Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House resumed at 8:02 p.m.

RESIDENTIAL PREMISES RENT REVIEW AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

Resumption of the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 28, An Act to amend The Residential Premises Rent Review Act, 1975.

Mr. Speaker: When we were last on this item of business, I believe the hon. member for Durham East had the floor. He may continue his remarks.

Mr. Moffatt: If you recall, Mr. Speaker, my remarks the other day were of a very short nature when I adjourned the debate, so I will be brief this evening. In putting a kind of end to the discussion of second reading of this bill, I simply want to put together a couple of things that I think need to be pointed out; I think there are three all told.

The first point I would like to draw to the minister’s attention is that while he has been reluctant in putting forth the Act and the amending processes, one of the reasons he gives for tying the thing up so neatly is that there is now some understanding of the whole process and we wouldn’t want to tinker with the eight per cent rule because people finally understand what is going on and a little bit of resistance has been taken away.

I would like to say to the minister that one of the reasons we’ve had such great resistance to the way this whole process has worked is the minister himself, with his remarks on the unworkableness and the futility of intervening in this sector; it’s really counter to any of his theories and his philosophy. That’s been one of the problems that the legislation has faced. It has been made almost unworkable from time to time because of statements by the minister saying: “See, I told you it won’t work,” “I’m sure this is going to be difficult” and so on. And “I don’t want it. I want another ministry” or “I want out. I’ll resign.” There have been a number of things which have not lent credibility to the entire process.

I am pleased to see that at least he now feels he is lending something other than credibility to the process, because he has put forward these amendments and obviously he is now a true believer. I hope he continues and that his positive aspect of making the programme work will be the one emphasized during the coming months. I’m quite sure, if the rumours we hear from the press gallery are true, that he will be emphasizing all of those positive aspects in certain places. In other places he will be emphasizing those aspects less and others more.

One of the other things I wanted to touch on was the statement by the member for Perth (Mr. Edighoffer) in his leadoff remarks for the Liberal Party the other day, in which he said, quite straightforwardly, that he would be introducing an amendment in committee that would tie the legislation to the AIB -- because that’s the stated philosophy of this government, that the AIB is supreme and should run things. He felt that it was, of course, quite safe to tie in that amendment, but in his remarks referring to the AIB he said -- and I would like to quote two lines: “I believe 10 per cent for October 1975 to October 1976; eight per cent for October 1976 to October 1977.” And then he says: “I will be proposing an amendment that would truly relate this bill to the AIB guidelines and would reduce the rate of increase to six per cent in October 1977 or at such times as the AIB guidelines are reduced.”

I would like to remind the member that the federal counterpart of this particular group brought in that legislation in a famous Thanksgiving Day message. If the member would care to read what that legislation says, it says that it started out at eight per cent. We are now at six per cent and in October 1977 we will be at the four per cent level plus two per cent for productivity. I would like to point out, too -- and I am sure this will elicit the support of the member for Perth for the amendment that we will be putting forward, as we have talked about it for some time and have argued the point -- that this particular programme should be tied to six per cent; that makes far more sense when you compare it to the kinds of settlements that have been handed out across the province. It’s important, I think, to point out in connection with that six per cent amendment that we are bringing in, that we are pleased to invite the member for Perth to join us. I can’t explain how he got mixed up in the federal statistics but I am sure he fully intended to support our amendment. I am sure that’s what he meant.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Chickening out. You are going to support him.

Mr. Moffatt: I am sure, too, that if the member takes time and if the minister is interested in reading the Hansard which I have before me, he will find that --

Mr. Nixon: Are you making another flip-flop?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: They are going to support you.

Mr. Nixon: Certainly they are.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister does not have the floor at this point.

Mr. Moffatt: I am simply pointing this out to the member for Perth so that it will be clear that he was talking about six per cent, not six plus two, which is the old formula of eight per cent that the minister would like us to go with. I want to make it very clear that we are talking about six per cent this year. We are not talking about anything else. If we wait until October, it is four plus two. If we do it now on this basis, it is six plus two -- and that gets right back into the minister’s ballpark.

Mr. Edighoffer: You are not going to vote the same way as the member for Cornwall (Mr. Samis)?

Mr. Moffatt: The member for Cornwall is very clear on this. The whole party is very clear on it. We are inviting the member for Perth to support us.

Mr. Nixon: I thought he was very clear.

Mr. Moffatt: I can’t apologize for their mistake in mathematics or for their lack of understanding as to how the programme works.

Mr. Reid: We can’t apologize for the electorate of your riding either.

Mr. Moffatt: I will let them make their own apologies. I am sure they will have plenty of time to do that.

Mr. Edighoffer: What was the number of the federal bill?

Mr. Moffatt: I would like to say in conclusion that the entire programme can be made to work if the minister will stop making statements like the ones he made in estimates last year and others since then; and if only he and his government will lend themselves to working in the interests of consumers rather than constantly trying to balance some kind of equation which says, “Well, at this point we are talking to the landlord, and we will talk to them as though we are in favour of that; and now we are going to talk to the tenants because we would like them to know that we support them as well.” The government can’t have it both ways.

There is no difficulty with this legislation. The cost increases can be passed through. The landlords now understand that. I invite the minister and I invite the government to stand up and be clear about this -- that they are putting forward consumer legislation. I invite them also to make sure that when we get to the point where they want to cut it off, we forget about that and we tie the whole thing to the availability of rental accommodation. To do otherwise is unfair and it is unwarranted. We don’t need it.

Mr. Givens: I’m trying to digest what the member for Durham East said. I thought when I was going to start we had some allies to the suggestion of the member for Perth that we were going to have an amendment we were going to unite on and we were going to get some unanimity in this Legislature. But I guess from what he said we’re not going to have allies and we’re going to be disunited again on this particular amendment.

Mr. Moffatt: Are you going to vote with the government on it?

Mr. Mancini: How is your leadership campaign?

Mr. Givens: I’m going to refrain from indulging in flagellation of the minister and heaping calumny on his broad shoulders --

Mr. Moffatt: Heap away.

Mr. Givens: -- because preceding speakers have abused him. He had threatened to resign if the government brought in legislation extending rent controls and he said he couldn’t live with them. I like the prospect of a sinner who repents and I think it’s good that he should bow to the inevitable and go along with it. I want to tell this minister, although I may not agree with some of his ideas, I admire him for his intelligence. I think he’s a very intelligent man. He realizes he had to do what he had to do, and this is why he’s doing it.

Mr. Eakins: However.

Mr. Givens: I find it very difficult to understand why the minister and some of his colleagues are so lackadaisical and so cavalier in their attitude with respect to this legislation, that even though they’ve brought this in, they’ve had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the arena for the purpose of extending this legislation. Their attitude is one of reluctance. The legislation, their discussion and everything that they do about this are shot through with the kind of reluctance --

Mr. Shore: You may have to burn this speech afterwards.

Mr. Givens: -- that underlines everything in this particular bill. I don’t understand that, because generally the members on the government side are pretty good politicians.

Mr. Eakins: Having said that.

Mr. Givens: But I think they have to understand that 50 per cent of the electorate today is made up of tenants and that this is a very serious problem, particularly in Metropolitan Toronto. It costs the government. Probably the reason the government came back in a minority capacity in this Legislature at the last election was its attitude towards rent control. Toronto was always known as Tory Toronto. In the last election is cost the government 17 seats. It lost 17 seats because a critical factor in the election of 17 ridings in Metropolitan Toronto was rent control. I give the government this advice freely.

I don’t care when the election is held, whether it’s held this spring or next fall, but there’s certainly going to be an election before December 1978. If the government wishes to recoup any of these 17 seats in Metropolitan Toronto, it is going to have to change its attitude with respect to rent control. Probably the same thing applies in other urban centres, like Ottawa, Windsor, Kitchener, London and other big metropolitan areas and other big cities in Ontario.

This has cost the government. Surely as good politicians they must realize that and should shuck off this reluctance that makes them so embittered about this situation. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a free enterpriser too. Some members who have got to know me personally, like my friend the Solicitor General (Mr. MacBeth) --

Mr. Shore: You like everything for free.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: You are an enterpriser.

Mr. Givens: -- whom I’ve only known for about 43 years, know that I’m a free enterpriser. We don’t want to interfere with the market forces. I don’t want to interfere with the market forces any more than my friend, the Solicitor General, or the minister in charge of this legislation.

But I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, in my riding of Armourdale I’ve got a lot of tenants. When I sit by the phone and listen to some of the complaints of anguish that I get from some of the tenants -- and they’re real and they’re genuine and they are downright heart-breaking -- it isn’t a matter of interfering with the market forces, it’s a matter of trying to assist people who are really being ground into the ground. The government has got to come to their assistance and heed their plea.

Mr. Hodgson: What do you think we’re doing?

[8:15]

Mr. Givens: I would like to see the business of the market forces work. I don’t want to see this bureaucracy built up any more than the government does, but the fact of the matter is that the legislation is necessary.

The minister has put an arbitrary date on this of December, 1978. I think you truly believe, as you believed the last time when you put a time limit on it, that this is temporary legislation, jerry-built for the purpose of disassembling when December of 1978 comes around. With great respect, all the evidence I see is against the possibility of this legislation being able to be done away with by December of 1978. There is no evidence at all to go on.

As a man of affairs -- I know that the minister is an educated and trained economist -- he knows he needs lead time to start building rental housing of any kind. He needs lead time for the purpose of putting a business deal together, of getting a mortgage commitment, of putting the financial deal together and so on. It takes six months to a year to do that. Even though the Minister of Housing (Mr. Rhodes) will get up and promise $600 per unit per 10 years and all that stuff; that’s great, but that doesn’t mean that the builders get off the mark and start rushing to the marketplace and start building, because there’s another thing that’s involved.

I can talk about Metro Toronto with some authority and some knowledge. Most of the land in Metropolitan Toronto is zoned against multiple-family building. This simply means that the people who want to build, whether they’re offered $600 a unit or $6,000 a unit, have to go to the respective municipalities, which are inimical to their desires to build, and they have to make applications for rezoning. They have to make an application to the committee of building and development, which then has to go to the planning board, which then has to go to the department of works and the parks department and the board of education and the traffic department for clearance; and then it goes to the executive committee or the board of control; and then it’s probably sent back to the committee of buildings and development; and then it’s sent to the council; and then it has a run around there. Finally, after it passes there, if they’re lucky it goes up to the Ontario Municipal Board. Then even after there’s a decision reached at the Municipal Board it has become very fashionable, regardless of who wins at the Municipal Board, to appeal the decision to the cabinet.

Does the minister know that nowadays for a man or a company to make an application for rezoning to any council in Metropolitan Toronto, it takes from 18 months to three years -- if he is lucky? That’s if he is lucky. So what reason has he to believe that he has the chance of a snowball in Hades that by the time December 1978 rolls around he can take off these rent controls? He has to start thinking in terms that these rent controls that he is putting in tonight are going to last beyond the lifetime he is contemplating right here.

Let me tell him something else that’s happening today.

Mr. Worton: You tell them, Phil.

Mr. Givens: There’s a hearing going on right now before three esteemed gentlemen of the Ontario Municipal Board involving the city of Toronto downtown core bylaw. I don’t know what the official name is -- I call it that and the minister knows what I’m referring to. The other day my leader asked the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) and the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) what they could do about intervening with respect to the length of the bearings that are going on down there.

Now this core bylaw, in case the minister doesn’t know, involves a very important principle. It involves the introduction of rental housing in the downtown area. This can be a big boon if it happens, if the OMB approves of it. I won’t get into the merits of the discussion as to whether there should be rental housing in the downtown area. This is not the forum for that kind of discussion, and besides it’s probably sub judice. But assuming the city of Toronto is right in promulgating this kind of philosophy and this kind of theory, this hearing started in January 11, the prognosis is that this hearing probably will last for another six months, it probably won’t be through until the end of the year. There are about 100 lawyers ranged against the city of Toronto with applications for exemptions and exceptions, and for argument and for contemplation, and for debate about the philosophy and so on. After the hearings are completed and voluminous notes are made, I say to the minister that the members of the Municipal Board, whom I admire and respect, will be completely incapable of rendering a decision immediately; they will have to reserve the decision. I don’t care how smart they are, it will take them from three to six months to render a decision. So that takes us into the middle of 1978.

Even after they render a decision, having regard for the fact that it involves the city of Toronto and 100 people making applications who have very important pecuniary interests in the situation, there are bound to be appeals to the cabinet, which brings the decision to the end of 1978. How in heaven’s name does the minister expect that on that particular deal, on that particular application, on that particular bylaw, there can possibly be a resolution of that bylaw before December 1978? We need not expect any kind of relief, any kind of leeway, any kind of elbow room for rental housing from that. I don’t know what the minister is going to do about it.

The answer of the Attorney General to my leader was that he didn’t think it was proper to interfere or intervene. On the basis of law and on the basis of jurisdiction, the OMB certainly has the jurisdiction; there’s no question that they have the jurisdiction. But I tell the minister that it was never contemplated -- and I was a member of the select committee that looked into the OMB a couple of years ago -- it was never contemplated that the OMB should be geared to deal with that kind of situation. If we added another 26 members today to the Ontario Municipal Board’s present complement of 26 members, I don’t know whether we could accelerate the speed with which hearings are handled there. It’s simply impossible to accelerate the speed with which things are done at that particular level of government.

What evidence has the minister got that this legislation can be contemplated to be anything but permanent? He must look beyond December 1978 -- indeed, he should be looking towards December 1982 -- as the point for the ending of rent control in this province, because he doesn’t have a chance of a snowball on a hot stove of increasing the market. After all, one thing we’re all agreed on in this House is that the only way we can end rent controls in this province is if we have a sufficient market of housing in this province.

The minister today answered my friend from Kent-Elgin (Mr. Spence), who asked what the minister was going to do about the price of gasoline, which my friend’s investigation has shown is 80 cents a gallon in one place and 89.9 cents a gallon elsewhere.

Mr. Foulds: It’s $1.06 in the north.

Mr. Given: The minister got up and said: “This is a wonderful province, and we have a competitive system with respect to gasoline.” Although he didn’t say so, the minister implied that if you don’t like paying 89.9 cents a gallon in one gasoline station, you drive away and go to another station and pay 80 cents; and you can do that with pretty easy facility. But when you’re an old lady --

Mr. Foulds: He is an old lady.

Mr. Givens: -- or when you’re a senior citizen, living on a fixed income in an apartment where you have been living for many years, and your landlord comes and socks you with an increase of $20 or $40 a month, you can’t pick yourself up and, at the age of 75 or 80, start walking down the hall, down the block or 10 blocks away or 10 miles away, and start looking for another apartment.

Mr. Nixon: It will happen to you, Sidney.

Mr. Givens: The competitive marketability in rental accommodation isn’t that way.

Mr. Mancini: How does that grab you, Marv?

Mr. Givens: We have got to be humane about this thing. We’ve got to use some heart in this; we can’t just look at it callously.

Mr. Mancini: How do you feel, Marv?

Mr. Shore: We’re debating rent review. What bill is he on?

Mr. Givens: The point that I’m trying to make is that the minister is off on a wrong tangent when he is talking about the temporary aspect of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Givens: As much as I dislike it, and I tell you, Mr. Speaker, I dislike it as much as you do. Until you have evidence, at least 18 months in advance or two years in advance, that the rental accommodation is increasing, it is wrong, it is cruel, it is callous, it is not smart politically for you, standing on the edge of an election, to take the position that come hell or high water you’re going to abandon rent controls. I think you’d be very well advised to take the termination date, right now while you’re headed for an election, face it realistically and admit that it isn’t temporary and that it’s got to be more permanent than in the next year and a half that you have in your scope, in your view.

With respect to specifics -- that was specific, the date. On the percentage increase: I don’t like talking about eight per cent or six per cent. I think those figures are arbitrary. I don’t think you can talk about eight per cent or six per cent any more than you can talk about four per cent or 10 per cent, it has no meaning.

The only thing that has meaning for me is the index of inflation, which is set now by the AIB. If the AIB is abandoned or done away with or goes into limbo for some reason, there will be some other kind of price index, the cost of living index of Statistics Canada or some other price index, which will be related to the index of inflation of the country; and you should tie yourself to that, whether it’s six per cent or eight per cent or anything else.

I don’t think we should get into an auction sale in this Legislature as to whether it should be eight per cent, and if you go for eight per cent you’re the bad guys and if we go for six per cent we cover ourselves with glory. Let’s not get into that kind of cheap politicking.

I think that’s wrong. I think what is right is that we should tie ourselves to the index of inflation -- if it goes up the increases should go up; if it goes down, the increases should go down.

Mr. Mancini: Do you understand this, Ed? Just zero.

Mr. Cunningham: You could do your thesis on it.

Mr. Givens: One other thing: With respect to decisions I think we should have some form of registration.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Givens: I don’t know whether that form of registration should be that everybody, every landlord who has rental accommodation, should register the rentals of his rental accommodation, whether he has one unit, two units or 2,000 units; but I think there should be a system that everybody who runs can read. Where a tenant goes into a unit, whether it’s two units or 100 units or 500 units, he should be able to tell, either by application or by seeing it somewhere, what the rental is. What is the big secret?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: There isn’t any.

Mr. Givens: Why hide it? Well then show it, make provision for it.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: It’s there.

Mr. Givens: You don’t have any provision for it in here. You’ve got to prove it to me because I don’t see it in here.

Mr. Shore: You’ve got to read it first before you can see it.

Mr. Mancini: Go back to sleep, Marv.

Mr. Givens: We will be putting forward an amendment on that.

Another thing, where you have a building with 100 units or more run by one of the big corporate giants, why should there have to be 100 applications? Why can’t there be one application? When you have our application, the things that are considered by the Rent Review Board are the same; whether there’s a put-through of costs for the increase of taxes or electricity or heat or whatever, they’re the same for a unit as they are for 100 units. There should be one test case for the whole apartment house which should apply pari passu -- and you know what that means -- to all the units and that should be the end of it.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Wonderful.

Mr. Givens: I think you should give professional help to the small tenant, the senior citizen, the widow, the elderly gentleman who comes and who fights with the big corporate giant. How can you compare the ability of some of the applicants who have come to me for help with the corporate giants who have their solicitors and their accountants and their managers?

Mr. Nixon: Fancy accountants from London.

Mr. Givens: How can you compare the ability of both sides to present their case properly before the Rent Review Board unless you protect them? I think you should give them such protection.

My final point is that the regulations you will be promulgating under this Act should be published and they should be circularized very quickly. They shouldn’t be secret. Everybody should know what they are and they should be readily available.

Mr. Samis: That would be something new.

Mr. Givens: Mr. Speaker, those are my submissions; thank you.

[8:30]

Hon. Mrs. Birch: If I didn’t know better, I could easily get the impression from listening to hon. members across the way that rent review over the past 18 months or so has achieved precious little and perhaps worse.

Mr. Kerrio: That’s what the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations said.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: It is surely time to get the whole thing into better perspective so that we understand properly the significance of the amendments before us and what is really required at this point to ensure maximum protection under the law. Without imposing impossible burdens on the landlords.

Mr. Mancini: You probably put him up to it.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Nobody, I take it, will quarrel with the fact that at the time of rent review coming into being tenants were asked to finance an inflationary upswing in the cost of labour, land and building materials. For several years before rent review, the resale value of properties had been going up because of the inflation in those costs, and investors were beginning to look elsewhere. It was only natural then that the property owner, seeing his income from rents dropping, relative to the value of his property, tried to get back the old balance between rents and property values by putting up rents. As we well know, rents went too high and too fast for many tenants to cope with. Rent review was necessary then and we all agree it is still necessary --

Mr. Martel: Why do you oppose it?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- while inflation continues at present levels, to prevent tenants having to pick up the tab for the high prices they are not to blame for. I doubt if any government, majority or minority, could have done better in the time available to set up the process of protecting tenants --

Mr. Martel: Under pressure.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- while being fair to landlords, than we have actually done.

Mr. Kerrio: That’s minority government.

Mr. Reid: Only from pressure from the opposition.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The fact that about three-quarters of the residential units in the province never came to rent review at all is a good indication that the eight per cent guideline was found reasonable and that most people decided to live by it. However, the quarter that did come accounted for 7,317 hearings, at which rents for 130,455 units were reviewed up to the year-end 1976. This work was done by a staff of just a little over 300 for the whole province, including about 80 rent review officers. Only two of this total staff are civil servants. The remainder are on contracts that can be terminated on two weeks’ notice. Of course, some mistakes were made; no one is perfect.

Mr. Cunningham: All Tories in my area, all of them, every one.

Mr. Drea: That’s a lie and you know it.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: After all, this is the first time in the history of this province that we have had rent review legislation, barring World War II when there were controls of a different nature.

Mr. Cunningham: Every one Tory -- big T.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: If the amendments are necessary to make things work better or to keep the legislation up to date, that doesn’t mean that a darned good job wasn’t being done before.

Mr. Davidson: You had to be squeezed into it.

Mr. Martel: You did it reluctantly.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: It is true that rent review has changed a lot of people’s lives. But it has often changed them for the better.

Mr. Cunningham: All Tories in my area.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Because of rent review, thousands of tenants can now look forward to a full year of steady rent payment --

Mr. Martel: What about 1978?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- that they can budget for in advance, and so can their landlords.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. Will the hon. members refrain from their conversations and let the hon. minister continue.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: In many cases, landlords have told their tenants they will stay within government guidelines, so tenants can budget even further ahead. The days of sudden rent increases and abrupt evictions are over.

Mr. Martel: What about 1978?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: There have been a lot of sparks flying at rent review hearings, I know, but the hearings have been a unique opportunity for landlords and tenants to get together and quite often to learn for the first time about their various problems and their responsibilities. Rent review has given both sides a forum they never had before, a platform to express their feelings and air their grievances in an orderly way. The old landlord mystique has gone, and I don’t think any honest person would say that that is a bad thing, including the landlords themselves.

Mr. Davidson: Even the Waterloo regional management association would say that.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Tenants are now meeting face to face with landlords at rent review hearings and having a chance to discover why increases are made and what the landlord’s burdens of costs and expenditures are all about. A lot of tenants and landlords have told me they’ve found rent review officers to be fair and impartial, and they are convinced they have been doing their very best to weigh all the facts and figures, listen to everybody and order rent levels that faithfully reflect increases in allowed costs.

Incidentally, as I understand, very few of these officers are out of the real estate field. The great majority are accountants or were finance managers or the like.

Mr. Cunningham: Tories.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Some hon. members forget that rent review was not, and cannot ever be, designed to make everybody happy. Tenants who get increases higher than they expected, or sometimes any increases at all, don’t like it.

Mr. Samis: This is not the Rotary Club, you know.

Mr. Mancini: That’s a cheap shot; that’s a very nice Rotary Club.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Landlords who can’t increase the return on their investment under rent review don’t like it. But the cost pass-through principle, the same principle that the federal anti-inflation curbs are based on, is surely the fairest of possible choices for the short run.

A number of smaller landlords have told me they are grateful to rent review for helping them to get their books in order. The need to collect together figures on costs and revenues periodically has helped them to get a clear picture of where they stand, a better basis for planning ahead.

Tenants involved in rent review have been sharing their concern with their neighbours and getting together to form tenant associations. These have not necessarily involved hostile confrontations with landlords. Very often tenant representatives have been getting together with landlords to work out problems, and both parties have appreciated the advantages of this.

I represent a riding -- Scarborough East -- in which there are literally thousands of tenants. Through my office in the riding I have been able to advise many of these tenants on how to go about applying before -- and to appear before -- the rent review officers. I have had many letters thanking us for what we have been able to do on their behalf. I would like to read into the record a letter that I just received yesterday:

“Dear Mrs. Birch:

“My husband and I wish to sincerely thank you for the time and interest you expended on behalf of us and other tenants at the above address in connection with our rent problems. I do not know if you were ever advised, but our landlord was granted an increase of 9.6 per cent only over the previous rent in 1976.

“I realize, and I do hope that other tenants do also, that this was largely brought about by the efforts of my husband and Mr. Loveridge, but we all realize that your interest and help did a great deal not only towards our goal of a fair rent increase, but also to restore some feelings in the interests of you and others like you as representatives of the people and the government to act on our behalf.”

This is just a sample of many letters that I have received from people who recognize that the landlords, as well, have to have --

Mr. Martel: Did you get any of them complaining?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Yes, of course.

Mr. Martel: Read a few of those too.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: It stands to reason neither landlords nor tenants want problems in taking up or terminating tenancies. If rental units are affordable, tenants will stay in them. In other words, although landlords and tenants may approach rents initially from different standpoints, their goals really are very similar, as rent review has shown. If these goals can be achieved without rent review, so much the better. But I doubt if anyone would seriously suggest that they could, in the immediate future.

Meantime, the figures show that while landlords in Ontario ask for average rent increases of 19.66 per cent through rent review, the average figure they were granted to the end of last year was 12.56 per cent. Those figures speak for themselves.

Some members, it seems, are not as familiar with the rent review Act or with the amendments as they should be.

Mr. Samis: That is an understatement.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: If they were, they would not have made the comments and criticisms they did this week in the House. Rights or facilities which hon. members have claimed do not exist for tenants have been in the statute since the rent review Act was passed. They have simply not been used by everyone who could have done so.

Take the question, for example, of registering rents. It’s possible many tenants might object to having their rents available for inspection in some public place. However, I’m assured by rent review officials, that it is a fact that any tenant checking the file on his unit at his local rent review office will find in it information about rents for his residence going back to 1974, as well as a list of the current rents on all other apartments in the building. This is information that the landlord is required to submit; and the amendments introduce stiffer penalties for anyone who withholds or falsifies information.

Also, any tenant can phone his local rent review office to find out if there is an ordered rent on his unit, and what it is.

On the question of assistance given to tenants from the first days of rent review, there have been staff in every rent review office whose sole duty has been to explain the Act and all of its ramifications to anyone who asks. The help is there and it always has been. The public have only to avail themselves of it.

And there are no longer to be thousands of pieces of papers passing hands, as one hon. member believes. Section 7(2) of the amendment Act takes care of that.

Sometimes a little knowledge can be more dangerous than some members opposite may believe.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The hon. member for Scarborough Centre.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. During the very eloquent address by the minister there was an interjection. The interjection was that the rent review officers -- and, presumably, it’s in the Hamilton area, although maybe in the Wentworth area as it was the member for Wentworth North who made the interjection --

Mr. Breithaupt: What is the point of order?

Mr. Acting Speaker: Please state the point of order.

Mr. Drea: It was an interjection -- that the rent review officers there are Tories.

Mr. Nixon: Why don’t you make a speech if you want to make a speech?

Mr. Drea: I think that remark should be stricken from the records. It’s derogatory to professional people. I am prepared to believe it’s a very naive remark.

Mr. Nixon: It is a terrible insult to say they are Tories.

Mr. Cunningham: They are Tories.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The hon. member does not have a point of order.

Mr. Drea: No, they aren’t Tories.

Mr. Cunningham: They are.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The hon. member for Oakwood will continue.

Mr. Shore: Just because they didn’t vote for you doesn’t mean they are Tories.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The Chair has ruled that the hon. member did not have a point of order.

Mr. Cunningham: That’s not a sin.

Mr. Foulds: To the point of order: I thought the Tories were all derogatory, that’s all.

An hon. member: They have all the good jobs.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. The Chair has ruled that the hon. member does not have a point of order. The hon. member will start his remarks.

Mr. Foulds: I thought he was indicating that “Tory” was an obscenity.

Mr. Nixon: Well, it’s at least unparliamentary.

Mr. Martel: He also called the hon. member a liar. You should check Hansard.

Mr. Grande: The way the minister was talking about this rent review legislation, it appears -- maybe I’ve misconstrued her remarks completely -- but it appears she’s beginning to take credit for the rent review programme in this province.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Oh, back to taking credit again.

Mr. Grande: If I may remind you, Mr. Speaker, and through you the members opposite, of the election of September 1975, I’m sure they recall the Premier (Mr. Davis) in the months of June and August, hopping from one idea to the next. We’re going to have rent review; we’re going to have this type of rent review; until finally he could not deny it any longer: rent control was necessary. He realized it, but unfortunately it was too late.

[8:45]

Mr. Davidson: They were forced into it.

Mr. Grande: And then when they came back here as a minority government, they really had no option, they had no option whatsoever. As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly, the first piece of legislation that came before this House was the rent review programme. And all scheduled for one thing, and that was to suggest to the tenants in the province of Ontario that the Conservative government moves and does something about tenants.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: No.

Mr. Martel: Nonsense. You opposed it steadily.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: No.

Mr. Martel: Oh yes you did. Where do you get the gall?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: From watching you.

Mr. Martel: We were around here too, you know.

Mr. Bain: You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can never fool a northerner.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: You’re a sanctimonious character.

Mr. di Santo: You want tenants’ votes, that’s why.

Mr. Martel: You opposed it all through the election of last spring.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: Don’t give me that nonsense.

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, I find the Provincial Secretary for Social Development’s speech really amazing, because I thought that no one from that side of the House was going to get up to speak in terms of protecting the tenants in this province. She must at least admit the fact that she was forced into bringing in rent controls.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: No, never.

Mr. Grande: The government was forced into it, and that’s all there is to it.

Interjections.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Grande: If she is going to attempt to take credit for this legislation --

Mr. di Santo: The tenants will vote against you.

Mr. Grande: -- the tenants out there will certainly know what has happened in terms of rent controls and who brought it in.

Mr. Cunningham: Nowhere to go? Try Social Credit.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Shore: Take care of your schools, Remo, they need a janitor down there.

Mr. Kerrio: Hand in your blue suit and get back over here.

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, if I may begin with the remarks that I really intended to make --

Mr. Shore: Speak to Trudeau. I think he is looking for some help down there.

Mr. Acting Speaker: I wonder if the hon. members would kindly refrain from their remarks and allow the member for Oakwood to continue.

Mr. Grande: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, except those people on the other side of the House obviously cannot take what reality is all about, and what has happened in 1975 is reality.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: When are you going to start saying something?

Mr. Bain: That is by a minority government.

Mr. Grande: They have to be reminded all the time that they have lost complete touch with reality in this province, whether it be in this budget that was presented the other night or whether it be the return of the rent review mechanism in this province.

Mr. Speaker, we remember the minister all too well. Perhaps he was flirting with the press throughout the last three or four months, suggesting: “Look, we haven’t decided. The cabinet hasn’t made the decision in terms of rent control and whether we’re going to extend it or whether we’re going to change it.”

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I didn’t say that.

Mr. Grande: Sure you did.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: You should have been here in December.

Mr. Martel: You were going to resign. I was here, don’t kid the troops.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: You didn’t even know we brought in amendments to The Landlord and Tenant Act.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member will continue without interruption.

Mr. Grande: Then the press did not report the minister fairly; and it is the first time, perhaps, in the history of this province that the press has not reported fairly what a minister of the Crown had to say. It will be the first time.

Mr. Shore: First time, eh?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I cannot read that small print.

Mr. Bain: You are familiar with small print.

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, tenants across this province, and in particular Metropolitan Toronto, when this particular legislation is introduced in the House are breathing a sigh of relief. They’ve been waiting for this legislation since last December, before the House adjourned. We thought, at least before the House was adjourned in the year 1976, the minister would have --

Mr. Bain: And they only got it because there are a lot of New Democrats here.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: There will be a lot less in a short while.

Mr. Bain: That is your numerous colleagues from the north.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. Allow the hon. member to continue to speak on the principle of the bill.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: He’s not saying anything.

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, it’s quite all right. I welcome those interjections. I’m beginning to learn that the interjections are the fun part of this Legislature.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member may welcome the interjections but the Chair doesn’t. Will you continue.

Mr. Grande: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that.

As I said, Mr. Speaker, the tenants welcome this legislation. This side of the House welcomes this legislation. As a matter of fact, as I was saying in December and in November, we were asking the minister questions during the question period and saying to him, “When are you going to introduce legislation which shows a commitment by this government to the tenants of this province?”

The minister was saying: “Well, in due time. When we come back from the break, we will introduce legislation. Perhaps we will introduce legislation, but we haven’t made a commitment. We haven’t made a decision in cabinet as to what to do.”

As a matter of fact, as the minister was flirting with the press across Ontario, he said at one particular time -- and other members have been mentioning it and let him please correct the press if the press was wrong -- he was saying: “If this rent control legislation is not going to be continued, certainly my ministry is not going to carry it out.” In other words, he implied that the Minister of Housing should have that responsibility back -- and by the way, it should be as far as I am concerned the responsibility of the Minister of Housing.

Mr. Bain: He doesn’t want it either.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You don’t understand anything.

An hon. member: You tell him, sir.

Mr. Davidson: You are the only one who understands it.

An hon. member: You knew what you were doing, John.

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s why you got rid of it.

Mr. Kerrio: The best pass you ever threw, John.

Mr. Grande: Surely, Mr. Speaker, everybody in this province realizes that this rent review or rent control legislation is stop-gap type of legislation. Everyone realizes this.

The tenants want some protection from the gouging the landlords have been doing in the past three to three and a half years, beginning in 1973, 1974, and 1975. The tenants require some bit of protection.

As I said, it’s a stop-gap measure because really in essence there is not going to be any need for rent control or rent review in this province as long as the government moves with speed to get the developers to build the type of affordable housing and the apartments at affordable prices that the tenants in this province need. Until the government does that. I am afraid that one of the things the member for Armourdale (Mr. Givens) said is quite true and that is that rent control is going to be a permanent thing in the province of Ontario

Another remark that the member for Armourdale had to make is that he is a free enterpriser.

[Applause]

Mr. Bain: All rise.

Mr. Drea: Well he’s certainly not a pinko.

Mr. Grande: That’s the remark that he made and, Mr. Speaker, if he is such an avowed free enterpriser, perhaps he should be getting up from that side of the floor and moving to the other side and keeping company with the member for London North (Mr. Shore).

Mr. Cunningham: They should come here.

Mr. Kerrio: You have 24 hours to make up your mind.

Mr. Givens: Mr. Speaker, make me a Horner offer.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You’ve got to admit we won on that trade. We got Shore and you got Horner.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Grande: He is obviously quite willing.

Mr. Reid: Marvin didn’t do half as well. Marvin is a loser.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order please. Perhaps you would give the courtesy to the hon. member for Oakwood.

Mr. Breithaupt: We have got future considerations.

Mr. Grande: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Reid: We have got three designated players.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order. The hon. member for Oakwood will continue.

Mr. Grande: Thank you. The last few days have certainly proved -- or at least let me say this, that actions certainly speak louder than words in terms of where the difference between the Tories and the Liberals in this country and in this province is.

Mr. Martel: Nowhere.

Mr. Grande: There is virtually no difference. When one of the staunch Conservative members of this country, Mr. Speaker, will cross the House and join the Liberal government and vice versa, obviously it happens.

Mr. Breithaupt: Only because nobody wants the New Democrats.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. Perhaps the hon. member would return to the principle of this bill.

Mr. Grande: Certainly, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Thank you. Order, please.

Mr. Grande: I was talking about the member for Armourdale.

Mr. Eakins: Are you talking about Hazen Argue?

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member will direct his remarks toward the principle of the bill and ignore the interjections.

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: I’ll tell you we have lost on the deal, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order. The hon. member will continue.

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, I want to share with you, and with other members of this House who might be interested, my experience in terms of rent review and how well the rent review Act worked in the past 18 months in the province.

I’ve gone about three to four times before rent review officers in taking some of the tenants in my particular riding before the rent review officer to plead their cases. Later on I’ve taken these tenants to the rent review board.

One of the things that has struck me in going before the rent review officer is that the very first thing the rent review officer did was, when he saw there were about 100 tenants in that particular room at the library where we were, he began to lose his cool very fast. As a matter of fact, it came to the point that the rent review officer said to one of the tenants, “Please be quiet or else I’ll have to throw everybody out.” Exactly those words. I thought perhaps those rent review officers would have been trained a little bit better in order to give to the tenants, at least at that particular meeting, the kind of decency --

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. There are too many conversations going on in the chamber, The hon. member for Oakwood has the floor. Let’s give him a little attention.

Mr. Grande: -- the kind of decency that tenants across this province and in Metropolitan Toronto should expect as common courtesy. The rent review officer decided that the tenants should be paying a 13 per cent increase. One of the things that really worried me at that particular time, after the rent review officer decided on this 13 per cent increase, was that the tenants should be going before the rent review board to appeal that decision, but the tenants decided not to do that. They were quite satisfied, they were quite happy with the 13 per cent increase because in previous years they had been used to 15 per cent, 20 per cent, 25 per cent increases.

I very well understand the fact that the tenants were satisfied with it, and I accepted their decision. What happened in that building is that the tenants started to form a tenant association, and here is where the things that really upset me at that particular apartment took place.

Two months after the tenants decided to form the tenant association the landlord began a very systematic approach to all six people who were on the organization of the tenant association. With one particular tenant the landlord said: “I understand your wife is having a baby and you’re going to be looking for a two-bedroom apartment. I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you the two-bedroom apartment if you drop out of the tenant association.”

A second member was told: “You are two weeks in arrears with your rent and I legally could be throwing you out, but I will let you stay in the apartment for one more week if you drop out of the tenant association.”

I can go on with the other members of this tenant association, because they were all singly approached by the landlord to drop out of the tenant association so that the tenant association could not function any longer. That’s the kind of thing that the rent review legislation encouraged. Those tenants talked to me, but there was no way that they would be going before the landlord and saying to the landlord: “We in this province have rights. We in this province can take you to court for the kinds of things you’re saying and the kinds of things you’re doing.” The tenants, I suppose, did not have the courage or the strength or the time to spend and to waste going through the court procedures.

[9:00]

Mr. Speaker, I am attempting to give you a flavour of what has been happening in the riding of Oakwood in terms of rent review. I am attempting also to give you another incident in which this group of tenants who formed another tenant association went before the rent review officer. The rent review officer said that the landlord is allowed an 8.2 per cent increase. As soon as the tenants returned to their apartments, the landlord was at their doorstep. The landlord said, “I will want an increase of 9.5 per cent.” That was a completely illegal increase. The tenants didn’t go for that. They were in a group by this time and had formed a tenants’ association. They went before the rent review board.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. Perhaps we could have a little more order in the chamber.

Mr. Grande: I understand that a lot of the people perhaps on the other side of the House might not be interested in this particular rent review or rent control legislation.

Mr. Bain: How many government members are in the House?

Mr. Grande: It appears they’re not interested in finding out the problems that the tenants in this province have been having. It appears they just want to take this legislation through so that when they can go to the tenants of this province and say: “We have extended rent control” and so that they can safely go to the province. I don’t think that that government has the intestinal fortitude of its own particular principles by saying: “We really philosophically do not believe in rent control. So, therefore, what we’re going to be doing is saying to the tenants: ‘We want no part of rent control’.”

I was going to say, Mr. Speaker, at least be honest, but I’m sure you would call me to order. At least let the government be true to its principles and firm on its principles. Then I would understand its position. But don’t let the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations go across the province and say he will resign if rent review has to be extended and then have the Provincial Secretary for Social Development come into this House and pretend the government is doing some good for the tenant by extending this rent review legislation. The government has been forced into it and knows it. The members on this side of the House have forced the government into it.

Mr. Good: I have a few comments I would like to make regarding the amendments to The Residential Premises Rent Review Act. Since I had a part in the original passage of this bill, I have followed it with considerable interest, although it has not been as controversial and as prominent a piece of legislation in my area as perhaps in many other areas, especially here in Metropolitan Toronto. Recent checks have shown me that in my particular area there has been no upsurge in applications since the original large number of applications for rent review has subsided. It is pretty well standardized and there are not as many applications now as one might have expected at this time.

There are inequities in the legislation on both sides. I think inequities can run in the section which allows pass-through of costs. I think those inequities can work against the landlords, especially small landlords, who are not allowed return on investment; by the same token, with the pass-through of costs, especially in the section which deals with not allowing losses to a landlord, especially after the sale of a building, the adjustments could be considerable.

If a building is sold, and mortgages are increased that of course affects the cost to the landlord and those are passed through. The suggestion has been made that losses sustained through the sale of a building should not be allowed to be applied directly to the rent in the succeeding year; that this loss should be amortized over a succession of years to follow so that there would be no undue increase in rent because of the pass-through of additional mortgage costs on the sale of a building when a large mortgage is put on by the new owner.

Several things in the bill appear to be rather controversial. I think one must look at them with a good perspective from both sides -- from the tenant’s point of view and from the landlord’s. I think the thing can be simplified to the point where both will be well protected.

The matter of the percentage of increase that should be allowed without the landlord applying for a review, I think has been dealt with very well by the member for Armourdale. He suggested we should not be playing a numbers game. We are in a programme of controls, federally, under the Anti-Inflation Board, and I think the guidelines of the Anti-Inflation Board make, without exception, the best level of control that should apply to other areas of the economy.

In passing, Mr. Speaker, it is most difficult to understand how the NDP can be so vehemently opposed to the AIB guidelines --

Mr. Bain: Because there are no rent controls in the AIB.

Mr. Good: -- and yet be so dedicated to the idea of rent controls. It just doesn’t make sense. But, of course, very little they do say makes sense when you look at it from an economic point of view and a position of sound economic principles that should be imposed for the best of everything.

Mr. Moffatt: You wouldn’t understand.

Mr. Bain: Liberalism has nothing to do with sound economic principles -- just opportunism.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Waterloo North will continue.

Mr. Good: I’d like to offer comments to the minister, Mr. Speaker, on several of the ideas that have been put forth in amendments in this bill and some of the ideas that are prevalent among tenants and landlords.

First of all, I’d like to comment on the matter of considering all units in a building for the ensuing year when the first application for review comes up. On the surface, that may very well sound like a good idea so that the number of hearings could be reduced and tenants would know what their increase would be. I suggest that hardship could come to tenants if the increase is set a whole year in advance. Conditions change, and I would think experience in the last year has shown that we may hope the inflation rate will decline and that smaller increases in rent will be given -- or needed -- by landlords six months, nine months or 11 months from now. To me, it would not make good sense to set the rent for a unit for a complete year in advance.

I think there is a provision now in the Act where the rent review officer, at his discretion, can ask landlords to make applications which would come up within the near future. I think this idea could be improved somewhat, in that landlords could be required to make application for other units that come up in the immediate future. But I hope the minister will take regard to the fact that I for one feel that setting rent increases a year in advance on those units, in my view, is not fair to the tenants. It’s too far in advance. With the declining rate of inflation which we are now enjoying, it would become a hardship to the tenants to set the rate a year in advance.

Another matter I’d like to talk about -- and perhaps when the minister replies he can explain it -- is the registration of rents for a building. Under the amendment proposed in this bill under section 6, there will be a new section added to the bill, 11(a), and this section will require that where an application -- excuse me.

Mr. Speaker, as you are aware, the terms of this bill are quite technical and I would like to get my point across to the minister. Mr. Speaker, if I could have at least your attention, I would like you to relay to the minister that I would like to have his attention.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Waterloo North has the floor.

Mr. Givens: Sit that farmer down in his seat.

Mr. Moffatt: You are an agrologist, aren’t you, Bill?

Mr. Cunningham: You and Jack Horner.

Mr. Good: Thank you. My point is this. Section 6 of the bill calls for the addition of a new section in the Act, and this new section says that the rent review officer may ask for a rent roll or a rental agreement for a particular unit when there is an application by the landlord for review of any unit in that building. That’s fine, except that this is permissive. Personally, I think that the rent review officer should be required to have that information on file to begin with. The rent review officer in my area tells me that yes, they invariably will ask for a schedule of rents, so there would be no problem whatsoever in changing that “may” to “shall” and require that they have a schedule of rents for every building where there is a review hearing.

However, in my view that does not help the other situation that occurs when tenants are new and they’re moving into a building and have no accurate information of what previous rents were. There have been all kinds of suggestions, including posting up within the building what the rents are in that building. That idea I personally reject. I don’t think it’s good. I think they would get torn down in no time, and I don’t think they should be held up for public display.

There has been the idea that there should be a rent roll and a schedule of every rental of every apartment unit in the province on file with the rent review officer. That may or may not have merit. To me that sounds very cumbersome, that the owners of every duplex, triplex and fourplex that’s never been to rent review would have to file a rent schedule.

I think, though, there must be some protection for the new tenant and I would think a system could very well be worked out -- I have spoken to people on this and it would not be cumbersome -- where a tenant could be able to file with the rent review officer a form 5A, which is a form asking for justification of the rent, and that the rent review officer would on the filing of a form 5A by a tenant, whether that tenant has been given an increase at that particular time or not, but especially this would be applicable to new tenants moving in, when the tenant goes down and fills out the 5A form it should be mandatory that the rent review officer requests from the apartment owner a rent rollback to 1974, the same as he is requesting when the landlord files an A5 for a rent review.

I don’t think that would be a cumbersome situation. It would mean that the rent review officer would have on file the rent schedules for apartments where the landlord has asked for a review and where the tenant has asked for a justification. I would think the tenant should be able to file the 5A form not only when the landlord wants to increase the rent, but at any time during his tenancy or especially when he moves into a new apartment. It would be quite difficult for a tenant moving in to find out on his own just what the previous rent was. Since rent review legislation does not apply to the tenant but to the apartment, I think the new tenant has the right to know what that previous rent was.

[9:15]

I don’t think that would be cumbersome. It would mean that the rent review officer would have to file that rent schedule under those two conditions. They tell me they are doing it now for the landlord’s application where there is a justification of rent which does not trigger a rent review hearing; it simply allows the rent review officer to ask the landlord to justify his rent.

Unfortunately, I have to go along with the idea that there is a necessity to continue this legislation here in the Metropolitan Toronto area, and perhaps in some other areas of the province. I would be glad to see a programme that would gradually phase this thing out. When rent review came in we had a 10 per cent vacancy in the Kitchener-Waterloo area in the summer months and about four per cent in the winter months. Since no apartment buildings have been built in our area since rent review came in, our vacancy rate is now considerably less. It will not improve until we get a splurge of new apartment buildings.

There has been one redeeming factor. There have been a lot of condominiums built in our area, and while their sale has been quite slow there are people moving out of apartments into condominium units. I think this is helping our rental figure to some extent. That concludes my comments on this legislation.

Mr. Moffatt: Come on, “Jack”; let’s have your speech, “Jack”.

Mr. Shore: I welcome this opportunity to speak.

An hon. member: There’s a by-election in Crowfoot.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. member for London North welcomes the opportunity to speak. I hope you will welcome the opportunity to listen to him.

Mr. Shore: I welcome this opportunity and, with the permission of the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick), I would like to share a few remarks with you.

Mr. Nixon: The member for Riverdale isn’t even here. He might be smarter than the rest of us.

Mr. Shore: I’ve had permission from him to speak.

Mr. Good: Are you still as opposed to it as you were before?

Mr. Shore: I would like to join with the minister in actively supporting the Act to amend The Residential Premises Rent Review Act.

Mr. Ferris: You didn’t used to like rent control, Marv.

Mr. Shore: I take pride in joining with the government in the extension of this Act.

Interjections.

Mr. Shore: These interruptions make good Hansard. I notice a lot of Liberals aren’t wanting to talk because they are a little scared about what they said last year; this year may vary a little bit.

An hon. member: Not so with you, Marvin.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope the member for London North will confine his remarks to the principle of the bill and ignore the interjections.

Mr. Mancini: Marvin scores again.

Mr. Moffatt: It is still one to nothing.

Mr. Shore: I will talk on the principle of the bill but, for the record, I would like to state that on many of the specifies brought up by other members -- and I note particularly some of the comments made by the member for Waterloo North -- I share their feelings; I won’t, however, repeat some of the specifics.

I think it should be stated that the members of the New Democratic Party have shown very clearly that they are truly in opposition. It wouldn’t make any difference whether this bill was extended or not, they would be opposed to it.

Mr. Moffatt: We said we supported the bill.

Mr. Shore: They are clearly indicating that they are opposed to everything; they have shown that today.

Hon. W. Newman: They are opposed to everything.

Mr. Moffatt: We will continue to support the bill.

Mr. Shore: They like to be the initiators or the originators, to take the credit all the time. They are not the end all or the be all on the rights of tenants. They may think so, but the tenants don’t necessarily believe that.

Mr. Bain: No, you are, Marvin.

Mr. Ferrier: You are the end all and be all on the rights of the landlord.

Mr. Shore: I would also like to state, for the record, that in the year or so that this legislation has been in place tenants and landlords in the riding of London North have experienced certain unhappiness.

Mr. Bain: If you quit switching around you wouldn’t get all the flak.

Mr. Shore: I have been pleased that in many of these experiences -- unfortunately not as many as I would like either through the rent review Act or through discussions, both the tenant and the landlord have come away happy. Just this week, through a bad experience with the rent review Act, a landlord and a tenant who had been getting along for a number of years became involved in a very apparent and unfortunate conflict. I am pleased to report that I am going to be meeting with both these parties and hopefully they will communicate with each other, if nothing else.

Mr. Ferris: Bash their heads together.

Mr. Shore: There is quite a bit that I could say of my feelings and experience on the administration of this legislation heretofore -- hopefully the new amendments will help clear that up -- but the most consistent experience I have had is with the inconsistency in its administration.

Having got that out of the way, I would like to speak for a moment on the whole concept of rent review. I would like to reply for a moment to the criticism of this Act which has been made by the opposition. Apparently the hon. members of the opposition would prefer to see the government institute permanent rent controls.

Mr. Moffatt: How would you know?

Mr. Shore: They have suggested that there be no termination date in The Residential Premises Rent Review Act -- and that the rent review programme continue indefinitely. I submit that is no way to eliminate the shortages. I was extremely surprised to hear the opposition make the recommendation, and I would have thought that the hon. members of the opposition were acquainted with the experiences of permanent rent control in other jurisdictions -- jurisdictions which I think they should be somewhat familiar with.

Mr. Grande: You don’t want this government --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is my understanding the member for Oakwood has already participated in this debate.

Mr. Shore: However, they are actually as out of touch with the real world as I had always believed they are. Still, I would have assumed that they were somewhat familiar with the writings of the great economists they sometimes read about, but the hon. members of the opposition appear to be living in a fog. They are not aware that historical experience and economic theory demonstrate --

Mr. Kerrio: You have risen above that now, eh, Marvin?

Mr. Shore: Yes, I’ve gone above it.

Mr. Moffatt: You are right up to your eyes.

Mr. Shore: As a matter of fact, I was never quite there. I think you are above it too but you don’t want to stand up and say it, that’s the problem.

Mr. Mancini: Is that a Jack Horner remark?

Mr. Shore: We can’t afford Trudeau’s price.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Would the member for Essex South try to contain himself, please?

Mr. Mancini: It is awfully hard, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: And the members for Niagara Falls and Durham East.

Mr. Shore: Mr. Speaker, it is time we realized that permanent rent controls -- and I stress permanent rent controls -- and housing shortages are substantially synonymous and that permanent controls invariably create shortages.

Mr. di Santo: Don’t be so silly.

Mr. Shore: Really the ultimate losers in all this are the people I want to protect -- and I am not so sure about you --

Mr. Bain: The landlords.

Mr. Shore: -- the tenants of this province. Put that in your Hansard as you send it out too.

Mr. Speaker, a rent review programme is merely, I submit, a short term measure only to be applied when a disequilibrium has developed in the housing market. I would like to remind the hon. members why this government originally decided to implement The Residential Premises Rent Review Act.

Mr. Bain: You were forced into it.

Mr. Shore: Supported, incidentally, by all parties. I think it is correct to say that the problems which eventually led to the institution of the Ontario rent review programme probably began back in 1971 or maybe a little earlier.

Mr. Campbell: No, 1975 is about right.

Mr. Shore: Oh, we’ve got a new voice. Before that date, and indeed, for some time afterwards, tenants in this province enjoyed a buyer’s market. I would like to debate that because, in fact, they did. There was a large surplus of rental units available and consequently rental accommodation was comparatively inexpensive. In many parts of the province, then and to this date, there are still major losses incurred by ordinary landlords suffering unduly. I had the pleasure, a week or 10 days ago, of being in Windsor and speaking to a group of people of approximately 200 -- and I’d like particularly the loyal opposition to have been there --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: What principle of the bill is the member enunciating?

Mr. Shore: The principle is this: They have accused landlords of being bandits, pirates and thieves. They should have shared that evening with me, with 200 people, some of them owning four units, six units, 10 units, and tell them they were bandits, with all their savings put into these things. These were entrepreneurial people who put their savings into it.

Mr. di Santo: Oh, come on. Sit down.

Mr. Shore: And I’d like to see them go down to Windsor, and call that group of people bandits.

Mr. Ferrier: How do you know what rents they were charging?

Mr. Shore: In 1971, Mr. Speaker, economic studies were beginning to show that investment in rental properties was no longer sound. Bonds were much better to buy. Rent increases were needed to make new investments profitable and to enable older projects to catch up with costs.

Moderate increases of four or five per cent a year were needed to restore the balance between rent and costs. I doubt that many people would have objected. After all, these increases would have been less than general inflation. But the necessary rent increases were delayed in many instances, partly because of the market conditions. From 1970 to 1974, rents rose approximately eight per cent compared to 41 per cent increases in costs for many homes. The reasons why rents didn’t rise to that level was because completions had created, in many instances, an oversupply. Then again two things happened to make the investment situation even more desperate.

First, the federal government went ahead with its package of tax reform. Among other things, during that time, the reforms meant that depreciation on rental projects could not be deducted from other income. The benefits that some tenants had been getting because of the tax break provided to rental investors came to an end -- and in fact it did. I know for a fact and many others know, that many owners were satisfied to take nominal returns, if any returns at all. But they weren’t doing it and the marketplace was also a determining factor. The federal government’s own advisers warned that this provision would reduce investment in rental properties and they were right.

From 1970 onward, starts on apartment buildings began to decline as a percentage of total starts from better than half of the total starts to less than one-third last year. Vacancy rates began to decline as well, of course. At the same time, renewed inflation at ever higher interest rates pushed capital and operating costs to new highs.

Look at some of the facts. In just the past couple of years, property taxes are more than 18 per cent higher than they were two years ago. Mortgage interest rates have risen substantially. Tenant repairs -- nearly 23 per cent. Fuel and utilities -- more than 30 per cent. In the same period, average rents rose just a little more than 11 per cent for existing apartments.

But it was still evident, Mr. Speaker, that this moderate rate of increase could not be sustained. As the costs continued to escalate, it became obvious and apparent that a day of reckoning was coming and that the accumulated deficiencies of the past would create rent increases of higher proportions. Individual cases of hardship were reported with increasing frequency and a sense of panic -- and I stress panic -- started to spread among the tenants. The cries rose up for rent controls and ironically, this cry itself helped to stampede the market and make controls necessary. No one knew what rent increases were coming or what they should be.

In an effort to get ahead of the game, and stay within the game in some instances, some landlords seemed to be pushing for increased rents. Some appeared to be grabbing what they could before the controls came in. So controls became necessary to cool out the situation and to phase in legitimate rent increases to cover legitimate costs --

Mr. di Santo: Who wrote your speech, Marvin?

Mr. Shore: -- rather than overnight increases and overnight raises without justification or explanation.

Mr. di Santo: What is that? A ministerial statement?

Mr. Ferrier: Who wrote your speech, Marvin?

Mr. Shore: I do it. I do a lot of my stuff myself now.

Mr. Mancini: We can tell, Marvin.

Mr. Shore: Oh, and I try to get some help from whatever side of the House I can get it -- although I agree you agree with most of the comments. I appreciate that.

Mr di Santo: You will make it next time.

Mr. Shore: Rent controls are not an argument against the private sector, but rather a necessary although short-term period of adjustment.

[9:30]

Landlords are not to blame for inflation. They must eventually pass it on. In the main, it is not their fault that it came all at once; that was largely dictated by circumstances, I submit. Nor is the tenant to blame. Obviously, tenants must be sheltered from a sudden reckoning with inflation that at one blow takes away the capacity to pay for an apartment which only the week before was well within their reach. It would have been inhuman to sit back and watch circumstances deprive people of their homes.

Some of the factors that led to the government’s decision to introduce the rent control scheme still remain, particularly the federal government’s anti-inflation programme, continuing high rates of inflation and a shortfall in rental accommodation.

Mr. di Santo: What about high unemployment?

Mr. Shore: This has necessitated an extension of The Residential Premises Rent Review Act, which has been prolonged until the official termination date of the anti-inflation programme. The hon. members of the opposition feel that rent review should remain in force until all shortages in rental accommodation are removed. I would like to remind such members that the provincial government has programmes now in force which are working, and hopefully will work better. Ontario has Canada’s most comprehensive and well-developed rent supplement scheme. This has been rapidly expanded to meet the needs of those who cannot afford basic accommodation. The government rents apartments from private landlords and leases them to families and individuals based upon what they can afford.

On this point, I think this concept is worthy of strong improvement and expansion because therein lies hope for the future of rental accommodations, and therefore help for the tenant. It has been proven time and time again that the private sector can not only build them at less expensive costs, but can operate them at substantially less. Provincial co-operation with federal and municipal governments will continue in order to increase the amount of rental housing for senior citizen and low-income families. Through the newly merged Assisted Home Ownership Plan and the Home Ownership Made Easy programme, we will continue to assist moderate-income families to buy their own homes, thereby freeing currently occupied rental units.

Mr. di Santo: When?

Mr. Shore: I must tell you, if you’re duly interested in the tenants --

Mr. Moffatt: We are.

Mr. Shore: Yes, you are all right; however the government is also initiating a programme to stimulate the construction of moderately priced rental units. This programme will work in conjunction with the assisted home rental plan of the federal government.

Mr. Haggerty: You don’t believe that?

Mr. Shore: Oh I believe it, sure.

Mr. Deans: That one has been an overwhelming success?

Mr. Shore: I believe it, yes.

Mr. Deans: You would believe almost anything.

Mr. Shore: No, I wouldn’t believe some of the things you would say, but next to that quite a bit.

Mr. Deans: I said almost anything.

Mr. Shore: As I said earlier, this has been successful in most areas of Ontario and the federal government expects to commit more than 5,000 units in 1977. This will make a substantial contribution, I submit, to removing rental shortages over the coming year.

However, in some areas, such as Toronto apparently, the federal programme will need assistance in replenishing the rental housing market. To ensure that ARP functions as effectively as possible, the Ministry of Housing will provide an Ontario rental construction grant, as we now know, of up to $600 per unit per year in those areas where the federal programme requires additional support. This new programme should provide starts for more than 3,000 additional units in areas where they are most needed.

On this point, I believe that we’re going to have a little expansion, a little more understanding of the details of this, so that the builder and the developer can understand the long-term effects of it. While the government of Ontario recognizes the need for solving the problems of shortages, we cannot accept the argument of the opposition that no termination date should be written into the legislation.

Mr. Deans: Why?

Mr. Shore: The opposition has its argument back to front as they usually do in many other things.

Mr. Swart: You went from front to back.

Mr. Shore: Rent controls act as a negative force in the government’s aim to create new housing. It causes shortages, it doesn’t eliminate them. This is why additional construction programmes and taxation changes have become necessary.

Mr. Deans: Thirty-four years and now you are moving -- maybe.

Mr. Shore: Quite apart from that, there are a number of reasons why it would be unwise to extend The Residential Premises Rent Review Act indefinitely. For one thing, the legislation merely permits the pass-through of cost increases and offsets the possibility of a financial loss to the landlord. In order that rental construction will continue in the future, we must recognize that rental properties have to provide an attractive return on capital comparative to that of an alternative investment. Otherwise we can sit in this Legislature and give the great speeches that are given on that side --

Mr. Ferrier: Not many great speeches coming from your side.

Mr. Shore: -- but the builders will be unable to find investors willing to purchase rental structures and will have little incentive to construct additional units.

Mr. Deans: The rent controls don’t have anything to do with that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I will recognize the member for Wentworth next.

Mr. Shore: By establishing rent controls indefinitely -- and I stress indefinitely -- we could in effect be giving the private construction industry notice. We could be giving them notice and we don’t want to do that; we don’t want to do it because of the health of the tenants in this province. We could potentially be giving them notice to divert resources toward construction of non-rental units, thereby creating an indefinite shortage of rental accommodation that could only become worse year by year. When will the members opposite wake up? I don’t know.

It is essential that the rent review programme harness rather than discourage the private sector. There is no solution in replacing private industry with government involvement in the construction of rental units, both from a capital nature and from an operational nature. Even their own critic, formerly, who is either being demoted or promoted -- I can’t quite figure yet -- has stated clearly that the operational costs of government are upwards of 20 per cent higher. Private builders say they can build and manage rental units for 15 to 20 per cent less. I believe it, and the experience of public corporation in the past bears this out.

Mr. Deans: How come Jack Horner did so much better than you?

Mr. Shore: We must remember too that it is necessary to maintain a healthy public debate over the provisions and the desirability of the rent review programme. This has always been a government that is open to new ideas and possibilities, one that has never been shackled by ideologies or doctrines. But if we were to make rent review permanent, as many opposite would like us to do, we would be stifling that debate and diminishing the likelihood that alternative and better proposals for housing policy would emerge. I would like to believe we do not want that to happen.

I would like to respond briefly to one more criticism that has been made of rent review programming -- that it is causing a great problem. I don’t want to go into this in great detail, but it seems to me that while I support strongly the continuance of this programme for the time being, we must do everything possible to make sure that its administration is improved and at least try to reflect some form of consistency across the province.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member for Downsview.

Mr. di Santo: Some pounding, please.

[Applause]

Mr. Deans: Is that enough?

Mr. di Santo: Okay. Mr. Speaker, after the contribution of the member for London North --

Mr. Shore: Just say you support what I said and you’ll be all right.

Mr. di Santo: -- half facetious, or pitiful I should say, I would like to rise and support the continuation of the rent review legislation. I think this is a necessity in the province of Ontario at this time, and not because I am dogmatic, but because I don’t know how long we are going to be in this situation. I really don’t understand the Tory members, the minister and the other members from the government benches, who are speaking on this bill. We are in this situation because the private sector was unable to respond to the needs of the people of the province of Ontario; it was unable to supply enough accommodation to the tenants so that, two years ago, they were objectively in a situation where they were gouged by landlords. That was the objective situation we were in two years ago because the private sector was unable to respond to the needs of those people and that is why we were forced to introduce this legislation. There is nothing dogmatic on this side.

We don’t think there has to be rent review or rent control legislation like this forever. On the contrary, we think that everyone in our society is entitled to have housing because we think that houses are a social right and not a privilege. It’s because the Tory government, in 34 years, has been unable to promote the kind of economic development in the housing sector where people could afford a house, that many people today are forced to go into rental accommodation. Since there is not enough rental accommodation for all those people who cannot afford a house, we were forced into a situation where we had to introduce this rent control legislation. It was not because it’s our choice; it was because of the failure of Tory policies over 34 years.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Is that why all the provinces have it?

Mr. di Santo: We are talking about this province and the results of 34 years of Tory government. I don’t care what happens in Rhodesia or North Korea --

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Why does Manitoba have it?

Mr. Shore: What about Saskatchewan?

Mr. di Santo: We are here in Ontario and we are suffering. There are thousands of people, not only in my riding -- I don’t want to be parochial -- but 50 per cent of the population in Metropolitan Toronto, who cannot afford a house any more. Not because of us, because we have never been the government of this province; the Tories have been the bloody government of the province of Ontario for the last 34 years.

Today we are faced with this situation and the Tories are trying to justify it. I’m really shocked when the member for Scarborough East (Mrs. Birch) stands up in her place --

Mr. Drea: Don’t you point at me.

Mr. di Santo: Not the member for Scarborough Centre, of course.

Mr. Ferrier: Only you are allowed to point, Frank.

Mr. di Santo: I’m shocked when the member for Scarborough East stands as a defender of the rights of the tenants when we know what happened before introducing this legislation. We also know what happened last summer when the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations was against extending this legislation; and the Solicitor General (Mr. MacBeth), on the contrary, was maintaining that this legislation should be extended. It probably was because of the different constituencies they represent.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I’ve got more renters than he’s got.

[9:45]

Mr. di Santo: I would also like to say that there is a reason why we think the rent increase at this point should be comparable to the increase in the wages allowed by the Anti-Inflation Board. The reason is that this government immediately endorsed the anti-inflation programme for reasons that have been discussed during the Throne Speech debate and we think that we cannot afford any more that this government can introduce legislation calling for excessive increases in items which are not regulated by the Anti-Inflation Board -- like hydro, which last year was increased by 30 per cent -- can increase rents by eight per cent and then the workers of this province because of the anti-inflation legislation can only get a six per cent increase.

I think there has to be a rationale in the economy of the province. If this government is not able to produce enough rental accommodation; if this government is unable to produce enough houses for the people of this province, at least the workers of this province should have the right of paying only as much as they get because of the anti-inflation legislation.

I think we will not solve this problem in 1978. We will not solve this problem in 1979, because there is no way that we will have enough rental accommodation in this province. Just one or two weeks ago, the Minister of Housing, in announcing his grand plan, said, if I am not wrong, the incentive for the new rental accommodation will be $600 for a unit.

Mr. Haggerty: Right on.

Mr. di Santo: It was calculated that we will have 3,000 units in the whole province, while one year ago it was said from the government benches that we need at least 10,000 rental units every year. If that is the case, Mr. Speaker, you will realize that there is no way that the pressure on rents will decrease, because the market is just unable to supply enough accommodation to meet the demands of the tenants.

For this reason, I support the legislation because I think that it is necessary. I think, though, that the increase allowed should be within six per cent, because that is not only what the Anti-Inflation Board allows, but will slow down the inflationary spiral that is still here, according to what the Treasurer of the province (Mr. McKeough) said the other night in the presentation of his budget.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: First of all, I would like to comment just briefly on some of the remarks I just heard from the hon. member for Downsview. He made one of the most accurate statements that I think he has probably made since he came into this Legislature and I quote him: “We will not solve this problem in 1978 or 1979.” Absolutely correct. That member and his caucus will never have the opportunity to solve this problem --

Mr. di Santo: No, never; you will not solve

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- in 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 or 2000 plus.

Mr. Moffatt: Five years before you solve it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: So I can assure the member that that is the first accurate statement he’s made since he came into this Legislature.

Secondly, the hon. member for Downsview stands up and says that I announced a programme the other day in which I’ve indicated 3,000 units. The hon. member has obviously taken a leaf from his leader’s book. That is you fool around with the numbers, you play around.

As I said one time not too long ago, what those people do over there is approach this whole situation as if they were at a buffet lunch. They go along taking all the things off that they think suit them, then pile up on the plate more than they really need and then they want to pick somebody else’s pocket to pay for it when they get to the end of the line.

If they had taken the time to read the material that was presented to them, they would have found that under the assisted rental programme now being carried out by the federal government in this province, 5,000 units are expected to be built this year -- under the assisted rental programme.

Mr. di Santo: You take credit for what the federal government is doing.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I kept those figures as low as possible because I feel there’s no point in trying to inflate the figures. I said the new programme should provide for 3,000 more units and I said most of those will be in Metro. That for the member’s benefit, in case his math isn’t as good as it should be, is 8,000 units. Add to that the number of units that will be built for rental by the private sector, add to that the number of rental units to be provided by Ontario Housing --

Mr. di Santo: Do not take credit for the federal programme.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Sit down, I’m talking. Sit down, you’re out of order. Add to that the number of units that Ontario Housing will put onto it, and the member has his 10,000 to 12,000 units.

So start counting more than just fingers. Start paying attention to what’s going on and quit fooling around picking numbers out of a paper. Pay attention to what you think you’re doing.

Now we’ll come back to the principle of the bill. I don’t think there’s any question on either side of the House that the rent review legislation has accomplished what we hoped it would accomplish, and that the rent review legislation is here before this House so that we can continue the programme.

We think we have accomplished holding rent increases at a reasonable level over this past year. If we haven’t done that, then, of course, I must say that the hon. members in this Legislature now, plus those who are not gracing us with their presence, joined with us in supporting the legislation as it now exists. That’s what happened; the legislation is there. The New Democratic Party would like very much to have everybody believe it is responsible for rent review legislation.

Mr. Kerrio: That’s not true, we are.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: That is not correct. This Legislature is responsible. The bill was brought here, it was debated, it was abused a little by some ridiculous amendments, but basically it was this Legislature that brought in the legislation. Don’t try and take any credit for anything. They haven’t got the ability to bring in anything that will stick in this Legislature -- and they know it.

Mr. Deans: I think we have stuck in your craw a few times.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We are attempting to bring this new legislation in for the purpose of continuing the programme as has been agreed by all three parties. Speeches have been made here and it was agreed by all three parties that it should be temporary. The leader of the New Democratic Party has said it should be temporary legislation. That’s what we’ve got -- legislation that will be continuing for another year and, hopefully, within that year we can see an easing of the shortage of rental accommodation in this province.

I don’t come from the metropolitan area, but I recognize that it’s here in this part of the province where the real problem is. That’s what we’re hoping to be able to resolve by programmes that will provide more rental accommodation. Hopefully, that can be accomplished. I am not going to take the tack that has been presented to me by members of the New Democratic Party, in discussions I’ve had with them publicly and privately, that all of the housing in this province should be built by the government.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: That’s ridiculous. That’s the position they have taken all the way along. They would like nothing better than to see the private sector say, “We’re not going to build any more housing.” They’d love to see that, because then they would come back -- and they’ve done it here to me already -- beat me over the head and say, “The private sector won’t do it, the government has to do it.” That’s their whole philosophy.

Mr. Grossman: The same old stuff.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Someone said we have rent review and not rent control. That’s right. But if they had their way they would have rent control. They would have control of everything. They would control every aspect of the economy, because that’s the whole philosophy they live by.

Mr. di Santo: Come on, that’s nonsense. Sit down.

Mr. Grossman: Check out your leader over there.

Mr. Ruston: You want to control all the farmers over there.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We’re not going to do that. We have a real belief that the builders of this province, the people who are capable of building the rental accommodation in the private sector, will in fact build, but they have to have an atmosphere in which they feel they can build and can recognize and can realize that they are going to be able to make a reasonable return on their investment.

Mr. Shore: Do you understand that?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The NDP members should go and talk to some of these builders -- if they have the nerve, considering the position some of them have taken -- go and talk to them and ask them what return they are getting on investments. Go and talk to some of the landlords who are now trying to make a living out of buildings they buy.

Mr. Bain: I think Cadillac-Fairview is doing all right.

Mr. Germa: How about Ronto Development?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Ah, Mr. Speaker, I was waiting for someone to grab that hook, and the member for Sudbury grabbed it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That’s not a principle in this bill.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Absolutely no principle in anything he said, you’re right.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: He hasn’t got the floor; you have.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I’ll go on, sir. I’ll bow to your order. But you’re absolutely correct, there’s nothing principled in what he had to say.

Mr. Kerrio: That’s not fair --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We would like to continue with this legislation as it has been presented, because we believe that over the next year, with the efforts of the private sector, with the continuing of the programmes that are going to be needed by Ontario Housing, with the units that will be built through the combination of the programmes between this province and Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, we will be able to provide more and more rental units, primarily here in the Metro area but as well throughout the whole province, to get vacancy rates in the various communities so that rent review will not be necessary.

We don’t believe we should put rent review in as a permanent piece of legislation. I don’t believe that. I would like to think my friends in the Liberal Party don’t believe that either. I think most of the forward-thinking, not-too-far-left members of the New Democratic Party think the same way as well.

Mr. Shore: All two of them, whoever they are.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I believe we can go along and carry out our programmes and provide the necessary accommodation.

Mr. di Santo: You created the mess.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I want to commend the member for Armourdale. I’m sorry he’s not here. The member for Oakwood pointed a finger at him and said he’s a free enterpriser. I commend him for admitting he’s a free enterpriser because it’s the free enterprisers who’ve made this province work for many years.

Mr. di Santo: Oh, come on!

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It sure hasn’t been that socialistic approach that you guys have been taking.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: You are the best housed people in the world.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: That’s what has been making it work. Right now, we have our AHOP programme in place and providing housing for people with low and medium incomes. The grant programme that we’ve started to provide rental accommodation can deliver, provided those investors and those builders can have some confidence they’ll be able to get that reasonable return. They’re going to watch with interest what we do with this legislation. But if some members opposite are determined to keep them out of the market and not build those units, then let them just carry on with the way some of them have been talking about six per cent increases. That’s ridiculous.

Mr. di Santo: You are determined. Don’t say we are determined.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We’ve taken off the land transfer tax. That’s going to help provide more units in this community and in this province. I say to members that the basic bill that’s before them for approval tonight is a good piece of legislation and that it should receive the endorsement of this House. Let’s get on, get it into place and move on to other matters of importance to be discussed here in this Legislature.

Mr. Deans: I hadn’t really intended to participate in this debate.

Mr. Shore: I can’t believe that.

Mr. Deans: I had thought earlier that the debate was going to terminate early in the evening and we were going to go on to other legislation. But since the debate now has dragged on for some considerable time, I thought it might be worthwhile to put some comments on the record with regard to views I’ve held for some time about the rent control legislation we’re now debating again.

I want to bring to your mind, Mr. Speaker, the fact that over a number of years -- 10 to my reckoning and perhaps you can remember even other times prior to your and my coming into the House -- we had placed before the government problems that were evident and emerging in the rental accommodation field. I can recall distinctly on a number of occasions over the 10 years from 1967 to 1977 we pointed out to the government that there were evidences that rents were rising out of the normal range that might be acceptable to the majority of people and that we needed rent review legislation to allow for a reasonable review of rents in order to ensure that we didn’t have to end up with rent controls.

It has been evident since 1967, in all fairness to the minister, that there has been a general slowdown, or perhaps to put it another way, the number of rental units being constructed in the province of Ontario hasn’t been keeping pace with the need. It hasn’t been keeping pace with the need for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is that people who up until 1967 had been able to look forward to and save for and acquire a home of their own were no longer able to because of the inadequate policies of this government. People who might have been going into the purchasing of accommodation in the years 1967 through 1977 were being left in the rental marketplace.

I’ve got to say to the Minister of Housing, who just finished speaking, that much of what he has said is absolute nonsense.

Interjection.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will the member for Essex South stop hollering across the chamber. That’s not permitted.

[10:00]

Mr. Deans: Show a little decorum. To use the words of the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough), I’ve come to the conclusion that the ministers involved in this debate -- the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations and the Minister of Housing -- just don’t understand what’s happening in the province of Ontario. I get the claim from the Minister of Housing that we in the NDP believe all housing should be built in the public sector.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I can read it back to you.

Mr. Deans: I want to tell the House what we believe.

Mr. Shore: You mean this week.

Mr. Deans: Incidentally, why did you do so badly? Jack Horner did so much better than you.

Mr. Shore: I know; he’s a smarter guy. What am I going to do?

Mr. Deans: I don’t know. Don’t you feel a little embarrassed?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: How about the principle of the bill?

Mr. Shore: He is a better negotiator.

Mr. Deans: In any event, we believe that accommodation can’t be left simply to the whims of people investing money. It can’t be left to that. Accommodation for people is a basic right -- not only accommodation, but accommodation at a price they can afford.

What has happened in the province of Ontario, because of the non-policies of this government in the housing field, and because it hasn’t been able to cope with the rising costs, and because there was little if anything done in the area of ensuring mortgage interest rates at prices that could be afforded -- because these things weren’t happening across the whole country, but in particular in this jurisdiction -- we found that more and more people were being pushed out of the purchase market into the rental market.

That meant the province of Ontario should have been -- and this won’t come as news to the members -- in the business of providing rental accommodation many years ago in a far greater way than it was. There should have been a concerted effort made to ensure for those people who couldn’t afford to pay what might be considered the economic rent to guarantee the investor an adequate return on his or her investment, that there had to be alternative accommodation in sufficient quantity to meet the needs of those people. That wasn’t done in the province of Ontario.

There are, at this point, tens of thousands of elderly living in accommodations for which they are paying far more out of their meager incomes than their incomes can afford. And the province doesn’t move with any meaningful purpose to try to ensure that there are either accommodations for them at a price they can afford or, on the other hand, a subsidy for the rents that will enable them to live in the accommodations they are in. That is the first problem.

The second problem is that there are any number of people, who can be easily identified, who fall into the category of being low-middle and low income earners. They go out to work every day like you and me. They work hard for their livings. They don’t earn enough, though, to get into the marketplace and pay again the economic rent that was required by investors in order to ensure what they thought was an adequate return on their investment. Yet the province of Ontario was unable -- or unwilling, I suspect, rather than unable -- to move swiftly into the provision of accommodation for those people.

So when we found that as this province failed to provide that accommodation; failed to take the necessary steps from 1967 through 1975 to ensure that land prices didn’t continue to escalate unreasonably; failed to build or to enter into the building field; failed to provide the kinds of mortgage financing at interest rates that were necessary in order to maintain a reasonable level of payment for most people -- when we found those things weren’t happening, we were faced with situations where the average family was having to pay out far more of its disposable income for accommodation than it could reasonably afford.

In Metropolitan Toronto it was clearly evident three years ago that there was, to use a rather nasty term, rent gouging taking place. It wasn’t a matter of an economic return. It wasn’t a matter of guaranteeing a reasonable profit level. There were people in the market who were prepared to take everything they could get without any consideration for the capacity of the individuals living there to meet their obligations, not only for accommodation but for all the other things that make life bearable and worth living.

I think that is what we were faced with in the province of Ontario, and in particular in metropolitan areas, Toronto being the worst example. Here we were with people who were gouging -- plain ordinary gouging; who were taking far more from the individual renters than was reasonable. We were forced to rent controls.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Why do you say rent controls?

Mr. Deans: I say rent controls because that is what they are. Let’s not kid ourselves. They are rent controls. The government is controlling rents.

We were forced to rent controls. We needn’t have been forced to rent controls if the government had had an adequate housing policy; but it didn’t. So the government was dragged kicking and screaming into rent controls in the province of Ontario. It didn’t want them. If the Tories had had a majority government they would never have been there. The government brought them in because it knew the results of the last election were at least to some extent influenced by the people who said they were being taken unfair advantage of by certain landlords in the province.

I say certain landlords because I recognize, as everyone else recognizes, that not every landlord in the province gouges. There are any number of landlords who own small apartments, even some who own large apartments, who have a social conscience. There are landlords who are prepared to recognize the problems that confront the tenants of their buildings, and they do deal fairly. Those are the landlords, incidentally, whose tenants never complain to the members, whose tenants never go before the rent review boards, whose tenants are satisfied they are being dealt with in a reasonable and fair way.

Rent controls didn’t hurt those landlords one single bit -- not one bit. Not a single one of those landlords felt any undue pressure as the result of having had rent controls brought in. There are a lot of landlords in the province of Ontario, many of them small -- I don’t mean small in stature but small in the numbers of buildings they own or in the types of buildings they own -- who didn’t need rent control in order to live up to their obligations, and to recognize what was a fair return on their investment.

But just as there are a large number who fall into that category, there were, if one were to measure in terms of the numbers of rental units available in the province, an equally large number who had no conscience at all. They cared not one whit for the desperate straits their tenants were being placed in, and were prepared to take out of the marketplace every single cent they could get, whether it was justified or otherwise. And they are still around.

They are the landlords who today are before the rent review appeals system trying to get more. They are the landlords who appear and who place before the Rent Review Board great lists of all the things they do for their tenants -- and then when you start to check it, you find that while they’ve put down sums of money for painting, they never paint. They put down sums of money for maintenance of the building; they maintain the building hardly at all. They charge in excess. What they put before the rent review officer and subsequently, in almost every case, before the Rent Review Board, are extravagant guesses about their expected costs.

I find it most offensive when I look at it, when I appear before a rent review officer, as I have done on numerous occasions, and I find the landlord is placing before the rent review officer statements that are false -- phoney statements that don’t bear any relationship to the way they deal with their tenants or to the way they maintain their buildings.

I wonder at times if part of the fault for that doesn’t rest directly with this minister, because every time he stood up and said he didn’t like rent review or rent controls, that he was not going to extend it, that he thought it was unfair to the landlords, that he was going to quit if it was continued -- every time he did that he shored up all the cheap ones, all the ones who were prepared to take advantage of people. He gave them the opportunity to feel secure in the knowledge that the government supported what they were doing, even though it may not have.

I think that is where the problem lay, it was an attitude of landlords that they didn’t want to be controlled. Of course, they didn’t want to be controlled. Many of them were taking such advantage that they didn’t want to lose the massive profits they were taking out of the buildings they had.

Mr. Reid: They weren’t all taking massive profits.

Mr. Deans: If the member had been here a moment ago he would have understood that I explained that. It’s too bad he doesn’t sit and listen to these things.

Mr. Reid: Anybody who can sit and listen to you has got a better stomach than I have, I must say.

Mr. Deans: Yes, but perhaps not bigger.

Mr. Reid: Not bigger, but stronger.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Reid: I bow to you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deans: The difficulties of tenants, though, are far greater than the difficulties of landlords in these situations. To begin with, we hear the former Liberal member for London North, and also the Minister of Housing, talking about how this holds down investment in rental accommodation. They seem to forget that new development doesn’t fall under the Act.

Mr. Shore: You’ll never understand, you know that?

Mr. Deans: New development doesn’t fall under the Act.

Mr. Shore: You could look in the mirror forever and still not understand.

Mr. Deans: Those people who are investing --

Mr. Shore: Hopeless.

Mr. Deans: -- know full well that they are going to be able to charge whatever it is that they require in order to recover their investment. Either that or the government is going to go back to the system that says that the person who has owned a building for 30 years and has paid it off a long time ago and who owes absolutely nothing on it is entitled to get in return for that the same as the person who has invested most recently and who has a large mortgage at large interest rates.

The member can’t tell me that that would be fair and he surely doesn’t expect that.

Mr. Shore: Do you know what indexing means in pensions? Do you know this?

Mr. Deans: Oh, yes, I know what indexing means.

Mr. Shore: I don’t think you do.

Mr. Deans: The government is just about to try to eliminate indexing in pensions. I know exactly what it means.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: You’re not saying that if you paid $20,000 for a house 20 years ago, that you’d only get $20,000 today?

Mr. Deans: I’m going to tell the government something. If it had taken care of land costs as it should have, if it had been in the housing market as it ought to have been, if it hadn’t taken the position taken by Stanley Randall and others who are in the gallery, if it hadn’t taken the position --

Mr. Grossman: Oh, that’s not fair.

Mr. Deans: -- that it didn’t want to enter into competition with the private developer --

Mr. Grossman: You’d better get into this, Stanley.

Mr. Deans: -- if it had taken the position that it was prepared to use the land of the province as a lever against ever-increasing prices in order to hold prices down on a level that people could afford, then the minister wouldn’t be asking me that question. Because the prices wouldn’t have gone up --

Mr. Kennedy: You would have the government own every house in the province.

Mr. Deans: -- by leaps and bounds as they did over the 10-year period that I’m talking about.

Mr. Drea: And the member for Beaches wouldn’t have made thousands on a fast sale.

Mr. Deans: There was a period in time not so many years ago when the appreciation of land values and the appreciation of real estate was nominal.

Mr. Drea: Wait until the member for Scarborough West (Mr. Lewis) reveals how much he made.

Mr. Deans: It rose, but it didn’t rise in the way that it rose over the last few years. The reason it rose over the last few years is because this government helped to shore up the land speculators in the province by charging to the public for the land that it had purchased years before at much reduced costs. It charged at the very same level as the speculators were charging in the marketplace. It worked hand in hand with them in order to shore up their greed. That was in spite of the fact that these matters were brought to its attention time after time, year after year.

And so the reason we’re faced with such exorbitantly high costs today is directly related to the fact that the government was not prepared to take the necessary action over that 10-year period --

Mr. Shore: What bill is he speaking on, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Acting Speaker: The same one you spoke on.

Mr. Deans: -- in order to maintain the costs at a level that people could afford. In the same time, it forced families into the situation where they had to become two-income families. Now the budget’s beginning to try to move away from that position. How in heaven’s name people are ever going to live on one income again in the province is beyond my understanding.

Mr. Shore: Time.

Mr. Grossman: Meanwhile, back on the bill.

Mr. Deans: In any event, to go on, tenants in the province have great difficulty in dealing with this problem. Even though tenants can get the time off work to go up and find out what the landlord has filed, the majority I have to deal with first of all don’t fully understand all of the documentation that’s provided; and secondly much of what’s provided is provided in the kind of language that it requires legal advice in order to understand or at the very least accounting advice.

So the majority of tenants are going on instinct. Their instincts tell them that the increase that’s being asked is somehow out of line with what they understand the rising costs to be. The landlord then appears before the review board, and you find that he is then able to make changes in his submissions. And of course when the tenant --

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, perhaps there might be some order in the second row.

Mr. di Santo: Frank, you’re right.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The member may continue.

Mr. Deans: Thank you, I was just having a drink. When the tenant then appears before the review board, the tenant is faced with figures that are somewhat different from the figures that were filed with the review heard in the first place. If, as and when the landlord is questioned, either by the review officer or by someone from among the tenants or by someone representing the tenants, you find that in fact the information that is being sought is very difficult to obtain.

[10:15]

For example, when I’m appearing before the review board, how can I tell whether the landlord does maintain his building adequately? How can I tell whether his maintenance costs are real? How can I tell whether the landlord does have to recaulk all of the windows in his apartment building this year because it hasn’t been done for five years? How am I going to know that? How can I tell whether the price that he attaches to that is a reasonable price?

How would I know whether the landlord has to do substantial maintenance to the heating plant? How could I tell whether the landlord provides janitorial service and what the cost of it is? There is no way. He can file and say that’s what it costs or that’s what the projected cost will be, or these are the capital projects he intends to undertake. But there’s very little opportunity for anyone appearing to either verify or dispute what’s being placed before the review officer.

I don’t deny that the review officer himself, or herself, can then go away to some secluded spot and, if he or she so wishes, require the landlord to produce evidence. He or she could, I suppose, go and look at the building and could, I imagine, ask to be shown the bills of five years ago if they were still available. But they don’t do it.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Yes, they do.

Mr. Deans: Oh no, they don’t. The reason I say they don’t is that if they did it, then how could there be a reasonable explanation for the difference between the rent levels set by the review officer on the one hand and the substantially increased rent levels that have been set in so many instances by the review board on the other hand? If the review officers do all the things the minister says they do, then it wouldn’t be possible for the landlord taking the same basic information to the appeal board to obtain such an extravagant change.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: A hearing de novo.

Mr. Deans: Right. I understand that. But when it’s a new hearing, how can two people hearing basically the same information come to such substantially different opinions?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: It’s not the same.

Mr. Deans: But it must be the same. If the landlord, on the one hand, produces a great list of all of the costs attendant on maintaining that building and paying it off, then surely he can’t be able to produce additional figures.

Let’s say the landlord comes in and says: “My mortgage is X dollars at a certain interest rate over an amortization period of so many years. My maintenance last year was X dollars; I anticipate undertaking certain capital repairs in the forthcoming year, and I have estimates to show that this will be the cost. My heating last year was such and such, and I now have evidence to show that my heating costs will rise by a certain sum.” And on and on they go, right down to the bottom line. He adds it up, divides it out and comes up with a figure. How then can that self-same landlord take an entirely different set of figures to an appeal board? Somewhere along the way there is something phoney about this whole thing.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: No.

Mr. Deans: I’ll tell the minister how it’s phoney -- and I told him the last time I spoke on it.

I had an instance -- and I’ve seen others since where I went to see the ministry’s appeal people; the landlord in this instance had imposed a rent increase that was appealed. The decision was given and the landlord then appealed to the board. The board came to a considerably different conclusion than the review officer. In fact, the board granted every single cent that had been asked for in the first instance by the landlord. The man who hadn’t been able to attend the second hearing because he was on vacation -- I’ve told the minister this before -- came to me and said: “I don’t understand that. I went to the first hearing. The review officer had placed before him all of the information with regard to the mortgage and all of the other attendant costs, and the review officer came to the decision that” -- for the sake of argument -- “$190 was the appropriate amount.” You will forgive me, Mr. Speaker, the figure may not be absolutely correct, but for the sake of this argument, let us say $190. “The landlord on appealing to the review board was granted $240.” I wrote to the review board and said: “I wonder if you would be good enough to provide me with the basis upon which your decision was reached?” That’s all.

Mr. Reid: They couldn’t give you an answer.

Mr. Deans: I got an answer. Do you know what the answer was? The man received another notice with a substantial reduction. Damn it all, if that’s the way the system works, it’s inadequate and it’s phoney. How can it be that after a letter from me -- and I didn’t even get the information I asked for -- the man received a second notice from the review board telling him that his increase was less than they had originally determined. That speaks volumes.

Mr. Reid: That is not one that made sense.

Mr. Deans: That speaks volumes about the process and tells a long and bitter story about the way this thing has been working.

Mr. Reid: Ask him where he got the people to administer the programme.

Mr. Deans: I don’t know as much of Toronto as I do of Hamilton, but I am going to tell you, Mr. Speaker, in almost every instance that I am aware of -- I say almost, although I could say every instance I am aware of but I just can’t be absolutely sure that’s true, but certainly in almost every instance I am aware of -- in spite of whatever it was the original review officer decided, on appeal to the board, the amount granted was substantially more than the original decision.

Mr. Reid: Because the tenants didn’t have time to go back.

Mr. Deans: I am not talking about marginally more. I could understand there might be some difference.

Mr. Grossman: And therefore.

Mr. Deans: But it was substantially more. Okay, and therefore it makes a mockery of the first hearing. The landlord simply was feeling out what he could get without presenting adequate information, or the information that was provided was adequate but the review officer didn’t do his or her work properly or the review board is biased in favour of landlords.

Mr. Grossman: Do you want examples the other way?

Mr. Deans: I am talking about the cases I am aware of in the city of Hamilton.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: There were thousands which went the other way.

Mr. Deans: If the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick would like to rise at some other time and explain his experiences, I would be quite happy to listen to them.

Mr. Grossman: I helped tenants and they were more successful.

Mr. Deans: I helped tenants and mine have been marginally successful. But I am not going to get into an argument with you over whether you do a better job. It may be that in your capacity as a lawyer, you can charge more. I don’t know.

Mr. Grossman: I didn’t charge anything and I did best.

Mr. Deans: How do you know?

Mr. Grossman: You have admitted your marginal success.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member for Wentworth will ignore the interjections and speak to me.

Mr. Deans: What would you like me to talk to you about?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The principle of Bill 28.

Mr. Deans: In any event, Mr. Speaker, since you and I are going to talk about it, I just want you to know that, incidentally, while this may not be a problem up in your area -- I suppose it could be, but it is not likely to be -- in my area what I have found is that there is something terribly wrong with the system. There is something wrong with that. Truthfully, I don’t understand --

Mr. Reid: Neither do the rent review officers, that’s the problem.

Mr. Deans: -- how there could be such a disparity in the decisions made by the various officers at the various levels, given that they are supposed to present all of the evidence and the evidence is intended and supposed to be factual. That’s what my argument with it has been all along. The minister says he wants to maintain it at eight per cent.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Take a look at the Act.

Mr. Deans: No. I said the minister has said that he wants to maintain it at eight per cent.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I said I have no information that indicates it should be less.

Mr. Reid: Has the minister got information that indicates it should be eight per cent?

Mr. Deans: If the minister says to me he has no information to indicate it should be less than eight per cent, I have got to assume that he is going to maintain it at at least eight per cent. Is that reasonable?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Yes; I have given it to you.

Mr. Deans: Thank you. I thought it was myself. Anyway, I then assume that the minister is going to maintain it at at least eight per cent -- maybe nine or 10 per cent.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: It can’t be, under the Act.

Mr. Deans: Oh, I see. So it will be at least eight per cent, okay?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Not more than eight.

Mr. Deans: Not more than eight.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Right, there’s a difference.

Mr. Deans: Maybe you could help me -- will it be less?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Could be.

Mr. Deans: Are you prepared to recommend six? Do I hear six -- once?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: This isn’t a question and answer period.

Mr. Deans: I’m just curious. I just want to know.

Mr. Germa: How low can you go?

Mr. Deans: The truth of it is that you and I, Mr. Speaker, both know that the Anti-Inflation Board regulations that govern all of us, in spite of the better judgement of some of us, have set the six per cent level. I assume there’s no productivity factor in rents -- I’m assuming there’s no productivity factor. So, therefore, the six per cent level would appear to be the appropriate level to establish as the minimum, because that’s what it is, you know; that’s the minimum, in most instances. But, in any event, six per cent seems to me to be more appropriate, since we’re all under the anti-inflation guidelines of the federal government, in any event.

If you don’t like six per cent and you think you deserve more, you can always appeal it. Since the landlords have access to all the information in every case, and since the landlords are using the tenants’ money to hire lawyers to go into the review board, it makes some sense that we should establish it at a level that is commensurate and, somehow or other, related to the anti-inflation levels established by the Anti-Inflation Board; and also the levels that govern the wage increases of the majority of people across the province -- excluding members of the Legislature, of course.

I just think that if the government is going to be honest with the tenants in the province of Ontario, and I know it wants to be, then it should say it is prepared to accept the Anti-Inflation Board guidelines at six per cent, and say that that is what it is going to establish. It is going to do it for the very good reason that that’s what is set out in the anti-inflation legislation for this coming year.

That’s a good figure. It may, in fact, turn out that on the basis of all the information, once it’s gathered, six per cent will be too high. But then the tenants could always appeal that. It may turn out, in a few isolated instances, that six per cent will be too low, and, of course, the landlords can appeal that. But I’ve got to think that there is as much relevance and sense to the six per cent figure as there would be to seven per cent or eight per cent or ten per cent. In fact, there’s more, because there is, at least, the Anti-Inflation Board guideline to fall back on.

So we urge the minister, as many of us have done already, to give very serious thought to establishing that as his figure for the base. I think he would find then that there would be a lot of support for that. I want to say, while talking about it, that I note with interest that the Liberals put forward a position where they seem to be -- I’m not absolutely sure what their position is -- but they seem to be in support of six per cent. I’m not positive because two have said yes and one has said no -- so I’ll wait and hear it.

Mr. Grossman: So, what else is new?

Mr. Breithaupt: You’d better read the amendment.

Mr. Deans: But I read it. It says that on April 19 the hon. member for Perth said he will be proposing an amendment that truly relates this bill to the AIB guidelines, and would reduce the rate of increase to six per cent in October 1977, or at such time as the AIB guidelines are reduced.

I would assume that -- given we have to deal with the bill now, and given that we’re faced with the possibility, if not the probability, of an election -- the Liberal Party would be prepared to support six per cent. I think we should put it in the bill and let you come back if you want to change it.

Mr. Kerrio: It’s our amendment, you have got to support it.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if this would be an appropriate time -- since I have extensive remaining remarks -- for me to adjourn the debate.

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

Mr. Kerrio: I’d like to speak to the issue.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The time has expired. The debate is adjourned.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Before the motion to adjourn the House, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could just announce what the House leader told me about the business of the House tomorrow. I understand we will be proceeding with second reading of Bill 31, following question period.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Since we do have a late show under standing order 28(a), a motion to adjourn is deemed to have been made, and I now recognize the hon. member for Welland-Thorold for up to five minutes.

[10:30]

NIAGARA REGION OFFICIAL PLAN

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I’m glad to see the Minister of Housing come in, because he made decisions last February on the urban development boundaries of the Niagara region which were nearly meaningless in preserving the fruit and grape land there. Since then, significant new information on lower projected growth rates have come into his possession which shows the pattern of growth in Niagara will not change at all unless he makes some new moves to reduce those boundaries in the unique land area. To prove this, I want to make three brief points.

First, the pattern of growth in the Niagara region has been a steady increase on to the unique lands until, in the last five years, 80 to 85 per cent of the development has taken place there. These unique lands comprise only about one-quarter to one-fifth of the land in the Niagara region, but they do include north Thorold and north Niagara Falls and I suggest we can’t leave out north Thorold and north Niagara Falls. They’re class 1 and 2 lands.

The research at Brights Wines found the soil immediately above the Escarpment in these municipalities had deeper topsoil and better air drainage than grape land below the Escarpment in the Niagara-on-the-Lake area. Two grape kings are located in this area of Thorold, yet the minister is prepared to allow unlimited development on this land which can grow grapes and a wide variety of crops in great volume and quantity. So I repeat that 80 to 85 per cent of the growth in the whole Niagara region is now taking place on the unique lands below the Escarpment and immediately above it. That’s the trend and the regional planners’ figures confirm that trend.

Secondly, I want to point out that the urban boundaries are significant, because urban boundary limitation on the unique land is the only technique in the whole official plan of Niagara region for shifting growth on to the poor lands in the Peninsula to change the trend. There are no servicing plans to service the poor land first. There is no public land development on the poor lands to provide lots at a cheaper price and there’s no phasing of any kind, in fact, for shifting growth.

The minister recognizes that, because in his letter of February 16, which he sent to the Niagara region, he said: “We would like to suggest that the region actively consider a strategy for redirecting urban growth south of the Escarpment.” This means that either the urban development boundaries on the prime unique lands are pulled in tight enough and firm enough so that a large proportion of the growth can’t go there or there is, in fact, no preservation because there’s no other way of preserving it.

I come to my third point, which is this: The urban boundaries which the minister has approved on the unique lands are so extensive that they won’t change that pattern one whit. The growth can go on in the same old way. Let me prove that assertion, using exclusively the Niagara region’s own report, the DPD 750, 916 and 917, and the report of Peter Barnard Associates, a report which was commissioned by his ministry and reported to him in late February or early March.

There are now still 23,000 acres within the Niagara region urban development boundaries. Niagara region says 11,000 of this is unique and class 1 and 2 land, most of that 11,000 being unique. Barnard says only 8,000 acres will be needed for housing in the Niagara region by 1996. Maximum land for all purposes will only be 14,500 of the 23,000 that he has put in, and the regional planners basically agree with this projection. They point out that the population growth densities on the land in the northern part of the Peninsula, in St. Catharines and those municipalities down in the area of the unique land, are much higher than in the rest of the Peninsula. So if most of the growth goes into the north, substantially less land than the 14,500 acres will be required.

Extrapolating their land requirement and growth figures, which they say are likely high, we find that almost all the growth, something like 95 per cent can go on the unique and class 1 and 2 land, and 75 to 80 per cent of that can go on the unique land during the next 20 years. I say, what preservation -- when we have within those same urban boundaries 12,000 acres of poor land where that growth could be accommodated?

I hope the Minister of Housing will deal tonight with these kinds of statistics and not the phoney comments that he and the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. W. Newman) make that we in the NDP want to freeze all the land.

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

Mr. Swart: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can I just conclude by saying to the minister that his whole land preservation posturing is a façade and a sham and the Niagara region is the worst.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. minister has the floor for up to five minutes.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I would like to say that I understood this debate tonight was to deal with what the hon. member felt was an inadequate answer to the questions that he asked earlier today in the question period. At no time during that rather disjointed presentation did he even refer to the questions that he placed before me. So in order to place it in a proper perspective, I will respond to the questions that he asked me earlier today.

First of all, there’s a basic difference between the hon. member and myself. The basic difference is that I have the responsibility to make the decisions, he does not.

Mr. Swart: Unfortunately.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: His responsibility, from some of the things he said recently, both quoted in the newspapers and elsewhere --

Mr. Worton: Give it to him, John.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- it is very evident that what he would like to see is a total and complete freeze of any development --

Mr. Swart: I knew you would say that.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- around certain communities in the Niagara area, primarily St. Catharines for one, and in a very parochial way would like to see the development all funnelled over toward the city of Welland, of which he is a resident and a representative. What he is really doing is attempting to create a real problem because in order to accomplish some of the things he would like to see done, we would end up having to do away with the community of Thorold. I hope the good people of Thorold recognize he is going to be, and could be, solely responsible for Thorold becoming a part of St. Catharines, if amalgamation is forced, and he will have to answer that.

Mr. Bain: Don’t you ever answer a question in a straight manner?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The hon. member asked me today whether I would confirm here in this House his request --

Mr. Bain: Get back to your radio show.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- and the request of others for referrals to the OMB. I will repeat my answer from today -- all legitimate requests for referral will, of course, be honoured and they shall in fact be referred to the Ontario Municipal Board.

Mr. Swart: What was the supplementary?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: He has asked for five areas to be referred. If we have proper documentation from the hon. member -- and I trust we will have -- then of course those areas will be referred to the Ontario Municipal Board, along with others we have received.

I also say to the hon. member regarding the assessment of that particular area, I think we have done that. I think we have assessed that very carefully and we have made a decision. That decision has been made available to the people who are the local representatives of that area, and I am not going to follow the New Democratic policy of trying to impose my will over and above the will of the people of that area.

Mr. Bain: Tell Us about regional municipalities.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Of course, I know that is what the hon. member would like to have done. I suggest to him that he take his problems to the Ontario Municipal Board, present his case to the Ontario Municipal Board, and the only thing I can say for his benefit is I trust he will be able to present a much better case to the OMB that he has here in the House tonight.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I deem the motion to adjourn to have been carried.

The House adjourned at 10:40 p.m.