Hansard Transcripts 1984-Aug-29 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Mr. Speaker: I beg leave to inform the House that vacancies have occurred in the membership of the House by reason of the resignations of Don Boudria, Esq., as member for the electoral district of Prescott and Russell effective noon, Monday, August 6; Michael M. Cassidy, Esq., as member for the electoral district of Ottawa Centre effective midnight, Friday, August 3 --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a very important piece of business, and I need your undivided attention.

To continue: Ms. Sheila Copps as member for the electoral district of Hamilton Centre effective 10 a.m., Monday, August 6; Eric Cunningham, Esq., as member for the electoral district of Wentworth North effective Thursday, August 2, and Albert J. Roy, Esq., as member for the electoral district of Ottawa East effective Friday, August 3, and that warrants for by-elections have been issued.

RECALL OF HOUSE

Mr. Speaker: If we can just have closer attention, I would like to express a word of thanks on behalf of all those people who have worked so diligently and effectively to make the necessary arrangements for the meeting of the House today. We are particularly grateful to the staff of the House, the caucuses, the Ministry of Government Services and other ministries who made the necessary arrangements for today's activities. Thank you.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

TRANSIT LABOUR DISPUTES SETTLEMENT BILL

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, later this afternoon I shall be introducing for first reading a bill respecting the labour disputes between the Toronto Transit Commission, Gray Coach Lines Ltd., and the three unions representing their employees. As the members will know, the bill is intended to ensure continuity of operations by prohibiting work stoppages during this round of bargaining and requiring the parties to refer unresolved issues to binding arbitration.

In my two-and-a-half-year term as Minister of Labour, today is the first occasion when it has been necessary to resort to special legislation to end or avoid a work stoppage. While I regret the need for this measure -- and I say that sincerely -- I am convinced the bill is absolutely necessary given the impasse in bargaining and the consequent possibility of disruption in Toronto's transit services.

The principal parties, with the assistance of senior ministry officials, have made determined, conscientious and good-faith efforts to resolve their differences, but without success. In the negotiations between the TTC and Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, there are no signs that future mediation would be productive. It is essential to consider the proposed legislation in its proper collective bargaining context. For this reason, I would like to take a few moments to review the developments in the bargaining to date.

Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union is only one of three trade unions representing distinct portions of the transportation work force. However, the negotiations between the commission and Local 113 tend to receive the greatest public attention.

Local 113 represents the largest bargaining unit of some 7,600 drivers, ticket collectors and maintenance personnel. Local 2 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees represents approximately 200 maintenance electricians who service the transit system. Finally, Lodge 235 of the International Association of Machinists holds the bargaining rights for about 40 machinists engaged in the maintenance and repair of transit equipment. Negotiations between the employers and each of these trade unions are conducted separately, but the latter two bargaining units have a tradition of following the settlement pattern established in negotiations between the TTC and Local 113.

The most recent collective agreement between the commission and Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union expired on June 30 of this year; however, bargaining began well in advance of the formal termination date of the contract. In fact, senior ministry officials convened exploratory meetings beginning in January with the commission and Local 113 to ascertain the contentious issues expected in the 1984 bargaining and to determine what assistance the ministry might provide. One central issue which emerged at the outset was the effect on Local 113's members of GO Transit's announced takeover of commuter bus routes.

Following exploratory meetings earlier in the year, the parties met in direct bargaining on several occasions between mid-April and mid-June. Conciliation began in earnest in early July with nine meetings scheduled in the first three weeks of that month. Conciliation resumed throughout the week of July 23, focusing on the implications of GO Transit's decision to hire its own drivers to service commuter routes, rather than to continue its contractual relationship with Gray Coach Lines Ltd.

Under the guidance of the Deputy Minister of Labour, GO Transit and Local 1587 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents the employees of GO Transit, were invited to join the TTC and Local 113 to endeavour to conclude a mutually satisfactory arrangement to govern the GO Transit takeover. Following five days of intensive discussion, an understanding was reached on this difficult issue. The members will see reference to this understanding in part II of the bill and the relevant memoranda are attached.

Conciliation concluded with the release of a "no board" report on July 27 which established a legal strike date of August 13. The deputy minister and the director of the conciliation and mediation service convened a mediation meeting on Monday, July 30, to deal with the remaining issues in dispute. All parties agreed to strive for a settlement by Friday, August 3, some days prior to the strike deadline. A difficult issue related to past practices was ultimately resolved, as were the demands with respect to wages and pensions. A memorandum of settlement was signed and submitted to a membership vote on August 15, but was rejected by a 52 per cent majority.

2:10 p.m.

As the members know, I immediately requested my senior officials to meet with the TTC and Local 113 to determine whether or not there was any merit to further mediation. On the basis of their reports, I concluded that mediation was effectively at an end. However, because less than 37 per cent of the total membership in the bargaining unit had actually voted against the proposed settlement, I requested that the union conduct a second vote. This vote was held last Wednesday, August 22, and the terms of settlement were again narrowly rejected.

Negotiations between the commission and the other two trade unions are at different stages. As I have noted, however, it has been usual for the agreement between the TTC and Local 113 to be concluded first and to serve as a guide or model for subsequent bargaining between the commission and the other two unions.

Certainly, CUPE and the machinists are free to pursue an independent course in bargaining and are entitled to the ministry's conciliation and mediation services in their own right. However, the reality of past bargaining practice leads one to the conclusion that progress in these negotiations will not occur if the commission and Local 113 remain in a deadlock.

The conciliation between the commission and Local 2 of CUPE concluded last Friday, August 24, after approximately seven conciliation meetings. I understand that little progress was made, which may well be attributable to the state of the bargaining between the employer and Local 113. A "no board" report was issued on August 28 which sets a legal strike date of September 14. The ministry has indicated that it is prepared to convene mediation if both parties are receptive.

The International Association of Machinists, Lodge 235, has completed conciliation and has been in a legal position to strike since August 13. It appears both parties acknowledge that meaningful negotiations must await a settlement between the TTC and Local 113.

The three bargaining units are related both in their negotiations and also in their contributions to the delivery of transit services in Metro Toronto. Having regard to events to date, it is obvious, as I have indicated, that there are no prospects for a voluntary settlement with or without mediation. No valid collective bargaining purpose could be served by further delay, nor do I think it is practical or sensible to deal with only one of the three bargaining relationships in a bill of this nature. Transit service cannot be assured if the work of any of the three bargaining units is interrupted.

My anxiety about the impact of the work stoppage is heightened, of course, by the approaching papal visit. Hundreds of thousands of people intend to converge on Downsview on September 15. Without public transit service, many will be disappointed, frustrated and, indeed, prevented from participating in a historical occasion of deep spiritual significance. It is also clear that when hundreds of thousands of people gather together, adequate measures must be provided to ensure their safety and security. This would be almost impossible to effect without reliable mass transportation services.

Looking beyond the Pope's visit, few would dispute the importance of the transit service to the routine of daily living in this vast and complex urban centre. The TTC serves, and serves well, a metropolitan community of over two million people, many of whom depend on this service as their primary means of transportation. Different levels of government have encouraged reliance on public transit as an alternative to automobile access to downtown Toronto. An efficient public transportation system has been thought to be the key to a habitable environment. The most persuasive argument for public transportation has been the excellent service provided by the commission and its employees to the people of Toronto. It is certainly the best transit system in North America.

It is hardly necessary to recite the personal hardship that a transit strike causes to individuals who have become reliant on the TTC. Employees experience difficulty in attending work; students must make other arrangements to commute to class; the elderly simply stay at home, often isolated from friends, neighbours and medical services.

During a transit dispute, the roadways and streets of Toronto become overburdened with vehicles and at times impassable. This would not only compromise normal traffic but would seriously impede the movement of emergency vehicles of all kinds. Furthermore, it is not difficult to envisage the tragedy that might result in the midst of a transit strike from a serious fire or other catastrophe in the core of the city during business hours.

The potential economic losses associated with a transit strike are also staggering. Toronto is at the centre of business and financial activity in this country. When mobility is restricted, economic activity also becomes paralyzed. Some people are unable to work and it becomes difficult to transport goods in and out of the city. A serious shock to the economy of this community during the tentative stages of recovery would be particularly troublesome.

I can assure the honourable members that my colleagues and I decided to proceed with this bill only after the most thorough and anxious consideration of all reasonable alternatives. The government recognizes the value and importance of free collective bargaining to employers, trade unions and employees. Only in extraordinary circumstances, where public health, safety or economic wellbeing is in jeopardy, has the government restricted collective bargaining rights. I believe all these considerations apply in this case.

The bill prohibits work stoppages during the current round of bargaining. I would emphasize, however, that although it may temporarily prevent employees from exercising their right to strike, it does provide an objective and fair method of dispute resolution as an alternative. The bill does not impose a settlement, nor does it continue existing collective agreements. Rather, it creates an effective mechanism for addressing the concerns and objectives of both management and labour. All parties will be given a full opportunity to make submissions in support of their respective positions. The arbitration process will be expeditious. In the interim, a five per cent increase in wage rates will be implemented.

Part II of the bill imports into the agreement between Local 1587 of the Amalgamated Transit Union and GO Transit the terms of the understanding reached in mediation to protect employees affected by GO Transit's takeover of bus routes now operated by Gray Coach. The memorandum, concluded to protect the existing drivers, was signed by representatives of all affected parties. It symbolizes the importance the parties attached to the humane and orderly transition of work from Gray Coach to GO Transit. For reasons of fairness and equity. I believe it is essential to preserve that understanding in order to ensure the employees are not jeopardized in the reorganization of GO bus services.

The government's position is that the bill to be introduced is the proper and responsible course of action in view of the grave threat which a transit strike presents to public health, safety and economic wellbeing as well as the convenience of the community. The bill does qualify the rights of the parties, but does not impose a settlement. Rather, the arbitration process is substituted, allowing the parties a full opportunity to participate in the process by which the terms and conditions of their relationship will be decided.

This is not by any means a one-dimensional problem involving only collective bargaining philosophy or practices. Without wishing to overdramatize the situation, there is here a convergence of interests not easily reconciled, and the difficult task of government over the last days and weeks has been to identify where the vital public interest resides.

Inevitably, in a pluralistic society, this judgement will have elements of subjectivity in it and, indeed, some will allege bias. To the best of our collective wisdom we have attempted to eradicate those elements and make a good-faith effort to determine where our fundamental responsibility lies, faced with conflicting claims within the community. We have opted for what we believe to be the wider public interest -- the public interest in the stability and continuity of the transit infrastructure upon which the movement of more than two million people in the heartland of the province depends.

2:20 p.m.

POLICE DEATHS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I know you and the members of the House will permit me a brief statement. The tragic deaths of police officers Douglas Tribbling and Dwayne Piukkala have once again shocked all of us into the realization of the vulnerability of those who are responsible for maintaining law and order in our society.

In mourning the passing of these two fine men, much admired by their colleagues and their community, I would like to take this opportunity, speaking for my caucus colleagues and for the Ontario Liberal Party, to pay tribute to all the dedicated and courageous men and women who daily risk their lives on our behalf.

Our heartfelt sympathy goes out to the bereaved families and the loved ones of Dwayne Piukkala and Douglas Tribbling. May they find some comfort in the fact that their sadness is genuinely shared by the people of Ontario.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I want to join in the remarks that have been made by the leader of the Liberal Party. I understand the Premier (Mr. Davis) is attending funeral services today on behalf of the officer who was shot in Peel county. I simply want to add on behalf of my own party our deep sense of grief at these tragic killings that have taken place in the last short while, which call to attention once again the fact that police work is often very dangerous, that it is very risky and that the police are performing a vital service on behalf of the public and are running great risks in doing so.

I personally hope -- and I say this to the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) and the Solicitor General (Mr. G. W. Taylor) in a nonpartisan sense -- that these events will call on the law officers of the crown, those responsible for the administration of the police, to look again at whether there is any way to reduce the risk, either by insisting that people work in twos or by whatever may be necessary, to look at whether this might be effective or whether other methods are possible to reduce the risk that is run by people who are performing work on behalf of the public in this way.

To the Piukkala and Tribbling families we of course send our heartfelt condolences and our feelings that this is a very sad day when we are commemorating in such a short space of time the loss of two fine young people who have given so much to their community.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Premier and the Solicitor General, who are at Officer Piukkala's funeral, I would like to express again the heartfelt sympathy of the members of this side of the House in relation to these two tragic deaths.

Certainly one of the great privileges of serving as Attorney General and as Solicitor General is to come to know in a very intimate way the enormous responsibility that law enforcement officers of this province discharge on a day-to-day basis and the enormous risks they undertake on behalf of all the people of the province. These risks, of course, occasionally and very tragically end in tragic deaths such as occurred to these two officers.

Officer Douglas Tribbling was a personal friend of mine. I had had many cases with him when I was at the bar. I knew at first hand what a dedicated officer he was. I did not know Officer Piukkala, but obviously both of these men have made a great contribution to the public life of this province. I join with all members of the House in expressing our tribute to their dedicated service and again our heartfelt sympathy to their families.

ORAL QUESTIONS

EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, the House is back and there is much unfinished business on the agenda of this House from our last session. My first question is to the Treasurer with respect to unemployment and his so-called programs emanating from his last budget some three and a half months ago.

The Treasurer will recall that a much-vaunted 10-point program was introduced at that time to combat youth unemployment. The number today stands at 169,000 unemployed youth in our province. To date, out of the 10 points, two and one third of his programs have been announced. He has spent more than $500,000 advertising his programs, but confusion reigns everywhere and there is no delivery.

My question to the Treasurer is this: Why the big delay? Why has he taken so long to respond, and is he going to respond?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, if the honourable member would reflect on the programs, he would realize that they have been implemented almost exactly on schedule. As he knows, the one with the municipalities was announced last week. Our other parts of youth works have been announced. The youth employment counselling centres now have more than $10 million --

Mr. Peterson: In Brampton. One in Brampton was announced.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member did not let me finish. He should not get nervous.

The youth employment counselling centres now have more than $10 million that they are funnelling to the employment disadvantaged, the target group we selected. The programs that have yet to be put into full operation will be put into full operation in the next few weeks. We did not want the venture capital program, for example, to overlap with the summer venture capital program. It will be starting when our regular summer venture capital program finishes.

In regard to the youth start program, the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Miss Stephenson) has a proposal which will be ratified by the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development in the next couple of days. That will be off and running this fall.

If the member would go through the programs -- we would be happy to go through each one of them with him -- he would find this is true in all cases. Those which otherwise would duplicate the programs we always have going on during the summer are going to begin this fall when the summer programs expire.

Those which for the most part are new summer activities and ones we could get on stream right away were put on stream right away. I know the member would have wanted us to meet with the municipalities prior to putting in the youth corps program, which depends upon co-operation with the municipalities. That was done and now that program has been announced.

All in all, these programs not only are coming into place as predicted and with appropriate background but --

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Mr. Peterson: Unemployment among our youth is up to 169,000, according to the last figure. The Treasurer will recall his own promises in this House. Regarding the Ontario youth tourism program, for example, he said, "It will be going in a matter of weeks this summer for sure." It is still not going at this point, and the summer is over.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: I am reminding him of his promises, Mr. Speaker. He will recall he promised 67 new youth counselling centres, and to date there has been an announcement of one -- in Brampton. This is three and a half months after his budget. He has created one job; that of Ken Dryden. He has given him no power. He has not reorganized the ministry. He has created a new layer of bureaucracy. Confusion reigns as to who is responsible for implementing the various programs.

Why has the Treasurer not moved quickly and expeditiously on this problem when it is staring him in the face daily and there are no tangible results whatsoever?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I understand, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, the member's difficulty in reading Statistics Canada figures. But I remind him that the last time this House met, the unemployment rate was three per cent higher than it is today. The only change that has occurred in the last little while is that the youth unemployment rate has gone down by three per cent. That is an important decrease, but just a little less than the decrease he has seen on his side of the House. Those are the two changes.

Mr. McClellan: That is not what Mulroney says. Mulroney is very worried about that.

Mr. Peterson: The numbers have gone up.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren).

Mr. Laughren: I am trying, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Did the member want to ask a supplementary?

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, in view of the Treasurer's expressed concern about unemployment in the province, I wonder whether he could tell us why it is that this government has refused to participate in funding for a national training centre in Sudbury.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I know the honourable member will have joined in congratulating us for the community economic transformation agreement arrangements we have made in Sudbury. Our colleague the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon) not only worked hard to bring that about but also thinks it is an important initiative for Sudbury.

Also, at the urging of the member for Sudbury, we are continuing discussions with that city to see what further assistance might flow under the community economic transformation agreements. The member for Sudbury has put before us the opportunity which the member has talked about, plus a couple of other very exciting ones, all of which we are reviewing now.

2:30 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Final supplementary; the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, let me remind the Treasurer of the statistics in this province. He no doubt will be aware that the Ontario Manpower Commission has reported that there were 203,000 unemployed women in this province as of July 1984. That is more than in June 1984; it is also more than a year ago in July. Presumably, we are in the midst of the recovery. However, it is not getting better but worse, and the unemployment rate among women aged 15 to 19 in July went up to 16 per cent.

My question is this: Specifically, what programs do the Treasurer or his colleagues have to address the specific question of unemployed women in this province?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, was that the second question by the Leader of the Opposition? It seems to be about unemployed women as opposed to our youth employment program and issues. I should like to know whether this is supplementary or a new question.

Mr. Speaker: New question; the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Peterson: Is he saying women are not people? What is he saying? He should stand up and answer the question.

Mr. Speaker: New question, please.

Mr. Peterson: Is he trying to welsh out of this? Let him stand up and answer the question. It is quite clearly supplementary. What is the matter with the minister?

Mr. Speaker: Order. New question, please. I have already called it. The Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Peterson: Are you ruling on the relevancy of the question?

Mr. Speaker: No, I am not.

Mr. Peterson: Tell him to answer it. What is the matter with him?

Interjections.

Mr. Peterson: If he chooses not to answer, that is his prerogative, I guess. Perhaps he is too embarrassed to do so. Clearly that was relevant and apropos of the first question.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Tell Mr. Speaker, not me.

interjections.

Mr. Peterson: Okay, Mr. Speaker, you tell him. Have you ruled on the relevancy?

Interjections.

Mr. Peterson: I just asked the minister about it. If he knows anything about it, let him answer it.

Mr. Speaker: New question; Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Peterson: I just want to be clear. Are you bailing him out, or is he abdicating his responsibility? Who has made the decision, you or him? Answer that for me.

Mr. Speaker: Obviously, I do not have to answer questions in the House, but out of courtesy I will. The Treasurer had the opportunity to answer the question. He chose not to, and I called the new question and now I ask you to place your new question.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I wish to clarify the circumstances. I am delighted and prepared to answer the question. I did not decline to answer the question. I merely asked you, Mr. Speaker, in your capacity as Speaker to define whether that was a supplementary question, given that it related to women -- it did not seem to me to relate to youth employment -- or whether it was a new question. It matters not to me, but in terms of the question itself, we ought to know whether it is a new question or a supplementary.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. In the interests of the privileges of all members of the House, I ask the Leader of the Opposition to place a new question.

Mr. Peterson: That about says it all. Unemployment matters not to him. Clearly, it was relevant.

HOSPITAL BEDS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health. He will recall that on many occasions in this House there have been discussions about the numbers of hospital beds, of active treatment beds and emergency beds. He will be aware of the discussions about the misallocation of those beds and the mounting evidence from across this province that a crisis has been developing. He will be aware of the comments of practitioners, experts in the field. I remind him of Dr. Druck, the cardiologist at Toronto Western Hospital. He will be aware of situations in his own community of Kingston, where there are reports of people dying because of the lack of hospital beds. He is aware of the recommendation of a coroner's jury with respect to the death of Judith Abshez -- the recommendation dealing with the question of adequacy of hospital beds, saying very clearly that there is a problem and that it was probably one of the factors leading to her death.

Is the minister now prepared to change his position, and not to be so defensive and not to accuse people who disagree with him of being radical, strange or irresponsible? Will he clearly face up to the question of the misallocation of hospital beds in this province and start to build chronic care facilities and home care programs that will relieve pressure in that regard?

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, if the honourable member has done his research thoroughly, and I am sure he has, he will be aware, for example, that the Hospital Council of Metropolitan Toronto recently issued a report supporting what I have said in this House before, that at any given time there are at least 1,000 empty hospital beds in Metropolitan Toronto. I do not think the coroner's jury could have taken that into account in addressing the recommendations it made.

I think it is true, and I have previously indicated it in the House as well, that there is a problem with respect to the appropriate allocation of beds and the identification of where the vacant beds are at any given time. That is clearly something I intend to address, and I expect to be making an announcement with respect to that in the near future.

I think the example that is educative in this respect is in Hamilton, where a couple of years ago there was concern that there was a shortage of hospital beds. With a computerized central bed registry, which is now accessible to all the hospitals, emergency health services and physicians, the utilization of the available beds is much more efficient. I believe that model can be applied effectively across the province.

In most cases I think the answer is not simply to add new beds, but to improve the efficiency of the system through the application of appropriate modern technology as has been demonstrated in Hamilton. I think that is the more responsible route to go.

Mr. Peterson: Let me ask the minister how he would respond to the words of Dr. Charles Tator, the head of neurosurgery at Sunnybrook Medical Centre. During the coroner's inquest, he said: "This should not happen in this day and age. There should be improved access to hospital bed availability." He went on to say, "The prime factor in solving the bed shortage is the removal of patients from active treatment beds."

In conversation today, he told us of an example of a person who lay for 36 hours in emergency at Sunnybrook waiting for a hospital bed. Even during the operation there was no knowledge whether there would be a bed for that person.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: He said, "The system has broken down." When is the minister going to take responsibility for bringing in home care programs, for providing chronic care beds and for expanding the system to take pressure off the active care beds? Clearly, that is one of the solutions. When is the minister going to take that responsibility?

Hon. Mr. Norton: We have many additional new beds under way throughout the province, particularly in the Metropolitan Toronto area. I think it is important to bear that in mind as well as what I said earlier: It is clear there must be changes within the health care system with respect to the way in which resources have been utilized traditionally.

I would suggest to Dr. Tator -- I am not quarrelling with him -- and other physicians that part of the responsibility is theirs. I say that in this respect: There are some traditions in the health care system with respect to the allocation of beds to particular physicians and services which in my opinion are outmoded.

2:40 p.m.

We have to take a very serious look at the utilization of beds. In some hospitals, we have to look at the maintenance of vacant beds for particular services while service may be denied to citizens for other services on the grounds that there are not sufficient beds.

We have seen a fine example of the way in which a hospital can address that. Sister Margaret, the administrator at St. Joseph's Health Centre here in Toronto, has established a system whereby the senior physicians in the hospital actually engage in the daily allocation of beds and shifting them back and forth among services. That hospital does not, I think the member will find, make the accusation that it has people waiting in the corridors for access to beds because it has found a way among the physicians on staff to deal with that.

I hope this kind of example of co-operative action on the part of physicians as well as others involved in health care in the province will serve as a co-operative model for others to emulate.

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, the minister is quite correct when he says a lot of changes are needed in the health care system, and we are waiting for those changes. Does he not realize that in most areas of this province it takes seven to eight months to get a chronic care bed? One of the reasons for the whole backup in the health care system is that a program he has promised several times, home care for the frail elderly, and other community support programs are not in place.

Why does the minister not announce that program and get it operating instead of waiting for an election so it can be announced as an election goody? We know that is what he is doing with this program, with the assistive devices program and with something on extra billing. All the goodies in the health care system are being saved up so he can use them as election goodies.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, this is the first time that honourable member has ever given me any credit for planning anything. I must say I am really delighted he has finally recognized that I do have the capacity to plan rather effectively.

That nagging suspicion he has, though, is really not well founded. The planning is well advanced for that program, and I do hope to be announcing it before long.

Mr. Rae: In the fall. We know when it is coming.

Mr. Martel: Right after the Queen leaves.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Norton: I might even announce it when the Queen is here. I know of no plans for a provincial election; that is not something that is within my area of jurisdiction.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, the minister will be well aware that in past discussions of this nature members of my party have agreed that the problem is not the shortage of active beds but the fact that people with chronic needs and nursing home needs are occupying those beds. That is the problem.

On the very day that doctors were trying to admit Judith Abshez into Sunnybrook Medical Centre, 22 out of the 38 neurological ward beds were occupied by chronic care patients; that is two thirds. At the same time we are told through the Metropolitan Toronto District Health Council that in the Metropolitan area there is a waiting time of at least 100 days to get a chronic care bed.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Sweeney: What is the minister going to do -- not just in Metro Toronto but particularly in this case in Metro Toronto -- to ease the shortage of chronic care beds and therefore release the active care beds for the kind of treatment that is needed in a case like this? This woman could be alive today.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker. I do not wish to debate the latter remark, but I do think the member ought to consult seriously and get a medical opinion on it because I am not sure it would confirm what he just said.

I would point out that, although the evidence that came forward at the time of the inquest would support what he has said, it has also been pointed out that when the physicians did decide the woman required treatment, they did not have any problem getting her into Wellesley Hospital. The question of admission is not a political question, it is a medical question, and the physicians, in cases where they deem it to be urgent, can get people in.

In response to the general thrust of his question concerning what we are doing in Metropolitan Toronto, let me just give a little example of what we are doing in this area since that is the target area he has cited.

At Queensway General Hospital we are in the process of completing a 120-bed chronic care facility, which will be coming on stream this fall. Baycrest Hospital is now in the process of building a 300-bed chronic care facility. Scarborough Grace Hospital is now being built. It will not be completed till 1985, but it is under construction and will have 205 acute care beds and 65 chronic care beds.

Northwestern General Hospital is currently in the process of opening a 120-bed nursing home in its new senior citizens' complex. North York General Hospital is in the final stages of planning for a 50-bed nursing home, which is scheduled to be operational within the next year and a half. The new Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga is scheduled to open in 1985 and will alleviate some further pressure on Metropolitan Toronto hospital beds.

At the moment I am awaiting determination of the additional allocations I have requested, and in the relatively near future I expect I will be in a position to announce both further extended care beds and chronic care beds. Again, I would reiterate that has nothing to do with any other plans the members opposite might be suspicious about.

TRANSIT LABOUR DISPUTES SETTLEMENT BILL

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a question of the Minister of Labour, in the absence of the Premier (Mr. Davis), concerning the anti-bargaining legislation his government has brought in today. I want to make it very clear, before anything else is said, that no party wants to see the papal visit succeed more than our own and that we happen to believe very strongly that the best way to guarantee the success of that visit is to assure a collective bargaining agreement between the parties in this dispute. That is the best way to guarantee goodwill, that is the best way to guarantee good faith and that is the best way to guarantee a successful visit as far as transportation is concerned.

In the light of the minister's statement -- and he even admits on his own that his judgement will have elements of subjectivity in it and, indeed, some will allege bias -- I want the minister to know, from our perception and from the perception of a great many people, the government has simply been acting in this dispute as an agent, as a running person, for the Toronto Transit Commission management.

I would like to ask the minister, with respect to his remarks on page 9, why, when the settlement which was accepted by the union executive and recommended to the membership was rejected the second time by the membership by a very narrow margin, he did not see that as a clear indication that a resolution of the dispute was this close -- the parties were that close together.

I would ask why the Premier, instead of simply jumping to Mr. Porter's tune -- and Mr. Porter came out of the room and said, "I am just going to go to the government and ask for legislation" -- did not turn around and say to Mr. Porter, "Sir, we want you to go into a hotel room with the executive of the Amalgamated Transit Union and the other parties involved and bargain around the clock until an agreement is reached in order to ensure transportation for the people of Ontario."

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member, the leader of the third party, is making assumptions which are absolutely incorrect. The Premier was not marching to any tune by the chairman of the Toronto Transit Commission or jumping or whatever the case may be.

I just simply have to repeat what I said in my statement; that is, I do not agree that the parties were that close together. The parties had reached an impasse. Our senior conciliators, our deputy minister, the most experienced people in this country, the most qualified people in this country who mediate labour disputes, did work virtually night and day to try to reach a resolution and they found it impossible to do so. When people of that calibre tell me there is an impasse, I am inclined to accept it.

Mr. Rae: We are talking about the actions of the TTC. without dealing with the realities of overall provincial policy -- the attitude that the province has taken with respect to collective bargaining in the public service. The government has gutted the notion of collective bargaining in the public sector and in the near public sector over the last two years. One cannot talk about it without talking about those things.

2:50 p.m.

I would like to ask the minister did the Premier agree at any time that he would waive Bill 111, which is due to expire in October, in an effort to encourage the parties to reach an agreement right away? Did he ask the TTC to sit down and reach an agreement?

Does the minister not realize that a negotiated settlement is going to produce a much better result than the kind of legislated ham-fisted, ham-handed approach the minister has taken and which has already been rejected by a number of distinguished arbitrators in the field who are very disturbed by the fact that the government is no longer seen as an independent party in these disputes, but is seen as a party to the dispute in question because of its policies and because of the shackles it has placed on its mediators and on arbitrators?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I should make the point that an average of 3,000 collective agreements are negotiated annually in this province and that since 1970 only three have been ended by special legislation.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see the leader of the New Democratic Party does not want the papal visit disrupted. We will see how he votes this afternoon or tomorrow. I have to concur with what was said by Cliff Pilkey when he stated, "What is happening now is a public relations disaster for the labour movement." I have to concur with his statement.

I want to ask the minister a question which relates to the first question of the leader of the third party, specifically the minister's answer that the two parties were far apart and they had reached an impasse. If that was the case, why did the Premier call Julian Porter and Charlie Johnson to his office to try to mediate the dispute if they were actually at an impasse and nothing could be done? Why did the Premier call these gentlemen to his office to try to mediate? Was this grandstanding on behalf of the Premier or was he actually trying to mediate the dispute?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, let me go back for just a moment. I want to emphasize once again, and I do not like to repeat myself, that every effort was made to find a resolution to this dispute. For example, we tried something that was unprecedented in having a second vote because the decision was so close. We were trying everything possible to avoid the action we are taking today. The Premier's action in inviting those people in was just one more example of going to every length in trying to do whatever was possible to avoid bringing this House back to pass legislation of this nature.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, the minister should know it is very clear, since the government has announced its policies over the last two and a half to three years with respect to the public sector and bargaining in the public sector, that the overwhelming feeling of employees in the public sector, and a great many other people, is that the government is not some kind of an arbitrator or mediator, the government is a party to these disputes and it is making it virtually impossible in many instances for disputes to be reconciled. This instance is not going to be an exception. What the government has done is making life far more difficult in terms of collective bargaining, not making it any easier.

In particular, I would like to ask the minister this question. He says the bill does qualify the rights of the parties, but it does not impose a settlement. Those are his words. He then talks about how the arbitration process will be expeditious. Can the minister confirm with respect to section 10 of Bill 111 -- a view which has been rejected by several senior arbitrators in the province who are now refusing to do arbitrations because of the actions of this government -- that all of this legislation he has introduced is now subject to Bill 111 and that arbitrators are required to take into account the government's fiscal policy and the employer's ability to pay in light of that fiscal policy?

Does the minister not realize that what that really means is the government can manipulate the terms of the settlement, and does he not realize that jeopardizes the whole notion of impartiality in labour disputes for the future?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: With respect, the leader of the third party has made a speech, he has not asked a question.

Mr. Rae: I ask the minister again, why is there absolutely no mention of restrictions and shackles that have been placed on this arbitrator in this particular instance in terms of Bill 111? Why is there no mention of Bill 111 in the minister's statement? Does he not think that is misleading?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Perhaps I could refer to section 6 of the bill. This section strengthens the arbitrator's powers to determine his own procedures and confirms that the arbitrator's decision is final, binding and not subject to any review created in the statute. Perhaps that will answer the member's question.

Mr. Rae: Let me refer the minister to section 10 of Bill 111. I am sure he would not want to mislead the House in this matter.

Interjection.

Mr. Rae: A new question, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Right. All right a new question.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: This is the second part of the second question.

Mr. Rae: In fact, it is the second part. Am I not right? It is all part of a package, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: It is your first supplementary of the second question.

Mr. Rae: Right, you got it. I am reading to the minister: "Every act or regulation that requires or permits an issue that arises in collective bargaining by or on behalf of employees to whom this part applies to be submitted to or determined by arbitration shall be deemed to include a provision," etc.

He cannot deny that section 10 of the Public Sector Prices and Compensation Review Act has been a red flag in terms of its whole effect on the labour movement and its effect on the arbitration profession in this province. He cannot deny that is right in the law of this province now and that it is part of the law under which this Legislature is being asked to pass this bill this afternoon and later on today.

Does the minister not realize it is there? Why does he not make it clear that it is there because that is the clear indication that the government is not an independent third party in this dispute. He is part and parcel of the employer's point of view and simply acting as a running boy for the employer when it comes to settling disputes in the public sector.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I totally disagree with the allegations being made by the leader of the third party.

Mr. Rae: I ask for a simple yes or no answer, or however the minister chooses to answer, as long as he answers the question. Is the minister saying that section 10 of the Public Sector Prices and Compensation Review Act does or does not apply to this legislation?

Hon. Mr. .Ramsay: Yes, section 10 does apply to the legislation.

UNITED CO-OPERATIVES OF ONTARIO

Mr. Ruston: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Is the minister aware of the serious financial problems facing the United Co-operatives of Ontario, which includes 45 member co-ops, 96 UCO sales and service units and 1,300 employees? Can the minister give us any assurance today that this important part of the agriculture economy of Ontario will be given his immediate attention to ensure that it carries on serving the farming community of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I would have thought the honourable member would know we are not only aware of the problems of the UCO, but have for some time been working with them to attempt to assist in finding a resolution to their problems.

As of two days ago, the UCO decided to petition itself into receivership. Price Waterhouse has been appointed by the Supreme Court of Ontario to be the receiver. At this point we have not heard from the co-op as to any restructuring that it is planning, although I would anticipate at some point it will want to sit down with us so we can be made aware of its plans.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, the minister must be aware that a number of UCO stores have already discontinued business across the province. Is he not concerned that he should be taking a position of more leadership in assisting them to maintain the services that have become so important to the farm community? Is he contemplating a request from UCO for actual monetary support?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, about a year and a half ago, following certain changes that had been made in the senior management, UCO came to see the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, following which they made a number of changes in their day-to-day business dealings. It sold its head office and now leases it back. It sold its fleet of trucks and leased them back. It sold its chicken processing plant and made a number of attempts to bring its operations under control.

3 p.m.

When UCO came to see me, I was not prepared on behalf of the taxpayers simply to write a blank cheque, as it were. I insisted that an analysis be done of the UCO business enterprise. That analysis was done.

Based on that analysis we had indicated to UCO quite some time ago that, if we were going to respond positively to its previous request for financial assistance from the provincial government, there must be established and approved by the board of UCO and committed to by the senior management of UCO, a proper, sound business turnaround plan. That had not been done as of a few months ago, so discussions were continuing.

The latest development is what occurred 48 hours ago when UCO was granted its application by the Supreme Court of Ontario to appoint Price Waterhouse as its receiver.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture and Food will know that the first study that was done by Price Waterhouse, which has not been appointed as a receiver, indicated that UCO was fundamentally sound and that an injection of equity by both the federal and provincial governments would go a way to solving the problem.

While the federal government has attempted to move up the date in terms of its commitment on the $7.5-million proposal -- the half of the $15-million proposal -- there is a very wide perception, which the minister must be aware of, that the provincial government is now backing away from its commitment to see that UCO is saved and allowed to continue to exist, that jobs are not affected, and that savings and investments are not affected by a failure to provide UCO with the necessary capital.

Does the minister not realize that time is of the essence, that there are some parties to this difficulty which have a hammerlock over the UCO's affairs in the light of some of the securities they have? Does he not see the necessity now to move rather quickly in making up his mind, yes or no, whether he is going to provide the necessary assistance to UCO?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: First, Mr. Speaker, the company is in receivership. We do not now have before us a request for government participation.

Mr. Rae: Oh, come on. Have you phoned them?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Second, over the course of all the months we were working with UCO and encouraging the development of a proper turnaround plan, I never heard from the members of the third party once. I heard from a number of the members of the official opposition party saying we better be careful not to do anything because they were concerned that we would be offending some of their other constituents. I had lots of those letters but I never heard from the members of the third party once.

NEWSPAPER LABOUR DISPUTE

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware of the six-month lockout at the Sudbury Star, Sudbury's only daily newspaper, owned by the Thomson chain?

Does he realize there have been a number of meetings during those six months with very little progress made and that talks were broken off yesterday? Does he think it is appropriate that a company that is Canada's 18th largest corporation, with profits of $126 million last year, should be able to engage in such a blatant attempt to destroy three local unions representing 46 employees?

Finally, just what is the minister prepared to do other than to provide a conciliator when that is requested? Why is the minister so willing to deal with strikes but not so willing to deal with lockouts?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I am well aware of the circumstances in the Sudbury area. I am quite distressed at the length of the work stoppage and the difficulties in finding a resolution to the circumstances.

I have made it a policy in this Legislature, and the honourable member knows this, that when there is a dispute I will not comment on the positions taken by the two parties, the offers made by either of the parties or the responses to the offers. Particularly in cases where the positions seem to be locked in, collective bargaining is difficult and sensitive enough without making third-party comments in this Legislative.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, since the mediation efforts in question have not even dealt with wages, which is a clear-cut indication that the company is simply playing games, would the minister be prepared to do two things: (a) issue a directive to the company indicating that he expects it to negotiate in good faith, and (b) bring both parties to Toronto, to his office, to discuss the situation so that those 45 people can get back to work and the community can have a newspaper?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, those are reasonable requests and I will certainly give them every consideration.

NIAGARA RIVER WATER QUALITY

Mr. Elston: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. It refers to a hurried press release that he distributed today just before the opening of the Legislature concerning the terrible conditions that have been found at the Hyde Park dump site in the Niagara River.

I would ask the minister where his ministry officials were and where his predecessor was when the people of Pollution Probe and Operation Clean Niagara were fighting to save the Niagara River from the type of arrangements that were being negotiated in that settlement some three years ago. Where were his people when assistance was required? Where was his predecessor when that assistance was required?

Where has he been over this past year and some months when this terrible, toxic material has been flowing into the Niagara River and degrading one of the greatest bodies of water in all the world? Why would he not help when it was required?

Hon. Mr. Brandt: Mr. Speaker, if the honourable member will look into the history of this ministry, with respect to not only my own term as minister but that of my predecessor -- who had the foresight to establish the Niagara River team some years ago --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Brandt: I listened very carefully to the question. I wish the honourable member would listen to the answer because it is a very serious problem.

The reality is that we put a study team in that area very specifically to monitor the operations that were going on. I refer not only to those at Hyde Park but also those at the S site, the SCA site, Love Canal and a whole series of other contaminated sites on the American side of that river.

My ministry has intervened directly in cases on the American side of the river with respect to this very serious problem. I do not think there has been a ministry of the environment anywhere in the country more directly involved in attempting to bring pressure on our American friends to the extent that we have, as good neighbours, in an attempt to resolve this problem. No one has shown more interest or more concern or been more directly involved than my ministry. I am quite amazed that the member would even raise the question in that context.

Mr. Elston: That minister describes himself as the messenger for his ministry rather than as the policy fashioner or co-ordinator. He should probably understand there has not been, when required, the assistance coming out of that ministry for the people who are carrying the load which should have been shouldered from the beginning by his ministry. He has always shied away from taking a position. He has always opted for monitoring.

When is he going to get off his proverbial and get on with the job of ensuring that the river is cleaned up? When will he actually take some action that will ensure a cleanup and will prevent the erosion of the quality of that water? We could look at the S area, for instance, as an area where his activity has not been successful.

Hon. Mr. Brandt: I will ask the honourable member to refer to the news release that came out of my office today with respect to this question. About two weeks ago I personally went to New York state to visit the sites. I not only met with environmental groups while I was there but I had the opportunity to confront Occidental Chemical on this very serious question. I spoke to them about the efforts they are proposing to undertake with respect to a cleanup program.

We have intervened directly. We have taken action in this case. The member knows as well as I do that we cannot go out and in some unilateral way declare war on our friends to the south. We are attempting to co-operate with the state of New York, with the Environmental Protection Agency and with other environmental groups in the United States to get that cleanup undertaken in an appropriate fashion.

We have taken every responsible and appropriate step that any minister would take if he had my responsibility.

[Later]

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: During the course of question period, the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Brandt) suggested there was no one more interested in the environmental issues of the Niagara River than he himself. I would like to bring to the minister's attention that as recently as this week, I attended Occidental Chemical's brief to the Department of Environment Conservation and I shall continue to pursue it.

3:10 p.m.

AIR POLLUTION

Mr. Charlton: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of the Environment as well. The minister should be aware of a problem in the township of Alma, because he has letters from the township council and some of the local residents about what the township council describes as the terrible odour problem caused by the Atwood Cheese Co. Ltd.

The minister has not yet responded to either of the letters I am aware of. It has now been more than a month. Why has the minister not responded? Why has it taken more than three years for his ministry to move the problem from the cheese plant site, where the whey was being dumped, to a new site even closer to the town, exacerbating the problem further?

Hon. Mr. Brandt: Mr. Speaker, problems that deal with environmental questions are always somewhat more complicated than the members of the opposition would like to believe. There are, of course, other matters that have to be taken into account, such as the jobs directly associated with a particular operation. I am sure the member would not suggest that we simply move in, without attempting to resolve the problem, and close the plant down or have those employment opportunities lost to this province.

The matter is under review by my ministry. We have been working with the cheese plant for some time now to attempt to find a solution that would be mutually acceptable to the residents and the company. We are looking at a host of alternatives. The reason I have not been back to the writers of the letter within the 30-day period is that we do not have all the answers at this time, but we should have some shortly and I will be most happy to share them with the member when I have them.

Mr. Charlton: I am asking my supplementary question especially because the minister has made it clear the problems related to solving this problem are financial. He raises the question of jobs.

I would like to ask the minister why it is that, in over three years of involvement in this problem, nobody from his ministry has suggested either to the company, the council or the local residents that the ministry of the gentleman who sits next to him has a specific financial assistance program that was set up in 1981 to deal with problems such as this, and no action has been taken by his ministry or this government even to let anybody know that the program exists. The program is specifically designed to deal with the dumping of whey, and financial problems are the only problems holding up the cleanup.

When is the minister going to get his act together and make existing programs available to those people?

Hon. Mr. Brandt: I would certainly be happy to consult with my colleague the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) with respect to any programs that might be available to assist the company. I am pleased the member mentioned that possibility to me. We will look into it.

Mr. Speaker: New question, the member for Rainy River.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Health (Mr. Norton). Oh, he has gone.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

Mr. McKessock: Mr. Speaker, my minister has left too. I will direct this to the Minister of Correctional Services.

I would like to address yesterday's court ruling which not only forces the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union to release secret government documents to the crown, but also to reveal the identity of the source. I believe that ruling demonstrates the power and speed with which the minister can pursue justice when it is in the government's best interests, justice in this case being keeping evidence of jail overcrowding secret.

What, if any, punishment is the minister planning to inflict on the civil servant who acted, based on this information, in his or her belief that it was in the public's best interests for him or her to do this?

Hon. Mr. Leluk: Mr. Speaker, as the honourable member knows, the decision was made yesterday in the Supreme Court of Ontario. We are naturally delighted with the decision, but at this time it would be premature to say to the member what action might be taken if the name or names of the persons responsible are revealed.

Mr. McKessock: Will the minister act with the same expediency to pass legislation that will protect civil servants who feel it is in the public's best interests to disclose confidential information?

Hon. Mr. Leluk: Again, the decision that was made was made by the bench, and I will not comment on it. That is their prerogative.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I have a new question for the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry), who I believe is somewhere in the assembly.

Mr. Martel: Can we get a cabinet minister or two in here?

Mr. Breaugh: Some will not answer, some hide, some do not show up. It is disgusting.

Mr. Martel: You cannot find a cabinet minister.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, my minister is here.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister responsible for Women's Issues.

Last spring the government promised in its throne speech to provide leadership in promoting positive affirmative action in crown agencies, school boards and municipalities. How can the minister pretend that grants averaging $300 per municipality will encourage municipalities to hire affirmative action officers and create programs to correct what he calls "the municipalities' dismal record" in hiring and promoting women, particularly in view of the tight municipal budgets resulting from the province's shifting of more and more responsibilities to the municipalities and limiting transfer payments?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I think the honourable member does the whole cause of positive affirmative action some disservice. Let us quietly take a look this afternoon at what has happened since the Lieutenant Governor read that speech.

The Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) and I have had an opportunity to speak to all the school boards of this province and to indicate to them that we are not satisfied with their progress to date. Indeed, we challenged those school boards at least to match the provincial government's record at the moment. I had an opportunity to meet with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario to give the same message.

The difficulty is that, instead of interpreting this and commending the government for this particular expression of leadership, the member concentrates on this one mechanism -- that is, the incentive fund.

Mr. Martel: Get off it. Never mind the showboating.

Hon. Mr. Welch: It is obvious that there are not very many people who are interested in the answer. The member and I are interested, but there are many in her party who do not seem to be interested, because all they are doing is making interjections. I hope Hansard will record the lack of interest in my answer on the part of the third party.

Mr. McClellan: We are amazed, absolutely amazed.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Welch: That is, the members of the third party other than the member who asked the question.

When we get to the incentive fund, to which the member makes reference, when we take out of the nearly 900 municipalities the hundreds of municipalities with fewer than 50 employees -- no doubt those municipalities will respond to the challenge of the Deputy Premier in ways that will utilize staff resources that are currently there -- then we have the difference; then the $250,000 or more takes on a little different perspective from the straight division by the total number of municipalities. There may be many municipalities that will not require any financial help at all. The government will be very anxious to respond to all the requests that come.

Surely the main point is that this government, in keeping with the tone and the words of the speech from the throne, has been somewhat aggressive in making it quite clear that we are committed to the whole concept of positive affirmative action. We say to the municipalities --

Mr. Speaker: Thank you, Minister. Supplementary?

3:20 p.m.

Ms. Bryden: The minister's peanut incentive is an insult, not an incentive. Is he aware that the city of Scarborough just produced a report on an equal opportunity program for women in Scarborough and came up with an estimate of $60,000 for the cost of hiring a director for such a program plus whatever support staff and space costs were needed in addition?

How can the minister expect municipalities to fund this kind of cost if he will not see that the provincial government provides the municipalities with sufficient transfer payments to enable them to add to their present funds? Why does he not make affirmative action mandatory so we do not have to depend on his kind of incentives?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I invite the honourable member to read the editorial in the Toronto Star today, which I think takes a very responsible approach to this whole question of affirmative action. Affirmative action really means equality of opportunity with respect to access to employment and promotion within places of employment.

There may be many employers today who do not have to spend any money to translate that principle into some positive action. There may be scores of municipalities which with their present resources do not have to spend any money on translating equality of opportunity.

I draw attention to the incentive fund as being of some help for some municipalities to have some resources and, indeed, some research that may be necessary. Who says one has to bribe people to translate equality of opportunity? When the member concentrates on the incentive fund, she loses sight of the important progress being made with positive affirmative action.

I happen to believe, on the basis of my consultations with many major employers, that there is a great commitment and dedication to this whole principle. I am not getting preoccupied with dollars and cents, because we do not need money to translate these principles if we really think about it.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, before the minister gets so exercised that he loses contact with this issue entirely, can he inform the House whether, when he contacted all the school boards in the province, he informed them that their record of women in positions of administrative responsibility has actually been worse during the tenure of the minister immediately to his right?

Did he inform them that unless this act is cleaned up, we are going to take a legislative position, not necessarily by way of extra money but requiring that the school boards meet their responsibilities for affirmative action vis-à-vis women?

Did he inform them that we have moved away from the position taken by this minister when he was chairman of the school board in St. Catharines that women have little or no chance to assume any position of administrative responsibility?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I say to my friend, while I still have contact with the question and the issue, that because of the particular interest he has shown in this matter over the years, an interest he has shared with me from time to time regardless of my responsibilities or his and particularly in view of the questions he had raised in this House, I thought he would have read very carefully the copies of the speeches I personally sent to him and which were delivered by my colleague the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) and myself to that particular conference. We underlined the concern; we stated that was quite unacceptable.

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION, GRAY COACH LINES, LIMITED AND GO TRANSIT LABOUR DISPUTES SETTLEMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Ramsay moved, seconded by Hon. Miss Stephenson, first reading of Bill 125, An Act respecting Labour Disputes between the Toronto Transit Commission, Gray Coach Lines, Limited and GO Transit and Locals 113 and 1587, Amalgamated Transit Union, Lodge 235, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local No. 2.

Mr. Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry?

Mr. Martel: No. It is a rotten bill.

Mr. Speaker: All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the ayes have it.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, this is some compendium -- one sheet of data and the bill. If this is a compendium, I want to know what a compendium really is.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, it has been agreed that, notwithstanding the standing orders, we will move to second reading of this bill at this time. I will call second reading of Bill 125.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I call your attention to standing order 53(a), which states as follows, "The order of the day for second reading of a bill shall not be called until the bill has been...marked 'printed' on the order paper." My colleagues have asked me to bring to your attention that we are not prepared to withhold unanimous consent simply on the basis that it is not on the order paper and not marked "printed."

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of future historians who read the Hansard report of this debate, I think it should show that although it does not show that the bill is marked "printed" on the order paper, the bill in its printed form is in the hands of every member of this House.

3:30 p.m.

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION, GRAY COACH LINES, LIMITED AND GO TRANSIT LABOUR DISPUTES SETTLEMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Ramsay moved second reading of Bill 125, An Act respecting Labour Disputes between the Toronto Transit Commission, Gray Coach Lines, Limited and GO Transit and Locals 113 and 1587, Amalgamated Transit Union, Lodge 235, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local No. 2.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I gave a 16-page statement before the question period today, and I do not intend to expand upon those remarks. However, I would like to advise the House of some amendments that I will be moving a little later.

On advice that was received today, I want to move amendments that would clarify the intent of the bill. As originally drafted, the bill referred to Gray Coach Lines Ltd. as an employer of certain members of Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union. In fact, the agreement with the Toronto Transit Commission has an appendix that is entitled "Gray Coach Employees Appendix."

However, as article 111 of the agreement provides that, in essence, all employees working at Gray Coach are on loan from the Toronto Transit Commission, therefore all of the employees are in fact employees of the commission. Therefore, to be precise and to clarify the wording of the proposed legislation for the parties, an amendment is desirable. I have asked for the amendments to be distributed to the respective parties opposite.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to participate in this debate? The member for Essex South.

[Applause]

Mr. Laughren: Scattered applause was heard.

Mr. Breaugh: I really think there are mixed reviews of the Liberal caucus so far.

Mr. Mancini: The Toronto transit workers are going to give my friends in the New Democratic Party some reviews after today when they stand up hypocritically and say they do not want the papal visit to be disrupted --

Mr. Speaker: Would the honourable member please address his remarks to the bill?

Mr. Mancini: -- and then they are going to turn around and vote against the bill. We have seen hypocrisy today. Hypocrisy has reached new heights today for the New Democratic Party.

Mr. Speaker: I think I have drawn the honourable members' attention to the use of that word in this House from time to time. I ask the member to withdraw it and not to use it in the future, please.

Mr. Mancini: I cannot use "hypocrisy" in the House? Then I will withdraw it. I will not call the NDP hypocritical any more.

Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves today in an emergency session of the Legislature convened at the call of the Premier because we have had failed negotiations with the Toronto Transit Commission and the workers' employer.

To understand fully why we find ourselves in this situation today, it is absolutely necessary to review the facts of the situation going back to last April. At that time it was made clear that there were going to be problems during this set of negotiations; it was made clear by the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) and by the people who operate GO Transit specifically because of the agreement they wanted to change with Gray Coach.

For the past 10 years the employees of Gray Coach had worked on a contract basis. We must add at this time that Gray Coach is a subsidiary of the TTC and that Gray Coach did contract work on behalf of GO Transit. This satisfactory arrangement, which had worked well over the past 10 years, was to be ended by the government that sits across the floor. That started negotiations off on a very sour note indeed. Instead of the union being able to concentrate its efforts on getting a new contract for its employees, it had to concentrate all of its efforts on saving 230 jobs which were going down the drain.

The negotiations started off with the possibility that those jobs were gone for ever. The negotiations continued for some months. At a particular point in time, a resolution was reached between the transit union and the government of Ontario as to what would happen with the Gray Coach drivers. That resolution, I believe, met the concerns of the unions involved. From that point, the negotiations moved to the issues of the current dispute, which are mainly monetary from what I can find out and from what information has been made available to me.

We watched these negotiations take place with some trepidation, because we could see early on, as early as the end of June, that they were not going smoothly. The union's contract expired on June 30. Through tough negotiations, it reached a tentative agreement on August 3. The union was in a strike position on August 13. These dates are very important.

On August 3, the tentative agreement was reached. It was decided at a meeting on August 12 that the agreement should be put forward to the general membership for ratification. A vote of 106 in favour to 87 against was recorded at the meeting on August 12 to submit the agreement to the general membership. On August 15, that general membership meeting took place, and the agreement was turned down by a small margin.

What happened after August 15, in my view, is extremely relevant to this whole situation and is one of the main reasons we are here today. With the contract being narrowly rejected, what action did the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) take? He decided, and I am sure with the agreement of the Premier (Mr. Davis), instead of having further mediation, instead of trying to help the sides come together, to send a letter to the union asking them to have a second vote. That is incredible and, in my view, soured the negotiations even further.

The workers who had attended the first meeting and expressed their opinion soon found out that their opinion was meaningless. The workers who stayed home, for one reason or another, were being chastised for staying home. Some people stayed home by choice. Some people stayed home because they did not want the contract. Others stayed home because they did want the contract. Still others found their feelings indifferent.

3:40 p.m.

The minister infringed on their rights. He asked them to take a second vote, hoping they would vote in a manner in which he wanted them to. He wanted these people to eat crow. I have quotations here from a number of workers who have stated that they voted "yes" on the first contract, but after being forced to have a second vote, they voted "no". They felt, rightfully so, their noses were being rubbed in the mud. I cannot imagine such action being taken by the minister.

The minister says he took this action because only 37 per cent of the total membership voted against the contract. That is a silly analysis. How many people voted in the last provincial election campaign? Fifty-two per cent of the total population of voting age voted in the last provincial election campaign. Of the total population, the Conservative Party did not get 37 per cent of the vote; yet it did not ask for another vote. It only did that in a situation when it wanted somehow to try to change the workers' minds about something it was not happy about.

Another meeting was called and another vote taken. By the figures I have, only 300 more people turned out to vote than did previously. Those are the figures I have. They voted against the contract by exactly the same margin as the first vote, approximately 52 per cent to 48 per cent.

After the contract was turned down a second time, extraordinary things happened. The Archbishop of Toronto volunteered to be a mediator. Vic Pathe of the ministry said, "There can be no more mediation. We are at our limit." On August 22 Mr. Pathe said in an interview there were no plans to go back to negotiations if the workers voted to walk out on September 12. All the signals were pointing towards no more negotiations and legislation. That was the failure of the ministry.

From August 15 until today all that valuable time was wasted, first, by having a second vote and, second, by having another week pass with nothing but speculation as to what was going to be done by the government. Finally, we saw the Premier -- in a grandstanding manner, if I may say so -- make public that he was going to be the last mediator to try to resolve this dispute. Even though the Minister of Labour said today that the workers were not very close together, that they were very far apart, the Premier decided he would hold mediation talks in his office to see if he could bring both sides together. Of course, that did not happen.

Who are we to believe? Are we to believe the Minister of Labour, who said they were far apart on contract negotiations, or are we to believe the Premier, who said his mediation efforts might prove successful? That is a very serious question. Did the minister inform the Premier that it was his view that these two sides were very far apart? Did he inform him that it was his view, the view of his deputy minister and the view of his assistant deputy minister that mediation would not prove to be successful? If so, then we can say actually and honestly that the Premier engaged in grandstanding and in trying to grab a headline, which is a sorry state of affairs when we have involved in this dispute 7,000 workers, the papal visit --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister of Labour on a point of order.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I would have to consult Hansard. I may have used the term "far apart," I am not sure if I did or not. However, the point that has to be made here is that there was a memorandum of agreement that was accepted by the negotiating committee for Local 113. Please keep that in perspective.

Mr. Mancini: With all due respect to the minister, he did not say that in his very lengthy statement. He told the House today the sides were very far apart. That is exactly what he said.

A vote has taken place -- one the minister evidently does not like, even though it was free and democratic. That is very interesting. In no way did the minister say or imply there were irregularities or problems with the vote. All he said was: "I do not like the vote. Let us have another one."

Does the minister know what that does to working people when he tells them their point of view does not matter? Does he know what it means when he tells them he is going to have a second vote to see if he can change their point of view? A tremendous amount of unnecessary hostility has been created. The responsibility for it lies across the floor.

We find ourselves here today in a quagmire with no contract for the TTC workers, the possibility of a strike and the papal visit being disrupted. I have read the news clippings reporting what the workers have said. They have said they do not want to disrupt the papal visit.

As a matter of fact, the first strike date they set in no way would have affected the papal visit. The workers changed the strike date -- and this is important -- only after the Minister of Labour sent a letter saying: "I do not like your decision. Vote again." That is when the union meetings got rough. That is when they changed the strike date. The minister used the papal visit as much as the workers used it.

We will support the legislation. We are not going to say in the Legislature what the leader of the New Democratic Party says. He said his party did not want the papal visit to be disrupted -- those were his exact words -- and then he turns around and says his party will not vote for the bill.

What the leader of the New Democratic Party has been saying over the past few days is very interesting indeed. The TTC workers might like to hear what he has been saying. First, regarding the recalling of the Legislature, he said -- and I am paraphrasing -- Premier Davis was recalling the Legislature this week to hamper the federal campaign activities of the opposition parties.

This is from the Ottawa Citizen, page 11, August 28: "The leader of the New Democratic Party is more worried about the political fortunes of Ed Broadbent and his former colleagues in Ottawa than he is about the papal visit and about the strike."

He did not want to come here to deal with this problem, and I know why he did not want to come. He did not want to have to tell the people sitting in the galleries today that, on one hand, he did not want the papal visit disrupted, but on the other, he was going to vote against the bill. I cannot use the word "hypocrisy," but I cannot think of a better word that would describe this.

3:50 p.m.

What else does the leader of the New Democratic Party say? He did not know how many of his caucus members would be able to be here today to take part in this very important debate. He was not sure who would come to join him in taking part. Finally, he said -- and it is in print -- "Rae said he does not want the papal visit to be disrupted."

I agree with him. We do not want the papal visit to be disrupted. We are going to vote for the legislation. The problems have been created by this Minister of Labour, who misused his authority somewhat, I believe, and by this government, which soured the negotiations from day one.

The government soured the negotiations by the threat of firing 230 workers. Then, of course, the government used its mediation team, but when mediation was really needed, after the first rejection vote, it withheld all its mediation services. It did not use its mediation when it was necessary.

Finally, I have to say this government across the floor has used the papal visit as much as anything else to pass this legislation. It has been recorded in any event, as has been documented by the news media and as will be documented today by the different speeches members will be making.

I do not think the government can be proud of itself. It has let down the people of Ontario. It interfered unnecessarily in collective bargaining.

Mr. Laughren: You will bail them out. Don't worry.

Mr. Mancini: Tell me about the papal visit. That will be an explanation I will be glad to hear.

Interjections.

Mr. Breaugh: You are with them all the way.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: And to think he almost ran federally.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order.

Mr. Mancini: We will see just how long it takes to pass this bill. We will see exactly what kind of fight there is. We will see exactly what their activities will be over the next day or two, and the NDP's activities will be watched by everyone, believe me.

When we needed mediation, it was not there. When we needed encouragement from the Minister of Labour, we had disruption instead of encouragement. When we needed the intervention of the Premier for a possible settlement, we were finally told today by the Minister of Labour that it did not matter anyway. The two sides were too far apart.

This government has mishandled the situation from day one. It has helped cause the strike. It has helped cause sour feelings between the workers and management. It has not used the tools at its resource. We have had nothing but political grandstanding at the highest level, and by that I mean the Premier.

We are saddled here today with a bill we do not like and with a situation we have watched and at which we have been astonished. Finally, we are saddled with a bill we must pass if we want the papal visit to go on unobstructed and for the 800,000 or one million people who wish to attend the service to be able to be there. We are told that 500,000 people will use mass transit to get to Downsview. Those people want to attend this world event.

I say in all honesty the workers did not want this. They did not want it. They showed us they did not want it when they set their first strike date. That was an indication to all of us who watch labour relations and who can read the signs correctly that they did not want to be put in the situation they are in today. Thanks to the Minister of Labour, thanks to his government, that is exactly where we are, in a quagmire.

The only regret I have is that the government members may get good political marks for this. I truly, deeply, regret that because they do not need it.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I must say the last statement is one I really agree with. It is hard to disagree with that one. On behalf of our party, I will just make a very few points I think are of real importance and I will be focusing on these points in the course of this debate.

There are a number of things the minister has said which I think, in all fairness to the minister, I will say are expressions of opinion with which we profoundly disagree. They are not statements of fact.

I do not want to repeat the rather lengthy assessment made by the member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) of the different steps that were taken in terms of the GO Transit, Gray Coach Lines Ltd. dispute and so forth. I want to focus on the central question in this discussion. The central question is what is the best way to ensure an agreement, a settlement, good labour relations and public transportation for the papal visit. What is the best way to ensure that?

I want to say to the minister in all sincerity I am convinced -- and again this is an expression of opinion but it is something on which I disagree with the minister and something I feel very strongly about -- if the government had been genuinely independent in this dispute, rather than a party to this dispute because of its position on restrictions and cutbacks in public sector finance, there would have been a settlement, an agreement, and there would be goodwill. I can tell the minister there is not goodwill today and this legislation is not going to produce goodwill. It is going to produce the opposite.

If I could think of a contrast, I could think of nothing more dramatic than the difference between the actions of the Minister of Health and the Treasurer when the doctors were in dispute with the government of Ontario and their actions with respect to the workers in public transportation in Metropolitan Toronto. When the doctors were in dispute, they were falling all over themselves. They were meeting day and night. They could not find enough money. They managed to produce $1.7 billion at the drop of a hat, an agreement that went to 14.5 per cent, 8 per cent or whatever it was. The figures were catastrophic in terms of the public treasury.

Contrast that and contrast the fact that the then Minister of Health was having meetings on the side with doctors. We saw articles saying these were the people the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman) was relying on in terms of the discussions he had, meetings with people who were friends of his, and that he had neighbours of his who were doctors and he was meeting with all kinds of people trying to get that kind of a settlement and that kind of an agreement. They left no stone unturned.

On this side, we suggested that since the doctors do not consider themselves to be part and parcel of any collective agreement, since they did not consider themselves to be employees under the Labour Relations Act and since they did not regard themselves as being subject to any of the collective bargaining legislation of this province, it was up to the province of Ontario to say, "We expect you doctors to work and perform like professionals because you say you are professionals."

What happened? The government rejected that point of view. "No, no," they said. What was the minister's line? He said: "We cannot afford to have unhappy doctors." I remember those words very clearly.

I want to say to the minister in all sincerity he cannot have it both ways. He cannot say we do not want to have unhappy doctors and, at the same time, turn around and say we do not mind having unhappy public transportation employees or unhappy people working in nursing homes and in hospitals. If the only people we worry about being unhappy are doctors, that is a terrible double standard.

I say to the minister, and he knows this full well, and it is the backdrop to all these discussions, one of the concerns about the success of the papal visit is the number of people who are going to volunteer for overtime during that weekend. If he was really concerned about handling that problem in a sensitive way and in a way that is guaranteed to produce the goodwill of the people working in that important job, that important profession, if one will, the profession of providing the people of this great metropolitan centre with transportation during the day and during the nighttime, the Premier of this province would not have taken the lordly view he took, saying: "Oh, I really do not want to interfere. I do not want to change any of the guidelines, but the parties have not been able to reach a conclusion of this and there is no resolution of this dispute."

4 p.m.

That is the line the minister has used. That is simply untrue. It simply does not coincide in any way with common sense. What is the reality? The reality is we had an agreement that was reached after many months of hard negotiations between a trade union and the employer, which was carried out under the umbrella and under the shadow of public sector cutback policy. The cutback policy meant the employer felt he had no real independence, felt he could not go over and above an arbitrary figure, the sacred five per cent figure we have heard time and again in this Legislature and which the union recommended to the membership, saying, "This is the best we can do in light of the legislation we are now working under." That recommendation was defeated by an extremely narrow vote.

The minister knows perfectly well that this is not the first time a recommendation from a bargaining committee has been rejected by the membership. It does not happen every day of the week, but it happens; and it is more likely to happen with the kind of legislation he is producing and has produced over the last three years. He is going to create more conflict within unions than he has ever seen before because of the difficulties he is creating for bargaining committees. He is making it very difficult, if not impossible, for bargaining committees to come up with settlements they can sell to their members. That is the problem with the kind of approach he is taking.

That was a signal to me -- and, like everybody else, I watched the scenario unfold -- that the parties were in fact very close, and by "the parties" I mean the whole of the union and the employer. Surely when the membership takes a vote that is so close it is not saying, "We are determined to go out on strike and this agreement is totally unacceptable"; this is not the message I get from that vote. The message I get from that vote is: "We are unhappy. We are not entirely satisfied with this. We think you can do a little bit better. We think the package can be rearranged in such a way as to make it better."

It was at that point that Mr. Porter came in on his high horse, and he does sound to me like somebody on a high horse, even though he is supposed to be representing the public transit people of this province. We have all seen him on television advocating the advantages of public transportation. But he did not sound to me like somebody riding a streetcar when he came in; he sounded a lot more like somebody on a high horse. He simply said: "We have done our best. Too bad. Take it or leave it. We have to have back-to-work legislation."

That is the overall political context in which this government has been operating -- an employer who knew all the way through the process that at the end of the day he could always pick up the telephone and say to his good friends in the Tory party and in the government, the people he sees all the time, "If you want to make your legislation on restraint and cutbacks stick, you are going to have to be prepared to get tough and back me up in these negotiations," and the Premier and the Minister of Labour would say, "Ready, aye, ready."

They should not have said, "Ready, aye, ready." They should have said: "No, we are sorry. We think it is important to get a settlement." Bill 111 says that this is what they can do. Subsection 11(1) of Bill 111, the bill the minister was very reluctant to talk about in question period today -- he wanted to pretend it did not exist, as if it somehow were not part and parcel of this whole dispute -- says very clearly --

Interjection.

Mr. Rae: The minister can have her turn. I know she will be articulate in the defence of working people when her chance comes.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: As she always is.

Mr. Rae: As she always is. I know she will be there, riding the crest of the 17th century, which she does so well. The minister is setting a bad example for the students going back to school next week.

Subsection 11(1) says: "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations, (a) terminating in whole or in part the application of this act to a group compensation plan to which this act applies where there exist special circumstances that justify such termination in keeping with the spirit and intent of this act." What is the papal visit if not a special circumstance?

I know it is not in the act anywhere. Talking about Bill 125 without talking about that visit is sort of like Hamlet without the prince. It is mentioned nowhere in here. The possibilities of a breakdown and endangering the public safety and all sorts of things are mentioned in the bill, but there is no mention of the reality that underscores everything we are talking about here. If this government had wanted to be flexible, what would have been the alternative? The alternative is not strike or no strike; the alternative is bargain or do not bargain, settle or do not settle. That is the alternative and what this debate is about.

This government has decided it can ride roughshod over collective bargaining without having to worry very much, because the people who are involved do not have a lot of leverage, they do not have a lot of choice, they do not have a lot of power. That is the political choice, and the contrast with the doctors and with those who have power in our society is so clear.

This is a government that is riddled with a double standard, a standard for those who are better off and a standard for those who are not. It likes nothing better than to pit the elderly pensioner who is stuck in an Ontario Housing Corp. building somewhere against a transportation worker who is working 13 or 14 hours a day and having to leave home at 6:30 or seven in the morning and get home at 11 p.m. The government would like nothing better than to make enemies of those two groups of people. That is the kind of approach it takes in attempting to set the public and the public interest against the interests of working people and getting a fair agreement.

I say most people in this society know full well that it is better to get a public settlement which will guarantee collective bargaining rights. That is what they want to see. What do people want? They want the papal visit to succeed and they want an agreement.

I do not think people are massively in favour of this kind of legislation once it is explained to them. This is not legislation that guarantees peace, tranquility and justice at the Toronto Transit Commission. It is legislation that guarantees continuing difficulties and ill will. I have described it on other occasions as being rather like putting a stopper in a kettle that is boiling when the minister turns around and says, "I have solved this problem." He has not solved the problem and the Premier has not solved the problem.

I am sorry the Premier is not here because he is obviously the Edgar Bergen of this piece. He is responsible for the legislation. He knows what is coming up here. I think it is important --

Mr. Hennessy: He is Charlie.

Mr. Rae: No, you have it wrong. Let it be said that the member for Fort William (Mr. Hennessy) considers the Premier to be Charlie McCarthy. If that is the way he wishes to describe his own leader, I can only wish him well. He has a long way to go before he comes up there. I understand the Premier has a long memory in these matters. I say that to the member in all goodwill.

Interjections.

An hon. member: Who is Mortimer Snerd?

Mr. Rae: I will tell the member who Mortimer Snerd is after this is over.

I think there is a choice and the choice is this. I think the government should say to itself even at this time that it is possible to get an agreement. I do not think this legislation should be proceeded with.

I should also say that there are aspects of this agreement, if I may get into some of the smaller technicalities, that I do not think people fully understand. The full brunt of the government's unfairness should be understood.

As the minister has stated, there is not just one collective agreement, there are three. There is the collective agreement with the Amalgamated Transit Union which has been negotiated and which we have discussed; there is one with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers which involves some 40 workers, and there is one involving the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 2, which affects more than 200 workers.

I say to the minister in all sincerity that the message to CUPE, Local 2, is very clear. I am told by parties to the negotiations that there are 49 pages of proposals from the employer and more than 20 pages of proposals from the union with respect to clauses throughout that collective agreement. No agreement has been reached by the parties on any of them. The employer has yet even to put money on the table with regard to the discussions.

This is the first time in the history of negotiations in the recollection of those involved that so little progress has been made. Granted, they follow the pattern; I am not disputing that aspect of the minister's statement. What kind of message is the minister giving to those workers? They are not even in a legal position to strike. They have not even held a strike vote. They have just completed conciliation and they are on their way to mediation.

Maybe the public does not understand the technicalities involved here, but the minister understands them. He is not there as the minister for management or for public enforcement; he is the minister who is supposed to be responsible for protecting the rights of labour and explaining to his colleagues in the cabinet that what is being done is incredibly ham-handed and ham-fisted. It is using a sledgehammer to deal with a problem that could be dealt with much more easily and readily.

According to the legislation before us, those workers are being told the arbitrator will deal not just with some of the matters in dispute between the parties, but in the sense of the dispute with CUPE, Local 2, the arbitrator will be able to rewrite the entire agreement, because that is how many things are in dispute between the parties.

How does the minister think a union feels? I am speaking on behalf of the workers who are involved in this. How does he think the workers who have been involved in negotiations feel? They represent 200 people involved in electrical maintenance. They have been through a bargaining process. The government has set up the law. They are going through a maze of conciliation meetings that has produced a complete dead end. They have gone through the maze and up through the stages. They have had meetings that have produced no result whatsoever. Hours and hours of negotiation and discussion have taken place.

4:10 p.m.

The bottom line is everything is up for grabs. They are all caught under the same net and subjected to the same treatment. I say it is unnecessary. The minister says he cannot conceive of a way of solving that problem. I say the minister has not even tried. He did not even talk to the people who were involved in that part of the dispute until yesterday. They were not part of the discussion with the Premier earlier on. I suspect the Premier was not even aware that there were other workers involved. They were not even contacted at all in terms of these discussions. They were just simply told, "You are going back to work. Everything you are working for and your entire terms of agreement are going to be handed down by an arbitrator. Bargaining is finished."

I have to hand it to this government. It has a statement here which says, "We will be glad to provide the union and the employer with the conciliation rules." It is prepared to convene mediation if both parties are receptive. Why would the employer in a million years want to jump into mediation when he knows he has an arbitrator -- and I am going to come to this point next -- who cannot be independent, cannot be seen as independent and will not be independent, who will be working within a straitjacket and with his hands shackled? When an employer knows what the restraint legislation says and the anti-union, anti-worker bias of this government with respect to the public sector, why would any public sector employer or quasi public sector employer even bother with mediation?

What the government is doing is the same thing it did under the Inflation Restraint Act and the Inflation Restraint Board. It gave a free ticket to every meat-headed employer in the public sector who wanted to forget about bargaining, good faith and fairness. It gave them a blank cheque. That is the kind of atmosphere it has created in the public sector. As the Minister of Labour he should be ashamed of it, rather than being so proud of it, as he appears to be.

I come to the point I made earlier and which I feel very strongly about, and it is something which simply has to be said: the gutting of the arbitration process as it affects the fairness between the parties.

I say to the minister in all sincerity, and he can accept this with all the partisan shell he chooses to accept it with, it is my judgement -- through my experiences I have met and worked with a number of arbitrators over many years -- that I have never seen morale as low as it is in the arbitration profession. I have known many distinguished arbitrators; people whom as a law student I respected as people who were outstanding in their contribution to the development of industrial jurisprudence; people who were committed not to one side or the other -- they were tough on employees when they had to be and they were tough on employers; people who followed in the great tradition of Mr. Justice Laskin in his thinking about the need to provide real fairness, who developed a body of law in this province we can be really proud of, the quality of arbitration which we have seen; people like Owen Shime and George Adams, who used to work very closely with the minister, people of some real independence and stature; people like Mr. Teplitsky, who has been outspoken in his criticism of the legislation.

What has each one of these people said? They have said there is no more independence in the arbitration process because of the attitude of this government. Many of them have said: "We will not handle industrial relations disputes. We are not interested in working for the government. We do not see ourselves as glorified policemen for the government of Ontario. We want to be people who are going to be neutral arbitrators and judges, able to exercise our independence and call the shots as we see them. If we think the government is wrong, we want to be able to say the government is wrong. If we think the government is right, we want to be able to say the government is right."

Instead of that, the minister has created a situation where arbitrators are simply going to be civil servants and unable really to exercise any independence of the government. With respect to what the Premier has said on this subject many times, I think he has seriously undermined, in a way I think is genuinely unforgivable, the quality of industrial jurisprudence and the quality of industrial fairness in this province by the kind of cheap shots he has taken at the arbitration profession and by the kind of way in which he has seriously misunderstood, misread and, I believe, misstated the quality of industrial jurisprudence and the kind of decisions they have made.

He has taken cases out of context and said they were wrong. He has misunderstood arguments that have been made and he has misstated them in this Legislature. That is the backdrop of the kind of ill will that exists within the arbitration profession and the kind of real concern that exists among the public sector employees themselves as they look at the kind of gun that has been put to their head by the government of Ontario.

What the government has basically said is: "You cannot bargain. You cannot push to reach an agreement." You cannot even reject an agreement because as soon as you do, even if it is three weeks before a strike date, that is an invitation not to bargain again, not to go back to the table, but just to say goodbye and say: "Well, we will see you later, we will see you in court -- or we will see you in the Legislature. We will ram it through. We have our majority. We will do the trick."

I say to the minister that approach to industrial relations is going to cause untold damage to the goodwill and untold damage to the need to create a sense of trust among employees for the kind of work that goes on in the public sector.

I say to the government that it cannot have it both ways. It cannot take away the right to strike, which it has done with respect to Toronto Transit Commission employees -- the government cannot take that away, even under international law -- without providing a substitute which is seen by both parties as being a genuinely fair substitute for the right to strike.

The government has not given them any kind of substitute for the right to strike. All it has provided them is a one-way ticket to an agreement which they will have very little ability to genuinely influence and with which the arbitrator will have his hands tied in terms of the ultimate result.

I say to the minister that he was warned about this several months ago. He was told by Mr. Rory Egan himself who, at that time, worked for the arbitrators under the Police Act. He wrote a letter and said:

"My concern is that these expert and independent arbitrators may cease to be available since the proposed legislation will impinge upon their independence and experience and render their decision neither final nor binding, or at least subject to delay in implementation. In summary, we are fearful that the arbitrators selected by the commission" -- he is talking about the police commission -- "will lose their effectiveness through their being perceived as emanations of the review board rather than as independent neutrals."

I want to say to the minister, in the light of section 10 and in the light of the government's failure to invoke section 11, in the light of all that is stated in Bill 111, in the light of the attitude which the employer has taken and in the light of the attitude that the Premier has taken, that in looking at this legislation the employees would be mistaken if they saw this as anything other than a stacked deck, a deck that is stacked against them, that is systematically unfair and that cannot guarantee fairness in the public sector of this province.

I say to the minister that he can take it away once, he can take it away twice, and with the public mood -- it is very variable; it depends -- he apparently can get away with a great deal on that side. But I say to the minister that he will pay the price, and he is starting to pay the price.

He is paying the price in terms of ill will. He is paying the price with respect to confrontation between employer and employee. He is paying the price with respect to confrontation and conflict within the labour movement and between people who have been elected and people who think there is a lot more out there to get.

The minister is creating a climate which is not going to be fruitful, which is not going to be constructive and co-operative and all those things that all the Mulroney ads tell us about, but which is going to be very tough and very strife-torn and very much more reminiscent of Bill Bennett and British Columbia than the kind of pap we have been hearing from Mr. Mulroney over the last four weeks.

That is what we are seeing. It is Bill Bennett in drag. I described it that way several months ago and that is exactly what this is. It is exactly the same thing. It is the same attitude. It is the attitude of: "Well, we do not have to worry about rights too much because we have polls that show that 90 per cent of the people are in favour of us. We do not have to worry about those rights now because we have the support of 88 per cent. We do not have to worry about rights because we have the support of 82 per cent on some other poll."

I would just say this to the minister. The basic public interest in this province is in protecting rights and not in undermining them. The basic public interest is in ensuring that agreements are negotiated in good faith and settled in good faith.

I say to the minister that if he does not get the answer he wants the first time and he does not get the answer the second time, he does not come running to the Legislature for a hammer. He should say to the parties, "Go back into that hotel room and do not come out until you have got an agreement." That is what he must tell the parties to a dispute when it is as serious as the one involved here, and I am not underestimating the seriousness at all.

4:20 p.m.

I think that is the attitude one should have, instead of which the minister gets people who are prepared to say, "We will take the side of the employer because we can afford to do that politically and because we do not have anything to worry about."

I know the political culture of this province is a very deferential one. I know that peace, order and good government are not only part and parcel of the Canadian Constitution but also very much part of the Canadian political culture. I say to the minister he will regret the undermining of confidence, the undermining of rights, the undermining of the sense of confidence people have to have that their government is not just a fall guy for the employer but a body that is prepared to be equally tough with the employer when it needs to be.

In closing, I want to draw some contrasts for the minister because he himself ended his speech by saying, "Only in extraordinary circumstances where public health, safety, or economic wellbeing is in jeopardy has the government restricted collective bargaining rights."

What exactly does that mean? I can think of literally thousands of employees in this province who have been on strike for months and months. He knows where they are and who they are because they are the cases on his desk which are called the insoluble ones. They are the cases that will not go away. They are the cases for which there is no solution.

Does the minister not think those workers are suffering? They do not have any great leverage. They work in plants in places such as Welland, Fort Erie and the west end of Toronto. They work in Mississauga and Sudbury. They may not make it on the front pages of the newspapers, and they certainly do not make it on the front pages of the Toronto Star or the Toronto Globe and Mail or any of those papers. They may not have a great deal of leverage. I would say they do not make it to the front pages of the paper in Sudbury, but there are no papers in Sudbury. Nevertheless, they are people who have been out for months. In some cases, they have been out for more than a year.

Why have they been out for more than a year? It is because the employer can say they cannot reach an agreement. Frequently, but not always, it is somebody coming in from the United States. It is a new kind of barbarism that has come up from Reaganite America, and it is being imposed on many private sector disputes right now in Ontario. This new barbarism in labour relations has gone on for months and months and the minister has sat by and done absolutely nothing.

I have letters on my desk. I have had conversations with the conciliators and mediators in his ministry, and I know them well. I respect them and think highly of them. Unfortunately, they are working for a government that does not allow them to do their work properly, or as well as they could be doing it, and they say: "We are powerless. The parties cannot reach an agreement." What does that mean? That is not what it really means. It means the employer will not reach an agreement. It means the employer does not want to reach an agreement. It says the employer does not have to reach an agreement; so we have people who after six months lose all their seniority.

I wish the minister had been down with me at the Hussman Store Equipment Ltd. factory in Brantford, where the people have been on strike for months and months. The strike has been going on since December 16, 1983. The American employer has proposed a contract which takes away every single right that has been bargained over the past 10, 20, even 30 years, and the Ministry of Labour has been utterly powerless to effect a resolution of that dispute. The ministry has sat on its hands and has not been able to do anything.

How does the minister feel? What is the government doing about the economic wellbeing of the worker who is in his late 50s and who has all his seniority taken away because the Labour Relations Act does not protect it after six months? He is literally out in the street without any guarantee of future employment whatsoever because this government has sat around and said: "We cannot interfere in labour relations. We believe in free collective bargaining."

I say to the minister, this government does not believe in collective bargaining. This government believes in taking away bargaining rights from people who need it. This government believes in sitting on its hands in cases where it could be doing something for the workers of this province, where time and again it has deliberately chosen to side with the employer and never with the employees who are faced with the enormous problem of trying to reach an agreement.

Let me give another example. At the Horton CBI Ltd. plant in Fort Erie, 35 workers have been on strike since February 2. The work force was 160 to 170 before the recession. I know the member for Erie (Mr. Haggerty) is aware of the situation. He says there are 100 or more who are going to remain on the layoff list. The rest have lost their seniority rights altogether.

What did the company want? This is a company that is not losing money. It is an American company that is doing very well. Let us see what it wanted. All it wanted was a three-year agreement with an initial 10 per cent wage cut and removal of the co-operative work study program, which the minister knows is a job evaluation study that has been in the plant since 1955; it has been there for nearly 30 years. It wanted take-backs on medical and other benefits. It wanted two days of holiday taken away. It wanted changes in vacation pay and it wanted to change the language on seniority.

The union offered to sign a two-year contract with a zero per cent pay increase, and it still does not have an agreement at Horton CBI Ltd.

If the minister and the government keep sitting there the way they have been doing there will not be an agreement, because they are not prepared to do what is necessary with employers who are refusing to negotiate in good faith and refusing to negotiate agreements. They are interested only in helping those managers who want to force unfavourable and unacceptable agreements. They have done nothing to protect the rights and the economic wellbeing of the ordinary employee who is caught in a situation that is out of control.

When one exceeds that six-month period, the minister knows perfectly well that there are no guarantees. I can go over the examples. There is the client of the member for Yorkview (Mr. Spensieri), who represented the employer at the Ontario Labour Relations Board, Viceroy Manufacturing Co. Ltd. on Dupont Avenue, which has locked out its people for more than a year. It is nice to see the member for Yorkview taking the side of the workers in that dispute. We know where the Liberal Party stands in these matters.

They have been locked out for more than a year and a half without a collective agreement, and the ministry has done nothing. Those workers have no bargaining power. Their morale is destroyed. They are wandering around on the street not knowing where their next job might come from. They are determined to try to protect their seniority rights, but they have been taken away. The minister knows that is legal in Ontario, and he knows it is apparently okay to do that in this province.

At the same time it is also okay to come in here draped in all the pompous language that one can possibly think of, all the language about public safety, public welfare and public health, and simply argue as an errand boy for a manager or an employer in a particularly difficult dispute in the public sector. I think there is a double standard at work in labour relations.

We have the government taking sides. We have a government that does not even pretend to be neutral any more in these disputes. The minister sat back and did nothing when nursing homes were firing workers left and right. We had months of uncertainty when the minister could have solved that problem with the stroke of a pen. There would not even have been disagreement from the Liberal Party, I dare say, in protecting the rights of nursing home workers who have been affected by this epidemic of contracting out. The minister chose to do nothing, creating that atmosphere of uncertainty.

There are people who are out on the streets today in small and medium-sized towns throughout this province because the employers see a particular political atmosphere and they are prepared to take advantage of it. They see an economy that is in a particular state and they are prepared to take the most ruthless kind of advantage of it, regardless of the state of their profits. This government is prepared to sit back and say: "That is okay for them. There is nothing we can do. The law says they can do that."

Yet when we get a dispute in Metro Toronto with the transit workers, somehow the government manages to find a way of solving a problem in 30 seconds: "No problem. If that is what Julian Porter needs, we will do it. If that is what is required, we will do it." I must confess that I am baffled and, indeed, horrified by the policies of this government. I think they are unfair and I think they are, if I may put it this way to the minister, unwise.

I want to close with this because it is a message I would like to get through. I know it is difficult, in the light of public perceptions and various statements and misrepresentations that are made, to get this point across, but I mean it and I believe it very sincerely. Our party has often been portrayed by the Tory party and by the Liberal Party simply as some kind of automatic spokesman for the labour movement in any matter that comes before the government, as if that is some kind of reflex action on our part.

I want to say to the government and to the Liberal Party that this is really a tortuous and rather fatuous misconception of how the world works. If we were preoccupied with political success or with getting some kind of media public relations return, we could just vote for this legislation and encourage the government to do what a great many people would obviously like to see it do, which is to end the dispute. Obviously everyone wants to see an end to the dispute. It is not very difficult. We do not even need a poll to know that. If we were to ask people, "Would you rather have a TIC strike or would you rather not have a strike?" I would think that 99 per cent of the people would say, "No, we do not want a strike."

4:30 p.m.

Who wants a strike? Nobody wants a strike. I do not want a strike, and I do not mind saying it. I have talked to many people in the union, and they do not want to strike. Nobody wants one. This is a strike that nobody wants to happen; I believe that quite sincerely. I even think a significant number of the people who voted against the agreement do not want to strike. The date was postponed, and there was a long window there to reach a settlement.

The position the government has taken is unwise. What would the wiser course have been? What is it in the interests of this government and province to do? It is in the interests of this province and its people, regardless of how they work for a living, to do several things: to ensure that the papal visit is a success -- everybody wants that; to ensure that a very important public service is maintained; and to ensure the rights of people, no matter how powerless they may be, are protected, guaranteed and assured. It seems that is the wise goal of public policy and not an impossible one to reach.

We are not talking here about a special interest but about everybody's interest. It is in the public interest to see that rights are maintained. They should not simply be dismissed because it is inconvenient to deal with them or because it would be politically embarrassing to admit that Bill 111 makes it impossible to reach an agreement. Rights should not be dismissed because it would be politically difficult for the government to admit that labour relations in the public sector are starting to deteriorate, which they most obviously are.

What we have here is not a course of wisdom or prudence, which is the role the patriarch from Brampton likes to play all the time. What we have is simply special pleading on behalf of a particular management. Rather than make another offer and try to resolve a dispute, they prefer to hide behind the cloak of government legislation and say, "We cannot reach an agreement." All the words in the minister's statement really add up to that. They add up to the simple, basic point, which I think is untrue, that there was no other course for the government to follow.

I disagree fundamentally with the Liberal Party and the member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini). They say that somehow it is impossible to have, at the same time, a resolution of this dispute and a successful papal visit, without having to resort to this kind of very primitive legislation. I feel very strongly that it is possible to have both those things and that there is still time to get them. Let us not forget it is weeks away.

If the minister is genuinely interested in seeing that goodwill is maintained and established for a longer period of time and that we do not get into these conflicts in the public sector, he is going to have to change his ways. He is going to have to change his tune.

There are people who have negotiated, worked hard and put faith in a process the government told them they should have faith in. The government has turned around and basically doublecrossed them. It doublecrosses people who put faith in those in government who have been saying: "If you reach this kind of agreement, we will respect all the aspects of that agreement." There are people who are very unhappy with the government's policy.

Of course, there are those who know little of the dispute and who only read in the paper: "The dispute has been settled." It has not been settled. The matter has not been resolved. The matter has been postponed. The minister has succeeded in doing little by ramming through this legislation and by bringing back the Legislature, I believe unnecessarily.

He knows full well that we are in the middle of the last week of a political campaign, and he knows full well the implications of that for the politics of this province and for the future of political decisions of this province. He knows full well the commitment that members have with respect to the election. We have weeks until the visit itself, and there are those of us who view this as a political con game by the government. It is a con game we intend to expose.

The government cannot wrap itself in the cloak of public order and public safety and get away with it any longer. It does not add up. People who have thought about this, talked about it and are concerned about the future of labour relations in this province know what the government is doing. They know it is ham-fisted, heavy-handed and clumsy in the extreme.

I have compared the government's performance in these matters in the past to watching a dinosaur breakdance. It has this tragicomic element to it -- one has to have a sense of humour in these matters -- but an awful lot of people get hurt in the process. That is what is happening: a lot of people are getting hurt in the process.

I, for one, will be voting against this legislation. It is important for the House to deal with it. Frankly, it is important that we recognize the realities of where we are in Ontario and what the political agenda is. I know it would make nobody happier than the minister, the Premier and members of the Liberal Party to have our party here for weeks and days on end debating this legislation. That would make them happier than anybody else in Ontario, and we do not intend to make them happy.

I am convinced that this position of our party is the position that makes sense. Let the people decide. Let the Premier call the election when he chooses to call the election, and I will be proud to go before the people of this province and say we happen to believe in democratic collective bargaining; we happen to believe we have a government that has a double standard, a standard for the rich and a standard for everybody else; we happen to believe this is a government that has systematically taken away rights from the people. I will be very proud and happy to take that case and to make that case on behalf of our party and to stand with the result that comes.

But let us not pretend this is not just a political con game by the government. It is a game we do not intend to play. We are voting against the legislation. We are convinced it is wrongheaded, and we are convinced it is going to cause greater problems than the minister now understands. I hope he changes his mind. From experience, I know that is a very rare event and indeed, with the Premier, almost an impossibility.

I commend our opinion to you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to hearing from my other colleagues in this matter. It is a case I have been very proud to make before the people of Metro Toronto and the people of Ontario. It is a position that makes sense.

We want an agreement. We want a papal visit. We want good industrial relations. We want fairness for employees. We want guarantees for all those people working for the Toronto Transit Commission, for GO Transit and for Gray Coach and for all those people who have worked so hard to reach agreements and make settlements. We want those things to be accepted and guaranteed in total by the ministry. They have not been. Therefore, we are voting against this legislation. The minister will be sorry for the day he ever brought it in.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, I want to start out by saying how pleased I am to be able to be present at the kickoff rally of the Tory re-election bid in Metro. That is the only conclusion one can draw when one comes down to this place from my office on the fourth floor, as I did.

Just before I left, I checked the calendar. I remember reading that the Pope is going to be here on September 14. That is the day he is going to arrive in Toronto. I checked the calendar because I said to myself, "The crisis must really be at hand." Lo and behold, the calendar said this was only August 29.

What we are doing here today is providing the backdrop to the wrapup of the "Mulroney can do it" campaign and the kickoff for the "Davis can do it" campaign. That is what all this is about. This is the ultimate, final political grandstand of the most cynical, orchestrated few days in recent labour relations history in this province.

There is no reason whatsoever in the world why the mediators, why the Minister of Labour, why his deputy minister, why the top mediators are not sitting in a hotel room now saying, "Let us get this thing resolved."

My friend the leader of the third party and I may differ when the vote comes later on. We may split and we may differ in very many ways.

Interjections.

Mr. Wrye: I hear the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), but he knows how we are voting on this. I would have been very interested to see what would have happened on September 13, but he will not have to face that crisis.

I must say that, for all of the points where I disagree with the conclusion of my friend the leader of the third party, I certainly agree with the suggestion that 12 or 13 days before a strike is scheduled to begin is not a time for this House to be in session debating a bill such as we have here in Bill 125.

4:40 p.m.

It would be useful, since the Tories have chosen to make this the kickoff of their re-election campaign, to review for the members of the Legislature, the members of the gallery and the public in general, just how competently the Tory government has managed this whole affair. I thought my friend the member for Essex South captured in a very good way the whole spirit of the government's ham-handed, clumsy and ultimately disastrous handling of this whole negotiation process.

It was very clear when the vote was taken on August 15, when the results were counted, with 52 per cent voting "no," that we were at a point where we were very close to a settlement. In fact, as members all know, the union executive had accepted the agreement, had agreed to a tentative settlement, and the membership only very narrowly, by fewer than 200 if I remember, voted against it. My friend the member for Essex South has made a suggestion, and I think his suggestion is the wise one. I keep hearing from my friend the Minister of Labour just how good the mediation efforts of this government are, how good the mediators are, what high quality they are. Frankly, since I was formerly Labour critic for this party, one of the things I must say is I must agree with the minister that there are high-quality mediation services offered by this government. There is a very high and competent quality to the mediators.

Instead of saying. "Now get back with the parties, we are at the edge of a breakthrough, we are at the edge of a settlement," what did this minister decide to do? He said: 'Well, 1,900 people did not vote. Let us have another vote." I guess it almost begs the question whether, if the vote had been 52 to 48 in favour, he would have said: "Well, 1,900 did not vote. Let us have a second vote."? I thought the analogy from the member for Essex South was terrific. I did not hear this minister get up on his feet after the last provincial election to say: "Mr. Premier, we got only 25 per cent of the vote and 44 per cent of the people of Ontario did not vote. We had better do it again because we do not really have a right to govern.

In this democratic society we take the vote. We say to the workers: "There will be a vote this Sunday. Show up if that is your will." Some workers were ill. Some workers had other business. Some workers, believe it or not in the month of August, were probably away on holidays. I know that thought perhaps never crossed the minister's mind, but maybe a few people were away on holidays. There were a lot of good reasons. Some workers, as in elections, as with union votes -- any kind of a vote -- simply choose not to vote, but that is their right in a democracy.

The minister did not like the vote. He did not say to the mediators, "Let us sit down and get them behind closed doors and let us not come out until we rearrange the dollars, until we rearrange the benefits, until we rearrange the working conditions, until we rearrange something to get that extra 95 votes." It did not take a switch of 187; it would take a switch of about 95 votes. Instead, what did the minister do? He said, "Let us have a second vote."

I happened to be here in Toronto. It was the one time I have been down here this month before today. I have been back tending to constituency matters in Windsor -- maybe a few others as well. But I happened to be here just before the order in effect was given: "Why don't you folks just have a second vote. Let us do it again. I did not like it the first time."

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The member said I ordered a vote. The member for Essex South earlier stated I forced a vote. I suggested a vote.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, I will go along with the minister that he suggested strongly they have a second vote. What really surprised me was not the reaction but that he would find the reaction unexpected because the reaction was an obvious one. People who voted the first time in favour of the contract said: "We are going to vote against this thing because we are not going to be bullied. We are not going to be pushed around. We still believe it is a good result, but we are simply going to vote on the principle that the first vote should have stood." At that point, positions really hardened.

In spite of that, the second vote again showed only a 52 per cent "no." At that point, it seems to me, there still remained a possibility that a settlement could be reached. Obviously, they were so very close to a settlement. The minister described the impasse as being that wide. I cannot believe that with a swing of 95 votes the impasse was that wide. It seems to me that some good, tough bargaining could have produced the kind of change that the executive could have gone back with to the membership, and we could have got a settlement in short order. But no, we had the second vote.

What was the next step of this government? They said, "We are going to bring in the ultimate mediator, that well-known mediator from Brampton, the Honourable William G. Davis." I can just imagine what kind of tough, hard-hitting mediation there must have been on Monday of this week. It lasted all of two hours. Most of the time probably was spent in asking, "Cream or sugar for your coffee?" In essence, all the Premier was trying to do was lay the political groundwork for the kind of grandstanding that has gone on since.

Here we are, 13 days away from a strike -- if my numbers are accurate; it may be 14 -- two more days after that away from the beginning of the papal visit, and the government of the day is saying, "There is just no hope they can settle." I believe, and I say so with some reluctance, that the papal visit is of crucial importance to a great number of the citizens of this community and to a great number of citizens of my community.

I say with some regret that I reach a different conclusion on how to deal with this legislation than the New Democratic Party does. With my years in Windsor, a very well-organized labour city where we have a lot of collective agreements negotiated, and with what I have seen over the years of the way the pressure builds on both the employer and employee in the waning hours and the way mediators in a sense can wear down the opposition between the two and bring them together, it seems to me with 13 days left we should have spent about 11 or 12 of them trying to get the agreement that was still within reach.

The Minister of Labour, if necessary, should have gone to the hotel room himself. But at least the mediator should have gone into the hotel room and said to the two sides: "This is intolerable. You do not want a strike. The workers do not want a strike. The employer does not want a strike. The public certainly does not want a strike."

I am sure, as my friend the member for York South (Mr. Rae) said, 99.98 percent of them do not want a strike. "You are so close. Now get in there and use your imagination. Come up with something." Obviously, there was little they needed to come up with. Yet the government said: "No. It would look like we were being decisive; it would give the illusion of decisiveness if we called the Legislature back five days before a federal election."

I do not mind staying here. My friend in the NDP said we want to trap them in Toronto. Frankly, I have better things to do with my time. We are going to re-elect three Liberals in Windsor, and I have better things to do just making sure we do that. I am sure we all want to be out working for our favourite candidate or candidates.

Mr. McClellan: For the party of your choice.

4:50 p.m.

Mr. Wrye: For the party of our choice. It is not a matter of us wanting to keep anyone here. All of us, being political animals, would like to be out on the campaign trail. But for this government, it served its interests in two ways. They must be getting a little worried over there. They can help buttress Mulroney by showing a little decisiveness. Of course, Decima Research must have done some instant polling as to what the reaction would be if we came back and got tough with the drivers. It became more important to get the Tory election campaign well under way than it did to ensure we made as much effort as we could to ensure that, even if this bill had to come in, every avenue of collective bargaining was explored.

Thirteen days before the strike deadline and 15 days before the papal visit is to begin, we have decided to explore the collective bargaining procedure no longer. The minister explains it away by saying, "An impasse has been reached." This is not the first dispute, and every member knows it. Impasses are reached, and later we can move them off dead centre. They may well be on dead centre right now. They have been put on dead centre by the silly attitude of this Minister of Labour in suggesting and then conducting a second vote on a strike, rather than keeping the momentum going.

In conclusion, I want to say I will vote for this piece of legislation with a great deal of reluctance. Given, in a sense, almost the emergency nature, because it is a very positive emergency -- this papal visit is a very important occasion with estimates of up to 500,000 people who will have to be moved through the metropolitan area to go to something which for many of them will be the most important event of this year, this decade and, for some, of their lives, I do not know that we can deny them that opportunity. I do not know that it can be denied to the people of this community, the people of my community and all those hundreds of thousands of people who look forward with such anticipation to the papal visit.

I do this with reluctance because I do not think this bill was necessary. What was necessary was for us to have a government that would handle these disputes properly and begin to think of people, be they those going to the visit, be they the Roman Catholic clergy who have organized the visit so well, or be they the employees of the Amalgamated Transit Union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees who have bargained in good faith and who had the right to expect this government would have allowed them at least to bargain right up to the last minute.

If it was the will of this government to deny them the right to strike to preserve the papal visit, that is one thing, but what we have here is political grandstanding of the most cynical kind, led by the Premier with his chief lieutenant, the Minister of Labour. The government has really shown today that its main object is re-election. Its object is certainly not the preservation and expansion of the collective bargaining process.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to take an inordinate amount of time in this debate. I know other members want to participate in it.

I want to try to focus for a moment or two on a pretty simple feature of this travesty that is taking place in the Legislature today. I will be speaking as strongly as I can against Bill 125. I will be asking people in the governing party and those to my right in the Liberal Party to think again about what they are doing in supporting this legislation.

The minister, in that long and flowery 16-page statement, made one passing reference to the central event that is preoccupying us this afternoon. He referred to "an historic event of deep spiritual significance." If I am not mistaken, that was the only reference in the entire document, although I do not have it with me. I believe that six-word subordinate clause was the only reference in that 16-page statement to the reason we are here this afternoon, namely, that on September 12 the Holy Father will be visiting Ontario.

We are being called back into session to end a strike which has not begun, to take away the bargaining rights of workers who are in the conciliation and mediation stage of industrial relations. We are being called back here to strip the democratic rights of working men and women in, as I understand it, three different union locals, and for what end? To accommodate the visit of His Holiness the Pope.

It seems to me there is a very profound confusion of ends and means here about which I want to ask people to think seriously. I am quite comfortable in talking about this as an aspect of the Holy Father's visit. As a member of the Catholic community myself I do not have any queasiness or hesitation in discussing this issue from that perspective.

It has been suggested in some of the media that some of us -- I think I was named -- are somehow fearful of the Catholic community because of the stand we are taking on this visit on the eve of the Holy Father's arrival in Ontario. I am not afraid of my brothers and sisters in my own community. I do not feel some kind of compulsion to distort myself in order to try to curry favour with my own community.

I feel very comfortable about the way in which I approach my community. I mean this quite sincerely. I do not have a shred of fear or hesitation and make no apology to anyone about the position I am taking with respect to what the minister calls "an historical event of deep spiritual significance."

Let us not forget that what is happening on September 12 is not a secular event. It is not part of the bicentennial celebrations of the Progressive Conservative Party, thank you very much, It is not something that is being organized by the government of Canada or the province of Ontario. It is not a secular event.

It is not a political event, although it is hard to remember that on an occasion like this. It is a religious event being organized by a religious community for its own religious purposes. I think it is deplorable that the government of this province has chosen to intrude itself into this religious event in a very destructive way.

As I said, Bill 125 is a confusion of ends and means. For the purpose of accommodating a religious celebration, the government is engaged in an action which is wrong and indefensible on a number of counts.

First, it has unleashed a torrent of anti-union sentiment among the public. As part of Bill 125 there has been a process at work which has involved stirring up public opinion against the rights of workers to exercise free collective bargaining and to withdraw their labour voluntarily in support of an effort to improve their wages and working conditions.

I must say, and I have said it before publicly, I was profoundly appalled that a spokesman from the chancery office, and I am referring to Mr. Wimbs, spoke and used the rhetoric of "the workers at the TIC holding the Pope up to ransom." What he meant by that phrase was that they were exercising their legal, democratic, constitutional right to free collective bargaining and to withdraw their labour in support of their wage demands. It has nothing to do with holding anybody up to ransom and it is highly regrettable that kind of charged rhetoric has intruded into this issue.

5 p.m.

We have seen articles in the media and editorials in the Toronto Sun. We have all heard, I am sure, comments such as, "They should be glad they have got jobs at all with all the people out of work." We have all heard these kinds of comments and we have been talking to people about it. The feelings that have been whipped up are that workers ought to know when to keep their place; they are so lucky to have a job; they should not have the audacity to try to bargain to improve their wages and working conditions, and they should shut up and be thankful they are not on the bread line.

Is that the level to which labour relations in this province have sunk? How intolerable it is that the occasion of the papal visit is being used by some people to stir up these kinds of feelings. How incompatible it is with the "historical event of deep spiritual significance" to turn it into an opportunity to whip up anti-union and anti-worker sentiment across this province. That is precisely what has happened and I deplore that.

Second, of course -- and I have already alluded to this -- is the fact that it strips workers of their constitutional and democratic rights to free collective bargaining. How ironic it is that this is being done on the occasion of the visit to this country of a Pope who has issued the strongest statement in the history of the church about the rights of working people to form free trade unions and to exercise their rights to free collective bargaining, including the right to strike. No other Pope, I believe, has issued such a strong statement in the form of an encyclical about the rights of workers to exercise their right to strike. How do we honour his visit to Ontario? By crushing these rights, by stamping them out, by snuffing them out in the name of some nonsense about an endangered public safety.

Third, my leader referred to the fact that this historic event is being used by some in this community to turn sections of the working community against each other -- those who live in Ontario Housing turned against those who work for the Toronto Transit Commission; those who have jobs turned against those who do not have jobs and that kind of poisoning of community relationships being done in the name of what -- of public safety in honour of the occasion of the Holy Father's visit? What an edifying spectacle this is, that these kinds of destructive and confrontational and negative attitudes, this systematic fostering of bad will between different members of the community is taking place as part of the preparations for a papal visit.

We should be ashamed that this is happening in our community. We should have done everything possible to make sure that a settlement was achieved as a result of collective bargaining, rather than through this kind of draconian, arbitrary, unfair and undemocratic imposition of the sanction of state against the workers. Let us not kid ourselves. If we look at the penalty sections of Bill 125, all the coercive powers of the state are employed against the TTC workers, including daily fines of $1,000 per individual and daily fines of $10,000 against the corporation and trade union if they violate the law, which I assume the government wants to see passed some time today.

Finally, the bill is wrong because, as has been pointed out so ably by my leader, it destroys independent-interest arbitration in this province. So we say to workers in the public sector who are deemed to be working in essential services that they cannot have the right to strike because they are essential-service workers. Instead, we will give them not an independent arbitration but a kind of phoney charade in which the government sets the parameters before the arbitration even begins, which independent and well-respected arbitrators are in fact publicly boycotting, so that we are left with a totally arbitrary, unilaterally imposed system of settlements emanating from the Premier's own office and imposed on contract disputes all across the province.

It is, as I said, a real confusion of ends and means. Those of the members who support this bill will have to do so on the basis that they believe the end justifies the means, that the end of convenience during the papal visit justifies what I regard as thoroughly disreputable means of achieving that end, and they will have to live with the consequences of that.

To go back to the first point I made, I do not have the slightest qualm, not the slightest twinge of apprehension at facing the Catholic community or anybody in the community and at saying straightforwardly why I have opposed Bill 125.

I am opposing Bill 125 because I am as committed as anybody in this room to a successful papal visit. Every one of the people in this assembly knows the key to the success of the papal visit, from a transportation perspective, depends on securing the voluntary co-operation of almost the entire fleet of TTC drivers working overtime during the whole of the papal visit to provide effective public transportation. If that voluntary effort is not successful, there are going to be serious problems. Everybody knows that.

At the same time as the government says it is expecting this amazing manifestation of goodwill on the part of the transit workers themselves, in order to provide an essential service to the people who will be attending the papal visit, it is treating these workers with the most fundamental bad faith, the most fundamental ill will.

I remain absolutely mystified as to why the government has chosen to take that approach. I repeat what my leader said: We are absolutely convinced that the parties were not far apart at the bargaining table. This is manifested in public statements that were made by workers in the media, by the closeness of the vote and by the fact that the membership of the union gave a clear signal to the executive to go back to the bargaining table. Management said: "No, the guideline is five per cent and five per cent it will be. Period. Final."

The government said nothing. The government did not offer to lift the guideline restrictions of Bill 111. The government did not offer to make a gesture of goodwill to the transit workers and to management and say, "Go back and see what it takes to get a settlement and tell us what you need from us to get a settlement and to ensure the success of this extraordinary event taking place on September 12."

The government did not do that. It simply relied on the coercive power of the state to strip the workers of their rights and to force them back to work, and now it will expect, as I said, some extraordinary degree of goodwill on the part of those same transit workers to make the visit a success.

5:10 p.m.

I think there is still time -- f believe this very deeply -- to pull back from this foolish course, this destructive course, this negative course, this bitter course. There is still time to reach out in a spirit of goodwill and generosity, which surely this occasion demands. I believe there is still time for evidence of goodwill on the part of this government, for evidence of generosity of spirit. And if that were forthcoming, both parties could go back to the bargaining table, both parties could hammer out an agreement and the government could do whatever is necessary to get a negotiated settlement and, instead of the divisive bitterness this bill will leave as its legacy, we could proceed with the historic events of September in a spirit of genuine goodwill and reconciliation.

I fear that will not happen, but I very much hope that, despite the passage of Bill 125, a spirit of goodwill and reconciliation will emerge so that people can make the effort of will that will be required to transcend the bitterness that this government and this Legislature will create if Bill 125 is passed. I hope the voluntary effort that will be required in September will take place.

I tell the government and my friends in the Liberal Party, that is a gamble I am not prepared to take. It is a risk I am not prepared to take when a sensible path is open to us. There are more than two full weeks of time available to us. As my leader said, there is a large window, a big opportunity, and an opportunity for some breadth of vision and real statesmanship from the leaders of the government. There is an opportunity to pull this community together and to bind up wounds, not to rub raw the sores of discontent, which is what this bill will do.

How inappropriate and wrong it is to stir up these feelings in the name of the convenience of the Holy Father's visit. That is fundamentally wrong. I suspect that some members of the government and some members of the Liberal Party realize that. I think we have time over the course of this debate to come up with a better solution than is contained in Bill 125. I very much hope we have the wit to do it.

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Speaker, I want to address myself to Bill 125, An Act respecting Labour Disputes between Toronto Transit Commission, Gray Coach Lines, Limited and GO Transit Locals 113 and 1587, Amalgamated Transit Union, Lodge 235, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local No. 2.

I was interested in the explanatory note. I have a great deal of difficulty supporting this type of legislation. It says, "Part I of the bill provides for the compulsory arbitration of the labour disputes involving the Toronto Transit Commission, Gray Coach Lines, Limited and the unions representing their employees, to ensure continuity of operations. Part II ensures that the existing understanding regarding GO Transit's takeover of certain Gray Coach Lines routes will be incorporated into the collective agreement between GO Transit and the union representing its employees."

If I can have the attention of the Minister of Labour, I want to make a few comments on this area. He is well aware of the present suggestion to transfer a certain number of bus drivers to the GO Transit system. I suppose there will be a division between the different unions in this area. I hope that when the transition occurs in this area they will have the same guarantee under this union collective agreement. I had some reservations that if they were transferred to the GO Transit system, they might not have that collective bargaining unit with them. It indicates that here and I hope it continues.

I look at the words "compulsory arbitration." I can recall back in 1974, and the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch) can recall, that the Legislature was involved in a strike settlement at that time. We are all concerned about public safety and the impact on the community that a strike of this nature would have. We are looking at one of the largest transportation systems in North America, one that covers the Metropolitan Toronto area and outlying areas such as Niagara Falls and Buffalo.

We are concerned about the public impact of a lengthy strike. We saw the one of 35 or 45 days and saw the one of four days in 1978 that the Legislature was involved in. In his opening statement the minister said the reason the bill was introduced this afternoon was because of an impasse at the bargaining table. As long as government is called to enact legislation to put people back to work or to stop a strike, then this government and Legislature will be involved all the time. Management or even labour can take the position they can bargain hard at the bargaining table because they have nothing to worry about. They would realize they could always look to the Legislature to get the employees back to work.

I think that is a wrong course for any government to take. Since the first strike, I have introduced a private member's bill that is similar to, but not as harsh as, what the minister has here. I introduced it again this year -- Bill 97, An Act to amend the Labour Relations Act. The explanatory note says: "The purpose of this bill is to provide a mechanism whereby the Lieutenant Governor in Council can order a 60-day suspension of a strike or lockout and order a return to work where the strike or lockout constitutes an immediate and serious danger to life, health and safety or seriously disrupts the economy of the province in any area of the province."

The minister has said that in his opening statement. I thought for a minute he was going to copy this bill. I think it is a good piece of legislation. It has worked very well in the United States, particularly in their transportation system. The government can always invoke such a measure to stop something like what is occurring today.

My bill provided that the Minister of Labour must appoint a conciliation officer -- not an arbitrator but a conciliation officer. Once an arbitrator steps into the negotiation picture the free collective bargaining process disappears. He considers the facts and decides which area should be settled or he gives a statement to the government saying the parties must follow a certain path. The arbitrator removes the process of free collective bargaining.

My explanatory note states further: "The conciliation officer, where an order respecting a strike or lockout has been made, may subsequently appoint a conciliation board where the efforts of the conciliation officer to effect a collective agreement are unsuccessful. If the conciliation efforts are unsuccessful, the strike or the lockout may be resumed without a further strike vote. An order made under this bill would be as enforceable as an order from the Supreme Court."

That is very simple legislation. It does not remove the right to strike. The free collective bargaining process still remains. I thought this government always looked to the free collective bargaining process, but on three occasions here, relating to the TTC, it has removed it.

We have seen what happens in arbitration with the police when they negotiated for a settlement. We have also seen it with the professional firefighters, who have been accustomed to arbitration. An arbitrator looks at the question and decides both these are essential services.

Has this government looked at whether transit systems, particularly in Toronto, should be considered essential services? I cannot recall any place other than Toronto where the government has brought in legislation related to a transit strike or lockout. We are only concerned about Metropolitan Toronto, not the outlying areas that still encounter difficulties in transportation which cause hardships to the community.

The leader of the NDP mentioned the different strikes that have been lengthy. I am concerned about one he talked about. I do not want to repeat what he said about the strike at Horton CBI. It is going into its ninth month and if some action is not taken by this government or the Ministry of Labour that industry no doubt will disappear from the town of Fort Erie. All the staff and blue collar workers will disappear from that community if some action is not taken by the government.

5:20 p.m.

If the minister had a piece of legislation similar to one I have suggested, we could have those persons back at the bargaining table. The union has not requested anything out of the ordinary in that strike at Horton or even with the TTC. The majority of TTC employees have accepted the five per cent. That is in line with government restraint policy.

When we look at the government restraint policy, we see the guideline of five per cent that was introduced by this government and supported by a great many members of this Legislature. Then we see the Ontario Hydro rate increase that has been suggested, 10.3 per cent; that happens year after year with Hydro. There is also the ad valorem tax on gasoline, which has increased by about 100 per cent in a matter of three and a half years. Is that within the provincial guideline of five per cent? The good Lord knows what is going to happen if the Tories are elected federally. Our energy costs are perhaps going to go sky high.

I do not know what the Tories are going to come in with next year as it relates to the restraint program. But I hope the restraint program applies to the government, whatever government is placed there on September 4. There are other methods and alternatives to get around bringing in legislation every time.

Nobody thinks about the garbage strike in Etobicoke, which is now in its fifth week. They say there is no health problem there, but with the pesticides they are using there now and the heavy fall rains coming, we may have environmental problems if there are not some measures to get the parties back to the bargaining table. I suppose they are looking at the same thing and saying, "If it continues this way, we can always look to the Legislature to bail us out if there is an impasse."

That is one of the problems when the government introduces a bill of this nature. Large unions no doubt will come in and say, "We will drive a hard bargain." Management that has to deal with it at the bargaining table will say, "We are not in any hurry to settle it, because if it gets out of hand we can always look to the Legislature to bail us out."

There should be some preventive measures. My private member's bill, Bill 97, provides the government with the leeway to prevent a strike. As I said, it has worked very successfully in the United States. As much as we are loath to look to our neighbours to the south, sometimes they have pretty good legislation. In fact, the United Steelworkers of America brought much of the US legislation here, bringing about some good labour relations in Ontario. That was not done without some difficulties and some struggle, but eventually some good legislation came forward.

If the government settles the dispute, it should not be based on the religious factor. I know the other two times, in 1974 and 1978, it was not based upon a religious factor. It was based upon the transportation needs of the general public in and around Toronto and of the school students who use the transportation system here in Ontario. The religious thing should be left out of the picture.

There is a need out there that has to be resolved. I do not like to use the words "religious matters" in the House, because it would have happened and the government would have brought in a bill regardless. I cannot be critical of the government in that area. Some members over there may have a conscience and may have to answer to St. Peter up there at the Pearly Gates. They may think this is the right way to go; I do not know.

There are other alternatives. The minister is going to have to come up with some other labour legislation and take another look at the bill I have introduced. It is a good piece of legislation. I introduced it for a reason. I could see these things coming forward year after year. This Legislature should not be a place where we have to settle some major strikes or possible major strikes in Ontario. The government, through the Lieutenant Governor, can invoke a certain section of the Labour Relations Act to open some avenues. When an impasse exists, sometimes we have to take this approach to end a dispute or to stop a strike or a lockout. This is an area the government should be looking at.

I support the principle of the bill with some reluctance. I do not see any end to it unless the government brings in some new, progressive legislation in this area. I was just thinking it has been about 40 years -- 41 years, I guess it is now -- and the government should be considering this type of legislation.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak for a few minutes on Bill 125, which has been introduced before us today.

As the minister is aware, I have been engaged all summer with the concern that the labour laws of this province and the way in which this government deals with matters related to labour relations are totally ineffective for the purposes of protecting working people. I have gone through it, from May 29 until early in August, watching the laws of this province and the federal laws come into conflict with private interests in a company in my riding which had been in existence for some 99 years, has now run away and 155 jobs are lost.

All the meetings and all the participation by all the people involved could not prevent it for one single moment. Finally the gun was put to the head of the union to agree to certain conditions under which the plant would run away, to protect what? The unpaid wages amounting to some $76,000 and some additional moneys with respect to vacations with pay.

No reference was made to the fact that their severance pay and termination pay was wiped out entirely, that the laws of the province are totally ineffective in protecting workers in this society and that one who participates in the meetings involved simply is part of the game that is played to soften the blow until the public interest disappears entirely and people are laid off.

Talking about people, the main part of that work force was made up of people who had come recently to this country. One of the men on the bargaining committee was from Guyana. He had arrived here in 1972 and had not worked anywhere else. He has no job now. Another person on the bargaining committee was from Jamaica. He had worked in that plant for a considerable period of time and has no job. Another person was from Estonia. He had worked in that plant for a long time and has no job.

The combination of the relationships of private interests which can subvert the laws of this province with respect to labour relations and get no help from the federal government in establishing any priority with respect to wages in bankruptcy and receivership matters is something I deplore, but nothing is being done about it. There are constant discussions, constant talk; nothing ever happens.

It is an anomaly in the law of this province that a worker's vacation pay is better protected than his unpaid wages. It is quite unbelievable that the work that has been done does not have the kind of protection that vacation pay has. Until something is done about what is talked about as the superpriority of workers' earned money, earned termination pay, earned severance pay and earned vacation pay and other benefits, I do not have a great deal of confidence in this government when it brings in a bill such as Bill 125 today.

I want to say three or four things in the course of the comments I want to make about this bill. First of all, I want to talk about Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union. I want the people of the assembly to understand that it happens to be one of the finest work forces in Metropolitan Toronto.

I use the transit system, and I have had in my riding, as occasion permits, during election time, the support of members of Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union and have had to some extent, to the extent that they are able to do so, some financial assistance from that union. I hope it is because they understand that I stand for the concerns of that union.

5:30 p.m.

Day in and day out, as I ride the transit system, both the subway system and the streetcar system in the city of Toronto in the area I represent and in the area in which I live, I have seen that the public relations of that work force are very good. The people who use that service do not look down upon them and are not prepared to say that this group of people is holding us up to some kind of ransom. That is not so. The relationship of that work force with the community is much more firmly grounded than the kind of rhetoric the Minister of Labour interposed in his statement earlier today.

I want to say to you, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Labour and to the Deputy Premier -- I wish the Premier and the Treasurer were here -- that if they think Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union workers was not going to provide any kind of essential, necessary service for those in need of it, then they do not understand the kind of spirit that exists in that local. Had there been any need to provide protection for life in the city of Toronto and in Metropolitan Toronto, it would have been provided. I want members to understand that.

Every time a strike is mooted in any part of the service in the province where somebody wants to say, "Let us undermine it," he immediately talks as though the members of the work force are somehow hostile to society. They are just as aware of what the needs might be, not of people who would be inconvenienced, which is what we are basically talking about, but where there is any question of danger to life, health or safety, in which case that interim service would be provided by arrangement between the Toronto Transit Commission and that union.

I want to set that question very clearly before us, because if weasel words were ever used in a bill that was presented to this assembly, it is in the preamble to this bill. I must say that we get preambles only to bills related to labour relations; we do not generally get them in any other kind of bill. The preamble speaks of "rendering travel difficult" -- it goes without saying; of course it is inconvenient -- and "endangering the public safety."

I want to say to the government that this is an insult to working people in the kinds of unions that are in the position of the transit workers, the hospital workers or any of the sectors that provide public service. I do not know what game is being played; I do not know why the government plays games with this kind of language in bills such as this. Then, having thrown that in, it carries on and says, "whereas the public interest and welfare require that means be provided to avert the strikes ... ."

Nobody on the government benches has stood in his place to say; I have read in the press that the Premier is not saying this is an essential service. If that is the government's position, let it say so and let us debate that issue. Let us find out what the parameters of essential services are. This is not what they are talking about, because this bill will disappear from the statute books when all of its terms have been provided, and it so provides in the bill.

I am simply saying to the Deputy Premier, in the absence of the Premier, that I do not accept this kind of weasel language. Either stand up and say the Metropolitan Toronto transit system is an essential service so we can debate and discuss it or stop the kind of nonsense that appears in Bill 125.

The next thing I want to say is that regardless of what the Minister of Labour may say or what semantic language the Premier may use in discussions with the press or what may have taken place in the discussions with the head of the union of Local 113 and the chairman of the commission when they met, regardless of any of that kind of situation, the government of Ontario is a party to the negotiations. It did not move when it had the opportunity to move to make this bill entirely unnecessary.

Why do I say that? Because the Toronto Transit Commission, which is the principal employer that is bargaining, is a commission appointed by the Metropolitan Toronto council. It has never referred any of the matters related to this dispute to the Metropolitan Toronto council. It has simply bypassed the Metropolitan Toronto council. It has not gone to that council and said: "Look, we have this kind of problem. What are we going to do?" With the impending visit of His Holiness the Pope to Toronto, with the kind of ongoing problem involved in the transit service and the quality of the transit service, they simply ignored Metropolitan Toronto council.

They did not even have a head of council to go to, although he is a member of the Toronto Transit Commission, as I understand it. With great respect, Chairman Godfrey is a dead-duck chairman. The potential holder of that office is up to his hips in garbage in Etobicoke. So there is nobody at the Metropolitan Toronto level with whom they could deal. There is nobody at the Metropolitan Toronto council to say, "What are you going to do?"

Julian Porter, the chairman of the commission, and Lyons, the vice-chairman, being good Tories and both being lawyers, know where the real power is and they simply said, "It is the government of Ontario."

From my point of view, the bargainer at the table is sitting in this assembly today in the person of the Deputy Premier, in the absence of the Premier. There is nothing left for the Minister of Labour to do. I give him credit. He has exhausted all he can do; he could not do anything more about it. But the Deputy Premier, the Premier and the Treasurer could easily have provided the kind of leeway that would have permitted a negotiated settlement in a situation that had reached a particular point where the possibility of a settlement depended on the leadership to be provided by this government and they failed to do it.

My leader has referred to it. Bill 111 is here. The government could easily have indicated in the dying days of Bill 111, chapter 70 of the statutes of 1983: "In the negotiations taking place, that bill no longer applies to what you are doing. Go into the room, sit down, negotiate. The public interest in the papal visit is such that you are not to come out of that room without an agreement." It could have sent the Deputy Premier into that meeting as a prime negotiator in the game that was being played to bring about a settlement.

I know the Deputy Premier. I know very well that with the backing of the Treasurer and the Premier himself there would have been a settlement and all this nonsense we are engaged in here would not be taking place today.

5:40 p.m.

Mr. Martel: But no politics for the Tories.

Mr. Renwick: I can be on politics at three levels. I want to leave aside the cynicism that comes across in the tactics related to this and to try to deal with what I see as the principal parts of the political context to it.

I am engaged, as all of us are, in the federal election campaign in the area I represent. I really do not care about the cynicism of this government. I have been around long enough to understand that cynicism and to know that on November 8 or thereabouts there probably will be an election. It is at least 50-50 that there will be an election on November 22. The politics are all there. I have been through it all.

I want to ask the Deputy Premier, is the government prepared to say now that, when this bill is passed, it will still go to the table? There is nothing in the bill that prevents it from going to the table. If it goes to the table, matters that are reached in agreement at the table are taken out of the hands of the arbitrators. It is still possible, even at this late date on the road the government is determined to pursue, for the real bargainers to go to the table to negotiate a settlement that will provide the result everyone in this chamber knows has to come about. It can do it. If it is not prepared to do it, I think it has no real sense of the importance of the issue before us.

On an occasion such as this, I am not one to talk about constitutional matters. The reason, of course, is that long before any case fought on the basis of the constitutionality of this bill is before the courts the matter of the papal visit will be over. It would be a useless exercise, but that does not alter the facts. I know the Attorney General is never here when there is a constitutional matter. He relies on the courts to overturn his constitutional positions rather than listening to the arguments made here indicating the unconstitutionality of what is taking place.

The law of the province at the present time recognizes freedom of association. Three of the judges of the Supreme Court of Ontario did so. Some people may say this is not a particularly appropriate time to talk about the fundamentals of what is involved in this, but I want to quote from each of the three judges' unanimous decision in a matter related to the meaning and content of freedom of association, which has been appealed by the Attorney General and is now in the hands of the Ontario Court of Appeal for decision in the face of the judgement of the three judges.

Mr. Justice Smith said this: "It follows, and it is trite to say it, I suppose, that the freedom to associate carries with it the freedom to meet to pursue the lawful objects and activities essential to the association's purposes, being in this instance the wellbeing, economic and otherwise, of its members. The freedom to associate as used in the charter, not being on its face a limited one, includes the freedom to organize, to bargain collectively and as a necessary corollary to strike."

Mr. Justice Galligan said: "The purpose of an association of workers in a union is clear. It is to advance their common interests. If they are not free to take such lawful steps that they see as reasonable to advance those interests, including bargaining and striking, then as a practical matter their association is a barren and useless thing. I cannot imagine that the charter was ever intended to guarantee the freedom of association without also guaranteeing the freedom to do that for which the association is intended. I have no hesitation in concluding that in guaranteeing workers' freedom of association, the charter also guarantees at the very least their freedom to organize, to choose their own union, to bargain and to strike."

Mr. Justice O'Leary said: "The right to organize and bargain collectively is only an illusion if the right to strike does not go with it. The main reason that the right to organize and bargain collectively is assured employees is that they may effectively bargain with their employer. To take away an employee's ability to strike so seriously detracts from the benefits of the right to organize and bargain collectively as to make those rights virtually meaningless. If the right to organize and bargain collectively is to have significant value, then the right to strike must also be a right included in the expression 'freedom of association,' and I conclude that it is."

What could be more succinct and what could be more straight forward than the statement of three of the judges of the Supreme Court of Ontario, as they understand it, sitting as a Divisional Court in a matter related to the constitutionality of a bill which the Attorney General opposed going before that court and which he immediately appealed?

Let me perhaps try to set in its place, not the argument about constitutionality but what it is all about, because somehow or other the members of Local 113 are being isolated from the community in which they live, move and have their being, their work, their families, their lives and everything else, as though they are doing something wrong, as though they are doing something which is subversive, as though they should not be doing what they are doing.

Let me just, if I may, read a quotation Mr. Justice O'Leary used in his part of his comments in respect of the importance of freedom of association -- not because it is in the charter; it is in the charter because of its importance -- and that is a quotation he used for the rationale for freedom of association.

The rationale for freedom of association for trade union purposes and its relation to fundamental human rights has been expressed by N.C.W. Jenks in Human Rights and International Labour Standards, published by Stevens and Sons Ltd., 1960, page 49. This is the quotation he uses as the rationale because of the aptness of what he had to say.

"In an age of interdependence in large-scale organizations in which the individual counts for so little, unless he acts in co-operation with his fellows, freedom of association has become the cornerstone of civil liberties and social and economic rights alike. It has long been the bulwark of religious freedom and political liberty. It has increasingly become a necessary condition of economic and social freedom for the ordinary citizen.

"Freedom of association by highly organized and powerful economic interests calls for a counterpart in strong leadership in the public interest by the state, but the strong leadership by the state without the counterpart of such freedom of association can be dangerous for political as well as for economic and social freedom."

It seemed appropriate to me to put the rationale of what we are talking about with respect to the Constitution of the country, with respect to the legality of what the members of Local 113 were contemplating and what in the ordinary course would have taken place to require continuing and ongoing negotiations during the interval which was available if the proper parties were at the table, namely, the government of Ontario.

5:50 p.m.

I perhaps want to say to the government, as my leader has said in the comments he made in opening, that on the road it has gone in this matter, the way in which it has handled it, I doubt it has the capacity to take any of the suggestions which are made from this party with respect to how to deal with the issue that is before us. But I am going to suggest to the government the possibility that it consider that Bill 111 has run its course; that Bill 111, chapter 70, An Act to provide for the Review of Prices and Compensation in the Public Sector and for an orderly Transition to the Resumption of full Collective Bargaining, has run its course and should be off the statute books.

The government has the power here already, through the Lieutenant Governor in Council, which in my understanding is the government of Ontario, to make regulations. Under clause 11(1)(a) of that bill, "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations, (a) terminating in whole or in part the application of this act to a group compensation plan to which this act applies where there exist special circumstances that justify such termination in keeping with the spirit and intent of this act."

The government has the opportunity to pass the regulations that will free the arbitrator in a particular situation from dealing with this matter, subject to the intolerable restriction imposed on that arbitrator by this bill.

The Minister of Labour finally, after how many tries? -- a half dozen questions today -- admitted very clearly that subsection 10(1) of Bill 111 applies to the arbitration that is going to take place. This subsection says, "Every act or regulation that requires or permits an issue that arises in collective bargaining by or on behalf of employees to whom this part applies to be submitted to or determined by arbitration shall be deemed to include a provision that the arbitrator shall consider the employer's ability to pay in the light of existing provincial fiscal policy."

It is right in the government's court; it can do it. When the bill is put into committee, we intend to move an amendment -- we have provided it to the government and to the opposition -- to make that point abundantly and perfectly clear by providing for an amendment to section 6 of the bill that would specifically state that part I of the Public Sector Prices and Compensation Review Act, 1983, does not apply to the employees mentioned in subsection 2(1) or to their group compensation plans as defined in that act.

The government has two alternatives in front of it. Either it can say today it will accept the amendment or will pass the regulation that will free the arbitrator from this intolerable restriction on his function as an arbitrator of this dispute, or the Deputy Premier, on behalf of the government, can go to the bargaining table himself, sit down with the officers and the bargaining committee of Local 113 and the other locals of the smaller representation in the work force at the Toronto Transit Commission and bargain the gap that is there.

He can bargain, not an impasse, which is the word used, as though there is some chasm between the two parties that no one can jump, that cannot be bridged and that either party trying to reach out to the hand of the other party to reach an agreement is going to fall into some abysmal pit. That is not what is involved. That is the restriction; that restriction to which I referred is what is preventing a negotiated settlement. It is that clear; it is that simple.

The obligation is the government's; the responsibility is there. Either it does it itself or it announces publicly that the arbitrator will be freed from that restriction, which has prevented the agreement being reached that was necessary to avoid this kind of fiasco we are going through. It is very simple and very easy and it could be done. I know very well it could be done and the Deputy Premier knows very well it could be done.

I will wait until my friend the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio) has finished his discussion with the Deputy Premier. At the moment when I am getting to my peroration, I can always count on the member for Niagara Falls going over and engaging the minister to whom I am addressing my remarks in some kind of conversation. It never, ever fails.

All I want to say to the Deputy Premier, and I am glad of the respite because I may say I was getting somewhat wound up in it, is that he wants the papal visit to be a success. I want it to be a success. I am not a member of the community of the Roman Catholic Church. Everyone in the province wants the visit of His Holiness to be a success. Everyone in Metro wants it to be a success. In the kind of society we are talking about, the Deputy Premier wants the voluntary, overtime work of the members of Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Workers.

He can have that co-operation and he can have it on very simple terms, namely, if the Deputy Premier, because I know the Premier would select him to do it, will go to the bargaining table tomorrow, remove the intolerable restriction of Bill 111, which is preventing the negotiation, and not come out of the room until there is an agreement or, in the alternative, accept the amendment we will propose to make this obsolete Bill 111 not applicable to the arbitration which is going to take place under Bill 125.

It is clear, it is simple, it is direct, it is concise and it should appeal to the Deputy Premier. I know through him it will appeal to the Premier. Whether it will appeal to the Treasurer is another matter, but I happen to believe the power resides in those two seats. I do not have a seat chart, so I do not have the numbers of the seats, but the Premier --

Mr. T. P. Reid: One and two.

Mr. Renwick: Yes. The Premier and the Deputy Premier, with the assistance of the Minister of Labour and whatever other retinue of the public service is required to assist them, could settle this tomorrow if they wanted to do so. They would have the co-operation of the members of Local 113 to carry on as everyone wishes to carry on, to honour a most significant public occasion in Ontario, the visit of His Holiness the Pope.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.

August 29, 1984