role="main" class="main-container container js-quickedit-main-content" id="main-content">

January 16, 1976

30th Parliament, 2nd Session

< Previous sitting day

Next sitting day >

Hansard Transcripts

L004 - Fri 16 Jan 1976 / Ven 16 jan 1976

BUDGETS OF SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCIES

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON DAY CARE

MENTAL RETARDATION CENTRES

BUDGETS OF SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCIES

BEER ADVERTISING AND SALES OUTLETS

COST OF FOOT CARE FOR PENSIONERS

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

CHILD WELFARE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

COMPULSORY USE OF SEATBELTS

UNEMPLOYMENT IN ONTARIO

GREAT LAKES CLEANUP

BUDGETS OF SOCIAL SERVICES AGENCIES

BUTTONVILLE AIRPORT EXPANSION

PAPERWORKERS’ STRIKE

REDUCTION OF ONTC WORK FORCE

METROPOLITAN TORONTO BOARDS OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTES ACT (CONCLUDED)

METROPOLITAN TORONTO BOARDS OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTES ACT

METROPOLITAN TORONTO BOARDS OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTES ACT

RESIDENTIAL PREMISES RENT REVIEW AMENDMENT ACT

RESIDENTIAL PREMISES RENT REVIEW AMENDMENT ACT

THIRD READING

ROYAL ASSENT

PROROGATION SPEECH

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege. Instant Hansard, page 94-2 of yesterday, has a statement: “It indicated to me that they were ill-informed, that they behaved like boors and like working slobs.” I consider that an insult to all working people in this province. Working people muck in our mines and in our factories. I don’t believe it is called for. I think there should be a retraction and an apology in this House.

Mr. Speaker: Actually, it is not a point of personal privilege. It has nothing to do with the privileges of the hon. member or the House.

Mr. Bain: He is a working man.

Mr. Renwick: He has been all his life.

Mr. Speaker: Yes, thank you very much.

Mr. Lewis: What do you mean, “Thank you very much”? It was a speech worthy of Huey Long and it was made in this Legislature.

Mr. Speaker: I’m thanking the hon. member for taking his seat.

Oral questions.

BUDGETS OF SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCIES

Mr. Lewis: A question to the Minister of Community and Social Services: How did the ministry arrive at the 5.5 per cent figure for increases in the budgets of the various social service agencies across the province, which is so substantially below even that which the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) is granting to municipalities?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: What we did was look at the effective rate of increase for my ministry, which is about eight per cent. Then, we took into consideration the number of capital works which are currently under way. As the member can appreciate, while there is a freeze on new capital spending, there will still be new capital construction because of commitments that have been made and construction that will be under way very shortly. Those contracts have to be completed and the contractors paid, so that we will have capital works during this next year.

When we take into consideration those commitments and we see what is left in terms of overall moneys then, in distributing that, we find that the maximum moneys that we have for these agencies is about 5.5 per cent. That is a 5.5 per cent increase over the amount of moneys that they had for spending the previous year.

Mr. Lewis: Right, I understood that. How does the minister expect, for example, the Children’s Aid Societies across Ontario to survive? In many instances they are almost frantic because of the increased responsibility pressed upon them when we, in this Legislature, removed

section 8 from the Training Schools Act and said: “You must now look after all those additional kids.” How can they possibly survive at a level of 5.5 per cent without incurring serious debts or curtailing services?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: The member knows and I know that while

section 8 was repealed, the proclamation of that repeal has not taken place, so that in fact, in law,

section 8 is still there. I appreciate some of the concerns of agencies in terms of child care, because in some areas that

section is looked upon as having been repealed.

Mr. Lewis: All the judges in the courts know that?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I shouldn’t say all, but some are looking upon it that way. We have been doing what we can in that area. I have been dealing with the Ministry of Correctional Services in terms of working out a reasonable arrangement in terms of transfer of additional moneys which would accommodate financially the change when it is proclaimed and also accommodate, in a physical way, the children who will have to be accommodated because of the change. I want the members to know, Mr. Speaker, that the proclamation has not as yet taken place and my position is that it should not be treated as having taken place until such lime.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, come on as we have the finances and the accommodation.

Mr. Nixon: Is the minister then telling the House that he is delaying proclamation so the young people can be kept in training schools as an economy measure?

Mr. Lewis: That is what he is saying.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: What I am saying simply is that

section 8 of the Training Schools Act is still there --

Mr. Nixon: And the minister is going to leave it there.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: -- and that as far as my ministry is concerned and until such time as that repeal of

section 8 is proclaimed, and we can work out the physical and financial accommodations, then the status quo should and must remain the same.

Mr. Nixon: Keep them in jail to save money.

Mr. Lewis: By way of a supplementary: Does the minister remember -- as a member of the House at the lime, if not a minister -- that during the debate on the bill, the Children’s Aid Societies and the courts were advised by the ministry in the process of the debate to start forthwith in making alternative plans because of the deluge that would emerge with the repeal of that section? That is what is happening all across the province. Judges are no longer consigning kids to training schools. How can the minister be so irresponsible as to say the law hasn’t changed?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I don’t remember that direction coming from the minister at that time; certainly not in the way that the member puts it.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister said “by the end of the year.”

Hon. Mr. Taylor: It’s not

an act of irresponsibility, either.

Mr. Speaker: The member for London North was on his feet first for a supplementary.

Mr. Shore: Recognizing the infighting that perhaps went on in the priority assessment of spending, is the minister satisfied in his mind as the minister in charge that he got his fair share of the dollars that purportedly are going to be used?

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Certainly there is a competition naturally for the global funds and my ministry was treated equitably in relationship to other ministries.

Mr. Speaker: We will allow the member for Ottawa Centre to ask his supplementary and then the member for St. George.

Mr. Cassidy: Is the minister aware that the Children’s Aid Society in Ottawa, and I presume those in other parts of the province, has a number of programmes which were brought in after many years of negotiations with the ministry and with ministry approval in the latter half of 1975 which are now being slashed right back to where they were five and 10 years ago because of the proposals of the ministry?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: The Ottawa Children’s Aid Societies and other Children’s Aid Societies will have to look very thoroughly at their own programmes.

Mr. Lewis: Having been the man with the responsibility.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Just remember this: They have had substantial increases in their budgeting in this past year.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, come on! The minister tells them what they have to do legislatively.

Mr. Cassidy: They were encouraged and persuaded to take on these programmes.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: They were up considerably in percentage terms over the last year. They will all have to look very closely at their programmes and to weigh their priorities.

Mr. Speaker: A final supplementary, the member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: Does the minister not recall that there was a commitment given by his predecessor to engage in some meaningful activity insofar as prevention was concerned? Does he not now realize that there can be no preventive care by the Children’s Aid Societies with these restrictions?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I don’t accept that.

Mr. Lewis: That is dead on.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: We are into the argument of preventive services and there is no question about the merits of it.

Mr. McClellan: The minister hasn’t the slightest idea what the priorities are.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mrs. Campbell: It is going to cost the government millions.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Did the member want to ask another question?

Mr. Speaker: This is becoming a debate. The hon. minister will complete his answer.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: They are okay within their overall budget. They are going to have to determine what their priorities are in terms of their own preventive services.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON DAY CARE

Mr. Lewis: A further question to the Minister of Community and Social Services: When did he decide to write the obituary for the daycare advisory council which we thought was a continuing body in an effort to bring some coherence to day care in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: The member might have been misadvised as to that committee.

Mr. Lewis: I guess we were.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: That committee was set up about a year and a half ago to advise the then minister in the field of day care.

Mr. Lewis: It was to rescue the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch).

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I don’t need to be rescued.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: The member can impute whatever motive he likes but the fact remains that that was a committee set up to advise the minister. I don’t think that any committee that is set up to advise the minister should be functioning in perpetuity.

Mr. Martel: Does the minister not need any advising about day care?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: It has had some 18 months or so in which to function. It has issued two reports. I requested that the final report be submitted by the end of the year -- and now by the end of this month.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: If we are to take a positive position in terms of the provincial posture on day care, I think it is time that we had the benefit of that report. Remember this too, in terms of the backup support, they call upon the technical people, and have been utilizing the personnel of my ministry. I am looking forward to a report which I think will be constructive and positive and will outline areas in which --

Mrs. Campbell: It’s futile.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: -- if they need more detail, it is available within our ministry because that is the source of information now.

Mr. McClellan: Can the minister assure the House, in connection with the advisory council on day care, that he will publish the final draft of the council’s report as they submit it to him and not, as is commonly suspected, some kind of a dramatically reedited version?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: The member can rest assured that we don’t dramatize or re-edit any of these things. My own position has been one of openness in regard to reports.

Mr. Martel: They write their own.

[10:15]

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I want to let the members know, however, that the report is a report to me, because it was an advisory committee of the minister to report to the minister. When I receive that report I will study it and make a determination at that time in terms of its distribution. As the members know, in connection with the other two reports, they have been distributed.

Mr. Martel: If you want to discuss them you’ll want them distributed by the election.

MENTAL RETARDATION CENTRES

Mr. Lewis: One last question to the Minister of Community and Social Services: How much will the annual cost be of the mental retardation human resource centre which the minister is establishing, a facility once occupied by the Goderich psychiatric hospital?

Mr. Martel: He’s like John Anderson.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Is the member talking about the ultimate cost?

Mr. Lewis: Yes. I gather it has been planned for some time; the minister must have it.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: No, I don’t know. No one can determine the ultimate cost, not even in this forum. We, of course, have plans for the development of these resource centres throughout Ontario. We are proceeding, I think, very quickly in the implementation of the current philosophy of our ministry in mental retardation.

Mr. Lewis: Just answer the question; a simple question.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Insofar as the Goderich centre or the Timmins centre is concerned, what we do there of course will be dependent upon the final disposition of those facilities. We have plans to take them over, pursuant to the current thinking of the Ministry of Health which is to let them go.

As to the ultimate number of dollars involved, I can’t say. I might be able to give the member a forecast as to what our costs would be in the next fiscal year and that, of course, would be in our estimates in any event.

Mr. Speaker: We will allow a supplementary.

Mr. Riddell: Is the minister going ahead with plans to transfer the Goderich psychiatric hospital into a mental retardation centre when the Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller) hasn’t given final approval yet to the phasing out of the psychiatric facilities in Goderich?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: First of all, I would like to clarify the member’s misconception. It is not a mental retardation centre, it’s a proposal for a resource centre which would not he principally a centre for residential accommodation. It would be a centre to service an entire area -- two counties.

Mr. Lewis: The whole thing is preposterous.

Mrs. Campbell: You have already got retardation facilities.

Interjections.

Mr. Singer: This is a clarification of misconceptions.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Just a minute. Insofar as our plans go, assuming that --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Do you want some information on it or don’t you?

Mr. S. Smith: Ask your superminister.

Mr. Ruston: Talk about it.

Interjections.

Mr. Shore: Yes or no?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: We naturally work on the premise that if a facility which will accommodate our long-range programmes becomes available, then it is only wise to utilize that facility, based on the release that that facility would not be required as a psychiatric hospital.

Mrs. Campbell: Answer the question.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Then, of course, we immediately made plans to use it for a resource centre and, of course, to use as much of the personnel as possible and to ensure that there would be an orderly transition from one use to another.

BUDGETS OF SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCIES

Mr. Nixon: I would like to put a question to the same minister, Mr. Speaker. Have his statisticians calculated the additional financial burden that will descend upon the municipalities because of their withdrawal of the expected increase in the budget for social assistance that has normally been available at the community level?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Of course, what the municipalities may want to pick up in terms of additional services at --

Mr. Shore: No, he said the same service.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Well, insofar as the same service is concerned, we are expecting that the municipalities are resourceful enough to --

Interjections.

Mrs. Campbell: You’re not. The government is resourceful in passing its responsibilities on to the municipalities.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Why, certainly we are resourceful. We have internal economies that we are effecting as well and we expect that the municipalities, in the spirit of co-operation, are trying to do everything that they can to contain government spending at all levels. We will look very closely at their programmes to see if they can run them more efficiently and more effectively. We have a great deal of faith in local government.

Mrs. Campbell: They are far more efficient than this government is.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: We have a great deal of faith in the municipalities and the manner in which --

An hon. member: That’s a switch.

Mrs. Campbell: So do we.

Mr. Martel: You have a funny way of showing it.

Mr. Cassidy: You don’t see people at all; you just see dollars.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: This represents no change for me.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order, please. Will the hon. minister take his seat, please.

The hon. minister should be answering the original question, not the interjections. If he has anything further to add to it, would he please ignore the interjections, which are improper --

Mr. Singer: He wants to clarify a few more misconceptions.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. If there are supplementary questions, that’s a different matter.

Mr. Nixon: Yes, I have a supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I would like to determine if the minister was finished with the first answer.

Mr. Singer: Has he clarified all the misconceptions?

Mr. Speaker: If he is finished, fine. The hon. member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk.

Mr. Nixon: Well I would simply like to ask the minister, as a supplementary, wouldn’t he agree that the solution to his fiscal problems, among his other problems, has been to contribute to an additional billion dollars that will be loaded on the tax bills of the municipalities, which has been the recommendation of the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough), though the McKeough report, sometimes called the Henderson report -- that this is part of government policy, to simply load it on the municipalities?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Oh come on now.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Not at all, not at all. You see, there is one basic concept people over there just don’t seem to grasp, Mr. Speaker, and that is that we cannot combat and beat inflation --

Mr. Nixon: What is it?

Mr. Riddell: The minister is not helping it.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: -- if we build inflation into our spending in our budgeting. Members opposite want to give everybody a double-digit increase so that we can build inflation in, with the expectation that we are going to cut out inflation by government policies. It is just nonsense.

Mr. Shore: He’s passing the buck.

Mr. Martel: The minister didn’t say that when he was spending. He takes it out on those who can ill afford it.

Mr. S. Smith: As a supplementary question: Could the minister explain, now that his ministry is limited to 10 per cent growth, how he has decided to pass on to municipalities and agencies only 5.5 per cent growth? What’s happened to the rest of that money?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I gave the explanation to the Leader of the Opposition in response to his first question; so that possibly if the member reads Hansard he will get that.

BEER ADVERTISING AND SALES OUTLETS

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations if we are going to have beer at the ball game.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, the answer is, I don’t know yet.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: How much more perambulation will be necessary with his executive assistant before the minister finds out?

Mr. Reid: And who is paying for the tickets?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: The word “perambulation” escapes me. We will be --

Mr. Nixon: It means wandering and travelling around to the hockey games.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I think we will be travelling over the Ottawa Valley to Montreal, and that’s the last of the perambulations; the second of the two.

Mr. Reid: Who pays for the tickets to get into the games?

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: While the minister is considering this concept -- frankly, I think it would be good idea -- is he also considering ways whereby some of the pressures, particularly on young people, through advertising, to get into the happy life of beer drinking, how those pressures are going to be reduced? Is he, at the same time when he is considering selling beer at the ball game, going to come out with some rational policy of reducing these advertising pressures?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, we are constantly looking at the advertising code. There is a new draft code now in preparation.

Mr. Nixon: We are all looking at the ads these days on TV.

Mr. Reid: The minister is going to hockey games and watching TV; what else does he do?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I certainly am concerned about the proliferation of lifestyle advertising. I will be meeting with the advertising agencies and the advertisers to ascertain how we can curtail the lifestyle advertising which is now becoming quite common.

Mr. Singer: Pass an order in council. This government does that for everything else.

Mr. Reid: Why not use Lorne as a horrible example of what can happen?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: If you look at Canadian publications, Mr. Speaker, I think you have some idea of the economic impact of banning advertising, as the leader of the Liberal Party has suggested. But we are concerned about the nature of the advertising and certainly are reviewing it constantly.

Mr. Singer: That won’t wash either.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I would wash it in beer, Vern.

Mr. Ziemba: A question to the minister: Could the minister tell this House whether it is by arrangement or coincidence that the very next day after Labatt’s makes overtures to bring in the San Francisco Giants, he announces that he would like to see beer sales in arenas and stadiums, with the statement that beer is part of the ritual of baseball?

Mr. Shore: Part of the deal.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I made no such announcement. I have not announced that I would like to see beer in stadiums. I said that we are on a fact-finding mission to determine the pros and cons. The decision as to whether or not there will be a recommendation hasn’t even been made.

Mr. Lewis: A fact-finding mission on beer? What a chap you are.

Mr. Nixon: Hands in the suds.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: It’s 30 below; do you want to come?

COST OF FOOT CARE FOR PENSIONERS

Mr. Godfrey: A question to the Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller) -- oh, he seems to have disappeared. I will address it to the Premier, if I may. I have received considerable communication from Pensioners Concerned (Canada) Inc. with regard to foot care. I wonder if the Premier has been apprised of the fact that older people are charged a considerable amount of money in order to take care of their feet -- which is very important for them -- in addition to this being charged to OHIP? I would wonder whether he has had any direction or advice from his minister as to how this problem might be handled?

Mr. Nixon: “Footicare.”

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, but I’m sure the Minister of Health has it well under control, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Singer: He has two feet.

Mr. Godfrey: A supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker: I appreciate that the minister has it well under control, but I would point out that the older people of this country, through --

Mr. Shore: Question?

Mr. Godfrey: Thank you. I would ask the Premier if he feels it is fair that older people should be paying amounts of $100 to $200 out of their own purses per year for the care of their feet when they cannot afford that and when these practitioners are also being compensated in the amount of $90, $100 or $125 per year from an insurance scheme? Does that seem fair to the leader of our government?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the hon. member refers to us as leader of our government. There is a breakthrough this morning that I certainly appreciate.

Mr. Moffatt: He didn’t say for how long, though.

Mr. Deans: It’s not our fault.

Mr. Bains: He uses the royal “we.”

Hon. Mr. Davis: I’m glad to see the New Democratic Party is so committed to the royalist cause, too. That’s tremendous; I’m delighted to see that.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Which is really a switch for some of them, I have to say that. Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to discuss this with the Minister of Health.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Huron-Middlesex.

Mr. Makarchuk: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: No, the member for Huron-Middlesex.

Mr. Riddell: A question to the Premier, Mr. Speaker --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Let’s have a little better question period. We will allow a supplementary from the member for Brantford if it’s a true supplementary.

Mr. Makarchuk: Yes, it is a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, and again I’ll have to go to the Premier. Would the Premier intercede on his own behalf and on behalf of the Minister of Health with the podiatrists in Ontario who are at this time charging patients $15 plus OHIP for the first visit, and $7.50 plus OHIP for every visit thereafter? Does he think that is fair?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am not passing any judgement without total knowledge of all the facts. As I said to the other hon. member, I’d be delighted to discuss it with the Minister of Health.

Mr. Nixon: Total knowledge? What a great thing to strive for.

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

Mr. Riddell: Mr. Speaker, I will give it another try. A question of the Premier: Considering that both he and the Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller) are receiving numerous letters and personal contacts condemning their actions regarding the phasing out of the Goderich psychiatric hospital, and considering that the Premier was approached just recently by a very honourable gentleman who used to sit on his left, very much concerned about the phasing out of this hospital, does the Premier think that there will be any consideration on his part or on the part of the Minister of Health to retain the psychiatric services in Goderich or at least to retain a wing for outpatient service?

Mr. Shore: That’s the way they make decisions.

Hon Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I could be a little bit facetious here and comment just what a great member the hon. member was referring to and what a great service he did for that riding and what excellent representation he did give.

Mr. Nixon: You mean the chairman of the racing commission?

Mr. Cassidy: A great service? You mean when he resigned?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think in fairness to the former member for that riding, I don’t recall his exact geographic location in this House compared to that of my own, but in fairness to him I wouldn’t want to construe that he was necessarily philosophically to my left when he was here -- he might not totally approve of that sort of approach, I don’t know -- but I don’t know that he was philosophically to my right either.

Mr. Reid: Oh, believe me, he was.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, you think so?

Mr. Reid: On the other hand, he might have been in the middle.

Hon. Mr. Davis: However, yesterday I did talk to Mr. MacNaughton, who still has the interests of that great riding at heart and was an excellent member and did a tremendous job of representing that riding -- and I won’t make any comparisons, it’s Friday. The Minister of Health explained the situation yesterday. I’ve seen Mr. MacNaughton, and there are one or two other people who wish to see me and I have said that I will see them. The member hasn’t asked to see me. He makes mistakes.

[10:30]

CHILD WELFARE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Mr. Martel: I have a question of the Minister of Community and Social Services. Some months ago he indicated he would reconvene a meeting of interested groups to determine whether or not an advisory council would be established to consider the Child Welfare Act. When does he intend to call that group together to indicate if he intends to proceed?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I have already indicated my intention to proceed and have instructed that it be called together.

Mr. Martel: Has the minister any indication when that will occur, in view of the fact he told us a month and a half ago he was going to proceed?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I cannot give the member any firm date today.

COMPULSORY USE OF SEATBELTS

Mr. Spence: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation and Communications. Is the minister aware that I received 1,625 letters and petitions protesting the legislation that was passed before we adjourned at Christmas?

Hon. Mr. Davis: One of your members introduced a bill on it.

Mr. Eaton: You supported it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You can’t get off the hook back home.

Mr. Spence: Just a minute; they wish me to bring the minister’s attention their concern regarding the mandatory wearing of seatbelts in operating motor vehicles on our highways. They say that they are not going to pay the fines if they are stopped by the provincial police and that they are going to take a jail sentence. I don’t think we have sufficient space in our jails.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: We refuse to put them in jail.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I think the hon. member has asked the question. He asked is the hon. minister aware.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Don’t you think Hansard should record that you voted for that bill?

Mr. Kennedy: You should have yanked his coattails.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister with his answer.

Mr. Nixon: He didn’t.

Mrs. Campbell: He didn’t vote for it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He chickened out. He left, did he?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, I have followed with interest some press clippings --

Mr. Speaker: We are waiting to hear the minister.

Mr. Nixon: You had better check again. Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I have followed with interest the press clippings of comments that the hon. member has made and I have trouble trying to relate those comments to the comments he made during the debate on the bill. I know he did state that he had some concerns regarding the legislation, but after he had summed it all up, as I recall, and I haven’t checked with Hansard exactly, he did state he was in favour of the bill and that he was supporting the bill.

Mr. Ruston: You’d better check again.

Mr. Nixon: At least he was consistent.

Mr. Kerrio: What about the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Johnston)?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I have been getting a great deal of mail --

Mr. Shore: What are you doing with it?

Mr. Moffatt: Who reads it?

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- with regard to seatbelts. I must say, that if I had to summarize, in the mail that has come to my desk, there has been a great deal more support for this legislation than there has been objection to it.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is the legislation of your party.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Regarding the hon. member’s concern about the capacity of the correctional centres of the province, I would have to ask him to refer that question to the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. J. R. Smith) as to whether he can handle any constituents of the hon. member’s who may wish to use those services.

Mr. Spence: Supplementary.

Mr. Ruston: Supplementary.

Mr. Riddell: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The first question was, is the minister aware of the 1,625 letters? How do we get supplementaries? Was yours a supplementary? We will allow the original questioner a supplementary.

Hon Mr. Davis: You people all voted for it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Spence: Mr. Speaker, I have 1,629 letters here to present to the minister.

Mr. Speaker: You may do what you like with them. The member for Huron-Middlesex with a final supplementary.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, may I reply to the supplementary?

Mr. Speaker: No, there was no supplementary question. The member for Huron-Middlesex, I believe, has a supplementary question.

Mr. Riddell: In connection with the mandatory use of seatbelts, is the minister aware of the hardship that this legislation is bringing to bear on those people who are delivering mail in the rural areas? Every time they stop at a post-box they have to undo that seatbelt, lean across the seat and put the mail in.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The question has been asked.

Mr. Riddell: Is there any concession for these postal people?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, that shows how familiar the hon. member is with the legislation and with the regulations. There is a specific regulation that has been passed that exempts rural mail drivers from the wearing of seatbelts while they are in the process of delivering their mail.

Mr. Nixon: If they go at 25 miles an hour.

Mr. Shore: What about rural female drivers?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Just as with the hospital, you have got to be informed.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Speaking of the letters that I have received and the letters that the hon. member has forwarded me, I would like to tell the hon. member that I will be forwarding him today a copy of a letter that I received from one of my constituents, who I am sure is well known to all those people in the Liberal Party, a Mr. Harold Young. I will also send one to the leader of the Liberal Party, because I know he is a great friend of Mr. Young’s.

Mr. Nixon: He certainly is.

Mr. Singer: A fine man; he speaks well of you too.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I am sure he would be very interested in Mr. Young’s comments regarding seatbelts. In fact, he says it is the greatest legislation there ever was. It is so good that you would almost think it was Liberal. That’s what the comment was.

UNEMPLOYMENT IN ONTARIO

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Premier. In the interview which the Globe and Mail had with the Premier, published Jan. 13, he stated that the level of unemployment in Ontario was at an unacceptable level and that the Ontario economy was growing at a slower rate than the rest of the country. Now we have had the bombshell of 4,500 Eaton’s employees in the mail order business losing their jobs completely. Is the Premier now ready to bring in a set of measures to counteract this growing unemployment?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted the hon. member read that

article in the Globe and Mail because I hope, being a non-expert and non-economist, I indicated that I was really very optimistic about the future of this province. It may or may not have appeared in the

article just how well we had done in this province in terms of provisions of new jobs, which I think was superior to that of any other provincial jurisdiction, as a matter of fact and, on a percentage basis, probably greater than in the United States or anywhere in western Europe. In fact, I think the record of this government in this province in providing jobs is the envy of just about every other jurisdiction.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, it happens to be true. I’m just giving the facts. We certainly did a lot better than British Columbia under the excellent tutelage in government, which, thank heavens, they had for a very short period of time --

Mr. Martel: You sort of got clobbered, Bill.

Hon. Mr. Davis: However, I do agree; I do not find the level of unemployment acceptable. I make that abundantly clear. That’s the view held by this government. In recent budgets we have made a very genuine effort to come to grips with this. We have been, I think, of some substantial assistance to the real estate business and the construction industry; and for those members who happen to represent ridings where the automotive industry is situate, in spite of the very cynical observations made in this House, there is no question the measures introduced by this government had a very genuine impact on the level of employment in those communities--

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) in particular should be very grateful for the enlightenment that we show.

Mr. Moffatt: That’s why he is here -- because of your enlightenment.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, we shall continue to keep an eye on the unemployment situation and take those steps necessary or that we feel we can do to assist in this very important area.

Mr. Ruston: You gave a Throne Speech once, Bill.

Mr. Speaker: With all the interjections, it just makes it useless to carry on a question period. Will the hon. members refrain from making interjections?

Mr. Singer: They’re probably out of order anyway.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Did the hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine have a supplementary?

Ms. Bryden: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Do I take it that the Premier’s reply indicates that we will hear nothing until the budget, even though there are 234,000 people out of work in Ontario right now, which is 2,000 more than in the previous month?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think the hon. member should take anything from the answer other than what was in it.

An hon. member: There was nothing in it!

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, that’s a matter of judgement.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We’re trying to clear up one unemployment problem right now if you would help us today.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

GREAT LAKES CLEANUP

Mr. Reid: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. Can the minister indicate where the programme is in the cleaning-up of the Great Lakes, and does the United States now intend to live up to its original commitment of two or three years ago to expend some billions of dollars in funds to in fact clean up pollution in the Great Lakes?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, the programme is on schedule. There was some concern that federal money in the United States would be reallocated to other parts of the United States, particularly southern states; however, I am advised by the Great Lakes Commission, which includes representatives from the eight Great Lakes states as well as Ontario, that there have been some second thoughts on that funding and that they expect to get the money that was originally allocated for the programme on the Great Lakes.

Mr. Reid: One short supplementary, if I may: Do I understand then from the minister that the Americans have lived up to their commitment and that their programme as enunciated some three years ago, I believe, is in fact on

schedule and the water quality in the Great Lakes is improving?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, there are some states which aren’t exactly on time. For example, I think the states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, because of some concern about federal funding, are behind, but I think, generally, the programme and the target dates which we have set will be reached hopefully, again, as I say, because of the efforts of the Great Lakes Commission in convincing the federal government that there should be a reallocation of funds and because of the fact that, naturally, there is more concern by the present head of state in the USA than there was before.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, one supplementary just to clear this up if I may. Has President Ford redirected or released those funds that President Nixon held back from the programme? Has he done that?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Yes. It is my understanding that a major portion of those funds has been reallocated for Great Lakes use.

Mr. Godfrey: Supplementary to that, in view of the fact the minister said the water quality is improving; the simple statement is that polychlorinated biphenyls are increasing. What steps is the minister taking in order to control this increase, which is undoubtedly a serious health and environmental hazard?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: As I indicated to the House in my statement that was made last fall, Mr. Speaker, the levels of PCBs remain constant. We’re concerned about certain species of fish. This is the type of contamination that isn’t necessarily solved by way of municipal sewage treatment plants or the general Great Lakes programme. This is a problem because of leakage from certain plants of PCBs and other types of what we call phantom pollutants. However, the Great Lakes Commission is recommending to the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington that PCBs be banned and we expect to have a meeting on whether or not that is possible. I anticipate that Ontario will support that move.

Mr. Stokes: When are you going for another swim, George?

BUDGETS OF SOCIAL SERVICES AGENCIES

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a question of the Minister of Community and Social Services. In his speech in Hamilton this past Tuesday he stated that he was considering legislative or regulatory changes in order to assist social service agencies to comply with the restraint programme. Inasmuch as most of these agencies or municipalities cannot comply in terms of their own permissive programmes unless there are cuts in the mandatory programmes, would the minister inform this House which programmes -- mothers’ allowance, general welfare assistance or whatever -- he intends to cut?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: The member is operating from a false assumption and a false conclusion. The reference was made in regard to a joint committee that was set up with the municipal welfare administrators and my staff and certain recommendations flowed from that particular committee’s considerations. As a result of those recommendations, I am considering amendments to the regulations which may be of some assistance to the municipal welfare administrators.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We’ll allow one supplementary. The member for Hamilton East.

Mr. Mackenzie: Is the minister then ready to assure this House that there will not be cuts in mothers’ allowance or other programmes of this kind?

Mr. Bath: He doesn’t know.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: First of all, I’m not sure what the member means. If he is talking in terms of the actual level of payment, we don’t contemplate any cuts in the level of payments to recipients.

[10:45]

BUTTONVILLE AIRPORT EXPANSION

Mr. Stong: I have a question of the Premier. Could the Premier share with this House the reasons for which his cabinet allowed the owner of the Buttonville Airport to expand its airways, against the wishes of the people of Markham and Richmond Hill?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, it has not been the policy, nor will it become the policy, to discuss the deliberations that go on in cabinet. There was an appeal from the Ontario Municipal Board. The cabinet of this province maintained the ruling by the Ontario Municipal Board.

PAPERWORKERS’ STRIKE

Mr. Jones: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Energy (Mr. Timbrell), I would like to ask the Premier to perhaps give us some indication on this question. We have been reading articles in the paper, and there were discussions in this House yesterday in question period, about the plight of the paperworkers. Last night, CBC-TV commented on hydro being cut off for these striking pulp workers. I wonder if perhaps the Premier could give us any indication of what the minister or the government might be proposing to do, because obviously this is a pretty serious situation in some of our northern communities for these men who have been on strike for this period of time.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I heard of these observations and communicated with the minister. I can assure members of this House that no person who is out on strike as a result of the disruption in the pulp and paper industry will have their hydro service cut off because of non-payment because of the lack of funds because they haven’t been employed.

Mr. Bain: Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Timiskaming.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t know why somebody over there didn’t ask me that question.

Mr. Bain: Because the Premier didn’t give us the question beforehand.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I haven’t seen the member since yesterday.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Timiskaming has a question

Hon. Mr. Davis: Is the member not interested in his own constituents?

REDUCTION OF ONTC WORK FORCE

Mr. Bain: I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. I was wondering if the minister was aware that over 140 people have been laid off by the Ontario Northland Railway? Is the minister also aware that management refuses to give any reassurances that when economic conditions improve these people will be rehired and reposted in their old jobs? Does this cavalier attitude by management toward workers --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Could we have a question without --

Interjections.

Mr. Bain: There are two questions. I will now get to the third.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Bain: If you object to the word “cavalier,” then I will withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker: No, it is a question for information --

Mr. Bain: Does the attitude of management --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will the member ask his question for information, please?

Mr. Bain: I am.

Mr. Speaker: Will the member proceed with the question, without the editorials?

Mr. Bain: Does the attitude of management signal an overall reduction of services by the Ontario Northland Railway and a permanent firing of employees, or is it simply an inability of management to deal openly with the community’s employees affected?

Mr. Makarchuk: Good question.

Mr. Laughren: Good question.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, I am certainly aware of the necessary reduction in the work force at the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission.

I think the hon. member should be very much aware of the obvious reason for this; it is because of the labour difficulties in the pulp and paper industry. There has been a tremendous decrease in the work load of the railroad. As that has been going on for several months, we have, totally, gone as far as possible in using the services of these employees on maintenance work and all the things that could be done, and it has now come to the stage where temporary layoffs have to be made. I assure you, Mr.

Speaker, that I am as anxious as I am sure the hon. member is, to get this traffic back for the railroad, which I am sure will come about when the other difficulties are solved. It is not a permanent layoff, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Meen, on behalf of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Handleman), presented the 49th report of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Snow tabled the annual report of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1975.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: Resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the motion for second reading of Bill 1,

An Act respecting the Metropolitan Toronto Boards of Education and Teachers Disputes.

METROPOLITAN TORONTO BOARDS OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTES ACT (CONCLUDED)

Mr. Speaker: Yes, the hon. member for Riverdale has the floor.

An hon. member: He’ll be twice as good this morning.

An hon. member: He had his time last night.

Mr. Deans: But he deserves more; more and more.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Did he have his steak and kidney dinner?

Interjection.

Mr. Martel: I’ll tell the Liberal leader why he won’t even vote for a floor level this morning.

Mr. Speaker: Order please, the hon. member for Riverdale has the floor.

Mr. Renwick: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Singer: Tell us about “Dear Roy” and “Dear Jim.”

Mr. Renwick: If not in this hour certainly in the next hour, the NDP will experience its finest hour in this Legislature.

Mr. Kennedy: It wasn’t yesterday.

Mr. Singer: Is the NDP going to accept that cabinet decision?

Mr. Reid: Does the member mean they are all going to resign?

Mr. Singer: The members of the NDP are walking across the floor.

Mr. Deans: No, but if the member keeps at it we could be driven out.

Mr. Martel: What isn’t the Liberal leader supporting today?

Mr. Renwick: One of the comments I would like to make initially is -- and I am sure the members of the House will be saddened to know that I do not intend either to repeat or recapitulate what I said last night.

Mr. Ruston: Oh come on.

Mr. Singer: Oh a pity.

Mr. Reid: Ruined my whole weekend.

Mr. Renwick: My words are already enshrined in Hansard and no doubt will be read and reread in the weeks and months ahead many, many times.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. member for Riverdale continue with his speech, please?

Mr. Singer: Very good ruling.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of our amendment was to have it adopted by the Legislature. We had hoped that the amendment would appeal to the members of the Liberal Party, and indeed to the members of the Conservative Party, in order that a better solution could be found in a very difficult problem with which we were faced by the Metro Toronto high school teachers’ strike and the breakdown of negotiations between the boards of education and the teachers.

We wanted to place the government in the position that they would have to choose one of two courses: to accept a better solution or to dissolve this Parliament and go to the country.

Our preference would have been for the government to accept a better solution. The reality of political life is that at some point in time the Premier (Mr. Davis) will ask for a dissolution of this Parliament; and if this were the occasion that he chose to do so, we would welcome that opportunity to place our position clearly before the people throughout the Province of Ontario.

An hon. member: Don’t bet on it.

Mr. Renwick: In what some perhaps may consider a cosmic view of :the issue which is before us, we are faced in the society in which we live by an immense unsettling readjustment, which is taking place and which we must accommodate in this Legislature, and indeed in many other places throughout the country where there is a serious questioning by various groups of persons with diverse interest but with a common bond of common work as to their relative worth within the society.

I think it is evident that readjustment has to take place, and the real questions are what is the relative worth of one group of people and the services which they perform for the society, as compared with the worth of traditional groups translated in many instances into economic terms.

We tried to face up to that particular problem; and in drafting our amendment we tried to accomplish a number of purposes. Our first purpose was to support the return to school of the students and the teachers, and in that we are in agreement with each of the parties in the assembly.

We wanted to do so because the students’ well-being is a matter of concern to us, although I may express on my own behalf a certain scepticism about what is happening in the school system. If one tries to look behind the appearances and the perceptions of this particular conflict to the reality, it may well be there are serious problems mirrored in this dispute in the educational system as we know it in Metropolitan Toronto.

This is not the time and the place, nor do I have the knowledge, to go into it, but I assume that there are such underlying causes of this dispute which require earnest and serious consideration, not only by the Ministry of Education but by the boards of education in Metropolitan Toronto and by the teachers, who are members of the affiliates who are employed by the school boards and who provide the professional teaching in our secondary schools.

I may say to the minister that a knowledgeable, indeed an extremely knowledgeable, community leader in my riding of Riverdale has indicated to me, by way of illustration of what I have just said, that the lack of the traumatic experience of Christmas examinations and the escalation of the tension within the school system because of those examinations was absent this year, and in the area of the riding of Riverdale, by and large the acting out, the behavioural patterns, the anti-social response which is normal in Riverdale riding at this time of year did not occur this year.

I would be glad to pursue that perhaps on some other occasion, but that is the assessment made by persons who are close to the community in which I live; and it mirrors, in my view, something seriously wrong with the educational system if in other times it would produce that kind of traumatic effect in the riding of Riverdale where three of the major institutions are located -- the Eastern High School of Commerce, Riverdale Collegiate and Danforth Technical School.

I may say that the government of Ontario in fact controls the educational system at the post-secondary level as well as at the secondary level and, therefore, there is no reason why the students in the secondary school system should suffer in any way because of the layoff which has resulted from the strike and the breakdown of negotiations going on as it has to 37, 38 or 39 days of instructional time lost within the school system. All the adjustments can be made to protect those students who want to pursue post-secondary education.

There would be no difficulty in having the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, set aside, on the basis of historic experience, places within the universities and places within the community colleges, consistent with former years, to accommodate those students who would move into the post-secondary educational system in the aftermath of this strike.

There is no reason to believe that an extended period of instruction will not permit those students to carry on in their post-secondary education, and it is the responsibility of this ministry, in conjunction with the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, to make certain that does in fact occur.

Our second purpose was to support the teachers in the Metropolitan Toronto system, very clearly to support them. We may have questions about elements of their demands, elements of the proposals which they have made, but our support was engendered mainly because we are not going to associate ourselves with

an Act of the Legislature, as presented to us, which could do nothing other than to continue a sense of alienation and a sense of isolation, justified or otherwise -- and of course on occasions people can be paranoid for justified reasons. I simply say that we did not intend to support a bill which would in any way perpetuate and not ameliorate that sense of isolation and alienation which is part and parcel of the atmosphere presently in existence between the school boards and the Metropolitan Toronto high school teachers.

[11:00]

Our third purpose was to protect the integrity of Bill 100. We are concerned about this. We have not heard from the government or from the members of the Conservative Party any compelling reasons which would lead us to believe that the bill which is presently before us is not, in a sense, a destructive bill insofar as the continuance of Bill 100 is concerned as a method of ameliorating and settling disputes within the school system.

I think it is fair to say that as the strike developed as a protective method of ensuring progress in the collective bargaining system between management and labour and management and other groups in our society, the countermeasure traditionally adopted was to impose compulsory arbitration. That was the black and white response.

If a strike for some reason could be categorized by those in control of government as relating to essential services or to the public service, or to some aspect of the industrial world that could be justified in their terms by the Conservative and Liberal governments that have imposed this kind of legislation, in a very Pavlovian, responsive way, they simply thought of compulsory arbitration as the one and only method by which that could be accomplished.

The York regional school board bill mirrored that approach. We had hoped that would be the final occasion on which the language of that bill would be required to be presented in this assembly for the purpose of settling any dispute. It is as if the government did not understand that since the bill was enacted by this assembly, the assembly has dealt with Bill 100 and has passed Bill 100 in an effort to make certain that the compulsory arbitration route would be cast aside and eliminated as a method of settling disputes.

There is no magic to the settlement of conflicts between management and various groups, whether in the industrial world or in the public service world. There is no magic to the solutions; nobody knows the solutions. I think it’s fair to say that throughout the union world, throughout the industrial world, throughout the government world, and particularly in latter years in the public sector world where government has a responsibility, there have been inquiries and a search for alternate methods. There’s no indication that anyone has yet found the alternate methods.

Bill 100 was the best effort which could be made at the time, as a result of the ongoing problems with the educational system and the struggles within that system, to meet that challenge, to provide alternative means for carrying it out and to eliminate the question of compulsory arbitration.

If one reads Bill 100 there is, of course, no reference to compulsory arbitration. It was an endeavour to provide a more flexible field of choice for those engaged. There were to be the traditional negotiations and there was to be the collective bargaining process. Obviously, an essential concomitant of that process is the right to strike, no question about that.

The bill mirrors and reflects the acceptance by government of that position. Alter- natives were provided, voluntary arbitration was provided. The Education Relations Commission was set up to assist in the mediation, on a continuing basis, of various disputes. The final offer selection opportunity was also provided within the legislation. Those were the various alternatives.

It was a very real effort; it was an effort not only by this assembly, it was an effort by those who were concerned in education -- the boards of education throughout the province, the association of trustees throughout the province, the teachers’ federation and the affiliated groups of the teachers throughout the province. The initiative, a great deal of the preparatory work and the thought that went into the bill was the work of the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) and his colleagues in the government; and then the bill was introduced into the assembly.

We have, and the government has, an immense investment of time, of energy, of intellectual contribution, of emotional involvement, in that bill. Let me reflect it in cold statistics. It was only in June, 1975, and in July, 1975, that this bill was dealt with in this assembly. Bill 100 was first read in this assembly on June 3, 1975. The second reading debate took place on June 13, 16, 17; for a total of 7½ hours’ debate in the assembly on second reading.

The bill was then referred to the standing committee of the Legislature and that committee held a number of meetings -- June 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 27, July 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14 and 15 for a total of 115½ hours in the standing committee of the Legislature dealing with Bill 100.

Mr. Drea: Is the member making a speech or delivering a doctoral thesis?

Mr. Renwick: The bill then came back into committee of the whole House and in the committee of the whole House we devoted another 4½ hours on July 17 and 18. The bill was read for the third time on July 18 and was given royal assent on that same day.

I am saying to the ministry that to introduce a replica of the York bill at this point in time, as if Bill 100 did not exist, is to us an unacceptable position.

This is not as if it were an ad hoc dispute in a very diverse and complex industrial society, such as the elevator strike, such as the transit workers’ strike, such as the Metro Toronto garbage collectors’ strike. This isn’t one of those. This is the first strike under that bill. This is the government’s response, being read by the public and perceived by the boards of education and the teachers across the province as the culmination of each strike; that Bill 100 will be disregarded and a bill similar to Bill 1 will be introduced in order to settle any strike which goes beyond a certain stated period of time in the Province of Ontario in the school system.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That was implied in the Premier’s statement.

Mr. Renwick: That’s how it is read, that’s how it will be perceived and that is our concern about the integrity of the bill. Had the government made some real effort to adopt a reasonable alternative solution in its continuing search for a better method of settling these matters, then perhaps we could have found ourselves in support of such a bill. But to have an automatic response to the York bill and introduce again into these relationships the concept of compulsory arbitration was totally unacceptable to us.

So we worked on it and we did as we could best do to devise an alternate, and indeed an obviously better method. I may say, and I give my colleagues in the caucus immense credit, the work that went into this particular amendment is the work of the caucus, it is not the work nor is there any input to that solution either from the boards of trustees or from the Ontario Teachers’ Federation or from any other source. It is a creative contribution by the caucus of this party to the ongoing problem of how to deal with these matters.

The second thing that we did was to provide simply for an instruction, an instruction of this assembly to the boards of education in Metropolitan Toronto and to the affiliates representing the teachers in Metropolitan Toronto to resume forthwith negotiations in good faith in order to resolve all matters remaining in dispute. I need not repeat that they are responsible bodies on both sides of that argument. The time has come when they should be told to resume negotiations and to find a settlement.

And as an ancillary part of our reasoned amendment to this bill we have provided specifically that the parties shall not withdraw from the negotiations until such time as an agreement has been reached.

That was the third reason, and we remain to be convinced that Bill 1 does not represent, if not an abandonment by the government of Bill 100, at least certainly a strategic retreat by the government in the course of which the bill will be abandoned. Bill 100 will cease to be an efficacious way of solving disputes, because always in the background, conditioning every dispute between boards of education and teachers throughout the Province of Ontario, will be the spectre of the kind of legislation reflected in Bill 1, and that will provide back-pressure throughout the system and will influence every continuing negotiation between boards and teachers which may take place in the future.

Our fourth reason, and indeed our major reason, the purpose for which we couched this and why we spoke of it in terms of presenting the government with a choice, had we been successful in gaining the support of other members of the House or of the Liberal Party as a whole to our proposal, would be to face the government with a clear alternative: Either adopt the amendment or dissolve this Parliament and go to the country on the question. It is that simple.

It would have been our wish, being a reasoned amendment, that the wisdom of our proposal would have appealed to the government and if it were passed by this assembly, as it would appear that it will not be passed, that the government would have accepted it in good faith and tried it to see whether or not it would solve the problem.

We do not take away from any of the remarks, made either about the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) or about the Premier. We believe them both to be sincere men; we believe them both to be conscientious; we believe that they were both available as and when it was, in their view, useful to be available.

We consider them to be friendly men and we consider them to be conciliatory men, and if any of my colleagues or others can think of any other phrases that we could apply to the Minister of Education or to the Premier, we would accept them.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I will use that as an election promotion.

Mr. Renwick: But that does not in any way make up for the failure of leadership which was drawn to the attention of the assembly by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis), the leader of this party, in his remarks on the bill, and as I said echoed by the leader of the Liberal Party. That failure of leadership, that failure by the government charged with the responsibility for carrying out the administration of Bill 100; that failure by the government to infuse the bill with the spirit which it was intended to have; the failure by the government to deal with Bill 100 in anything but a wooden, spiritless and unimaginative way, is what we categorize as a failure of leadership.

[11:15]

In closing, Mr. Speaker, may I say that the end is not justified by the means which are set out in the bill. Specifically, compulsory arbitration is not the proper concomitant of a return-to-the-school clause in the bill. We ask support for the reasoned amendment which we have put before the assembly. I have tried to outline clearly to the House the purposes we wish to achieve; the reasons why we, in this caucus, sought to find a creative solution to the problem.

By our amendment, we seek to make amends for the failure of leadership by the government I would ask, even at this late hour in the debate, for my colleagues of the Liberal Party to stand with us legislatively in this assembly and support the reasoned amendment and place the government in the position that they would accept a better solution to this problem, or reject it and go to the country. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to take

part in this debate? If not, the hon. minister.

Mr. Bullbrook: On a point of order, I just want to bring to your attention the procedure with respect to the introduction of this legislation on second reading; after it was moved for second reading the minister then spoke.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: He always sums up.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Wells: On that very point, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Bullbrook: He shouldn’t have opened the debate too.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- I can recall on many occasions having given an opening statement on a bill.

Mr. Bullbrook: The minister should have done it in his first remarks.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I beg to differ with my learned friend, but I think that if he searches Hansard he will find there are many precedents for a minister speaking twice.

Mr. Bullbrook: He is completely wrong.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to take the time of the House, or use the time of the House to any great length, but merely in a plain, simple and straightforward way reply to some of the comments that have been made, make a few comments, and then move this matter of urgency to the next step that it should move to in this House.

I might begin by stating that we came here yesterday with one purpose in mind, and that purpose was to open the secondary schools of Metropolitan Toronto next Monday. That was the only purpose we came here for, to do that; and coupled with it provide a proper and equitable method of settling the dispute which has caused such a long and bitter turmoil in the educational system in Metropolitan Toronto. That’s why we came here.

My hon. friend, the member for Riverdale, (Mr. Renwick) presented some very excellent remarks, as have many of the members of this House in this debate. I think it’s been a good debate. It’s been, for the most part, a reasoned debate. However, last night he did dwell on the fact that he presented his motion to defeat the government; not to open the schools of Metro Toronto but to defeat the government.

Some hon. members: Oh, no.

Mr. Reid: That’s what he said.

Hon. Mr. Wells: All right, just a moment.

Mr. Singer: Certainly it is. The member for Riverdale gave us two choices.

Mr. Renwick: I put it clearly. I will let the record speak for itself.

Mr. Bullbrook: He wants to go to the country.

Mr. Singer: He said, “Either do as we say, or have an election.”

Mr. Bullbrook: You want to go to the country?

Hon. Mr. Wells: In his usual wisdom, however, he indicated to us this morning that he would not recap what he had told us last night and would begin again, or at least restate points again. I think this morning he clarified the position which I believe was put forward by his leader in the opening remarks yesterday morning, that there was not really any disagreement with the first principle of our bill that the schools of Metropolitan Toronto should open next Monday.

Mr. Deans: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Really, the reasoned amendment being put forward was being put forward as another method of achieving the same ends. I think that has been clarified this morning. But I think it needs to be drawn to the attention of the House that last night the distinctly opposite impression was left.

Let me also say that from time to time during this debate I have heard mention about the involvement of the minister and the Premier of this province, about the fact that government must show leadership and about the fact that a government must govern. I want to say, very simply and very firmly, that we over here believe we were elected last September to govern in this province. We are governing, we will govern and we will govern with firmness and with reason. That is precisely and exactly why we chose to recall the Legislature to present this bill.

We believe that, at this time and in this place, this is the necessary legislation and that this represents firm, reasonable government leadership for this province at this time. Now why do I say that? I have listened to all the talk around here about Bill 100 and the ERC and I must say that basically, while there have been some criticisms about it in this House, I am very appreciative there hasn’t been the kind of criticism that I have heard outside of this House.

As I was thinking of some of the criticisms levelled against the Education Relations Commission, an old story came back to me that one of our great Canadians, John Diefenbaker, used to tell at many meetings. I guess he was talking about himself when he used to tell it, but he used to say all you had to do was go into an orchard and look under the best apple tree and you would find the most sticks and stones. I think that perhaps could be applied to the Education Relations Commission, except in place of sticks and stones I guess they are folded Globe and Mails that are being thrown at them.

That is not to mean that the Globe and Mail isn’t entitled to disagree with the Education Relations Commission, our motivations in setting it up or anything of that nature. Certainly they are. But I think that the Education Relations Commission, Bill 100 and the kind of things that it does have to be defended in this House, and they certainly will be defended by me as the minister and as part of a government that brought in this procedure.

I want to say that, notwithstanding what I hear or read, I still think Bill 100 is a good piece of legislation. At some time in the future we will be reviewing some of its technical details, but I want to tell hon. members that basically, as far as I am concerned, the rights and responsibilities in there will remain, because it is a good piece of bargaining legislation. It’s a good piece of legislation that has served us well and will serve us well. It might have helped some of the NDP members’ colleagues in some of the other provinces, such as British Columbia or Manitoba, if they had chosen to look at it --

Mr. Deans: That wouldn’t help this dispute.

Hon. Mr. Wells: No, but when I hear the kind of arguments that are put forward in this House about compulsory arbitration and so forth. I am always amazed to remember that is the way teachers’ disputes in Manitoba and British Columbia are settled -- by compulsory arbitration, by Acts of the Legislature.

Mr. Renwick: But you have an obligation to lead.

Mr. Martel: It is not the teachers; it is the --

Mr. Deans: They are wrong there. We agree.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That’s fine. All right.

Mr. Martel: Get the whole story.

Hon. Mr. Wells: What I am really saying to the hon. members opposite is that compulsory arbitration isn’t necessarily the great big bad boy that they always make it out to be.

Mr. Martel: They trust them out there.

Hon. Mr. Wells: It has settled disputes in the Province of Manitoba and, as my friend states, the teachers have never chosen to ask that it be removed.

Mr. Martel: They trust the government out there.

Hon. Mr. Wells: It is not that they trust the government. It is the fact that the system works; it works in Manitoba.

Mr. Renwick: You have a leadership role to play in Ontario, and you know it.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Therefore, given the fact that we have these other rights in this province --

Mr. Bullbrook: He wants you to go to the country.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- this is not the kind of big bogyman that the hon. members opposite would make it out to be.

Mr. MacDonald: What about your Throne Speech amendment? What were you after?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Let me just say this --

Mr. Reid: I thought you had got over that self-righteous baloney.

Mr. MacDonald: At least I have, but you never will.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I thought he was mellowing.

Hon. Mr. Wells: While I am on this point I just want to remind the House, as my friend from Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) did, and I think that his words were excellent, in his comments about the Education Relations Commission because this is a group -- and members will recall during the debate on Bill 100 I mentioned the kind of people I wanted to see on that commission. I mentioned the kind of tough job they would have to do and I think that they have lived up to the kind of challenge that was placed before them.

I don’t know whether the members of this House are aware -- I am sure they are aware -- that the commission is headed by Owen Shime but it also has on it Dean Harry Arthurs of the Osgoode Hall Law School; Dr. Lita-Rose Betcherman, who was head of the women’s bureau in the Ministry of Labour here for many years; Gabrielle Levasseur from Ottawa and John Ronson from Mississauga. These five people, I think, are doing an excellent job.

The proof of that is that Bill 100 was passed in July, it set up these new procedures which had never existed in the Province of Ontario, it has had limited staff, it is only now being able to get around to advertising and bringing in some of the kind of staff complement it is going to need to do the job that I envisaged it doing and which it will do and which will further help the bargaining process in this province.

In that time, there were 27 fact-finders appointed in the elementary panel and 27 settlements were arrived at; there were 15 fact-finders appointed in the secondary school area and 15 settlements have been arrived at, and in the secondary school panel there were 32 fact-finders appointed by the commission and we now have only about eight situations that haven’t been solved.

I remember people here saying in this House that we would never be able to find the number of fact-finders and that the kind of procedures wouldn’t work. They have worked. The fact-finders have done their job, reports have been brought in and settlements have been arrived at. These are for contracts which expired on Aug. 31. The commission is now working on about 34 to 35 contracts with boards which have contracts with teachers that expire on Dec. 31. About half of these are settled already; fact-finders are involved in the others.

I think when we carry this forward and look at what has happened, Bill 100 has been working, the commission has been doing an excellent job and this legislation deserves a chance to carry on to be appraised and judged in the light of what happens when this crisis period in Metropolitan Toronto has passed. I don’t think any of us thought that when this bill was passed we would achieve Utopia.

I must say though -- and I don’t think I said it in this House, but I did say it privately, because of course the spectre of a major disturbance in Metro Toronto hung over our head -- I said if that happens it will severely test Bill 100. There is no question it will test it in the minds of the public. It will test it and it will not only test it it will cause a cloud to hang over it which really doesn’t deserve to hang over that bill, which I think is a good piece of legislation.

Mr. MacDonald: We agree with your views. We wish many members of your own party agreed with you as enthusiastically.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Oh well, they all agree with these views.

Mr. MacDonald: Oh, we have heard about it on the hustings.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I think that it also has to be stated, and I think this is an interesting point, that we heard a lot yesterday about the effects this legislation would have on other disputes. We have heard a lot about the effect that the strike might have on other disputes; the strike in Metro Toronto, and of course there is a strike in the Kent county board at the present time also.

But it is interesting, and I would like to tell the House, that since the strike began in Metropolitan Toronto on Nov. 12 there have been settlements in about seven secondary school boards and seven elementary boards and a couple of separate school boards in that period. There have been settlements before the end of the contract, as I stated a few minutes ago, in 17 of the 34 areas where contracts expire on Dec. 31. Some set tentative agreements, reached as late as last week at the same time the vote was going on here in Metropolitan Toronto.

So bargaining is going on in the rest of the province, settlements are being arrived at and the procedures of Bill 100 are carrying on.

[11:30]

In our discussion of Bill 100, in drafting the rights and responsibilities of the Education Relations Commission, one of those responsibilities which we gave to them was to advise the executive council, the Lieutenant Governor in Council, when in the opinion of the commission the educational programmes of the students in an area where a withdrawal of services or a lockout was occurring would be in jeopardy. We put that in in order to protect students’ programmes, students’ rights and students’ interests. We left it up to the commission to decide how they should discharge that responsibility.

We put it in because we felt, as I said in my opening remarks, having given the procedures under Bill 100 and having established the right of teachers to withhold their services and of boards to lock out, there may come a time in a public interest dispute in the public sector where there may have to be some other interest that takes paramountcy. In this case we felt it would be the educational programmes of the students and so we left that duty up to the Education Relations Commission. They have fulfilled that duty.

There has been criticism of the fact that they didn’t comment or make any suggestions on the particular function that they have before last Saturday. That kind of criticism has to be coupled with the other duties that they have, one of which is to attempt in any way possible to help the parties reach a negotiated settlement. I think there’s no question that all of us feel a negotiated settlement between parties is the best way to solve a dispute. I think that the commission in their wisdom felt that way too and they instituted procedures to attempt to bring that about.

Whether we agree or disagree with the procedures they established, the kind of mediation, the troika situation that they created, I don’t think matters. What really matters is that they were attempting to bring about a negotiated settlement. It was only at the point when that seemed impossible to them that they then felt that they should discharge their function of deciding whether they should recommend to us whether the educational programmes of the students were in jeopardy.

They did that after they had held public hearings last Saturday in order to give the parties and, I think rightfully so, the public of this city a chance to hear the positions of various people connected with this dispute.

I would recommend to my friends -- although this certainly doesn’t justify the position that I am bringing in in this bill today but it does justify the one principle of the bill that the schools should open on Monday -- the brief presented by the secondary school teachers of Metropolitan Toronto. First of all, they acknowledge all the processes that have gone on in this dispute and all the things which have occurred.

After having acknowledged all that, the Education Relations Commission, the involvement of mediators and fact-finders, they say it’s an understatement to say that the full facilities of the commission and of the government have been utilized in these protracted and difficult negotiations.

They recognize that all the processes, including the involvement of this government in some personal way, have been used in trying to bring about a negotiated settlement in this dispute but that they then further go on and make a comment. It would be very interesting for various members to read the documentation for this very simple statement which they then make:

The purpose of today’s hearing is to determine whether or not the continuation of this strike will jeopardize the successful completion by the students of the current school year. The teachers, who are and always have been deeply concerned about the welfare of their students, say that it most undoubtedly will.

Then they go on in a rather detailed way to document the various programmes and various courses of study.

That brings me to my second premise that this government is showing leadership because it allowed the processes of Bill 100 to run their course. It then accepted the advice from the Education Relations Commissions and the opinions of others, as we have read them, which was that the pupils’ programmes would be placed in jeopardy and that the government should act.

At the very point when we received that advice, we decided that the course of action for this government was not to waffle, not to sit around and do nothing but to act, to take action, to ask that the Legislature be recalled and to bring in this piece of legislation so that we could prevent what the Education Relations Commission and many others say will happen if the schools of Metropolitan Toronto do not open this Monday.

Mr. MacDonald: So far, go good.

Mr. Singer: That certainly is leadership.

Mr. Shore: You don’t believe that yourself.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I do believe that myself.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member for Wilson Heights voted for Bill 100.

Mr. Singer: A little chaos and then some statutes, make some speeches and that’s leadership.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You voted for the bill.

Mr. Singer: Not because of the leadership, but to try to help the situation.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, you voted for Bill 100.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Wells: There’s one other piece of information and one other premise I think that I should make. That is, of course, that in bringing in this legislation and acting, we not only had to act on the advice that the commission gave and the opinions that we received concerning the pupils’ programmes being placed in jeopardy, but we then had to ask ourselves were meaningful negotiations still taking place or could they take place?

Mr. MacDonald: That’s right, and the answer is yes.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I beg to differ with my friend, but in my opinion -- and I must clarify It and say in my opinion -- in the recommendations I made to this government, I had to tell them, no, I didn’t feel meaningful negotiations could take place.

Mr. Deans: I think you were misled.

Mr. MacDonald: That’s where you began to make your mistake.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no. That’s where it became necessary --

Hon. Mr. Wells: All right, my friend says

I began to make my mistake --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- and members opposite are trying to get around the responsibility.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister has the floor.

Mr. MacDonald: Under our reasoned amendment presented for this legislation, they get back Monday morning.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, Donald, you can fool some people, but we know better.

Mr. Martel: Nobody tries to fool you, Bill.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, yes, you do.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Ever)body has had the opportunity to debate the matter. The hon. minister is replying. Thank you.

Mr. Singer: He’s out of order, though. There’s nothing in the bill about what he’s talking about. He’s out of order. Be firm with him, too. Threaten him.

Hon. Mr. Wells: My friend says that his opinion differs from mine. Well, let me stake my claim to why I made my opinion. Now, the member can disagree with that after, if he wants, but let me tell him why I arrived at that decision. Because I didn’t arrive at it out of the air; I didn’t arrive at it in isolation.

Mr. Shore: I suggest you did.

Mr. Givens: You did.

Hon. Mr. Wells: If the member suggests that I did then let him listen for a few minutes.

Mr. Singer: What

section of the bill is that mentioned in?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I must say that I hesitate to recite some of these events, because I just want to say categorically that while I accept that a minister of this government, and at particular times, the Premier of this province, has a responsibility to become involved in disputes -- there’s no question about that -- the part where I differ is that I don’t think we all have to take the Bryce Mackasey approach that what really is needed is not necessarily involvement in the dispute, but whether you can get enough publicity and everybody is aware that you’re involved in the dispute.

After all, I think that there is a place in some of these things to quiet down the kind of public perception that goes on about what’s happening and to handle things in a quiet manner.

Mr. Singer: And you’re certainly quieting it down.

Hon. Mr. Wells: What I’m going to say is that I have been involved over the past few days, not in a way that was attempting to get headlines or suggest that great action was happening, but merely to try and establish two things. And those two things were: Could meaningful negotiations continue? Could we get a negotiated settlement without this government having to legislate, given the fact that we knew we had to bring this dispute to an end quickly and by next Monday?

Mr. Good: You knew before Christmas you had to legislate. It’s all grandstanding.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I began last Friday by asking the parties to come in and meet with me, which they did. And I asked the parties where they stood at this particular time, knowing that a board proposal had been put forward -- a board proposal, a board offer, whatever you want to call it, had been put forward -- had been voted on and had been turned down by about a two-thirds to one- third margin last Wednesday.

I said, “Where do you stand?” The school boards told me that they were willing to sit down with the teachers and talk about any misunderstandings in the offer that was put forward, any clarifications, perhaps some readjustments within that offer, but that they stood very firmly on this one principle that there was no more money that they would put into the contract -- into the monetary matters.

Mr. Renwick: But there was more money.

Mr. Shore: We knew that three weeks ago.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Before the Education Relations Commission -- although they didn’t say this to me -- I am told that board said also that it was their position that they would put no more money into the contract. But they also agreed that they were not saying it because there was not more money, but that that was the position that they were taking as elected trustees. Now, they didn’t say there wasn’t more money, they said this --

Mr. Shore: That was three weeks ago.

Mr. MacDonald: Did they change their mind by yesterday morning?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I want to tell you that as far as I can discern from my discussion, that was a unanimous feeling of all the chairmen of all the boards in Metro Toronto; and I don’t think I am betraying any confidences on that.

Mr. Lewis: I think that’s quite fair.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I wanted to assure myself. Therefore, the position was: “We will sit down and negotiate; we will sit down and talk, if it’s within these parameters -- but there is no more money.” I then spent about 2½ hours with the full teacher negotiating team of about 18 or 20, talking the matter over with them. It became very clear to me that they were not interested in sitting down unless there was an indication that there was more money in the pot available for redistribution -- or however you want to put it -- there had to be some indication that there was more than a discussion about misunderstandings in the contract, and they said they didn’t feel there were any misunderstandings.

Mr. Good: Better call the vote before you talk us out of supporting you.

Hon. Mr. Wells: And if that indication wasn’t present, there was no use sitting down and negotiating.

Mr. Givens: You are wonderful; you are wonderful. Now, let’s vote. Come on.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Listen; all right now, we’ve --

Hon. W. Newman: Listen to who is talking.

Mr. Shore: You could have made the same speech on Dec. 17.

Mr. Givens: Let’s go; let’s go.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I’ve sat -- just a minute now.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I sat here all day yesterday and listened to a number of speeches in this assembly, and I am entitled to summarize them. I think as a --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I believe, Mr. Minister, there was a point of order.

Mr. Foulds: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Wells: And this is a rational speech.

Mr. Good: Self-adulatory --

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, the member for Armourdale (Mr. Givens) spends little enough time in this Legislature as it is. I believe he should have the courtesy to listen to the minister.

Mr. Speaker: That was not really a point of order. The hon. minister will continue.

Hon. Mr. Davis: What is the member doing applauding a criticism of his colleague?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Davis: They sit side by side.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I am sorry to tax his attention span, but I am going to continue on a little further.

Mr. Givens: You tax everything else.

Mr. Good: You are taxing all right

Mr. Lewis: It was the only vulgar contribution to the debate. Let him speak.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I then held further meetings on Monday of this week, on Tuesday of this week, and on Wednesday of this week -- one meeting with the parties together in a smaller group, and with representatives of the parties individually at other times. At no point could I see any thread or any way that any meaningful negotiations were going to occur. So, in coming to my colleagues, I had to tell them that as far as I could see there were no meaningful negotiations possible.

I might also point out that in one of those meetings -- and I think that this is crucial to the debate and our consideration of the motion that is being put forward today -- the board negotiators also informed me that by resolution they had withdrawn their board offer and that it no longer was a viable offer, and therefore it was not available for discussion. That was their position.

I also received notification by mail that the North York Board of Education and the Scarborough Board of Education had, by resolution, repudiated that offer. It became very plain to me that that offer arrived at through the mediation process at the Royal York was something beyond which many of the trustees in Metropolitan Toronto felt they could support. Now, I say that because I think that that was the perception that I certainly got listening to what happened after.

Mr. Nixon: A little speech from the gallery at this point?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I also think that if it had been accepted by the teachers that the board negotiators would have, in a very determined manner, sold it to their trustees --

Mr. Shore: Looking for a new job.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- and I think they could have sold it. But having been turned down, the credibility of that offer became very, very bad indeed.

Mr. Shore: Very interesting point.

Hon. Mr. Wells: All right, so we have arrived at that point. We are now at the point where this government had to act and we then had to divide the bill to bring about a resolution of this problem. We’ve accepted the premise that everyone agrees with the first principle of this bill that the schools should open next Monday.

[11:45]

Mr. Lewis: One thing the minister never did was have the Premier (Mr. Davis) bring them together and ask for a settlement. That’s the one matter that never occurred.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I must say that in this government, when any minister acts, he is also acting on behalf of the Premier and this whole government.

Mr. Lewis: I respect your authority, but the Premier is wrong.

Mr. Renwick: There is a mystique surrounding this Premier.

Mr. Martel: I’m not so sure.

Mr. Lewis: Mistake or mystique?

Hon. Mr. Wells: We therefore, had to bring forward into this House a bill that would, in our estimation, cause the schools to open on Monday and bring about a settlement of this matter. We have brought in that bill. We have established the back-to-work procedures. We’ve also established in the bill a procedure whereby a finality can be brought to this situation.

Mr. Martel: A rough boot.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The way we have decided that that finality can be brought is by binding arbitration. It is a situation where, as quickly as possible upon the return to school of those teachers, we will appoint that arbitrator within 30 days.

Mr. Nixon: Who is it, by the way?

Hon. Mr. Wells: It would be presumptuous of us to have announced it until this House has approved the legislation, but we will move as quickly as possible to appoint that arbitrator. We hope that within 30 days he will have determination of this matter and that negotiations, notice of which began a year ago today, can be brought to a finality very quickly. We will appoint the arbitrator very quickly.

I might also point out, and I acknowledge this and I’m sure all members of this House acknowledge it, during that period, and particularly during the seven days provided in this bill for the giving of notice to the arbitrator of those matters agreed upon and those matters in dispute, there is ample opportunity for a negotiated settlement. We don’t have to say in a bill that the parties have to get back and negotiate. If there is, as my friend says, room for negotiation, they have the opportunity to get back and negotiate it at any time during the next 30 days, but particularly during those seven days when they sort out what is still in dispute and what has been agreed upon.

Mr. Lewis: It won’t happen. There is no incentive to negotiate.

Hon. Mr. Wells: All they have to do is present to the arbitrator the fact that they have reached an agreement, and the arbitration process will cease. That can even happen after they start their presentations to the arbitrator. So, we’re not ruling that out.

Mr. Nixon: There should be an amendment on the term of the arbitration.

Mr. Renwick: It is obviously up to the boards to make another offer, is that what you are saying?

Hon. Mr. Wells: All right. The point I’m making is we’re not ruling out negotiations. We don’t have to say in this bill, “Go back and negotiate.”

Mr. Lewis: Oh, come on! You are imposing compulsory arbitration now.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister has the floor.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, will the minister permit a question on the point he is making? Since it is possible that the arbitration will become redundant if there is a settlement -- and this is a possibility, we now all agree, Within the next week or two -- would it not then be incumbent on the minister to accept an amendment, which I referred to in my comments yesterday, that the bill be amended so that the term of the arbitration ending in 1976 under the provisions of the bill be made more flexible?

We could leave that term as the outer limit but add a phrase which would allow the arbitrator himself to end arbitration if circumstances such as this or the imposition of a six per cent level from AIB for the second year become apparent.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I would be willing to discuss that when we get to the committee stage. Let me just digress and tell you why we put in the two-year term.

Mr. Nixon: Then you will have the amendment.

Hon. Mr. Wells: First of all, in all the negotiations up to the last board offer, which was arrived at through the mediation process, they were talking about a two-year agreement. The elementary teachers have a two-year agreement. It’s practically at the end of the first year now. Negotiations should really have begun this week or last week on the next contract.

Mr. Nixon: They will get notice of it anyway.

Hon. Mr. Wells: One of the things of utter paramountcy in this dispute is that we get and re-establish a harmonious relationship. I believe we can do it. It is not going to be easy, and we’re all going to have to work, particularly the teachers, trustees, parents and students, to re-establish a harmonious relationship and to rebuild respect between all these groups in the schools. I don’t know how that’s going to be done.

I have every confidence that it can be done, but I think it can also be done much better if the whole negotiating process isn’t going to start over again the minute this arbitrator makes his decision -- or even before the arbitrator makes his decision for the next contract. I think we need that period of stability.

I really think that both the parties, although they may not admit it publicly, would really welcome that kind of a contract.

I point out to you that it doesn’t have to be punitive. Some people feel that a two-year contract is punitive. As long as it is properly presented, and as long as it has the kind of protection that can be built into it, it isn’t punitive. I think there are great advantages to that particular kind of contract. However, I will be glad to discuss that with my friend during the committee stage.

Mr. Nixon: At that stage the amendment will be before you.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Let me just say this. In the argument about the methods that we have chosen, and the amendment put forward by the New Democratic Party --

Mr. Deans: Before the minister does that, wouldn’t he leave it up to the arbitrators to decide on the length of contract?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I’ve indicated my masons for a two-year contract, and I’d be happy to discuss that in more detail --

Mr. Deans: I understand that, but if they are valid the arbitrator will accept them.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- when we get to that

section in committee.

The proposition put forward by the New Democratic Party in their reasoned amendment -- which we can’t accept -- first of all suggests that an interim floor position be put in -- which is one that has been withdrawn by the trustees, which has been voted against by several boards in this area and which is, as far as I’m concerned, a totally unrealistic position.

Mr. Renwick: You can’t have it both ways.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The second premise is that the bill asks that negotiations continue. I submit to you that that brings no finality to the matter. What it does is that it removes the strike right and says, “Keep on negotiating” -- but brings no finality to the matter.

Mr. Lewis: We could bring it back in February if nothing has happened.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I point out to you another of your friends in British Columbia proposed that same kind of arrangement. It has brought no finality.

Mr. Lewis: Oh yes it has. The settlement ensued a few days later.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: There was a settlement in the major areas.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Wells: In only some areas; there are still some outstanding areas where there has been no settlement achieved.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I would submit that it really could be argued. It could be argued that the kind of arrangement that you’ve suggested in your reasoned amendment of putting in a board offer which has been withdrawn --

Mr. Deans: That’s negotiating --

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- and putting in a continuation of negotiations with removal of the right to strike could be argued --

Mr. Lewis: That principle is a political ploy.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- as a greater impediment to collective bargaining than the kind of thing that we are suggesting.

Mr. Lewis: You don’t think that?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I certainly do. I think that anybody looking at that could say: “Well, the obvious thing to do is to get the Legislature to legislate some kind of a settlement for you.”

Mr. Renwick: No, you did it on two other occasions.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister has the floor. Everybody has had the opportunity to debate the issue.

Mr. Bullbrook: Why do you provoke the member for Riverside like that?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, the hon. minister only.

Mr. Lewis: Would the hon. minister accept a question?

Mr. Speaker: Would the hon. minister accept a question?

Mr. Lewis: I think he probably would He’s a reasonable person. Why did you include, specifically, a floor --

Mr. Bullbrook: He wants to go to the country on this.

Mr. Lewis: -- in the York county settlement and in the transit worker settlement, prefaced by statements by the ministers? We have them saying in Hansard: “If there is compulsory arbitration, there should be a floor below which the arbitrator cannot go.” Why was it appropriate then, but not appropriate in this legislation?

Mr. Shore: Mr. Speaker, you said this wasn’t a debate.

Mr. Lewis: He granted the right to ask a question.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I think that in this particular situation, given the fact that this was an offer that was rejected by the teachers --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Wells: It was withdrawn by the boards, so it certainly couldn’t be accepted as a floor in the sense of the one that we put in in the York county situation.

Mr. Deans: Will you accept another floor?

Hon. Wells: I might point out that in my mind there are no other floors, or propositions or offers that could be put in in the same context as that matter in the York county dispute.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It’s only 30 days.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Now, I think that the --

Mr. Bullbrook: They want to go to the country on this issue.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I wish they would.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I think that the proposition of having an arbitrator make his decision within 30 days can very conveniently solve this problem without a floor.

Interjections.

Mr. Bullbrook: Ten NDP, 12 Liberals, and all the rest Tories.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Maybe even Sarnia.

Mr. Bullbrook: Oh, perish the thought.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister will continue.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Can I also remind my friends that there are, I am told, some other precedents for this kind of legislation? One of them is in the Province of Saskatchewan where Premier Blakeney ordered the hydro workers to cease and desist a walkout and imposed compulsory arbitration with no floor, which I think indicates --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- that there can be merit to the kind of suggestion that we are putting forward.

Mr. Speaker, I think that rather than take any further time of this House there are just two things that I would like to say. First of all I think I would just like to indicate that we are, and this is a matter of information, we are going to institute a very in-depth research study of the effects of this strike and the manner in which the pupils’ programmes are made up after the strike is over. This will be done in depth by our ministry working with the boards of education and the teachers in Metropolitan Toronto because I think that kind of factual information will be helpful to all of us and all members of this House if we, and I hope we never do, face this kind of a situation again.

Further, let me just say that I think the bill we have here today is a fair one; it’s a reasonable one; it shows that this government is exercising leadership. It shows that we are here to govern. It shows that what we feel has to be done is that the schools of Metropolitan Toronto must be open next Monday for the educational welfare of the 140,000 students. It shows that we want a quick and positive finale to the dispute that has caused bitterness and frustration among the teaching profession and the public and the trustees in Metropolitan Toronto.

I would say very plainly and simply, Mr. Speaker, that we are here today not to blame teachers, not to blame school boards, but we are here to open the schools. We are here to start back on the road to building a harmonious relationship in the classrooms of Metropolitan Toronto. And I can’t emphasize that more strongly.

We’ve got to rebuild the respect, the confidence and the sense of goodwill that is necessary for quality education and a quality learning experience in those classrooms. That is what I want. And that is what we have got to do.

We have to rekindle somehow these kinds of qualities between and among the trustees, the teachers, the parents and the students and the general public in Metropolitan Toronto. I want to tell you that I am going to do everything possible and this government is going to do everything possible to do that, and we are confident that the trustees and the teachers and the community at large will also do the same, because that is what we have got to do. And what does that mean? That means that our responsibility here today, right now, is to vote in favour of this bill. And I hope the House will do it unanimously.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Mr. Wells had moved second reading of Bill 1. Mr. Lewis then moved a reasoned amendment which stated that Bill 1 be not now read a second time and he gave the reasons therefor.

The first question, of course, in such cases is: shall the word “now” and the other words sought to be struck out stand as part of the motion?

[12:00]

The House divided on the motion that Bill 1 be now read a second time, which was approved on the following vote:

Ayes

Nays

Auld

Belanger

Bernier

Birch

Brunelle

Campbell

Conway

Cunningham

Davis

Drea

Eakins

Eaton

Edighoffer

Evans

Ferris

Gaunt

Givens

Good

Gregory

Grossman

Haggerty

Hall

Handleman

Henderson

Hodgson

Irvine

Johnson (Wellin ton- Dufferin-Peel)

Johnston (St. Ca tharines)

Jones

Kennedy

Kerr

Kerrio

Lane

Leluk

MacBeth

Maeck

Mancini

McCague

McEwen

McKeough

McMurtry

McNeil

Meen

Miller (Haldimand Norfolk)

Miller (Muskoka)

Morrow

Newman (Durham North)

Newman (Windsor-Walkerville)

Nixon

Norton

Parrott

Peterson

Reed (Halton-Burlington)

Reid (Rainy River)

Rhodes

Riddell

Ruston

Scrivener

Shore

Singer

Smith (Hamilton Mountain)

Smith (Nipissing)

Smith (Hamilton West)

Snow

Spence

Stephenson

Stong

Sweeney

Taylor

Timbrell

Villeneuve

Welch

Wells

Williams

Yakabuski -- 75

Angus

Bain

Bounsall

Breaugh

Bryden

Burr

Cassidy

Davidson (Cambridge)

Davison (Hamilton Centre)

Deans

Foulds

Germa

Gigantes

Godfrey

Grande

Laughren

Lewis

Lupusella

MacDonald

Mackenzie

Makarchuk

Martel

McClellan

Moffatt

Philip

Renwick

Samis

Sandeman

Swart

Warner

Wildman

Ziemba -- 32

Clerk of the House: Mr. Speaker, the “ayes” are 75, the “nays” are 32.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Shall this bill be ordered for third reading?

Mr. Bullbrook: No.

Mr. Speaker: Committee of the whole House?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes.

[12:30]

METROPOLITAN TORONTO BOARDS OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTES ACT

House in committee on Bill 1,

An Act respecting the Metropolitan Toronto Boards of Education and Teachers Disputes.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Chairman, before the clause-by-clause discussion I would like to indicate there has been general agreement that the committee will sit now until we finish this work. In other words, we will sit through the luncheon hour and not have a break for lunch, so members can make their own arrangements. We will stack whatever votes there may be in committee and have one bell.

Agreed.

section 1:

Mr. Chairman: Hon. Mr. Wells moves that clause (

b) of subsection 1 of

section 1 of the bill be amended by striking out “and” at the end of sub-clause v, by adding “and” at the end of sub-clause vi and by adding thereto the following sub-clause vii, the Metropolitan Toronto School Board.”

Hon. Mr. Wells: The reason for this is that, while the Metropolitan Toronto School Board doesn’t directly employ any secondary teachers, it is a signatory to the agreement and therefore should be in. We had debated this at first, that is not to put them in the bill because they didn’t employ any teachers. The Metro school board and the elementary panel do actually employ teachers in special education circumstances.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Chairman, just before the amendment is put, I want to add a thought. Of course the amendment will be passed and of course it won’t be stacked and of course there is no problem, but it is ironic that the Metro school board was left out of the legislation initially.

It might have spoken to the unconscious sense in the minds of bureaucrats in the minister’s department -- I daren’t say in the mind of the minister himself -- that the whole negotiating process this time has demonstrated that there is something very wrong with the Metro board procedure and that one of the things we may be emerging toward, in Metropolitan Toronto, is negotiations with the individual boards, probably resulting in agreements rather more easily than the sad pattern of the last several months.

I know there are many individual boards thinking about that terribly seriously at the present moment. I am sure the oversight isn’t attributable to some Freudian base, but I smiled to myself last night when it as drawn to my attention because it speaks to a reality: The Metro board system is not working.

Mr. Chairman: Does the minister wish to speak?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I would have to differ with my friend on his last comment. I don’t think we can categorically say that the system is not working.

I think there may be room for improvement in the negotiation area. As he knows, the metropolitan school board, as one of its functions, does not negotiate the salaries and does not employ the teachers, but the negotiations have been on a joint basis by agreement.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I agree.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Sometimes, in generalization, people say the Metro school board is negotiating, but they really are not. It is a committee of board chairmen, made up of all the boards and the Metro chairman, who also sits as a trustee on one of the area boards. This is the body that is doing the negotiating.

I would have to say that I think that certainly, having once been head of a negotiating team for the Metro trustees, the stage at which we have arrived in Metro where we have joint negotiation of the boards and the teachers is a much better system than individual negotiations.

Mr. Chairman: Shall the minister’s amendment carry?

Agreed.

Are there any further comments, questions or amendments to any other

section of the Bill? If so which one.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Chairman,

section 3.

Mr. Chairman: Is it in agreement then that

section 2 is carried?

Section 1, as amended, agreed to.

Section 2 agreed to.

section 3:

Mr. Deans: Dealing with an amendment I propose to make requires amendment of two subsections, subsection 4 and subsection 5. I would like to place both amendments at the same time in order that they can be considered simultaneously.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Deans moves that subsection 4 of

section 3 be amended by adding after the word “parties” in the fifth line the words:

Including in the case of the written notice to the arbitrator from the boards the last offer of the boards to the branch affiliates.

Mr. Deans further moves that subsection 5 of

section 3 be amended to read as follows:

(5) The arbitrator, upon receipt of a notice, shall examine the last offer of the boards to the branch affiliates and on the basis of that offer shall examine into and decide all matters that are in dispute between the parties as evidenced by the notice referred to in subsection (4) and any other matters that appear to him to be necessary to be decided in order to make a decision no less favourable to the branch affiliates than such last offer.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Chairman, the effect of what we have moved is to ensure that the arbitrator will not make a decision that is less than the offer that was before the teachers on Dec. 20, 1975.

It is not uncommon for legislation proposed by this government to contain a base from which the arbitrator has to work. We happen to feel that that is a desirable feature in a bill such as this, although we frankly don’t agree with the bill itself. We feel that it provides a certain amount of fairness in whatever decision is finally arrived at.

I listened to the minister with interest today talking about how the boards had withdrawn their offer. I want to say that we came to the conclusion that the boards’ last offer was the fairest offer to discuss.

We assumed, perhaps naively, that when the boards made the offer they actually intended to pay it. We thought that when they made the offer they were prepared to live up to it. We thought that when they put that offer before the teachers, they did so in good faith and that had it been agreed upon then they would have gone ahead and implemented it. With that in mind, we therefore decided that since the boards had offered that particular settlement, that would be the settlement upon which any floor should be based, or the lowest level that the arbitrator could determine.

We are prepared to concede that that may not be the only floor. We are prepared to concede that it may be that :there’s another base, a base more satisfactory, a base that the government can accept.

Mr. Lewis: The October offer.

Mr. Deans: The October offer, as my leader says. It may be there is another base that can be established to ensure that there be fairness in the final arbitration decision, to ensure that the teachers can go back into the classroom knowing at least that that Which they had already been offered is guaranteed. They can then turn their minds away from the dispute entirely and address themselves solely and particularly to the matter of educating the children before them; that they don’t have to now concern themselves about what goes on behind the scenes before the arbitrator.

I want to deal with one matter that worries me, before we talk any further about the amendment itself. We put this amendment because we happen to believe it to be useful. We happen to believe it to be consistent. We happen to believe it to be consistent with this government’s own philosophy about boards of arbitration and decisions that be made.

I was worried yesterday when it came to my attention that the government would consider the passage of this sort of amendment as a non-confidence matter. I walked away shaking my head and wondering just why I bother getting up in the morning and coming to the Legislature and taking

part in the debates and thinking about the legislation placed before us and worrying about its impact, if I am forever going to be threatened with an election if I decide to propose something that I think might help to I strengthen the legislation. I wonder whether I might not better have stayed in bed and left them to make their own decision, because obviously they weren’t prepared to talk with us.

Maybe they are now prepared to talk with us. Maybe there is a compromise somewhere that we can achieve that will ensure that when those teachers go back into the classroom that they will be able to do so without feeling that they have been totally destroyed by this Legislature, and that their future has been threatened by the imposition of the legislation -- that at least there’s some sort of sense that there’s justice in this chamber. I think that’s really what we’re talking about.

[12:45]

We all agree the teachers will go back to work on Monday; we’ve always agreed on that. We made it clear right from the outset that on Monday morning at 9 o’clock, or whatever time it happens to occur, the school doors will open and the teachers will be there and the pupils will be taught. We have no disagreement oil that.

We disagreed on the method of resolving the outstanding dispute, and we thought that we had offered a reasonable method of trying to resolve it. It differed from the government’s method, but we still felt that it was as reasonable an approach as the approach of the government -- in fact, we thought it a little more reasonable, so we proposed it.

We worried more about the effect of what has gone on and the effect of what we are currently doing on the educational system. We worried a lot about trying to ensure that when those teachers finally went into the classroom the pupils could look to them with respect and understanding and the teachers could hold their heads up and feel that they had at least accomplished something as a result of the exercise that they’ve gone through.

This Legislature, to this point, hasn’t agreed that that’s valuable but we still think it is. We think that’s very valuable. We think that may well be the foundation upon which the relationship between the pupils and the teachers, and the teachers and the boards will begin to redevelop and to reassert itself, and the foundation upon which the kinds of relationships that we hope will be accomplished and know are necessary will be based.

What we’re asking the government to do is if it feels that there is another offer more acceptable than the one that we’re proposing, then tell us what it is, but don’t reject out of hand the proposition that there ought to be some floor below which the arbitrator cannot go as a result of the actions that we take.

Let me refer to the two most quoted pieces of legislation. The Toronto transit labour dispute settlement said -- and this was passed in 1974 -- in

section 7:

The basic hourly rates of wages for employees to whom this Act applies are hereby increased by 12 per cent over the basic hourly wage rate in effect on the expiry date, retroactive in each case to the day immediately following the expiry date, and the decision of the arbitrator shall include such increase.

Nothing in this

section prevents the arbitrator from granting increases on the basic hourly wage rate in excess of those established in this section. You recognize that in order to gain goodwill, in order to gain a sense of justice, in order to assure those employees that there would be no possibility of being victimized as a result of the actions of this Legislature, there had to be a floor below which the arbitrator couldn’t operate. That was the first point.

In the York county teachers’ dispute we did likewise -- a little more complicated perhaps -- and perhaps something similar could have been worked out in this case, though, frankly, we were unable to do it because we didn’t have all the details. In the York county dispute it was determined, and I quote from

section 4:

The rates of salaries for teachers in categories 1 to 4 as set out in the

schedule to this Act are effective on and after Sept. 1, 1973, until the award made by the board of arbitration under this Act becomes in operation. The decision of the board of arbitration [and this is the key] shall not provide for rates of salaries in categories 1 to 4 less than the rates of salaries as set out in the sche