement opportunities for the many young people who are taking advantage of the services.

These youth employment counselling centres have been in operation for just over a year. I think they are being very well handled and that many young people are finding them very co-operative. It will take time, but at least we are making an effort to reach those young people who are having difficulty.

We all know that circumstances today are quite different; that there must be retraining, more apprenticeship programs and more skills training development. Through the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, those opportunities are being provided for many young people. But it has been a problem of long standing and it will take some time to find all the solutions.

Mr. Rae: Surely the provincial secretary understands that for young people to learn to write a résumé for a job that does not exist is an insult and will only increase their sense of frustration and dissatisfaction?

On that score I would like to ask the minister, as a final supplementary question, whether the youth secretariat has done any studies such as the one currently being done by the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto? Has her department done any studies which she could pass on to the Treasurer, indicating the social impact that unemployment among young people is having, particularly in increases in crime, vandalism and suicide? Have these studies been done and been passed on to the Treasurer so that he will know the impact his lethargy has had on the social structure of this province?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Through the youth secretariat we helped to fund the Wolman study which did focus on youth unemployment. That study has been forwarded to the Ontario Manpower Commission, with which we are also associated, and a very clear look is being taken at some of the recommendations within that study.

WINDSOR COURTHOUSE RENOVATION

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. It concerns a program that was undertaken in the city of Windsor to renovate the historic courthouse, MacKenzie Hall, under the Ontario employment incentives program. Five people were hired, to start in October. During the first 30 days of that project -- the minister may not be aware of it, and that is why I have to give him some information on this score -- the five workers who were involved were exposed to significant amounts of asbestos. A number of events have transpired since that time, the latest of which is that the project has been closed down.

I would like to ask the minister whether he can guarantee that the workers, who were working on this courthouse project, will now be re-assigned to safe work in order that they may requalify for unemployment insurance benefits.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, in the past six months I have initiated a process where inspection reports and other occupational health and safety reports come to my desk in numbers of 100 to 200 a week. I try to look them all over, but I sometimes have great difficulty. So there will be occasions when, try as I might, I will not be aware of all of the circumstances that may arise in this field. This one, in particular, I was unaware of. I will be happy to look into this matter and advise the leader of the third party as soon as I can.

Mr. Rae: The employees, for the minister's information, exercised their right to refuse dangerous work three times over the course of two weeks in an effort to get the city to follow the proper Ministry of Labour guidelines for the removal of asbestos.

As a supplementary question, I would like to ask the minister to make an investigation into why the ministry did not take air samples to find the level of asbestos when they were first called in on November 4, a month after the project began. Why did the ministry inspector not notify the union health and safety representative to accompany him on the inspections on November and November 12?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I will be pleased to look into those matters, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, given that one of the workers, Mr. Blanchette, who refused to work until he had proper equipment, namely, a mask and suitable clothing, was sent home -- a clear violation of the act -- will the minister, when he answers my leader, indicate why charges were not laid then? Also, given that the protective barriers that had been ordered by the ministry were removed while the work was still in progress, could he find out why charges were not laid on that count? Finally, given that there were innumerable contraventions both of the act and of the guidelines regarding asbestos, can he indicate, when he responds, whether he intends to prosecute?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to look into the various points the honourable member has brought to my attention.

FUNERAL SERVICES BOARD APPOINTMENT

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health. Is the minister aware of the controversy surrounding the apparent upcoming appointment of Mr. John D. Loveridge of Ingersoll, Ontario, to the Board of Funeral Services? Is this appointment still to take place, in the light of that controversy? Also, what qualifications are needed for such an appointment?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, as I recall, this is a lay appointment to the Board of Funeral Services, and there is a vacancy for the lay appointment. A variety of names have been put forward to us, of which Mr. Loveridge's name is certainly one, but a host of names are being considered, as is quite proper in the circumstances.

Mr. Van Horne: I am sure the minister can appreciate the concern of many of the funeral directors. Could the minister confirm that such an appointment as that of Mr. Loveridge is a concern of the directors? Could he also confirm that the Memorial Funeral Home of London, an organization that Mr. Loveridge was associated with, was charged with a violation under the Funeral Services Act and, further, that he made statements suggesting that the act and the board should be disbanded? If those statements are confirmed by the minister, I am wondering if this is really the type of person who should even be considered for such an appointment.

2:50 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I think it is quite appropriate for the Ministry of Health to seek a variety of names from a variety of sources. Funeral directors, members of the public, the memorial societies, knowing these appointments are coming up, have all forwarded a number of names to the ministry for our consideration.

All that has happened is that Mr. Loveridge's name has been put forward together with a number of others from a variety of sources. As we get into the process of finding out who these people are and what their backgrounds are, obviously circumstances like that, if they are factual, will be brought to my attention.

I should add, in the case of Mr. Loveridge I happen to be aware of his name among the many that have been put forward because many of my colleagues have raised a concern with me about some of his connections, not that those are wrong in any way, but they may show a bias on one side or the other of the memorial society versus funeral directors disagreement, which, as the member knows, is before the courts.

In phrasing that question to me, some of my colleagues have pointed out they think the person should be someone who comes to the board with a totally nonbiased position and, in that context, the name of Mr. Loveridge was raised because I understand, although I do not know for a fact, that he indeed has some connection with a memorial society. I do not know the carryings on of that particular memorial society; they have not been drawn to my attention yet. Those discussions are still in an early stage. My colleagues have drawn this matter to my attention and it will be reviewed.

CONVERSION TO CONDOMINIUMS

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Is the minister aware of the great concern in the cities of Ottawa and Toronto about the ability of certain companies to convert rental buildings to pseudo-condominiums as an end-run around the condominium conversion bylaws, an end-run around section 60 of the Condominium Act and as an end-run around the Planning Act? Is the minister prepared to stop these conversions by an amendment either to section 29 of the current Planning Act or to section 49 of Bill 159?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I am aware there have been some applications before the municipality in Ottawa in relation to the conversion of some units into a co-op sort of holding company.

I trust the member will recall that about a month ago the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) and I had the opportunity at cabinet of presenting a case, and indeed there are some amendments being made under the Ontario Securities Act, to try to stop this type of conversion that would absolutely do an end-run around the rights of converting units from rental to condominium.

I am not prepared to make amendments to the Planning Act to stop this type of work but we believe it can be done through the Securities Act. As the two ministries continue to do their review between now and March, we intend to report back to cabinet.

Mr. Philip: Is the minister not aware the Ontario Securities Act is an interim regulation which will only be in effect unti1 March 31, 1983, and that it has very liberal guidelines for allowing exemptions?

What has the Ontario Securities Act done so far for the tenants who have faced eviction from a 63-unit apartment at Lonsdale Avenue in Toronto, a 60-unit apartment in Ottawa and a 35-unit row house development in Ottawa? What is it going to do about the 117-unit building in Ottawa that is now being prepared for conversion? Can the minister explain how, in seven years of working on the Planning Act, he has failed to plug this hole by an amendment to that act?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I do not think it was a matter of plugging a hole at all. It was a matter of looking at planning in its true sense in this province and how we achieve certain types of development in Ontario. It is not our intention -- and I do not think the member is really speaking for all of the people of Ontario by any stretch of the imagination -- to try to block condominiums in this province. It was never the intention of the Planning Act to do so; never.

I am fully aware of the facts, and I think I said in my last answer that we were reporting back to the cabinet in the early part of 1983 in relation to those things we were asked to review under the Ontario Securities Commission.

We have said clearly that some companies, and I admit to it, had been able to go through the Securities Act and find a way around the condominium conversion problem. I suppose as long as we have well-qualified, well-trained and well-educated legal counsel in this province, they will continue to review certain acts of parliament, whether they be of this Legislature or the federal Parliament, in trying to advise their clients on how to achieve the end results they particularly want.

That is exactly what was achieved, I guess, by the corporations the member referred to in the city of Ottawa and here in Toronto. I think as well there are one or two other jurisdictions in Ontario that have had some advice by their solicitors as to how to get around the problem of converting units from rental to condominiums.

We are indicating very clearly that we do not believe you can try to turn back the clock and say you cannot do this when they had full legal right to do what they were doing at that point. The municipalities involved have asked this government to try to find some way, through the Securities Act, whereby one has to qualify under a certain price level to create a co-op sort of unit, in order to find some way of stopping up that particular situation.

But let me make it very clear: I have never received the message from any municipality that they wanted this government to cut off the opportunity for condominiums in their community.

Mr. Philip: On a point of order to correct the record, Mr. Speaker: I have never suggested that any municipality said it was against condominiums; nor this minister. What I put on the record was that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing should do something to prevent tenants in his own area from being thrown onto the streets by unscrupulous developers; that is the practice I am against.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, is the minister prepared to give his undertaking that new legislation will be in place before the other legislation runs out in 1983? Would he make this commitment to the House in view of the fact that Ottawa has a vacancy rate which is the lowest in the country?

I would ask the minister as well to consider that the legislation obviously cannot be retroactive, because it would probably be struck down by the new Charter of Rights. Would he therefore give his undertaking to the House that something will be in place to meet what he calls an "end-run"? I do not call it an end-run, actually; it is a situation where people are saying, "It is legal to do what we are doing." Would he give his undertaking that he will have something in place before his other legislation runs out in 1983?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I cannot give that undertaking at this point. I would only suggest very sincerely to the honourable members of this House that if we are not in a position to bring in a bill or take some other action, then we will likely seek, through the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, an extension to the provisions under the Ontario Securities Act to cover a longer period of time than was originally our intention.

Mr. Cassidy: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I distinctly heard the minister say that he was unaware of any municipality that was seeking to block these conversions to condominiums. Is the minister not aware that the city of Ottawa was consistently blocked by this ministry in its efforts to --

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of privilege, with all respect.

GRAND RIVER WATER QUALITY

Mr. Gillies: Mr. Speaker, my question is of the Minister of the Environment. The minister will be aware that in the early hours of Monday morning some 5,000 gallons of propylene oxide was either leaked or dumped into the Grand River by Hart Chemical Ltd. in Guelph. My question is really twofold. First, can the minister tell me what impact the ministry has determined this will have on the environment of the Grand Valley between Guelph and Brantford? Second, and really more important to us in Brantford, can he tell us what possible adverse effects this might have on the security of our drinking supply, as Brantford and a number of other communities downstream from Guelph take their drinking water from the Grand River?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, in response initially to the concern about the security of the water supply in the communities of Brantford, Cayuga and Caledonia, let me say that the ministry in co-operation with the Grand River Conservation Authority, as soon as we became aware of the incident, immediately tracked the movement of the plume down the river and timed it so as to determine the precise time at which it might arrive at those three communities.

Each of the communities was fully informed and, in consultation with the medical officer of health, not because of any immediate concern about a health hazard resulting from this to the communities but, rather, as a precautionary measure, it was decided the community of Brantford would be advised not to draw its water supply from the river for a period of potentially up to two days from the time the plume arrived in that area.

3 p.m.

It was determined that Brantford had two days' water supply in storage; so that did not present a problem in terms of a shortage of potable water to the community. The village of Cayuga had at least a day's supply of water in storage. Caledonia was in a somewhat better position in that out of four wells it uses as a community supply, only two were close enough to the river to be thought to present any potential risk.

Since 2:30 p.m.--in fact, within the past minute -- I have received the results of the testing that has been done in the Brantford area, the plume having passed through that area. At this point, the testing done by our mobile unit indicates there is now no detectable level in the water in the Brantford area. As a further precaution, confirmatory tests will be undertaken immediately; if they concur with the results of the first, then obviously it will be all right for Brantford to resume taking its water supply from the river. Similar monitoring will be done at the other communities.

In terms of concern about a long-term impact, I point out to members that propylene oxide degrades rather quickly, over a period of about two days, and becomes a harmless substance, propylene glycol, which is commonly used as a food colouring and in cosmetics; so there is no concern at this stage of any long-term negative effects on the environment.

Mr. Gillies: I am sure the minister is aware, however, that propylene oxide is both volatile and toxic in concentration and that it does pose some concern to my constituents when the water supply is potentially shut off at the valve for two days when we have only a two-day supply in the canal beyond that valve.

In view of the fact that the same company either spilled or dumped dichlorine in some quantity in the same river in 1976 -- so this is not an unprecedented occurrence -- will the minister tell me whether the circumstances surrounding this particular spillage will be investigated fully by the ministry and whether he will consider the necessity of charges under the Environmental Protection Act?

Hon. Mr. Norton: First of all, I was aware that there immediately arose what is, as far as I am aware, a rumour of an earlier spill from this same company. As of this point in time, I have not been able to confirm this, although we have had our regional staff try to check it out.

With respect to investigating whether there are any violations under our legislation, I can assure the member that from the time we became aware of this, our special investigation unit has been on site. The determination as to whether charges will be laid obviously must wait until I have received their report, although I can assure the member that if there is any evidence to support the laying of charges, this is clearly a situation that would merit that action.

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows our ongoing concern about any kind of chemicals getting close to the major water supplies in this province. I wonder whether he has anything in legislation or regulation that is going to put some kind of containment between any kind of chemicals and their reaching some of our waterways through the drains.

Is he considering anything so that these companies will have to put in some kind of containment, such as the earth mounds they put around large gasoline tanks? I would suggest they could do something within a plant to guarantee containment, in the event of a spill, so that it would not end up in one of our waterways before someone found out about it and did something to prevent our waterways from being poisoned.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Yes, Mr. Speaker. That already has been done in some instances where it is known there may be a risk at some point of a hazardous material finding its way into either the sewers or the waterways -- by putting in holding devices that would retain the material in the event of a spill.

Mr. Kerrio: How did this happen?

Hon. Mr. Norton: In this particular instance, it appears this was the result of a faulty valve, which leaked into a specially constructed sewer, and it was not detected by the staff over a period of what would appear to be as long as nine hours. Obviously that raises some questions in my mind, as I am sure it would in the honourable member's.

The problems related to propylene oxide may be somewhat different because of its volatility. Containment may not be a very clear option, because it is so volatile as to be explosive.

When the honourable members ask about the question of toxicity, it is also important to bear in mind that the toxic levels of this material run in the range of a ratio of one ounce per 100 pounds of body weight. There is absolutely nothing remotely approaching that kind of concentration. We are talking of a maximum concentration, once the plume reached the Brantford area, for example, of five parts per billion. So there is quite a remote possibility of its reaching toxicity.

Ms. Copps: It may be okay for the people of Brantford, but you'll kill everybody in Guelph. What about the people in Guelph?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Listen, mouthy, just keep things in perspective.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. As he is taking his seat and before the students get away --

Mr. Speaker: Having regard for the time, I think you should ask your question.

Mr. Riddell: I would just like to say to the students that members are not totally ignorant about geography. It is really the Speed River that runs through Guelph, not the Grand River. I am sure the member for Brantford would want me to make that correction.

Mr. Gillies: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I am sure the honourable member will be aware that the Speed River flows into the Grand River where it eventually reaches the great community of Brantford.

MINING ACT REVISIONS

Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister of Agriculture and Food concerns proposed revisions to the Mining Act, contained in a report of the advisory committee to the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope). Granted, this report does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, but one of the proposals in it has serious implications for the farmers of Ontario.

This minister no doubt is aware that one of the proposals contained in those revisions would allow for the extension of an acreage tax on all lands in the province regardless of title, which would apply to the vast majority of the 15 million acres of agricultural land in Ontario since most farmers have dual ownership of mineral and surface rights. This would allow for forfeiture of those mineral rights to the crown where the land owner did not pay the tax or develop, explore or produce the mineral resources on his land.

Will the minister agree with me that the imposition of such a tax on all private land is simply unacceptable and nothing less than expropriation without compensation? Will he assure us that he will express his vehement objection to this recommendation in his discussions with the Minister of Natural Resources?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, as the honourable member knows, this has been the subject of a number of reports over the years. Most recently my colleague the Minister of Natural Resources made a statement on the subject in this House on June 30 of this year, following which he sent copies of the advisory report, or whatever is the proper title, to a number of interested organizations around the province, including, in August, I believe, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

3:10 p.m.

I also believe that some of the points mentioned in the question just read to us are based on false information -- I should not use the word "false"; on incorrect information.

Mr. Riddell: It's right in the report. Read the report.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: If I may, I will refer the question to my colleague the Minister of Natural Resources, but the member may be sure that when the consultation process is completed, and it comes to the cabinet table and the committee table, the interests of the farmers of the province will be well represented by myself.

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES READJUSTMENT ACT

Mr. Renwick moved, seconded by Mr. Laughren, first reading of Bill 187, An Act to provide for the Readjustment of Electoral Boundaries.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill is to provide for an orderly adjustment of electoral boundaries on a decennial basis by an independent commission appointed by the Speaker, composed of the chief election officer and one member nominated by each leader of a political party represented in this assembly.

There is no existing legislation making any provision for adjustment of electoral boundaries. The bill sets out the procedures to be followed and the circumstances to be taken into consideration in making its report to the assembly and provides for public hearings during the course of its deliberations. The number of northern seats shall be no fewer than the present number.

MOTION TO SET ASIDE ORDINARY BUSINESS

Mr. Boudria moved, seconded by Mr. Conway, pursuant to standing order 34(a), that the ordinary business of the House be set aside in order to debate a matter of urgent and public importance, namely, the announced closing of Canadian International Paper's 84-year-old mill in Hawkesbury, the closure of Interline Furniture, Tattner Textiles, Fashion Print and the temporary layoffs at Amoco Fabrics, Eastern Steelcastings, Ivaco Rolling Mills and many other closings and layoffs in eastern Ontario, and the effects that these will have on the already hard-pressed economy of eastern Ontario, in particular the resulting high numbers of unemployed, the increasing welfare roll, the disappearing farm land and the large number of farmers unable to farm productively and, in this context, to highlight the lack of any program by the provincial government to help eastern Ontario meet these difficulties and to discuss serious options this Legislature could take to solve these problems.

Mr. Speaker: I wish to advise all honourable members that this notice of motion was received on time. I am prepared 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. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, as an eastern Ontario member like myself, you no doubt will be aware of the grave situation the economy of our province and more specifically that of eastern Ontario has decayed to. There is the closure of certain plants I have previously named, Interline Furniture, Tattner Textiles, Fashion Print, the imminent CIP closure in Hawkesbury and the subsequent loss of 431 direct jobs in my riding as well as ancillary jobs. There are temporary layoffs and partial shutdowns. Industries such as Amoco Fabrics, Eastern Steel Casting and Ivaco Rolling Mills in our area are further examples of this.

The Speaker no doubt also will be aware that we have had other complete and partial company closures as follows: In March 1982, Euro Curtain Corp. of Cornwall; in the same month, Nabob Foods Ltd. of Ajax and R. M. Hollingshead Ltd. of Bowmanville; in May 1982, Pedlar Storage Products and T. G. Gale Ltd. of Oshawa; in June, Cornwall Spinners Ltd. of Cornwall and Bayly Engineering Ltd. of Ajax; in July 1982, Domtar Inc. and Domtar Construction Materials of Cornwall, Madawaska Mines in Bancroft -- which you no doubt recall, Mr. Speaker, was so very thoroughly discussed in this Legislature -- Breithaupt Leather Ltd. in Hastings, Goman Boat Ltd. in Midland and Robson-Lang Leathers Ltd. in Cobourg.

Those are only a few examples, Mr. Speaker, which I am sure you will understand make this debate very urgent, very pressing and very important.

I want to outline briefly for the honourable members of this House the unemployment we have in eastern Ontario. When I refer to unemployment, I refer only to the Unemployment Insurance Commission claims, because many people have exhausted their unemployment and are no longer part of the statistics if they are not seeking employment.

The Hawkesbury area has had an increase of 95 per cent in unemployment since last year; Bancroft, 96.3 per cent; Pembroke, 32.6 per cent; Picton, 70 per cent; and Peterborough, 39.1 per cent. I am sure, sir, you will know just how important some of those statistics are.

In 1979 in Hawkesbury there were 56 housing starts -- and I hope the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett) will listen to this -- in 1980 there were 27 housing starts, in 1981 there were 15 housing starts and in 1982 we are down to seven housing starts.

Further, this grave economic situation has had very serious repercussions on our farming community. As you no doubt are aware, Mr. Speaker, the provincial average for the decline in the number of farms since 1971 is 12.9 per cent. In eastern Ontario the number of farmers has declined at a rate of 16.2 per cent, well above the provincial average.

Members of this Legislature may think that if the number of farmers is declining it is not necessarily a bad sign, because it may mean the acreage is not changing. That is not the case. The acreage in the province has declined by 6.5 per cent over the same period, but in eastern Ontario it has declined by 13.9 per cent.

The welfare rolls: In Brockville, welfare has increased by 43.4 per cent over one year; in Hawkesbury, 26.5 per cent; in Cornwall, 27 per cent: and in Bancroft, 22 per cent.

I want to relate very briefly the number of farm bankruptcies. As we know, there have been 344 farm bankruptcies from January to October 1982 in this country. Of this number, 145 were in Ontario, a large number of those from the area you and I represent, Mr. Speaker. The number of farm bankruptcies in livestock, which is a very important activity in my constituency, was 67 from January to October 1982.

The economic situation of eastern Ontario has never been anything like that of the rest of the province. It has further deteriorated to such a point that it requires an urgent debate to discuss solutions to these very great problems.

3:20 p.m.

Mr. Samis: Mr. Speaker, I want to inform the honourable members of the House that we on this side will support the motion and, coming from eastern Ontario, I can wholeheartedly agree with the points made.

It is true that we are a traditional slow-growth area, but I must point out that there is a growing sense of alienation in eastern Ontario because of the economic malaise and high unemployment. It is not just confined to Hawkesbury; it affects every major community in eastern Ontario.

In my own community, for example, we have an unemployment rate beyond 15 per cent. This year alone, we have lost, or will be losing by the end of the year, six plants. These are not just layoffs; the following plants will be closed completely: Cornwall Spinners and Riverside Yarns, 500 jobs down the drain; Atlas Hoist, 36 jobs; Domtar Construction Materials, 80 jobs gone; Celanese, closing in December, 25 jobs gone; Besner and Sons, closed and gone out of the province, 71 jobs.

It is not just the plants that have closed. We also have companies such as Sovereign Products, which eight or nine years ago was employing 450 people and today is down to 15 employees. We have others that are on work-sharing. I dare say that in our textile and garment industry in Cornwall, the vast majority of plants now are on work-sharing, whether it be Levi Strauss, an extremely well-known company, Morhern or F and B Clothing. This is the norm now; this is not the exception.

My colleague has referred to the welfare situation. In my own community in July there was a 52 per cent increase in the number of single employables on welfare. So far this year, we are talking about a 27 per cent increase in my own community. An ominous note is that last week one of the Roman Catholic churches announced it was opening a soup kitchen to deal with the problems of people who just cannot cope with the economics of our situation.

This is not confined to Cornwall or Hawkesbury. The honourable member referred to the statistics in Brockville, where there has been a 43 per cent increase in the number of welfare recipients; in Pembroke, a 33.2 per cent increase over last year; in Kingston, a 16.39 per cent increase compared with last year.

The member also referred to UIC statistics, and I will not repeat the ones he gave. But even in Ottawa, compared with last year, there has been a 23.7 per cent increase in recipients; Cornwall, 21.6 per cent; Pembroke, 36.5 per cent; Kingston, 48.1 per cent; Belleville, 26.1 per cent; Brockville, 19.8 per cent; and Picton, 70 per cent. That is without even mentioning the situation in Bancroft.

It is very clear that the recession has rooted deeply in eastern Ontario. We are faced with bankruptcies, layoffs, work-sharing and increased welfare. They are the norm; they are no longer the exception.

My colleague referred to the agricultural situation, which is no better. We have no clear-cut development strategy for eastern Ontario and no clear idea of where we are going. There is no overall plan whatsoever for the economic development of eastern Ontario. We see a continuing trend towards centralization, whether it be private investment or the locating of new industries. We see no major new initiatives in the tourist industry in eastern Ontario.

In the pulp and paper industry, we have blown $100 million to the plants around the province at a net loss of more than 800 jobs in that industry. The Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program has no meaningful impact in our part of the province. Yesterday's announcement by the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) is a mere drop in the bucket, compared with the problems we have.

In closing, I want to make a point to my colleague from Hawkesbury. We will not have jobs, growth or development if we have people in Ottawa supporting tight money policies, high interest rates and Reaganomics.

Mr. Speaker: One minute.

Mr. Samis: Eastern Ontario will not grow under those kinds of policies. Eastern Ontario will not grow if that party over there is going to support a policy that takes purchasing power from the pockets of the people of eastern Ontario. Jobs are created when people have money to spend. Eastern Ontario will not grow and we will not get jobs unless that party over there supports basic structural changes in the overall economy of Ontario so that we get true regional economic development.

We will support the motion, but I wish the members to my right would support the idea of bringing down interest rates and would get their federal friends to get moving on the job situation.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Armourdale.

Hon. Mr. Walker: I think he is just leaving.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Industry and Trade.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: What about the member for Quinte (Mr. O'Neil)?

Mr. Speaker: He stood at the wrong time.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, in rising to address the nature of the resolution that has been put before us by the member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria), I have to say that there is not one person in this House who does not share the kinds of concerns raised by the honourable member about some of these companies. There is no one in this House who does not have the same interest in seeing an attempt to reverse our economic situation.

When we concern ourselves about unemployment or the economic situation today, the nature of our economy and the worldwide aspect of it, the fact that we have a downturn of dramatic and significant proportions, there is no question that we all share equally the very concerns expressed by the member for Cornwall (Mr. Samis) and the member for Prescott-Russell. However, we do not feel that an emergency debate is warranted at this time.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Cassidy: Crocodile tears; that's what it is.

Hon. Mr. Walker: If members will just listen for a moment, I want to express the reason we feel an emergency debate, causing us to put aside the business of the House, is not necessary at this moment.

Today we are looking at Bill 127, An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act. The Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) has brought that bill in, and it is very important that it be dealt with. The reason we are not as concerned --

Mr. Martel: What has that got to do with eastern Ontario?

Mr. Foulds: Jobs in eastern Ontario are very important too.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Walker: Let me not take away from the concern. Let me merely say --

Mr. Boudria: Why don't you allow the debate, then?

Mr. Swart: Your actions speak out loud.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Walker: I wish the members would just pipe down for a moment and allow me to finish a sentence. I was very quiet and listened to everything said by the gentleman from the parts opposite. I request the same courtesy.

Mr. Cooke: If you had listened, you wouldn't oppose the motion.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of lndustry and Trade has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Walker: As it turns out, by coincidence this is the day of my estimates. Tonight we will be spending two and a half hours on my estimates, and I invite the member for Prescott-Russell to substitute on the committee so he can come there and share with us some of the concerns he is raising about specific companies. I ask the member for Cornwall to substitute tonight so he too can present his views. If there is not sufficient time tonight in two and a half hours to go through the entire matter, we have another three hours tomorrow morning and another two and a half hours on Thursday night when we can deal with these very specific questions.

Of course we are concerned about industrial composition. Of course we are concerned about the shutdown of plants. But we must realize there are a good many companies remaining open. The member might address the issue of CIP, which he mentioned, and tonight would provide an opportune moment.

I looked at the names of the companies listed in the notice of motion, and I could not help but notice that one was closed last March and another one last December. So I question the urgency that is attached to it. Perhaps some of the matters should be dealt with in a more direct way. With one of the companies mentioned, a new company took over, started it over again and there has been no net change of jobs.

In suggesting that we might look at this question from the point of view of our estimates tonight, may I invite the members to participate in the discussion there? Then perhaps the member for Prescott-Russell can tell me how he would solve the problem of the CIP plant in Hawkesbury, given that the plant is 84 years old and makes Cellophane, which today has become a product in lower and lower consumer demand and has been replaced by other technology. I would like the member to share those thoughts with me.

We have set up a variety of things in trying to address the issue. We have programs for eastern Ontario, one of them being the Eastern Ontario Development Corp. Since the inception of the EODC, there have been 98 loans and guarantees totalling $159.4 million, as a result of which it is estimated some 26,000 jobs will be created after five years.

Mr. Speaker: The minister's time has expired.

Hon. Mr. Walker: I am sorry I cannot finish this dissertation, but I want to indicate to the members that tonight will be a very opportune time to discuss this matter.

Interjections.

3:30 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I have listened carefully and intently to the arguments put forward by the members on all sides and actually I can find nothing wrong with the motion. It is obviously a matter of great concern and I find, therefore, in favour of the motion. The only question before the House is, shall the debate proceed.

4:37 p.m.

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, Eakins, Edighoffer, Elston, Epp, Foulds, Grande, Haggerty, Johnston, R.F., Kerrio, Laughren, Mackenzie, Martel, McClellan, McGuigan, McKessock, Miller. G. I.;

Newman, Nixon, O'Neil, Peterson, Philip, Rae, Reed, J. A., Reid, T. P., Renwick, Riddell, Roy, Ruprecht, Ruston, Samis, Stokes, Swart, Sweeney, Van Horne, Wildman, Worton, Wrye.

Nays

Andrewes, Ashe, Baetz, Barlow, Bennett, Bernier, Birch, Cousens, Cureatz, Davis, Dean, Drea, Eaton, Elgie, Eves, Fish, Gillies, Gordon, Gregory, Grossman, Harris, Havrot, Hennessy, Hodgson, Johnson, J. M., Jones, Kells, Kennedy, Kerr, Kolyn, Lane, Leluk;

MacQuarrie, McCaffrey, McCague, McLean, McMurtry, McNeil, Miller, F. S., Mitchell, Norton, Piché, Pollock, Pope, Ramsay, Robinson, Rotenberg, Runciman, Scrivener, Sheppard, Shymko, Stephenson, B. M., Sterling, Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, G. W., Taylor, J. A., Timbrell, Villeneuve, Walker, Watson, Wells, Williams, Yakabuski.

Ayes 49; nays 63.

NOTICE OF DISSATISFACTION

Mr. Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 28, the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) and the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) have given notice of their dissatisfaction with the answers given by the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) to the members' questions on the Proverbs matter. This matter will be debated at 10:30 p.m. this evening.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

House in committee of the whole.

MUNICIPALITY OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

Resuming consideration of Bill 127, An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act.

On section 6:

Mr. Chairman: I think we are dealing with section 6, the minister's amendment to Bill 127. As I recall, the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) had concluded her remarks.

Interjection.

Mr. Chairman: She had not completed? No. She is not here. There are a number of other people who would like to have some input, to my understanding. I cast my eyes to the official opposition, and I see no one jumping up.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise. Speaking to the amendment to section 6, as I recall, it was to strike out a portion that brought some fairness to the notion of what would be done with surpluses, something which the minister agreed to in committee; she agreed that she had been wrong before and that her initial wording was unjust.

Now she has decided, through some kind of mysterious pressures, God knows what, it is always hard to understand what pressures affect this particular minister, but she has decided that she would like to go back to inequity again and she would like to impose a larger burden on certain of the municipalities in Toronto and less on others, and she would also like to make sure she is at least consistent in whomping the city of Toronto again in this amendment.

Just to remind the members of the Legislature, many of whom I do not think have been here in past debates, what this is doing, this is being placed in lieu of subsection 127(4), which at the moment says that if they have a surplus they will be able to receive "an amount that, in the opinion of the school board, is equal to the portion of the surplus that was raised by local taxation in the area municipality." That is now being replaced with "an amount that does not exceed the amount of the surplus, and in determining the amount of the reduction in the apportionment the school board shall give consideration to the circumstances that, in the opinion of the school board, contributed to the size of the surplus."

That essentially allows the Metropolitan Toronto board to make a decision that could give the local board the entire amount of their surplus back even though the vast majority of it may not have been raised in that particular jurisdiction but may have come from another jurisdiction, and, I reiterate, probably the city of Toronto, which contributes about 40 per cent of the cost. So a borough like East York or York could now maintain the total amount of a surplus within that municipality to the detriment of the city of Toronto. That is what is being proposed to make this bill better than it was before, if you can imagine it.

As I said, it would be very interesting to hear from the minister at any point why she felt she was wrong in the hearings when she decided she agreed with people that this was unjust, that this placed an unfair burden on --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I did not say that.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: The minister says she did not say that. The minister did not agree that she would strike out --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I did not say it was unjust. I did not use the words you are putting in my mouth.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: What was your reason, then, for deciding during the hearings that this section should be changed? I have a quote here somewhere, I think. No, I do not seem to be able to find it.

Perhaps the minister might be able to explain to us why she has changed her mind back and forth. Perhaps it would make it easier for me to continue my remarks if I had some understanding of why we have now gone back to the original position. It is not in her statement of the other day when this amendment was presented.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Yes it is.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: It is?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Yes.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Oh, yes. In the minister's statement on page 5214 of Hansard last week, Tuesday, November 16, she explained why she changed her mind again. Did she not agree in committee to return it to the position where it would be equal to the portion of the surplus that was raised by local taxation in the area municipality? Why has she now decided to go back to the original point?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Read the Hansard of the committee.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Of the committee, or of last week?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: No, of the committee.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I will go back and read Hansard some time over the supper hour so that this evening, or perhaps on Thursday or next week when we are discussing this same clause I will be able to comment on that.

This notion of the amendment that is being placed to change again the wording of subsection 4 is in my view just another attack on the city of Toronto. It is also a reward by the government for underspending, not for good budget control. And it is a move by the government of Ontario to force its cutback policy, in terms of the provision of funds in education, on to other municipalities. It is an extension of that policy which we have seen over the last number of years, and it is the kind of thing that will gradually diminish the quality of education in other boards around Metropolitan Toronto.

I would like to argue those cases, if I might, as to why, therefore, this particular amendment is so unfair. The Toronto Board of Education provides a great deal of money towards the overall levels of education in Metropolitan Toronto.

4:50 p.m.

I will read members a brief portion of a presentation made to the standing committee on general government by the Toronto Board of Education. On page 7, they are talking about this particular problem of the surplus and the Toronto board being penalized in this fashion:

"This means that the large assessment base in the city of Toronto provides much of the money used to maintain and operate the school systems in the other five area boards. Currently, 40 per cent of the money raised for education in Metro is raised in Toronto, while only 28 per cent is spent in the city. Over the past 10 years, that gap has widened steadily and has meant that over $360 million has been raised in the city of Toronto and spent elsewhere."

The member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg) says it is because of the industrial assessment. Of course it is. I do not deny that. I am saying that within one of the jurisdictions in Metropolitan Toronto, the city of Toronto, the resources for the costs of education are picked up to a much larger degree than in other areas. Therefore, it is that jurisdiction which is the important matter. It does not matter whether it is a home owner or a business in that community.

The city of Toronto has been providing 40 per cent of the revenue for education at the municipal level in Metropolitan Toronto while spending 28 per cent. The member for Wilson Heights is saying that comes from the industrial and commercial tax base in the city of Toronto. I agree that a large part of it does. But what happens when a board underspends that which it has budgeted, whether it is the Scarborough board or the East York board or the York board? They underspend what they estimated at the beginning of the year, and now, under clause 4, as the amendment suggests, they would be able to get back the entire amount of that surplus, even though it is very likely that one of the smaller boroughs, like York or East York, would only have produced a very small percentage of the income that was there for their budget in the first place.

A good thing about the clause as it stands is that it would allow only that portion of the surplus that was raised by local taxation to go to that local board. That makes a lot of sense. What we are essentially doing is saying to somebody in East York or Scarborough: "Yes, you have overestimated your budget or you did not spend money that you properly estimated. Because you have done that, we will take money from the city of Toronto and give it back to you."

Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is nonsense.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: What do you mean that is nonsense? That is exactly the case. I suppose the minister will explain to me why that is nonsense.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I explained it the other night when you were not here.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I will make my argument without the helpful interjection of "Read Hansard," which is a punishment that none of us should have to undertake too strongly, except for my speeches.

Interjection.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: That is a very helpful addition from the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton).

Mr. Chairman: Let us ignore the interjections and speak to the proposed amendment. The Minister of the Environment is not making life any better with his interjections.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Would the Minister of the Environment like to rise and tell me why it is not the case that Toronto would not be receiving any of this revenue under this present situation? With the amendment, the borough of East York could maintain 100 per cent of the surplus in East York. That is clear in this amendment. By the previous unamended clause, the borough would have received only a portion of that amount, a portion up to the amount it raised through local taxation. The rest would go back to the Metropolitan Toronto School Board. It would not stay with the East York board. That is self-evident and I have seen nothing in Hansard or heard anything in any of these debates that would detract from that.

My argument is, that is fundamentally unjust. The Toronto board has been attacked by this minister as continually running up deficits, spending money wantonly and not thinking about the needs of the taxpayers of that community. It has subsequently been re-elected in great force and in larger numbers than before.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: A smaller percentage of the population voted than in 1950.

Mr. R. F. Johnson: I am so pleased to note that the Minister of Education has just viciously attacked the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett). She has said his advertising campaign was a failure.

Interjections.

Mr. Chairman: Speaking to the amendment.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: She has attacked him when he is not in the House. It is just outrageous, if one can believe that.

Mr. Chairman: Speaking to the amendment.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Someone has to leap to the defence of the minister if the members on the other side will not.

Mr. Chairman: Restrain yourself. Speak to the amendment.

Hon. Mr. Norton: That was not true outside Toronto.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Exactly. In other words, what the minister is saying is not only were the New Democrat trustees re-elected in larger numbers, but the opposition could not even get out as many people as it had before. I am sure that is the logical extension of what she is saying.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I'm not sure you could consider it a mandate.

Interjections.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: The Liberals are very active in municipal politics. They are doing it just as surreptitiously as possible, which is wise when you have to carry the Liberal banner these days.

Mr. Cassidy: Spensieri was not surreptitious.

Interjections.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would say to the member for Parkdale (Mr. Ruprecht), some of you do not have to try to be surreptitious, it is true. It is just a natural kind of thing.

I would like to return if I might to the question of surpluses and deficits and the accusation that has been made against the city of Toronto. I would like to argue that it is not a question of them being wantonly bad budgeters, but that they have been approaching education with a very different philosophy from the Minister of Education. That is why they are under attack at the moment.

Government at this level has been involved in trying to diminish the amount of money put into education, and is putting in less money on a per capita basis than it has in the past, when one looks at the rise in inflation. This is in direct opposition to a board that is trying to maintain the quality of education: that is essentially what is going on and that is what is behind this attack.

Mr. Kolyn: What does Scarborough think of all this?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would like to spend a fair amount of time attacking the Scarborough board and I intend to.

Mr. Kolyn: Yes, do; put it on the record.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I will.

Interjection.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: It is not my constituents, I would argue, but a group of trustees who have not been doing their jobs.

Mr. Kolyn: They were elected the same as you were.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: They were indeed, but unfortunately without the major fights on Bill 127 there should have been in terms of public input.

Mr. Kolyn: What is Scarborough's position?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: It is very difficult to ignore these asides, Mr. Chairman.

One of the real problems in a place like Scarborough in comparison with Toronto is that there is very little parental involvement in the decision-making in the schools. I have a principal in my school who has been forcing a couple of women out of trying to form a parents' association, if you can believe it, saying they will be nothing but troublemakers. That is an ancient concept.

Mr. Chairman: Moving with great speed back to the amendment; the member for Scarborough West is making life very difficult for me.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Is it me who is doing that?

Mr. Chairman: Yes. You are not speaking to the amendment. You keep responding to interjections.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I see a weapon on your right-hand side, Mr. Chairman. I would encourage you to halt these interjections which make me stray from the course because I want to speak to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman: I know you do.

5 p.m.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am trying to speak to this whole question of surpluses, if I can go back to the argument --

Mr. Kennedy: Have a go.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I want to deal with the question of whether or not a perceived deficit is bad administration, bad policy by a board of education --

Hon. Mr. Norton: I say you are straying.

Mr. Chairman: The minister has raised the point that you are on the wrong section.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am not at all. I hope that I can talk about deficit and surplus as two sides of a coin. At the same time, Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to make major arguments on deficit. I am trying to say that the notion that we will reward, in undue fashion, boards that bring in surpluses, which is what this amendment does, in my view is an attack on a particular board which, it is true, has not had many surpluses of late.

If you look at the breakdown which was presented by the Toronto Board of Education, if you look at the list for the 10-year period from 1971 to 1981 of those who have had surpluses and those who have had deficits, you will understand that at various times various boards have had deficits and at various times they have had surpluses. It has not always been the city of Toronto.

I would argue that to unduly reward the notion of surplus is a dangerous thing to do in terms of policy, program and the quality of education that we want. That is what this particular amendment is doing. It would be some reward, some recognition of the fact of partial ownership of the resources of a community if they were given back that amount of money which they had raised, but to say that they could have the total amount which they have in a surplus is, in my view, to punish the other --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is not what the amendment says.

Mr. Kolyn: Not according to the Scarborough board.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Well, might I read the amendment again and ask for a clarification, because the minister says that is not what the amendment says? If I can come to the last part of it, the amendment says, "an amount that does not exceed the amount of the surplus." Right? This means, I would presume, right up to that maximum allowed of the surplus. Does it not? If I am not --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: It is a possibility, not a fact,

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Yes, but who makes the decision? The decision is made by the Metro board, as I understand it. But they have the potential of giving back to an individual board more than they have raised in their own taxation. Surely, that is the essential difference between what we have in the original clause and what we have with this amendment. That is moving to something which has to be seen as basically unfair and which obviously is going to be affecting the board that puts in the most money. The board that puts in the most money, again, is the city of Toronto, which puts in 40 per cent of the money involved.

It is interesting to put this in the context of an extension of this government's view of cutbacks and the need to reduce the amount of money that is going into education at the local level, Mr. Chairman. If you reward a surplus, and therefore reward underbudgeting, essentially you are urging boards to spend less money on education, it strikes me. I think that follows. This is something we can also see as being the policy of this government over the last number of years. The amount of money on a per-student basis that has been provided by Ontario has been diminishing in recent years in comparison with the amount that has been put in through the municipal tax base.

I quote from a paper entitled Education Finance in Ontario: Issues in the Current Debate, prepared by a number of people in Toronto -- Mr. Jeffrey Patterson of the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto and David Wolfe of the Department of Political Economy of the University of Toronto, in particular. On page 7, the point is made that when we examine provincial funding on a per pupil basis, the level has fallen steadily since 1975. The data in table 5 indicate that in the period from 1975 to 1981 provincial funding of students in the Metropolitan Toronto School Board rose from $546 to $655 on a per pupil basis, a rise of 20 per cent.

During the same period, the level of funding of students in the Metropolitan Toronto School Board provided by the Metro tax levy rose from $1,053 to $2,536 on a per capita basis, or by 140 per cent.

It is obvious that the Ministry of Education was passing on a message. They wanted to provide less money, and if more money was going to be put into the education system it would have to be assumed at the local level.

What we are now seeing is another pressure being put on the local boards by the government of Ontario to also reduce the amount of money they are putting in, for them to play the fiscal conservatism kind of game and to make compromises on maintaining schools, programs, teachers, reducing class size, those kinds of things; have a surplus and get some sort of an exponential reward for having done so.

The rise in the per pupil funding from the province was 20 per cent during that five year period. If we compare that with the amount of money we got from the gross national product in Canada, which increased 82.7 per cent during that period, we can see that there is an incredible diminution of provincial funding to the municipally run boards of education.

Those boards then tried to respond in terms of providing more money from their local bases.

The pressure on them has been considerable and I would suggest that those boards have tried very hard to hold their costs down. With the lack of money coming from the province, just to maintain programs they have had to raise disproportionate amounts of money from the municipal levy. Because of that, they are being put in a position of having to raise their local tax rates higher than they would like to, just to maintain the status quo. Therefore, they are in the position of trying to be conservative, given the kind of approach that they have to go to the people on, that is to go to the property tax, which is already overburdened, and many people are complaining of the level of funding for education that is being asked of them in their tax bills.

This amendment is trying to deal with the problem of property tax and the amount of money for education that is going on to the property tax. It is trying to deal with it in this very backhanded way of encouraging these local governments to underspend their contribution to the tax system.

It is absolutely the wrong way to try to bring some kind of equality to how we fund the education system.

What we need to be doing is increasing the amount of provincial dollars that go in and decreasing the amount of municipal dollars that go in, instead of keeping down the level of funding from the provincial level at the same time as we start to force local government boards to show constraint.

I am suggesting that it is a very dangerous amendment for us to support for that reason.

Might I just go over some of the views about surpluses that have come forward in the past. A surplus in education budgeting has been known since the beginning of educational budgeting time.

5:10 p.m.

We can go back to the Goldenberg report in 1965, and find there a recommendation that the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto should assume the school debt. At that time they were dealing with a very different structure. The Lowes report in 1974 also dealt with the question of surpluses and thought of them primarily as a means of reducing the discretionary levy for boards that had used their discretionary levy and yet found themselves in a surplus later on.

Then there is the Robarts report, based on the innovative and, I hope, someday-to-be-accepted notion that we do not need the Metro board at all, that the Metro board gets in the way. This report suggested very rightly that the expenditures and servicing of debts would be assumed by each of the area boards to its own degree and the surpluses, in the same way, would fall to the boards themselves, given their own resources. That gets rid of the Metro board, instead of reinforcing the strength of the board in Metro, which is what we are doing in this bill and even in this amendment.

This amendment does not even say there must be some kind of formula to indicate that the amount a board gets back for its surplus would be equal to that raised by its local taxation. It is saying that the Metropolitan Toronto School Board shall give consideration to the circumstances that have gone into this and the Metropolitan Toronto School Board will make the decision as to how much a board should get back.

I would suggest that if anything of past history shows itself to be repeated, we will find that there will be a bias by that board against the city of Toronto and in favour of some of the other boards. I personally do not wish to see the Metro board strengthened any more than it already is. I want to see it ended. I want to see us bring in that kind of legislation, not legislation that, to the detriment of local boards and especially to the detriment of the board in the city of Toronto, aggrandizes the Metro board so that it receives more power. If people from other regional areas saw this kind of legislation going through they would be very disappointed to see this power being taken away from the local boards in their own local areas.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: You are all for centralization. Your party stands for that.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am being informed of my party's policy now by the member for Prince Edward-Lennox. I called it Quinte earlier on and that is wrong. As an aside, because it is relevant and because you have not grabbed your gavel as yet, Mr. Chairman, the policy of my party on this matter is that we would like to see the Metro board done away with. That is our policy. I would like to make it very clear to you now. The member is shaking his head and looking confused.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Are you an apologist for the Toronto Board of Education?

Mr. Chairman: Speaking to the amendment.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Speaking to the amendment, that is right.

I was speaking about other approaches to dealing with surpluses and debts that have been proposed in other studies over the last number of years. I was dealing with the Robarts recommendation, which indicated that if we got rid of the Metro board, then the actual surpluses and debts of the individual boards could be assumed by those boards themselves. There would then be the real kind of local accountability that we are all looking for. The minister says she is, and I believe we are, in our own way. We just do not want a version of local autonomy to be brought in which would be to the detriment of one of the boards in particular. That is the way we are forced to see this legislation as it is proposed, and this amendment is reinforcing it.

In 1978, a committee on costs suggested that all debts and surpluses should be put back to the Metro-wide base of assessment and not be dealt with at the local level. The most interesting report, and the one I want to use to tie into my theory that is just an extension of the cutback kind of approach of the provincial government in terms of overall education, is the Jackson report. Essentially, it recognized that individual debts in the system should not be laid at the feet of the local boards or overlapping boards but the responsibility should be laid at the feet of the Minister of Education; that there was a need for a return to the funding for education from the provincial level that we had seen in previous years and not that more and more of the weight of the burden of funding of education be placed on the local taxpayers.

To round out the listing of groups that have looked at this, I should also refer of course to the white paper produced in 1978, under the name of Mr. Wells, which spoke about the local area board being able to retain a surplus up to one mill for that particular board. I do not know exactly, and I would like to be informed by the minister, how that kind of an option would compare with the open endedness of this particular amendment which says only that it should not exceed the amount of the surplus.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Certainly it is not open ended.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: It is not open ended. I suppose what I mean by open ended is there is a maximum of the one mill being placed on that; the maximum that can be placed on this is the total amount of the surplus. I am wondering how that would work out in some of these smaller boards. What would be the potential difference when one looks at the kinds of savings that might be made, the kinds of surpluses that might be found or have been found in the last several years?

Let us look at some of those surpluses from some of the boards, especially from Etobicoke and Scarborough. In the last number of years we have seen, in Scarborough in 1978, $4,353,000; in 1979, $3,180,000; in 1980, $1,162,000; and in 1981, $2,045.000. That is over $2 million; over $1.6 million; over $3 million and over $4.3 million surplus by that board; underestimating the predicted budgets, and then sending that money back to Metropolitan Toronto board. They felt good; they felt that they had in fact provided the best level of education they possibly could in that borough and that it was worthwhile sending that money back to the central body; something which I would like to argue is not the case at all and this I will do later on.

The borough of Etobicoke has also had some fairly large surpluses in the last several years. In 1977, $1,446,000; in 1978, $2,661,000; in 1980, $2,444,000; in 1981, $904,000. These are very large amounts of money that would be sent back by these boards. Now, under the wording of this particular amendment, it is possible they could receive back the entire amount, which would then give them the break in terms of their local tax levy that would not be accepted later.

Let us just look at that for a second. The amount that Scarborough turned back in 1981 was $2 million rounded out. If you were to say of that amount of money -- perhaps the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande) or the minister can remind me exactly what is the amount. Toronto pays 40 per cent of the overall cost. What does Scarborough pay? Is it 16 per cent? I cannot remember.

Mr. Grande: It is 14.99 per cent.

Mr. Rotenberg: People in Toronto pay it, the individual taxpayers pay their share.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Let us not play with this. These are different jurisdictions and we know that as well. Yes, there are individuals who pay and, yes, they decide who they are going to elect and they have just decided that in each of these communities.

But the percentage that Scarborough picks up is about 15 per cent, I think, in terms of what it earns to put into this pot, which is then spread across Metro Toronto, whereas the city of Toronto assumes 40 per cent.

5:20 p.m.

Mr. Chairman, I have this for our information; for yourself and for me, being the two who are paying attention here.

Mr. Wildman: Oh, I'm listening.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Thank you.

Etobicoke picks up 15 per cent, North York 23 per cent, Scarborough 15 per cent and Toronto 40 per cent, rounded out -- York and East York are both under four per cent, 3.53 per cent in East York and 3.73 per cent in York -- of the total levy raised in Metropolitan Toronto to fund education.

With this amendment what we would be seeing would be the possibility -- with the approval of the whole metropolitan board, of course -- of the Scarborough board receiving back perhaps the entire $2 million to apply against their tax rate. In other words, they could come on as great heroes because they had saved this money.

If you look at in it proportional terms, they would have been saving 16 per cent of that money. In fact, a lot of that money came from all over Metropolitan Toronto and was not theirs.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Scarborough is 18, Toronto 39 and North York 25.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: So if we were looking at that $2 million -- the minister is saying it is 18 per cent, but let us say we took it as high as 20 per cent of that amount -- there is no way they should be receiving back the whole $2 million; yet that is a possibility under this system. I would not be surprised, in view of the kinds of alliances that have been made, that that or something close to it might occur.

In my view if it did occur, essentially it would be taking money out of the pockets of other taxpayers who might just as well benefit from that municipality's decision not to spend the money as should the people of the good borough of which I happen to be a representative. It is an indication of why it was so wise for the minister before to move away from this particular notion. That is why it is so regrettable that she has decided to come back to it again.

It seems to me that what we do with a board like Scarborough is now to say: "You guys did pretty well before. You had these great savings, yet you were not able to reap the benefits. Now we have a new system for you; you can do even better. As trustees of the Scarborough board, you are going to be able to pass on to your constituents a greater saving because we are going to allow you, under this kind of amendment, a disproportionate amount of the credit for that surplus. You are going to be able to get a reduction, which you then are going to be able to play off, in political terms, both locally on the board, saying, 'Look at what we did' kind of thing; and, 'We are more responsible,' in playing yourselves and your electors off against those in the city of Toronto."

The government of Ontario is going to be able to do exactly the same thing. The government of Ontario will be able to say, "The city of Toronto is bad because it has spent its money plus a local levy and is in a deficit situation." Even if it has spent, God knows, 30 per cent of the amount of money -- not the 28 per cent it has been taking out for the past number of years, but 30 per cent -- even though it provided 40 per cent of the dollars, the government is going to be able to say they are evil and bad, while Scarborough -- I forget what proportion it is spending, but it is higher; it is spending 20 per cent, is it not? I see nods from somebody underneath the gallery; I cannot tell from this distance -- is doing a good job.

Let us see how it is that municipalities like Scarborough end up with their surpluses, given that what we are talking about here, in rewarding them for doing so and therefore obviously encouraging them to have increased surpluses in the future, is to push this notion that maybe this money was better not spent anyhow.

How is it that year in and year out a borough like Scarborough or East York in its regular kinds of estimates, those it has already approved for the purposes of education in its community after considerable consideration and after having all the elements of the budget presented to it in many months of deliberations, ends up with these surpluses that it sends back? Is it just bad planning and bad administration?

I do not see how they can say it is good planning and good administration for them to have that much money left over. Surely it is a sign that they are not good budgeters; that, in fact, they are bad budgeters, that they should not be levying that kind of tax against their own people in the first place if they could have foreseen that they were consistently going to be sending back money to the Metro pot over the last number of years.

What happens, in my view -- and I believe the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) raised this the other night -- is that boroughs like my own, Scarborough, have failed to recognize the changing nature of the borough; they have failed to recognize the increased needs and increased similarities between their student population and that of the city of Toronto. They have not proceeded with programs in the same way as has been done in Toronto and they have not set the same kinds of priorities.

I think the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto has pointed out over the number of years that there are fewer services available in the suburbs. Members may remember the report that came out, The Suburbs in Transition. I see members shaking their heads. I will remind them of it, then, a little bit.

The report The Suburbs in Transition came out to show that demographically many areas of the suburbs were quite like the inner city of Toronto, that the kind of ethnic mix and single-parent mix there as contrasted with the nuclear family mix, which was presumed to be stable in the suburbs and different from what it was in the downtown core of Toronto, was all a myth. In fact, there were great similarities, and although in places like my riding there were huge areas of people who were --

The Deputy Chairman: I remind the honourable member that he could be getting off the amendment that is before the House at this point.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am talking about surpluses and how we get around to having surpluses.

The Deputy Chairman: Okay.

Hon. Mr. Norton: The only surplus I see at the moment is one of verbiage.

Mr. Foulds: You should know about that.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: A surplus of verbiage?

The Deputy Chairman: None of that, now. I caution the honourable minister and the honourable member --

Mr. Foulds: This member has to struggle; it comes to the minister naturally.

The Deputy Chairman: The problem I have with the honourable member who has the floor is that he should move towards the subject.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I will remind you of the amendment, Mr. Chairman, and then show where I am going, if that would be helpful to you.

I am arguing that in this amendment, essentially we are rewarding the boards that develop surpluses by saying to those boards, "You can get back 100 per cent of that even if your taxpayers have not paid in 100 per cent of that."

Mr. Ruprecht: That is the injustice of it.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Exactly. What I am then trying to say is -- now I am moving further along, although I would be glad to go over some of that other material I have raised for you, Mr. Chairman -- but I am now moving on to the question of how it is that boards like Toronto --

Mr. Foulds: I don't quite understand some of that.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I may have to go back to it later.

How is it that boards like Scarborough and Etobicoke have consistently had surpluses?

Mr. Rotenberg: Good management.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: The member for Wilson Heights says, "Good management." But one has to ask whether it was good management or bad predicting.

Mr. Foulds: Like Hydro.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Yes, Hydro: a great comparison. Why do they continually end up with a surplus instead of just levying a tax on those people which would have been more appropriate? They have not given the benefits from those surpluses back to the people of Scarborough over the past number of years.

What I am trying to say, moving on from that, is that perhaps it is because there has not been a recognition by those boroughs of the kinds of school program needs that exist in those communities. I am also trying to refer to the report done by the social planning council about the way the suburbs have changed, which indicates that in point of fact we have inner cities in the suburbs now. In my riding we have --

5:30 p.m.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Chairman --

The Deputy Chairman: The chair is most anxious to be patient and give the member every opportunity, but perhaps the minister wants to clarify something at this point and then we can proceed with the discussion.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: I just wondered if I could do it, that is all. I can do it later.

The Deputy Chairman: We are in committee; so the minister could do it at this point.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Chairman, I think the honourable member should recognize that, first of all, he is objecting to a clarification of the original section of the bill that was supported with only one exception by the Toronto trustees at the Metro school board in June 1982. By clarifying this we are attempting to provide a balance, as I suggested earlier, between the procedure established for dealing with the deficits, and the procedure to be established for dealing with the surpluses.

The individual area boards will not necessarily retain all the surplus. They may, but it will be the decision of all the boards together, following the guidelines that are in the process of being established by the Metro board now. But I think the member should be aware that the money that is budgeted by Metro for a particular area board is justifiably the money that area board is entitled to under the equalized mill rate. The equalized mill rate concept is the function that keeps the Metro system running appropriately.

If the member is suggesting that only that portion of the surplus raised by the local jurisdiction should be returned, he is really negating the principle of equalized mill rate in Metropolitan Toronto. Therefore, if a jurisdiction really can deliver a high-quality educational program without spending all the budgeted money justifiably allocated by the Metro board, the taxpayer of that jurisdiction surely should be entitled to the benefits of the prudent spending of their trustees and the good planning of that board.

As I said earlier, I think the member should be aware that this amendment, or this portion of the bill, was approved by six of the seven Toronto trustee representatives on the Metro board on June 15 of this year.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a point in response, if I might. I presume it would be in order if the minister's helpful comments were.

I have been talking about a September 3 submission made by the Toronto board. I thought there was agreement much later than June -- in fact, in committee this fall -- among all parties, the Toronto board representatives, the minister herself and members of the opposition, that what we see at present in the bill, the notion that a board could not receive back more than an amount equal to the portion of the surplus that was raised by local taxation, was something that was accepted by all sides.

I find it somewhat confusing that now the minister wants to go back to what might have been said at a Metro board meeting in June, or whenever it was said --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: No; not what might have been said, but what was recorded.

Mr. Wildman: We can read what Hansard says from the committee.

Mr. Grande: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: Is there a quorum in the House?

The Deputy Chairman: We will find out. Yes, there is a quorum.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Since there is a quorum, Mr. Chairman, it is clear that there are too many members on the opposition side.

Mr. Wildman: There are not many over there.

The Deputy Chairman: Speaking to the motion.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would like to continue a little further, if I might, on what the minister said, because I am not sure that answers the problem.

It is true that there is an equalized mill rate. I do not dispute that. But it is also true that the revenues raised are as we have discussed them; that is to say they come disproportionately from different municipalities which have different populations and different kinds of tax bases, and that the city of Toronto does provide 40 per cent, or 39 per cent as the minister corrected me earlier on, of the revenue. Therefore, I think that applies just as strongly as does the notion that the mill rate itself is equalized now across Metropolitan Toronto.

Getting back to what we were discussing, Mr. Chairman, because I am not sure if you are still having difficulty --

The Deputy Chairman: No, I am not having any difficulty. My worry is that of the House, that we stick to the subject and proceed towards --

Mr. R. F. Johnston: You did understand how I was on the subject, though, I hope. I just want to be clear about that, because it is crucial to what I am about to say.

The Deputy Chairman: I am making every effort. Without repetition, just make your point, please. I am anxious to fulfil the rules of the House that we do not repeat ourselves, that we stick to the subject at hand and that we proceed with a full and proper discussion, giving others an opportunity to participate in the debate as well.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I agree, but I do not want to be called back later on because the presumption of where it began has been missed, Mr. Chairman.

The motion, if I may refer to it for a moment, says boards can receive back a maximum of the entire amount of their surplus; it is a decision made by the Metropolitan Toronto board in its entirety as to whether they receive that entire amount or a portion thereof. I believe, on the basis of the other arguments I made earlier which I will not repeat, that this is an encouragement to underbudget, to underestimate and to have surpluses for the individual municipalities involved.

I then want to raise the issue as to how it is that some boards have had surpluses on a consistent basis. I believe that is relevant to what we are speaking about. The reason, I want to suggest, is that it is a matter of program and a matter of the policy decided on that program. I am afraid it has been a matter that has been founded on some misconceptions about what makes up the suburbs today.

As I have been saying, the suburbs are not a homogeneous community of nuclear families living in pleasant little bungalows designed in the old Don Mills concept of the 1950s which then sort of proliferated. It is not that at all. In ridings such as my own we have an enormous racial mix. We have areas that can be seen only as areas of poverty, where there are large concentrations of people who are either the working poor or on social assistance, just as you would find in some areas of downtown Toronto.

Yet we have not found, and there have been reports by the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto and others that have shown this, that we have had the kind of services provided to those communities that we have in the city of Toronto. That goes not just for things like Meals on Wheels and other social services; it goes for education as well.

What we have not seen is a response by the boroughs to inner-city needs in the way that we should have; and that I think would have taken the surpluses from Etobicoke or Scarborough if they had been used as had been done in the city of Toronto for these kinds of purposes.

I hope there will be no argument when I say that we have not seen the same kind of emphasis on English-as-a-second-language training and all the aspects of that. The presumption has been that the need has not been there. In my own borough we have not even had heritage languages classes. The minister and I have both been on the same side of that battle in fighting for and encouraging that board to participate in the provincial program of heritage languages.

Mr. Wildman: Is that chairman Bill Davis?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: That is chairman Bill Davis, and others.

I was at a meeting with the Minister of Education in which we were both suggesting that it would be a good thing for the borough of Scarborough to join in. That was back at a time when it was only Etobicoke and Scarborough that were not participating.

There is a fundamental lack of recognition. For example, in my riding there is a large Greek community, a large Italian community and now a large Filipino community.

The Deputy Chairman: I think you are straying from the motion at this point. Please bring your points to the motion at hand.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am trying to say that if the Scarborough board had had a better program of English-as-a-second-language instruction and perhaps had moved into heritage languages programming and some supplemental aids to a heritage languages program -- not to argue with the minister whether or not that is paid 100 per cent by the province -- if it had moved into these areas, I doubt it would have had the surpluses we now see.

5:40 p.m.

Should it be rewarded for not having done that, which is what we are now suggesting with this amendment, or should it be said that besides having a responsibility to watch the public purse you also have a responsibility to provide services that are suitable to your community?

I am attacking my own area in this matter and this will not make me popular with the Scarborough board. I do not believe it has done that. It has shown a tendency towards fiscal conservatism in the past, if I can put it that way, and now we are going to give it an even greater reward to do so in the future if this amendment is passed. I think that is greatly regrettable.

I look at things like the concept of all-day kindergarten which has been pushed in the city of Toronto, much to the chagrin of the minister in terms of paying for it. One can tie that to the fact it has a deficit because it provides a service other municipalities do not.

Who is more responsible? Is it the city of Toronto which is trying to respond to the fact that for two to three generations in inner-city schools in Toronto kids have been stuck in the same kind of streaming in terms of what their long-term possibilities will be for economic capacity and mobility in this society? It has tried to come up with programs to meet those needs.

If you have read those reports, Mr. Chairman, as I am sure you have, that over a 30-year period the graduates of inner-city schools of Toronto have been going into the same low-paying jobs and unskilled positions, you would understand the enormous frustration of a board in wanting to try to do more to make sure that continuing cycle does not occur.

The response in a place like Toronto is to provide extra support to those mother-led families, for instance, by having all-day kindergarten, not just part of the day. By doing so and taking it on responsibly, it may acquire a deficit.

Mr. Rotenberg: They should pay for it if they want it.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Yes, they should pay for it and they are willing to. That board has actually gone with the parents and teachers to the people and raised taxes.

What I am suggesting is that if we only reward the surpluses on this side, and potentially give Scarborough back more than it puts into the system at the same time as we are saying to Toronto, "You are bad for overspending," and we are not even giving it a portion of the surplus to help with the fact it has taken on that responsibility, then we are making a political judgement from the provincial level in terms of a policy notion.

Mr. Rotenberg: You want Scarborough to pay for Toronto.

Mr. Wildman: Scarborough gets back only what it puts in. It is then not paying for Toronto --

The Deputy Chairman: Order.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: That is exactly the point. I presume that interjection was missed. If there are surpluses, I am suggesting it would be fair if Toronto gets back what it puts in and Scarborough gets what it puts in.

The Deputy Chairman: The honourable member has made his point. Is there any other point to be made on the section 6 amendment?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, I believe there are a number. In terms of program, and the things that have been done or not done and the resulting surpluses, I believe there are many other things to be said. I am sorry if I am boring you, but I believe these points are important.

The long-term effect of this amendment, which embodies the spirit of this overall bill in my view, will be to penalize a board that has made a political decision on a certain kind of policy, which it has been elected to do. By making that decision, it is now being punished by the provincial government because it does not have the same philosophy this government has.

The government has been withdrawing money from the education area, not adding it in as it has in the past. That is not what this legislation should do. It makes this punishing legislation rather than permissive legislation. Rather than having a capacity for the surplus to go back to Toronto for it to bring in whatever kind of -- and they may move to the right some day, they may possibly do that, but they should have the right to make that choice. What this is going to be doing is adding an extra wedge of pressure.

Interjection.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Oh, damn; I missed that one, and I think it was probably good.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: The honourable member is suggesting that only the Toronto board should be given that choice, and that the Scarborough board should not be given any choice. That is what I heard the member say.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: No, not at all, Mr. Chairman. The Scarborough board should feel free to make the same decisions, although I will fight those decisions not to participate in heritage languages, not to do more in terms of English as a second language, not to go for all-day kindergarten programs, to move to neighbourhood schools instead of community schools, and those kinds of things. It has the right to do that, but it should not be rewarded extra for doing so. If it decides to do that, then it should get back what it paid in and it should not get a damned cent more. Because what is being done is that one is being played off against the other, which is my argument, and that should not be done.

Mr. Kolyn: Fight your own constituents.

The Deputy Chairman: Speak to the bill and do not allow these interjections to take you from the mainstream of the debate.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Yes, Mr. Chairman. An interjection like "Fight your own constituents" is not a particularly helpful interjection. I believe what I am trying to suggest is that maybe, in a political way -- it is a political decision, all these things are -- it might have been more helpful to my constituents and the constituents of Scarborough if those surpluses had been spent on programs in Scarborough and had not been sent back to the Metro board in the past number of years. I would not like to see extra encouragement, which this is, to see that happen in the future.

I would like to relate to this matter of programming the whole question of French-language instruction, if I might. There was a brief submitted to the hearings on Bill 127, which I unfortunately missed but I have received a copy, which I find very helpful. It was presented by Lois Thomas.

The Deputy Chairman: How does this fit into the amendment?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: It fits into the question of --

The Deputy Chairman: I do not see how it does. Tie it in, please. I am asking that the honourable member assist me in understanding how it fits into that clause and then I will give full scope to carry on.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I shall be very happy to, Mr. Chairman. What I am going to be speaking to is another means by which a surplus was developed in places like Scarborough which, in my view, should not have been, and how it should not therefore be rewarded. The argument this woman is making is around the funding that is available for French programs and how much of a deficit Scarborough had in terms of the amount of money that was not spent that could have been spent. She makes the point, and I will tie it in with the surplus if I might, and then go back to it just to make the point for you.

On page 4 of her document, she is referring to the amount of money that was not spent, and she says: "These sums would surely change many boards from a surplus position to a point closer to breakeven and at least in one case change a deficit to a small surplus (York). Please note the overpayment to Scarborough appears during the same years Scarborough was returning its so-called surplus to Metro. Its claim to prudent financial management appears instead to be unfair distribution of funds by Metro."

I believe that ties in the point. What this is about is what, in my view, is a pretty complicated method of arriving at money which is available for French-as-a-second-language instruction in our schools in Metropolitan Toronto and elsewhere. What happens is that there is money allocated from provincial and federal reserves for this kind of thing and then the boards either make use of it or do not.

The Deputy Chairman: I have trouble tying that in with surplus, having been a former school trustee.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: The reason, as this woman's argument is being made, is that Scarborough is not spending the money that it should be spending. If it was spending that money, which is part of the overall levy which is involved --

Mr. Nixon: All the teachers in the galleries agree with you.

5:50 p.m.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Yes, there is nodding everywhere. I see it all. Thank you.

Mr. Nixon: You are making a tremendous impact.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: As the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk Haldimand --

Mr. Cassidy: Which side are you on over there?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would never want to get in the position of being like the Premier (Mr. Davis) and never remembering your ridings. I have always tried very hard.

Mr. Nixon: You are a slow learner.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am a slow learner, but one thing I have learned as well is that many is the night you have stood here speaking to even less in this assembly than there are now.

Mr. Nixon: No.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Oh yes. I was one of them, and I was smiling and nodding and giving --

The Deputy Chairman: Honourable members, please. The chair is endeavouring to keep the speaker on the subject before the House.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: He is semantically incorrect, because he should have said "fewer."

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Did I say "fewer"?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: You said "less."

The Deputy Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: It is true. It is one of the flaws in my education --

The Deputy Chairman: Do not allow the interjections to take you away from the main theme of your presentation.

Mr. Foulds: Well, "less" when you are talking about the Tories, "fewer" when you are talking about us.

The Deputy Chairman: Speaking to the motion.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: So do I have your connection in terms of how this affects surplus? This woman's argument, if I might, is essentially saying that in Scarborough's case it would not have wiped out the surplus by any means; it would have reduced the surplus and brought it down to a much smaller amount if the money had been spent on French programming that was supposedly going to be spent.

In Toronto, on the other hand, they have spent more on French-language teaching than the amount of money they received for doing so, because they felt it was important to the policy decision. So what we get is a rewarding of surplus --

Mr. Nixon: Let's do heritage languages again.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I will come back to that. It is very hard for me to maintain my conversation, let alone my conservation. Or is it my concentration? Or whatever.

Mr. Foulds: Let alone your concentration.

Hon. Mr. Norton: You really haven't demonstrated a great capacity for that so far.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Which? Conversation or concentration?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Conversation, if you include babble.

Mr. Nixon: It's six of the clock.

The Deputy Chairman: Honourable members, I beg you to just stay on the motion before the House.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: They are coming at me from all sides, as it were, Mr. Chairman.

The Deputy Chairman: Well, I am coming at you, but I am only asking you to speak to the bill.

Interjections.

The Deputy Chairman: Order. Do not, again, be distracted. I am just begging you to allow others to have an opportunity to speak, and to make your point, without repetition, on the subject before the House.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Would you use that gavel now and then? I respond well to gavels.

The Deputy Chairman: Okay. I will use it.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: What I am trying to say is that the argument that is being put forward is that if some of the boroughs had used this allocation appropriately they would in fact have had a lesser surplus. Some of them, in fact, might even have ended up in the position of not returning funds to Metro. So we have in this amendment the potential rewarding of having a surplus, which might encourage what has already been a problem, and that is the underfunding of French second-language education in Toronto.

I think this issue is too important for the difficulties we have had with French education in Ontario to be exacerbated by this kind of amendment, which will not encourage Scarborough to spend its bucks but will encourage it to continue not spending its dollars; and I think that would be a tremendous mistake.

Take this year's special education, and I know this gets a little more complicated because of changes that are being made, and I am not even sure now what the final date is for seeing the master plan of special education being brought in around the province. With regard to the whole notion of the need for more of that in inner-city areas and for an emphasis on that kind of assistance in inner-city areas, I would personally -- it is a political point of view -- rather see that spent than see the surplus being sent back.

I would rather not see us do anything more to certain of these jurisdictions to encourage them to make the choice the other way, because I do not think that is our role. Our role should be to leave it open to them if they so choose, because they are democratically elected. We should not be forcing that kind of a philosophy on them. That is why I am so strongly opposed to this.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Nobody is forcing anyone.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Well, I will not respond. I promise I will not respond.

To indicate in any way, however, that giving the power to the Metropolitan Toronto School Board to determine the amount these boards with surpluses would get back would in any way be likely to equalize the situation, in terms of the Toronto Board of Education getting back its appropriate percentage, would be absolutely foolhardy to presume. All one has to do is to look at the history of what has taken place at Metro in terms of those kind of decisions and one will see that is not the case. If one really wanted to see that was the case, then one would leave the section as it stands because that would guarantee it much better than this would.

The new amendment has to be seen as a means of throwing that natural proportion, if I can put it that way, in terms of the amount of money that is raised in the various municipalities, pushing that to the side and weighing the balance on the side of the virtuous board that maintains the surplus. It is true that an individual board will not have carte blanche to keep everything on its own without going before the Metro board. I agree with that. It is possible that, for various reasons during a given year, the Metro board may decide it would like part of it to come back at the Metro level and he disbursed differently. That is possible. I suggest the prime intention of what we are seeing here is that a disproportionate amount of the money will remain with the borough that has the surplus.

One of the reasons given for surpluses in the past has been -- in quotations marks, because I do not accept this myself -- "the responsible attitude of some boards in terms of school closings and in terms of teacher layoffs and firings." To respond almost in equal terms in a proportional way to the declining enrolment by the closing of a school or the laying off of teachers is, in a way, a virtuous thing to do, and that is how the good boards of Scarborough and Etobicoke and others have in some ways come up with a surplus at the end of the year.

In terms of that concept, one of the things that has been laid out a fair amount is the notion that the city of Toronto has been incorrect, unwise and irresponsible to maintain the notion of the neighbourhood school, and that the boroughs, obviously developed later in historical terms and in terms of urban planning, have been wise to move to the community-based school which would have a larger population feeding into it and without the same kind of basis that families in an individual neighbourhood feed into that particular school. In some ways this amendment must be seen as a means of endorsing the notion of closing schools, endorsing the notion of having a higher threshold for closing schools, for instance, than is held in the city of Toronto at this point.

I would like to make some argument that this is an unjust approach and should not be permitted. I notice, however, that the hour of the clock is upon us, and since there is this matter and a few other matters I would like to raise that it will not be possible to cover in the next few seconds, I will adjourn the committee.

The Deputy Chairman: Before I leave the chair, I would ask the honourable member, as we renew at eight o'clock, to remember that we have other people who wish to participate in this debate and to speak to the bill before us.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.

November 23, 1982