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August 30, 1974

29th Parliament, 4th Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L097 - Fri 30 Aug 1974 / Ven 30 aoû 1974

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION LABOUR DISPUTES SETTLEMENT ACT

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ACT

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ACT

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION LABOUR DISPUTES SETTLEMENT ACT

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION LABOUR DISPUTES SETTLEMENT ACT, 1974

THIRD READING

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ACT

THIRD READING

ROYAL ASSENT

The House met at 3 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, due to the gravity of the situation that has brought us back to the House, I would suggest that we move directly to the introduction of bills.

Mr. Speaker: Is it agreed that we do so move directly to the introduction of bills?

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, since the hon. House leader is suggesting that we forego question period, we in the Liberal caucus, recognizing the importance of the situation and the fact that we want to deal with the matter without further delay, are prepared to forego the question period today.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Mr. Speaker, you have our concurrence as well.

Mr. Speaker: I would therefore call the item of business introduction of bills.

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION LABOUR DISPUTES SETTLEMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. MacBeth moves first reading of bill intituled,

An Act respecting Labour Disputes between the Toronto Transit Commission and Division 113, Amalgamated Transit Union, Lodge 235, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local No. 2.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the motion carry?

Mr. Lewis: No. On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, if I may, can we have from the House leader or the Premier any indication of how the debate will move procedurally?

There has been an effort to give us some time between first and second reading, and we consider that rather important.

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the way in which the opposition is assisting in dealing with this very difficult matter.

In discussions I think it was determined, Mr. Speaker, with the concurrence of the House, that after the bills are introduced, the Minister of Labour making a brief statement of explanation, the House leader would move adjournment of the House for one hour to give the various members an opportunity to assess the contents of the bill.

If you agree, Mr. Speaker, we would resume at approximately 4:10 or 4:12 and move then into second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: With this explanation, then, is it the pleasure of the House that the motion for first reading carry?

Some hon. members: No.

Mr. Speaker: Those in favour of first reading of the bill will please say “aye.”

Those opposed to first reading of the bill will please say “aye” -- please say “nay.”

Mr. Lewis: You should try that again, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: I have been on vacation.

Those in favour of first reading of the bill will please say “aye.”

Those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion the “ayes” have it.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, the legislation which I have presented is designed to end the work stoppage of the Toronto Transit Commission employees and to establish machinery for resolving issues that are still in dispute.

Certainly, in the public interest, the time has arrived to restore transportation services for the more than two million citizens of Metropolitan Toronto and for the many others in other parts of the province who rely on the Gray Coach Lines.

On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, I recognize that this action must be taken only after anxious consideration. The employees affected by this bill are engaged in a legal strike. Only twice before in the last 14 years has the Legislature of this province met to terminate legal work stoppages.

Clearly this government believes that it is preferable for collective agreements to be arrived at through direct bargaining between the interested parties, assisted where necessary by professional conciliators and media- tors from the Ministry of Labour.

The ministry’s staff devoted countless hours and days, both before and after the strike, to trying to bring about a negotiated settlement. In that period some 135 issues in dispute were resolved, leaving -- I might say here Mr. Speaker, that my notes read “14 items to be finally determined;” I am now pleased to tell the House that nine items are to be finally determined. The senior staff of the ministry, including the minister, devoted major portions of their time to this matter in the last few days.

This week it became clear that a complete settlement was not in sight. Yesterday’s membership meeting confirmed this. I place no blame on either side for the present state of affairs. From my meetings with each side I have been impressed by the sincerity of opinions expressed and I’m satisfied --

Mr. Lewis: What sincerity on the part of Karl Mallette and company!

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Order.

I must point out to the visitors in the gallery that they are here as our guests. We are pleased to have them here to observe the proceedings in the chambers, in particular in connection with this particular bill. I must point out to them, though, that they are our guests and they must observe the rules that apply to those people who are permitted to have seats in the chambers.

Those rules do not provide for any applause, any laughter, any noise, any interruptions or demonstrations of any kind. I’m sure the guests today are all reasonable people and will observe the rules that apply to every other visitor in this chamber. Thank you.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have suggested that I have been satisfied with the sincerity of opinions expressed and believe each party has taken a position that is in the interests of the persons it represents; that is, the union members, the travelling public and the taxpayers.

But the time has come, regrettably, for this Legislature to intervene on behalf of all those affected by this dispute. The Premier, who has given many hours of his time toward trying to achieve settlement, spoke yesterday of the hardship to the elderly.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Why doesn’t the government pass the GAINS benefits on to them?

Mr. Lewis: Let the government do something about inflation if it is worried about the elderly.

Mr. Martel: It might pass the federal money on.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: On Tuesday, thousands of school children will require public transport in order to continue their studies. Some 8,000 separate school children rely on the Toronto Transit Commission to get to school. Many others, especially in the secondary schools, have those same requirements.

Members will recognize that many of the provisions of the bill are the same as those used on the two previous occasions that the Legislature has taken similar action.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): It’s getting easier all the time.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Why doesn’t the government pass an omnibus bill since it believes in this?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: The bill provides for employees to return to work in accordance with established procedures. If the bill is passed promptly, employees can resume work tomorrow in accordance with the same schedules which were in force when the strike commenced.

This bill provides for a 12 per cent salary increase to all affected employees, retroactive to July 1, 1974, in the case of some 5,800 members of the Amalgamated Transit Union and retroactive to April 1, 1974, in the case of machinists and electricians represented by the International Association of Machinists and the Canadian Union of Public Employees respectively.

Mr. Speaker, now that this action has proved necessary, I urge the House to give this bill prompt consideration in order that the normal transit operations and the municipal and provincial economy affected by them can be restored as quickly as possible.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ACT

Mr. R. F. Nixon moves first reading of bill intituled,

An Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill is to provide for the calling of a by-election when the Legislature is in session but is not sitting. It removes from the present legislation the anachronism which has left the constituency of Stormont unrepresented since the resignation of the former Minister of Labour.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ACT

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves first reading of bill intituled,

An Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Cassidy: We had one too.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Yes. I’ll bet the member which one is called first.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Be careful of that. He might lose the bet.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: I haven’t been paid my bet yet; my $10, by the Treasurer (Mr. White).

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We will have a look at it.

An hon. member: Do members want an explanation?

Mr. Lewis: Just give us the date.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, in explanation -- which explanation, I might say, is very similar to the one given by the Leader of the Opposition --

An hon. member: Same bill.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: -- I was aware, Mr. Speaker, that that bill was coming forward from the official opposition. Also, the official opposition was aware that we had a bill printed to bring forward.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: So that’s the explanation.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: So, inasmuch as he may have scooped me somewhat today, I must explain to the House that our bill will be called today; his could not be called until some months hence.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: On a point of clarification, Mr. Speaker, perhaps he might scoop not only the House but the people of Stormont and tell us when the by-election would be held?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, that is not my prerogative.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Is there anybody here who knows?

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, perhaps on a point of order, I wonder if the House leader could tell us, if we were prepared to give unanimous consent, if this bill as well could get three readings today?

Mr. Speaker: I regret that that is not a point of order.

Mr. Singer: Well, it’s a good question anyway.

Mr. Speaker: Do I understand that there will be a motion to adjourn?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I move that the House do now adjourn until 4:18.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Can the House leader advise us if it is the intention of the government to proceed, pursuant to rule 45, with respect to the obtaining of unanimous consent for bills to be printed and on the order paper, or just what the procedure will otherwise be?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, when we return to the House, I think the hon, members’ fears will be quelled.

Mr. Breithaupt: I have no fear.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No, well they will be here.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): Mr. Speaker, speaking to that point of order, is it untoward to respond to the House leader of the Liberal Party?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Not at all.

Mr. Bullbrook: Well, through you, Mr. Speaker, would the House leader advise us, does he intend to ask for unanimous consent to approach second reading? That’s all the question was.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, as far as I am concerned, we have that consent now and we will proceed when we return to the House.

Mr. Bullbrook: Do I assume the House leader, Mr. Speaker, is saying that he now has unanimous consent to proceed to second reading?

Mr. Breithaupt: Without asking for it.

Mr. Bullbrook: He has it already? When was it asked for? I must have been asleep at the time. When was it asked for, Mr. Speaker?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Breithaupt: It wasn’t asked for.

Mr. Singer: It wasn’t asked for at all.

Mr. Bullbrook: How could he get it yesterday? We weren’t in session.

Mr. Speaker: I am not sure that I should inject my words into this crossfire. However, I am sure that the hon. members will know that unanimous consent was not given in this House.

Mr. Bullbrook: I guess not.

Mr. Speaker: I do believe that there have been some informal consents arranged.

An hon. member: We don’t need them.

Mr. Speaker: I’m not certain about it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

An hon. member: They don’t even know what the House leader is doing.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): The member should ask his leader.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. I am informed that the hon. House leader had intimated to the House that we would proceed after we came back in one hour and that agreements had been given for that.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): What with?

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, the House doesn’t work by intimation.

Mr. Bullbrook: Mr. Speaker, may I speak to the point of order. May I, on my own point of order, put it that the House leader of the Liberal Party truly, through you, put to the House leader for the government the question, “May I assume that we are going to proceed further and that you’re going to ask for unanimous consent?” This required a “yes” or “no,” that’s all. “Yes” I take it is yes.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: That is absolutely correct.

Mr. Bullbrook: All right. Good. That is all we wanted to know.

An hon. member: Except we didn’t know.

Mr. Speaker: That is agreed then.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves the adjournment of the House.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 3:20 o’clock, p.m.

The House met at 4:20 o’clock, p.m.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, before we proceed with the business at hand I would like to call to your attention, sir, that since we adjourned just an hour ago, order paper 77 mysteriously disappeared and order paper 77(

a) took its place. Now, this is the way that someone in the administration conceived of getting around the requirements of getting unanimous consent, because they can say, in fact, that they have an order paper on which second reading of the bill is listed.

I would simply like to express my objection in this regard. The opposition has little enough opportunity to have an input into the business of the House. We had indicated quite clearly and privately that we were going to give unanimous consent, and in my opinion if it had not been forthcoming it would have been good reason to adjourn the House and come back again another day to complete this bill.

I am just putting to you, sir, that this establishes a precedent which we in the opposition do not accept and we hope that you will give it your personal and immediate attention.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: If I may speak to that, I think I can understand very clearly what the hon. member is saying. We simply took this course because we thought it was proper in the light of the procedure for today, and there is no prohibition against it.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): It is definitely not proper.

Mr. Singer: May I address myself to the point of order?

Mr. Deans: In a moment.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve had a lot of difficulty over the last two or three years with this very matter. We had a debate in the House over the procedures of the House, relating to unanimous consent and the procedure of a bill through the House through a number of stages in the same sitting.

I don’t know where the government gets off producing two order papers for the same sitting of the same day. I am not at all sure that the government is in a position to bring forward two order papers for the same sitting.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right.

Mr. Bullbrook: It didn’t have to do it anyway.

Mr. Deans: There was one order paper already provided today showing today’s business. What was required was that the House leader simply ask for the unanimous consent of the House in order to proceed with this legislation. I don’t think the government has the power to alter the order paper once the order paper is in the process of being dealt with.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): It is just ridiculous for the government to have this kind of procedure.

Mr. Bullbrook: It didn’t have to do it.

Mr. Renwick: It just caused itself immense trouble.

Mr. Singer: I think this manoeuvre -- and I call it deliberately a manoeuvre -- is an arrant abuse of the privileges of this House. I think, sir, it is too cute by half. I think someone is trying to play games with us.

Even though there is nothing in the rule book that says this cannot be done, this kind of procedure, if accepted by you, sir, would allow the government to change the orders of the day at any time during any sitting of the House; to order anything it wants; to get around the rule that was deliberately and conscientiously and logically put there, which allows for delay in the event we do not have a bill before us. I think the people responsible for it should be highly condemned.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It should be withdrawn.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Withdraw it.

Mr. Singer: It is quite obvious from the remarks of the leader of the House that he was one of the connivers; and that this order paper should be withdrawn and that we should resort to the original order paper.

It is fascinating to note, Mr. Speaker, on the way by, that Bill 119 is listed on this new order paper and a second bill, shown as Bill 120, introduced by the House leader, is shown -- that’s the one to amend the Legislative Assembly Act -- but further, fascinatingly, it does not indicate any reference to the bill introduced by my leader in priority to the bill, which should be there.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It should have been there.

Mr. Singer: Yes, it should have been there. I say, sir, that is an arrant abuse of the procedures and privileges of this House --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Singer: You should order, sir, that this order paper so-called, the phoney 77(a), should be withdrawn now and we should revert to 77.

Mr. Bullbrook: Right. The minister has the wrong number on Bill 120. There is no 120.

Mr. Singer: Why he does it, I don’t know.

Mr. Lewis: I want to speak to the point of order --

Mr. Singer: The government can do anything it wants and get away with it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Downsview has had his opportunity. The hon. member for Scarborough West has the floor.

Mr. Lewis: I simply urge you, Mr. Speaker, to indicate your displeasure with this kind of process because this is what destroys the possibility of the orderly conduct of business in this House.

We went to considerable lengths to allow this debate to take place, given the immense differences of opinion. I think the Premier will acknowledge that when we discussed it with him yesterday, it was in the context of avoiding a hassle over unanimous con- sent that we asked for the hour interval. There was an effort to facilitate the House and to have the work done and I really think that using this kind of method again poisons the atmosphere of the Legislature totally unnecessarily. I urge you, Mr. Speaker, to indicate that it has no favour with you and that you would wish that order paper be withdrawn.

Mr. Bullbrook: If I may, Mr. Speaker, if you will permit me to speak to the point of order -- the essential ingredient of putting before us 77(

a) as a new order paper is a prejudgement and a predisposition on the part of the government House leader that unanimous consent would not be given. All he has to do, of course, is look at the rules, which he should be abundantly knowledgeable about as House leader. The sad trauma we fact is that he is not, and that’s the fact of the matter. The rule clearly says that except by unanimous consent of the House no bill shall be read the second time until it has been printed and distributed and so marked on the orders of the day thus printed.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Meanwhile, back to the business.

Mr. Bullbrook: Now the fact of the matter is my House leader attempted to elicit from him a yes or no, a simple answer, if he was moving under that particular

section and we were going to go to second reading on the assumption the government would be given unanimous consent. He was given a gentlemen’s agreement. Mr. Speaker, by the House leaders and whips.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: But he sat around and sat around.

Hon. Mr. Bullbrook: What he said in effect, Mr. Speaker, was, “I have been given your gentlemen’s agreement but I don’t trust you. So I am going to surreptitiously” -- because that’s the way it was done -- “take away 77 and I’m going to put in 77(a).”

I join the other members who have addressed you on this point in asking you not to permit this precedent. We have little enough control over our own destiny except for your good graces, and I ask you, sir, not to permit this type of subversion of the rules of the House.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): Get on with the bill.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for High Park.

Mr. Shulman: Mr. Speaker, if I may speak briefly to this point of order, and I am directing my remarks through you to the Premier, this of course is completely unnecessary. He knew he was going to get unanimous consent.

But what really disturbs me is that this is the fourth incident of this type this year and this has all happened since we’ve had this House leader. I suggest to you, sir, and through you to the Premier, for goodness sakes find some other use for his talents. He’s disturbing and destroying everything.

Mr. Cassidy: There is no use for his talents.

Mr. Lewis: The Premier could make him a commissioner of the TTC. He would fit right in.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. I don’t think this should develop into a full-scale debate.

Mr. Singer: It is that important.

Mr. Bullbrook: It is important.

Mr. Singer: It is the most important discussion of the privileges of this House that has ever taken place.

Mr. Breithaupt: It is an interesting thing to me that we are attempting, in the midst of a programme that would hopefully resolve a labour-management dispute, to bring into the Legislature the rush hour that we haven’t seen in Toronto for these past several weeks. Certainly in the last hour the House leader or his minions have been rushing around opening all the order books, putting the order paper 77 in them and putting order paper 77(

a) on our desks.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: They are not his minions.

Mr. Breithaupt: I think it is rather interesting that in coming back to the House after the hour adjournment, we had this order paper before us. I think it was only by circumstance that we happened to note that there was a letter (

a) behind 77. Then, of course, in opening the order paper we find that there was at least some presumption that in fact Bill 119 would receive the first reading that had been sought by the government.

Mr. Singer: Marvellous printers to work that fast.

Mr. Breithaupt: To go ahead then and print Bill 120-

Hon. Mr. Davis: If they hadn’t there wouldn’t be any order paper.

Mr. Breithaupt: There would be an order paper.

Mr. Singer: There was an order paper 77.

Mr. Breithaupt: We had an order paper, as the Premier is well aware.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order.

Mr. Breithaupt: The interesting thing to us, further, is that we have --

Mr. Singer: A bunch of baloney.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- unfortunately, set out as item 17 on this order paper an incorrect reference, namely Bill 121, as it should be

an Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Act. I think, unfortunately, the matter is just --

Mr. Singer: Did the Premier know about that?

Mr. Breithaupt: -- a little bit too cute, as the member for Downsview has said. It is unfortunate, when we have the rule available to us and when we have an acknowledgement of unanimous consent to deal with this most serious problem, that the government has not chosen to accept that approach, but rather has gone a further step in order to attempt to subvert what are the intentions of the House.

Now I agree, Mr. Speaker, there is no rule that says it can’t be done. That is true. But surely the approach that has been taken within this Legislature has been not to attempt a foolish ploy like this, which simply embarrasses us all. Not only you, sir, especially, but those of us who have at least some minor responsibilities in the mechanics of the operation of the House.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He looks embarrassed.

Mr. Breithaupt: It is certainly not a happy way to go into this most serious debate that we are now going to enter. The problems are serious enough and difficult enough in their resolution. To have done it this way, I believe has been most unfortunate.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, I think I must make some short reply, without accepting any of the criticism. Because of the fact that it was a bill that required Her Honour’s consent, we felt it was absolutely necessary to follow the course that I followed, and accordingly the officials --

Mr. Singer: Baloney!

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member may think it’s baloney, but I say that it was necessary. He had his say. He should take his seat.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: In regard to the numbering of the bills, I might say I’m sure that the Leader of the Opposition knows it is a private member’s bill and I think maybe he would be a little grateful for the fact that we are bringing this forward the way we are despite the numbering sequence.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: We are not grateful to the minister. If the government would run the province according to the democratic process we would be grateful.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, I am willing to make the proposal, despite the charade that has gone on, if the members of the opposition are prepared to give unanimous consent --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: If they are, Mr. Speaker, I am --

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: He can forget it. He is compounding his stupidity.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Shulman: My God, he is inept.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Singer: It is corrupt.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: It is the most corrupt thing that has been done in this Legislature.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member for Downsview really should be made to withdraw those words.

Mr. Singer: When the minister withdraws his actions.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member for Downsview should really withdraw those words.

Mr. Singer: Let him withdraw his actions, and the word “charade”. I will withdraw then.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Well, I guess the word stands. I am willing to propose to the House, Mr. Speaker, that we withdraw order paper 77(

a) if we have consent to proceed.

Some hon. members: No, never.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He can’t do anything right. He is hiding behind the skirts of Her Honour.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Perhaps the hon. members would let me attempt to resolve the situation. I can hardly wait to hear what I am going to say.

Mr. Shulman: There is a new order paper. Call the question period.

Mr. Speaker: First of all, our standing orders do indicate that the order paper must include the bill marked printed. Now the one distinction I find in this particular situation is that we did not recess, we adjourned.

Mr. Shulman: Right.

Mr. Speaker: We adjourned. Therefore, it seems to me there is no rule prohibiting the printing of an order paper for a reconvened session after an adjournment. In other words, I can find no prohibition in the rules on preparing this order paper. My other order paper has disappeared; it is the only one I have.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: You can start with the orders of the day.

Mr. Shulman: Orders of the day.

Mr. Speaker: This may or may not be so. Let me say that it was my feeling, my belief, rightly or wrongly, that by implication the hon. members had given their consent.

Mr. Singer: How can one give it until it is asked?

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. members will just be quiet for a moment and I will try to explain. It seems to me that when the Premier --

Mr. Cassidy: Don’t line yourself up with that buffoon of a House leader.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. When the Premier gave his few remarks after the introduction of the bill, by way of the procedural programme he had in mind, he did indicate that it was the intention to adjourn for an hour and that we would return after that time and proceed with second reading.

This is what my recollection is without having looked up my own copy of the instant Hansard. That being the case, I believe that is, by implication, agreement of the House to proceed with second reading.

Mr. Singer: No. You yourself said you would ask for unanimous consent of the House.

Mr. Speaker: All right; it’s implied. In the absence of any contradiction or any negation of the suggestion.

That’s all I can say. It seemed to me there was agreement that we would proceed with second reading. As far as I am concerned, again there’s no reason, nothing whatsoever in the rules, which says we can’t produce this order paper. Therefore, I have to accept the order paper as being proper.

I can find no reason whatever for rejecting the order paper as suggested by the hon. members who have spoken.

Mr. Shulman: Don’t you have to call the orders of the day?

Mr. Speaker: No, this was attended to earlier. This is my ruling in connection with this point of order. I so rule that the order paper is in order.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, if I might be permitted to respond on a point of order. The House leader indicated he was prepared to withdraw it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t even do that right; he said he would withdraw it if we were prepared to give unanimous consent. Surely he is going to arrange the affairs so that Mr. Speaker is not going to be put in the untenable position he finds himself in now? If he accepts order paper 77(a), if he accepts it without the House leader’s intervention, obviously it is going to have to be challenged because he is going to use this procedure again and again.

Obviously we want to get on with this bill, but we cannot allow this to hang over our heads. I am saying to the House leader he should withdraw and if he did so we could proceed.

Mr. Bullbrook: Mr. Speaker, may I say to you sir, that I don’t want for one moment to have you infer that my comments take issue with your ruling. I want to say to you, that I have to challenge. May I say to you that I have to challenge because of this: If we are now to be bound by this rule that the government, at its whim, can substitute order papers, it means of course that the rules and our standing orders are for nought, because why do we have in our standing orders that we cannot proceed on the same day to the second order of business without unanimous consent. It makes a charade, a true charade, of that particular standing order.

The fact is, therefore, that I, as one member, am going to challenge the ruling and I implore, through the Speaker, the House leader to withdraw that order paper. He knows that he is going to get unanimous consent. Let us proceed in the proper order of business and let us not have a rule established by a Speaker in this Legislature that makes a true charade of the standing orders.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It’s up to the House leader now.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, may I try to resolve this situation? I say with respect that we’re as interested in pursuing the rules as anyone and in that there is a feeling that the assent of Her Honour will be required, hopefully sometime today, it would be appropriate, I gather, to have an order paper to outline this. If the members opposite are concerned about it, I don’t say that it’s academic, we are quite prepared, as the House leader said, to have order paper -- I guess it’s 77 -- on the very distinct understanding, and I gathered from the question of the House leader opposite-

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): The Premier is putting the guillotine to our heads.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, I listened very quietly to members opposite, perhaps they might give us the courtesy of listening over there.

I think it is fair to assume that the question on the point of order raised by the member for Sarnia could have cast some doubt as to whether or not there is unanimous consent. I indicated very clearly in my observations that I had had a discussion with the Leader of the Opposition and a discussion with the leader of the New Democratic Party where we had agreed upon the procedures. The member for Downsview and the member for Sarnia professed they knew nothing about it. I would say that this had been arrived at. The questions asked prior to this were totally unnecessary and irrelevant. Mr.

Speaker, I am not sure whether this is possible or not, but we’re quite prepared to proceed on the basis of order paper 77 if I can have the understanding --

Mr. Singer: No understanding.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think, in fairness, Mr. Speaker --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Let me finish. It is understood, and very clearly understood, because this is an important issue, a very important issue, as it relates to 2% million people in this community, that this bill proceed. If I can feel confident, Mr. Speaker, as Premier, that my conversations with the two leaders of the opposition parties will be honoured by their colleagues -- and I tell you the questions prior indicated there maybe wasn’t an awareness of this; not from the NDP but from the official opposition -- that is the case, I am more than prepared to go with order paper 77 or 97 or what have you.

Mr. Breithaupt: Let’s try that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: My interest is getting this bill through so that the public of this province know that we’re here to protect them.

Mr. Renwick: That isn’t the Premier’s interest or he would never allow this to happen.

Mr. R. F, Nixon: We’re prepared to go on 77. Let’s do it.

Mr. Singer: As long as it’s not conditional.

Hon. Mr. Davis: What does the hon. member for Downsview mean? Doesn’t he want the strike to end?

Interjections by hon, members.

Mr. Speaker: If I understand the situation correctly, the Premier has indicated that he is prepared to proceed on the basis of order paper 77 and that --

Mr. Bullbrook: That’s right.

Mr. Speaker: -- at this moment it’s in order to call second reading of bill number whatever it is.

Mr. Shulman: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, we cannot proceed without you asking for unanimous consent and you still haven’t done it.

Mr. Speaker: I believed that I had that consent.

Mr. Shulman: Well, we didn’t hear it then.

Mr. Singer: That was before adjournment was called.

An hon. member: This is still the same session.

Mr. Speaker: I ask the hon. members if my understanding was accurate, that the hon. Premier said he would proceed on the basis of order paper 77 and that we would proceed with the second reading of the bill. The hon. members said “yes.”

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It was agreed. Let’s do so.

Interjections by hon. members.

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION LABOUR DISPUTES SETTLEMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. MacBeth moves second reading of Bill 119, The Toronto Transit Commission Labour Disputes Settlement Act, 1974.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Since the procedure of the House is to deal exclusively with this bill, unless the Premier (Mr. Davis) sees fit to proceed to second reading as well of the bill introduced by his colleague, an amendment to the Election Act, then it is certainly important that we do not delay in our deliberations.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. MacBeth) and the Premier have both said that it is unfortunate that the bill is before the House; and it is unfortunate indeed, because once again the collective bargaining procedures are being circumvented. We in this party are prepared to support the principle of the bill for reasons that I will put to you, sir.

I do not agree with the Premier that the main reason is because of the unfortunate elderly and the ill who cannot travel around town. Certainly that is unfortunate. But he knows and I know the pressure for settlement comes from the hundreds of thousands of people who are right now stuck in the traffic jams --

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): On a point of order, I am sure the hon. member for Brant listened to and read what I said. I referred to a number of problems and I did highlight the problem of the senior citizens, but to suggest that is the only problem is just totally incorrect.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: If I might respond to the hon. member for Peel, I find it typically Davis, pure Davis --

Hon. Mr. Davis: Peel North.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- when he weeps the tears for the halt and the sick and the blind. We are all concerned with him, because the real reason is that we have to get the transportation in this city going again and we have had just about all the crocodile tears from him that we can stand. There have been 600,000 people, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): It is hard to believe that they are both agreed --

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): This is going to be a very uncomfortable bed.

Mr. Lewis: I am glad they are voting together.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Well, get up on another point of order, if the member wants --

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): The Premier was priding himself on listening a little while ago. Why doesn’t he listen now?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Can we return to the principle of this bill, please?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Yes, Mr. Speaker; and the principle of the bill is designed to serve the people in this city who have been denied access to a working transit system. We are here in the session this afternoon to accomplish something that is unpalatable to everybody here but which in fact in my view is in the interests of the citizens of the city.

The Premier refers to them as the millions, I refer to them specifically as the 600,000 who use the facility on a daily basis. They have been denied this for 19 days and we have been concerned that the negotiations have not been handled adequately by the Toronto Transit Commission. This is specifically what I wanted to talk about at the beginning of my remarks.

You know, for a person who is not involved in the negotiations -- and they must be extremely trying indeed -- certain impressions come forward.

Mr. Moynehan is not known to me personally. He has been effective indeed as the leader of this important group of workers in this city. But look at his position: that at the end of the line is not the necessity in fact to settle the strike but to realize that the imposition is not on him but on the members of this House, and I suppose the Premier and the cabinet of Ontario, to enforce a disposition of the negotiations finally.

Look at Mr. Mallette and the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, who have been probably the main spokesmen for the TTC. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, it is great politics for any one of them to say: “Yes sir, we are the custodians of the public purse. We will hold the line against these grasping labourers, we are not going to raise the rates for -- “

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That is what he is saying.

They did not intend to settle from the very start. They knew very well they did not have to accept their responsibilities, that they could be dumped into this Legislature, and by the imposition of compulsory arbitration they could be dismissed of their responsibilities.

I resent this as a member of the Legislature: I resent that all of these decisions from across the province have to be put into this chamber.

Now look, we know the history and the traditions of these negotiations. The transit union put forward their demands -- and they were honest enough to call them that, 144 or 148 of them -- about April 23, well in advance of the end of the contract. Everybody knew the date, June 30.

There was, of course, some mediation, some conciliation; but in fact the officials of the TTC did not sit down with the union effectively. They did not offer a concrete alternative, they did not make an offer, until July 17; really just a few weeks, in fact a few days, before the negotiations had to be broken off and the strike was imposed upon this town.

Now we are concerned about good faith bargaining. It seems to be that the chairman of the TTC and the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto could assure us, if they had the right to speak in this chamber, of their good faith. They could assure us they were acting in the best interests of their constituents, the people who would have to pay the bills for any increase in the TTC costs. But what they failed to consider was the interests of the broader constituency, those people who were denied access to the transit system, because they were unable to reach any kind of an agreement -- and in fact did not intend to, in my opinion, from the very start -- and were prepared to put it in our laps.

Now you know, Mr. Speaker, the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, independent and powerful politician though he is, apparently has an open line to the Premier’s office. I don’t think he has to worry very much about “Uncle John” MacBeth, the Minister of Labour, when he can phone the Premier himself and keep in close tab with him.

What about compulsory arbitration? Will the coffers of the treasury of the province be opened up, as they were a few months ago to the tune of $33 million, if in fact the negotiations go this way? Is the government of the province prepared to bear this burden? We don’t know whether the questions were asked or if answers were given, but we do know there is this political connection; which concerns us very deeply here because it has to do --

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Well I am glad --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Does the Provincial Secretary want to get up on that one? Go ahead.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I am glad the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto has access to the Premier of this province, why shouldn’t he?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Paul Godfrey, working Tory, has access to his leader, who is also the Premier; and in my opinion this has led to negotiations which cannot be said to have been carried on in good faith, and that’s what we are talking about right now.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: This is no time to be placing blame on anyone.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Yes, sure. All right, we will expect to hear these comments later, because in my view the members of the TTC did not conduct themselves in any way that would indicate they expected a negotiated settlement.

We have used the word charade in this House already. If there was ever a charade, that was it. They were going through the motions. There was a facade of discussions; and here it is in the Legislature for a long, warm afternoon and evening -- and perhaps even morning, although I do not intend, sir, to inflict my remarks unduly on you, but just perhaps for another hour and a half.

So I feel this strongly about this matter.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): Then vote against the bill.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Vote both ways at once.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I don’t think, Mr. Speaker, that our vote here this afternoon is going to have anything to do with the conduct of the commissioners of the TTC. It is going to have everything to do with getting transit going again in this city, and that is why we are prepared to support the principle of the bill.

Now let me say this, Mr. Speaker, that I believe the Ministry of Labour, at the first opportunity, should investigate the course of these negotiations. Somehow we are going to have to develop a procedure whereby that famous phrase “good faith” is going to be determined, judicially as well as judiciously, so that in the future those on either sidle who cannot prove that they have undertaken the negotiations in good faith are going to be punished and it’s not going to be so easy to shirk responsibility.

The Minister of Labour introduced the bill. It is interesting to know his role in this, because his staff certainly have been praised by everyone I’ve heard of in connection with it -- Mr. Dickie, well known to everyone who has read the history of negotiations in this province; Mr. Speranzini, I have seen his picture in the paper, I haven’t met him, but apparently although the conciliation procedures and the procedures that he undertook -- not conciliation; mediation -- were certainly well received on all sides, they were unsuccessful. The name of George Markovich was mentioned; I happen to know the gentleman. As far as I know, they did their work abundantly well.

But we are here to criticize the Minister of Labour in this connection -- a man with whom we’ve had some differences of opinion in the past. I suppose it is easy for the opposition members to call on the minister to insert himself, his ability and his authority into the negotiations before they get to the point of acrimony, or the distance between the two sides is such that agreement becomes impossible.

I was interested to see in the news Sunday, Aug. 25, the Minister of Labour went down at 11:20, spoke to the two sides briefly, left because there was nothing he could do. I have the feeling that our Minister of Labour is not exactly the shirt-sleeved table pounder that was needed to make an impression on Messrs. Moynehan, Mallette and Godfrey.

I have a feeling that there might have been a certain gentlemanly aspect, which is much respected in this House on occasion, but which for a Minister of Labour who stands on the boundaries between enforcing through his ability -- not necessarily power, but ability -- meaningful negotiations and allowing the thing to blow up so that it ends up in the Legislature, caused this minister to be found wanting.

I think it’s a serious thing indeed, because we face many of these circumstances in the future. Maybe we need John Munro, maybe we need our friend from Montreal --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- maybe we need Bryce Mackasey. Both of those guys, as the members know, were elected with heavy majorities. Maybe those are the people who know how to talk to the working man and to the managers so they make sense and so that in fact it’s going to be something other than just some sort of a fiasco leading to the imposition of these powers.

So I am concerned that we have not had bargaining in good faith, that I think there has been a waste of time in the weeks and months leading to this situation, and that it is unfortunate in the extreme that our labour laws, our regulations, the power of the minister himself and after that the power of the Premier, were not sufficient to achieve a reasonable understanding on the two sides that could have avoided the situation here in the House this afternoon and this evening -- the imposition of provincial power in this unfortunate way.

I suppose by the passage of this bill, we will -- and it is much to be hoped that there is no doubt about this -- we will get the transit running without delay. Of course we have read the reports from the spokesman of the union and some individuals saying that they’ll have to make up their mind whether they are going to obey this order or not.

Mr. Singer: Unanimous consent.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We have heard these responses in the past when the power of parliament and the power of the Legislature was used in this connection. I think it is unfortunate that there is even the possibility that it not be obeyed, because the alternative is anarchy, which simply is inadmissible.

But we have a tremendous responsibility in this regard, because the legislation has to be such that a moderate-thinking citizen can obey the law; that there is no way that legislation should be brought forward which is going to force whole classes of people into a rejection of a statute passed by a democratically constituted parliament. So there is a responsibility on both sides.

It is much too easy for us to say every citizen must obey the law and we will require that that be so. I don’t know whether we would have a sufficient police force to collect the fines or enforce a law that a whole class of people simply refused to obey. We’ve gotten close to this in other circumstances in the last few months; that’s why the bill must have been drawn carefully. The 12 per cent increase, retroactive to the end of the contract, at least was an indication that the government is more sensitive in these matters than the TTC, which kept saying to the workers: “Your raise will commence at the time you enter a new contract and not be retroactive.” Isn’t that right?

Mr. Lewis: That is absolutely right.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Well what’s the Premier shaking his head about and squinting? I thought that was correct. Isn’t he aware of those facts? I thought everybody was aware of those facts.

It seems, Mr. Speaker, that this bill, with its retroactive clause and the fact that the sections in the negotiations that have already been agreed upon are not going to be put before the arbitrator, should make for an acceptable package to the members of the union who are conscious of their duty as citizens.

What we are doing this afternoon is buying time. We are settling a strike in a way that does not appeal to anyone here, but it means that there is at least some time before the next one is thrown into our laps. I am told that on Sept. 2, 2,000 non-medical workers in 10 northern hospitals intend to strike. What are we going to do about that if, in fact, there is a protracted strike? I am told that on Sept. 5, the Kitchener transit system will come to a halt because of a strike very similar to the one that has struck the transit system here.

It may be, with great respect to the hon. members from that area, that the impact on the government of Ontario will be somewhat less than the strike in Toronto.

Mr. Lewis: As in Hamilton.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Hamilton is another case. When it is right on your doorsteps you will respond, but when it is out in another city you seem to be able to stand it for a longer period of time. The thing that must concern us all is that the Civil Service Association of Ontario, which as we know is taking a very militant, a very proper stand in many respects, is going to come to the end of its contract with the Province of Ontario at the end of this year, Dec. 31. What are we going to do about that, just in case our friend, the House leader, is as successful as we would expect him to be with those negotiations?

You see, it appears to many people here that the labour laws in this province, particularly those dealing with the public sector, are completely inadequate and that it is up to us, I suppose with all the partisan ingredients we can muster, to come up with some sort of an alternative.

I am not saying an alternative to collective bargaining. I don’t believe that in a democratic society there really is one. I am saying an alternative to affect the character of the bargaining in such a way that without goodwill it is meaningless. It is put for us here in the Legislature to use the power, the undoubted power, of the government.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Now just what did he say? What is that formula?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: All right, I don’t know and obviously the minister doesn’t because he is making such a mess of his responsibility at the present time.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): By the way, what are his responsibilities?

Mr. Singer: He is the minister in charge of order papers.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: But I will tell him this, I doubt very much if the answer is going to spring fullblown from the brow of the Premier or the Minister of Labour or even the policy secretary, who attends every now and then and interjects.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. R. F.

Nixon: We do have this, we do have a Legislature of democratically elected people who have a commitment to the betterment of the community and, so help me, to the improvement of the labour laws in this province; but why can’t we sit down in something other than in the shouting and hollering in this chamber, representatives from all parties, with representatives from those unions in the public sector who have been affected, as they are being affected today and will be affected in the future, and buy whatever peace time we have got until the next great big explosion and assess all of the alternatives in as effective and non-partisan way we can.

I have argued this with my friend from Sarnia.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member hasn’t said a thing. A lot of words, but he hasn’t said a thing.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Oh, yes, I have, my friend. Oh yes, I have.

Mr. Singer: The minister just doesn’t understand. That’s the problem.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Because there’s an alternative. Maybe we should look for a Justice Rand or somebody like that, and say: “Okay judge, you come up with the answers for us.” We don’t want to give the problem to an individual who is going to look forward to a lengthy series of negotiations or a lengthy series of deliberations and who will throw a weighty tome on our desks and we will have to respond to that, but we are elected for this purpose.

We had the responsibilities tumbled on us with short notice this afternoon. Let’s use what time we have before the next occasion to assess the alternatives which have been discussed by individuals in this House.

I think it is something we are going to have to come to grips with because the present situation is not good enough. Collective bargaining is the best but what happens, in the public interest, when it obviously is not working, or at least is not working well enough? That is surely what faces us and what we must work with as members of this House.

I say I do not reject for a moment the undoubted power of the Legislature and, at the judgement of individuals, the responsibility to act when it is necessary. But let us, as members, regulate and require honest negotiation between principals at a community level rather than having the decisions thoroughly and frequently centralized here at Queen’s Park.

Mr. Speaker, it is with regret that I tell you we will support the principle of the bill. We feel it is an indication of the inefficiencies of bargaining in this instance, particularly by the TTC. We also feel it is an indication of the inadequacies of the present laws of this province. We can criticize the TTC, and there are those on the other side who may very well defend it, but we must accept collective responsibility for the inadequacy of our law.

Hon. J. White (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): A poor, miserable, weak speech.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Oh, the Treasurer’s back, is he?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you. I might never have mustered that support had the minister not interjected.

Hon. Mr. White: Both gutless and witless; that’s quite a combination.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: His chief function is to spend money. Is he $800 million over this year?

Hon. Mr. White: Witless -- like other Liberal policies.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: An $850 million deficit.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. P. J. Yakabuski (Renfrew South): What about the federal government? What about its economy? What has it done about it?

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, using some arguments which are parallel to those advanced by the Leader of the Opposition and some additional arguments, I hope, it will interest the Premier to know that we are driven to a rather different and irresistible conclusion and that is that the principle of the bill is not supportable. He expects that of us but we are not opposing it in this instance in any traditional or ritual garb which he wants to put on the New Democratic Party.

Mr. L. Maeck (Parry Sound): Has the member found a new reason?

Mr. Lewis: We are opposing it, Mr. Speaker, for a series of arguments which I want to make, which all of us would like to make; first, about the collective bargaining process; second, about essential and non-essential services; and third about what might be called the Premier and public transit. On that basis --

Hon. Mr. White: I’ll be back.

Mr. Lewis: I am sure the minister will be back, for that if nothing else; and I invite him.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go further. I want to say we know the public is not particularly happy about opposition to a bill of this kind.

Mr. J. M. Turner (Peterborough): That’s an understatement.

Mr. Lewis: It probably is an understatement; it probably is. We are probably not currying immediate favour but I want to tell the Minister of Labour, through you Mr. Speaker, that we are simply not going to be party to a piece of legislation which is so destructive of labour relations in the Province of Ontario. It just can’t be done.

As a matter of fact, I want to point out to you, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): There was double-talk on CFRB yesterday by the hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: That this is the fourth time in something like 12 or 14 months that we have had the issue of compulsory arbitration raised in Queen’s Park. We had it with the elevator workers; we had it with the teachers; we have had it with the hospital workers; we now have it with the transit workers. Compulsory arbitration is becoming endemic to this government. The government is relying more and more upon compulsory arbitration and, Mr. Speaker, it is going to destroy the collective bargaining process.

As a matter of fact, this is one of the things which most concern us. I am going to make very specific suggestions. I don’t want to make comparisons which are invidious but if this government continues on the route which it has predetermined, it is going to reduce labour relations in Ontario to what is now being experienced in the Province of Quebec. That is absolutely unnecessary and if the Premier of Ontario is as purblind -- if I can use the phrase of my colleague, the member for Lakeshore (Mr.

Lawlor) -- as Robert Bourassa in the way he deals with working people, then the government is going to have in Ontario the consequences that they are now experiencing in the Province of Quebec and this bill is a long way down that road.

Mr. Speaker, you know, there has to be an alternative, which everyone is talking about and seeking in this House; there has to be an alternative. I want to say, as simplistic as it may sound, that there is no alternative to something called “good faith bargaining,” and it is the one thing in the Province of Ontario that we have not had for as many years as I can remember.

I may say that final offer selection is one of those gimmicks which are attractive from time to time but not widely applicable, as experience has shown. Compulsory arbitration never leads anywhere that is socially useful. But good faith bargaining is absolutely central to the collective bargaining process, and the refusal of this government to enforce the provision -- I think it is

section 12 of the Ontario Labour Relations Act -- called “bargaining in good faith” is what is at the root of this labour dispute.

We had an alternative, you know; we have discussed some of them; we had so many alternatives in this instance that one can hardly enumerate them all. The government has chosen this course, the most perverse of all. Maybe it will help the Premier to rehabilitate his public presence in Metropolitan Toronto to be seen as strong and resourceful in the time of adversity, and maybe he decided on that course three weeks ago for political motives, I don’t know.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member has got to be kidding.

Mr. Lewis: I don’t know, I wonder about it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am telling the member -- no.

Mr. Lewis: Because I too was privy to the collective bargaining process and I cannot understand how it was allowed to disintegrate with good faith left on the ash heap.

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, I guess it was only a couple of weeks ago, I was with the Leader of the Opposition at an annual meeting of the Federation of Women Teachers in Ontario. I may say, of course, the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) wasn’t there --

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Ah ha!

Mr. Lewis: -- not wishing to hazard political debate on that occasion. And after that meeting was over, which fortuitously was held in the Royal York Hotel, I went over to the union headquarters in the hotel and asked to meet with some of the members of the negotiating committee and the executive board to chat with them about the nature of the strike.

I must say that I didn’t know very much about the Amalgamated Transit Union at the time; I had had no more experience with them, I suppose, than most people in this House have had with them on previous occasions. I sat down with them that evening and I went over the progress of the negotiation in the previous three or four days, and I’m telling you, Mr. Speaker, as I stand here, that the TTC stalled those talks on trifles and irrelevancies that border on disbelief. They did it absolutely deliberately. And they did it on minute and inconsequential items.

Every time their industrial relations director, a fellow called King, was faced with some kind of decision, he had to run back downtown to get word from his superiors. They couldn’t even bring a duplicating machine into the Royal York in order to run off agreements that had been entered into in the course of the negotiating process, while the union had their entire apparatus with them in the hope that one item after another could be resolved.

I went immediately back to the office the next morning, phoned a member of the Metro council and said: “Surely Commissioner Godfrey wouldn’t put up with this if he knew it” -- oh, boy, was I naive -- “wouldn’t put up with it if he knew it and would you kindly call him and tell him that there is a deliberate attempt here to destroy the bargaining process?” I had the impression that the word got through, but I guess perhaps I was profoundly wrong.

I point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that it took four months and three days of negotiation before the Toronto Transit Commission was willing to grant to 300 workers the right to have a pocket for a screwdriver in their uniform at a total cost of $15. Now, you ask me what I consider to be bad faith bargaining. In a symbolic way I consider it to be that; I consider that to be bad faith bargaining. And if the government thinks that it can have decent labour relations between a union of 5,700 employees and a Toronto Transit Commission that behaves in that fashion, then it is absurd.

I want to say something else, Mr. Speaker. I believe that the Minister of Labour knew and the Premier knew. Mr. Speranzini was the mediator of that dispute. I’ve not even met the man but everything I’ve heard from the union, everything I’ve heard from the journalists covering it, everything I’ve heard from some of those in management -- not all of them I may say -- suggests that Mr. Speranzini was as honourable an arbitrator, a mediator, as one could have found.

If that is the case, as I believe it to be, word of what was happening was getting back to his superiors and through his superiors to the Minister of Labour; and those people over there who represent the government of Ontario, who pretend to defend the public interest, weren’t doing a blessed thing about it.

Those negotiations continued for several days on the 142 items in question. With the company moving reluctantly or not at all, stonewalling every step of the way, it was all Leonard Moynehan could do to hold his bargaining committee together because they quite likely wondered why they should be reduced to this kind of endless frustration and humiliation by a company that didn’t want to settle in the first place.

Then came the corker. I want to tell the House again what we consider to be a violation of good-faith bargaining. Last weekend, when the crunch period arrived, I phoned the negotiating group of the union and said: “You’ve allowed me to be privy to some of your conversations. I would like to sit in on the finale, if finale it’s going to be. Can I come and spend some time with you while the offers and the crunch issues are being discussed?” They said: “All right.”

I sat and I listened to them through the day on Sunday when the major issues were being discussed. I want to tell you something, Mr. Speaker. I’ve dealt with trade unions in a negotiating process before. They’re not all angelic. They can be dogmatic and inflexible, too. I understand that. But this was quite an unusual executive board. This was an executive board of a union that wanted a settlement. They wanted it badly.

They were ready to be flexible and everything that came their way was the most needless, thoughtless provocation it’s possible to put. At 2 o’clock on Sunday morning the company finally made the major contractual offer. If members want an example of what I consider to be -- what we in the New Democratic Party consider to be -- classic bad-faith bargaining let me give it to them. I hold the proposal from the commission before me.

This is what they offered on wages, Mr. Speaker. They offered three increases over 24 months. The first increase averages 12 per cent. I ask you to listen to the wording. Eight months later a second increase averaging five per cent, not compounded. Eight months later an increase averaging six per cent, not compounded.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the Premier and to the Minister of Labour, not compounded is offensive enough because every trade unionist understands the ploy there; but fair enough, maybe that’s a negotiating point. But I wonder if the use of the word “averages” is fully appreciated? What the commission said to the union is: “After 4 1/2 months of bargaining you’ve been out on strike for two weeks. We’re making this wage offer to you but it’s an average wage offer. In other words, we, the management, will determine what we give to any particular category of workers.”

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Isn’t that wonderful?

Mr. Lewis: Moynehan said to the management: “You mean I go to a meeting of my workers for ratification of a settlement and I say to them: ‘You’ve got an average increase of 23 per cent over two years.’ Somebody in operator class 2 stands and says: ‘What does that mean to me?’ And I’m supposed to say to him: ‘I don’t know. The company hasn’t determined yet how much you will get’.”

Can members imagine a union being put in that position? Do the Tories over there know of any contract in Ontario which gives to management the right to divide a percentage increase among the various classifications of workers? Do they know of such a contract? Can they imagine the absurdity of management coming to a group of workers after they’ve been on strike for two weeks and been bargaining for more than four months and putting that kind of proposition to them?

The minister talks to me about good faith! Where was the Minister of Labour? Where was the Minister of Labour?

Mr. Martel: He was cutting wood.

Mr. Lewis: That’s such needless provocation. It is just saying to the workers we don’t intend to settle.

Let me tell you what else they did, Mr. Speaker. On the cost of living, which was central to the workers, they came to them and they said: “We’ll give you a cost of living increase of such and such a number of cents per increase in the cost of living, based on a unit increase of 190.”

That’s a little complicated, but the base is Toronto 1971 at 155 and it rises to 190. What the company was doing in the offer was saying: “We will set the levels so high that in the life of the contract it will not be possible for you, as workers, to receive an increase in the cost of living.”

Now, is the minister talking to me about good faith? I’ve never seen good faith violated in that fashion. You might make an offer to the workers which offers a little more or a little less above the cost of living, but you don’t offer them a cost of living allowance which you know will not be possible of incorporation in the lifetime of the agreement.

Then, if I may refresh the Premier’s memory, which lapsed momentarily when it was drawn to his attention by the leader of the Liberal Party, it says at the end of the offer, “from date of settlement for two years”. You see, everybody in the world knew, except the Toronto Transit Commission, that they were talking about a contract that had expired on June 30. This bill is retroactive to July 1. Everyone in his right mind knew that the contract would be retroactive until July 1.

Mr. Singer: Only 12 per cent though.

Mr. Lewis: But a combination of the commissioners and Mr. King, and sheer, unmitigated perversity at the 11th hour, had them make an offer to the union which was shot through with bad faith of a kind which only Tories can countenance.

Now, you see that doesn’t have to happen, Mr. Speaker. We can, within the Ontario Labour Relations Act, give to the Ontario Labour Relations Board or to the Minister of Labour, or I would even hazard giving it to mediators in a situation of this kind, the right to say to the parties: “This is not good faith bargaining, this is destructive bargaining. This is bargaining which asks for a breakdown, which invites chaos; and therefore, we are ordering you back to the bargaining table and we insist that you make an offer in good faith.”

If the government enforces the good-faith bargaining clause of the Ontario Labour Relations Act this would never happen. It would simply never happen.

Naturally, that kind of offer having been made on Sunday, nothing was left.

Again, I continue to be naive. I even phoned the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto directly on Sunday night, initially through an intermediary, and said to him -- I don’t think it is wrong to say it now; at the time it was an off the record discussion, but it’s all over now. I said to him: “This is a union that wants to settle; all you have to do is make some accommodation on one or two or three of the major issues. Why are you being absolutely inflexible about it? The whole thing is unnecessary. I sat with them, Chairman Godfrey, I think I know them, they are not unreasonable people?”

As a matter of fact, the chairman, to his credit, mentioned to me a couple of devices which sounded very intelligent on the phone. And I thought to myself, maybe it will lead to a settlement.

But the offers were never made. That Sunday night, the Minister of Labour appeared at the Royal York Hotel and negotiations were broken off. And from that day to this I can’t understand it. That’s why I say I believe that compulsory arbitration is a deliberate manufacture for reasons that -- well I suppose they are political; but they really are shortsighted, because you are predetermining very bad feeling in labour relations generally.

I don’t have to take swipes at Karl Mallette and company, the world is visiting enough on them already; and let me say they deserve it. But I do want to point out to you, that since the new chairman of the TTC assumed his post we’ve been going downhill week after week, and the relationships between the union and the management have never been worse. This bill isn’t going to help it at all, because if I may say, the government is not moving in to protect the public interest, it is moving in to protect the interest of the Toronto Transit Commission and the metropolitan chairman.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s silly.

Mr. Lewis: No, I don’t think it is silly, because if the government were interested in the public interest it would never have permitted this strike to take place at all. It would have moved a month ago. This isn’t a non-partisan bill in its sense; this is a bill which says: “We have supported the commission throughout and will continue to support them now, and we will embody what pleases them but displeases the workers in legislation.” And the government is very, very slow to feel for the public interest. It took it three weeks and four months before it felt for the public interest.

Now I don’t believe that government should intervene unduly in labour disputes, obviously not. I understand that proposition, but there is a point at which government makes non-intervention a curse rather than a principle, and its refusal to intervene at the point of explicit bad faith is where all of the members opposite went wrong. At that point it has a social obligation to intervene. It chose to neglect that obligation. So it comes in with its jackboots for compulsory arbitration.

Mr. Speaker, may I say something else? In the middle of the week the Premier made a proposal. As he said, it was a mechanism to achieve a settlement rather than a sweetening of the pot for either side. The Premier and I disagree on this fairly fundamentally. I don’t think that proposal ever had a chance. I know it never had a chance. But I do want to say to the Premier, Mr. Speaker, that if that proposal had been made one month ago, before the strike began, then even though I may irritate a number of the workers, let me say that I think that it might have been accepted.

What the government did was to allow the psychological feeling to move to the extent where it was impossible to get agreement to his kind of terms delivered in that kind of way. No matter what happened afterward, the unfortunate events or not, as one who would have wished privately that the proposal were accepted, because I don’t like compulsory arbitration as an alternative, I must say to the Premier that the proposal was simply too late.

I will tell you what wasn’t too late, Mr. Speaker. The resolution of the city of Toronto wasn’t too late. The resolution endorsed unanimously on the six-point programme of the city of Toronto wasn’t too late. If the Premier had said, “You fellows in the union, you meet over there at the Broom and Stone as you intend, and you wait there for a while, and you go back into negotiation in the morning [yesterday morning] on the basis of David Crombie’s proposal,” he would have had a settlement by yesterday afternoon.

With a lot of good feeling it would have been ratified and the public transit system would be beginning to be moving even now as we are debating this legislation. Again he chose not to accept the basis for settlement and again he made a deliberate choice to go the compulsory arbitration route.

I want to say to the Premier and the Minister of Labour, Mr. Speaker, that those of us in the New Democratic Party wish to sound a warning. The leader of the official opposition mentioned it to them; I will mention it to them too. They have got 19 hospitals right now up in arms over the nature of the collective bargaining process; they have got telegrams on their desks from the Sudbury region, from Stratford, from Georgetown and from Hamilton. They have the possibility that on Monday morning the hospital workers in Sudbury will walk out in defiance of the law and they have the very real possibility that on Tuesday or Wednesday the Hamilton workers will walk out in defiance of the law.

Can I remind them that before there was compulsory arbitration in the hospital sector there were virtually no strikes at all? It is only after compulsory arbitration in the hospital sector that we now have near chaos in certain areas of hospital jurisdiction in Ontario.

Mr. Martel: And in the civil service.

Mr. Lewis: May I remind the government as well that it managed to foist upon the teachers a degree of direct action which is unprecedented because of their reaction to its compulsory arbitration proposal? May I remind the government that it is doing the same with the transit workers? May I remind it of the extraordinary radicalization, if I can put it that way, of the civil service association in the last number of months, as they feel themselves trapped by the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act?

You see, in the name of what appears to be a momentary public favour, the government is wrecking collective bargaining in Ontario. It is just destroying it. Sure, it will curry favour with two million people today and) maybe it will curry favour with them at the polls in 1975; I don’t know, I am not a clairvoyant.

But the day is going to catch up with those people over there. They are inviting systematic breakdown. They are turning reasonable people into angry people who feel their rights are denied and their objects are frustrated; and for what? To satisfy some arbitrariness on the part of government rather than reinforcing the collective bargaining process?

The government had every alternative available to it. It isn’t as though this was the only alternative. Don’t face us with a bill which does such essential damage to collective bargaining.

We talk a lot about labour relations in the Province of Ontario. We talk about 95 or 96 per cent of the contracts being renegotiated without going to a strike but we have said before in this House and this is the time to say it again -- that the test of a government on labour relations lies in what it does with the other four per cent.

The Minister of Labour should be haunted by what’s happening in the hospitals; by that pathetic piece of elementary injustice which is taking place in Fort Frances where a little union is being destroyed -- while the Minister of Labour sits back -- by a group of doctors who thumb their noses at the law and the Act with impunity. Ask my colleague from Wentworth about the Firestone strike in Hamilton which has been going on for months now.

Mr. Deans: Seven months.

Mr. Lewis: Let the government understand what it is doing to labour relations in Ontario. It is going to catch up with the Tories. They have gone too far and this bill goes too far because they are using a stratagem which is unnecessary, which serves a squalid political purpose in the short term and a highly destructive social purpose in the long term.

Mr. Speaker, the whole aspect of what is being done in this dispute also raises the question of essential services. I want to speak to that for a moment.

My colleague from Riverdale has been calling me and others of us in the caucus in the last couple of days and has been putting an argument so elementary but so compelling that I want to put it again in this House now. If these services are so bloody essential, why doesn’t the government pay the workers the best possible wages? How is it that in the non-essential services we pay such good wages but in the essential services we have lousy working conditions and not such good wages -- whether it is hospital workers or janitors attached to the outside workers’ union in the city of Toronto or, indeed, many of the transit union people themselves?

If the Tories have such feeling for essential services, if they feel so strongly about essential services that they take away the right to strike, that they bring the Legislature back at the end of August to force through compulsory arbitration, then remove it. Remove the necessity. Pay them decent wages. Pay them parity with Vancouver, Edmonton and Ottawa. Give them the kind of credibility in the public sector or the essential service sector that they deserve.

I know the Tories have difficulty with the public sector. I know they are all not very friendly to the public sector. That doesn’t mean they penalize civil servants. That doesn’t mean they penalize hospital workers. That doesn’t mean they penalize transit workers. If the essential services are so important to them, pay them more than the private sector.

Let me give members an analogy which touches the Premier’s view of the world, which I am going to come to in a moment, about the public transit system. A tool and die-maker at the General Motors plant at an average level of income -- a skilled job equivalent in rating to an operator in the transit commission with the game kind of social responsibility attached to it -- in September of this year will be making $7.27 an hour. In the public sector, transit workers at this point -- the wage group which was central to the bargaining, category 6 of the operators -- were making $5.63 an hour.

After the 12 per cent retroactive increase it will be roughly $6.20 an hour, so they are earning $1 an hour less for what we regard as an essential service.

Mr. L. M. Reilly (Eglinton): There is no comparison.

Mr. Lewis: There is a certain comparison.

Mr. Reilly: There is no comparison.

Mr. Lewis: Yes there is. I will tell the member why and I will come right to one of the final points I want to make, because this is the government which stopped Spadina in 1971. This is the government which talks such rhetoric and with such passion.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Rhetoric? Doesn’t the member know what that word means?

Mr. Lewis: I know what rhetoric means and I have listened to the Premier’s rhetoric as well. That’s right.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: No, I am not. I am giving it to him as we feel it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will listen.

Mr. Lewis: The Premier talked heavily over the last three years about public transit and he has talked about moving from the private automobile to the use of public transit. But he still makes sure that his employees, who are central to public transit in the life of this province, earn significantly less than those who work in the private automobile sector.

Hon. Mr. Davis: They are not our employees.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right. And the government allowed the imbalance to continue. I think, and many of us in this caucus think, that one of the reasons why this strike went on is because of the government’s ambivalence about public transit. The Premier has captured the rhetoric of it. Sure, I understand that. He stopped Spadina, but what has he done in the interim?

Mr. Deans: Nothing.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Oh what rot. What an imagination.

Mr. Lewis: And if he feels for public transit then why doesn’t he move in and allow for good-faith collective bargaining before a strike occurs which throttles a city of two million people?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Which cheek does the member have his tongue in this time?

Mr. Lewis: If the Premier really believes in public transit how does he sit back and watch it happen? But he doesn’t believe in public transit. All he believes in is something called Krauss-Maffei --

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member doesn’t really believe what he is saying?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He is laughing at himself inside.

Mr. Lewis: -- for which he will pay $25 million or $26 million or $30 million; but to pay another $6 million or $7 million, which is all it would have taken to achieve a settlement, to the workers who allow his public transit system to function, that he would deny.

The strength of the Premier’s public transit system doesn’t live in some supernatural gimmick called Krauss-Maffei. It lives in the capacity of the present system to function well, and the Premier has allowed it to grind down.

And frankly. Chairman Godfrey and Chairman Mallette, suburban, automobile commuters, also don’t understand the meaning of public transit. Psychologically they don’t understand it either. Karl Mallette was a supporter of the Scarborough Expressway until not very many months ago.

And that’s another part of the government’s problem; while all of them are speaking of public transit, none of them are willing to do anything to assure that it is absolutely defended against the kind of perverse collective bargaining experience that the last four months and three weeks have indicated, none at all.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The government has given millions towards it.

Mr. Lewis: Sure, the government has given millions to hardware, to some of the capital costs, to the 50 per cent subsidy of operating costs; but when it means allowing a public transit system to serve two million people without breakdown then the government has no more money to give, and that for us is a measure of its commitment.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member must have information that I don’t have about what money there is or is not.

Mr. Lewis: I may say that the only information I have is in the inflationary increases that Krauss-Maffei have already cost the Province of Ontario and for that inflationary increase the government could have settled the strike.

Hon. Mr. Davis: There has been no discussion with this province about such --

Mr. Deans: But there should have been.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No.

Mr. Deans: That’s the problem; there should have been.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lewis: Public transit is very much a provincial matter, and whether the government is going to face it in St. Catharines in a few weeks time, as I gather is the case, whether it is going to face it in Kitchener-Waterloo in a couple of weeks time, or less as I gather is the case, in a few days I guess, the government is simply going to have to do something about its commitment to public transit other than to see the system break down.

All we are saying, Mr. Speaker, is that this bill was necessary in the government’s mind because it would not allow bargaining in good faith or it wouldn’t enforce bargaining in good faith. The government has no feeling for what it describes as an essential service and when the chips are down it is still not sure about its commitment to public transit.

We oppose it, therefore, because the legislation isn’t necessary. We oppose it, therefore, because the government is inviting acrimony and disputes between the workers and the commission over the next two years. It is inviting it by this legislation and it should not have been.

We are opposing it because it destroys labour relations in Ontario. We are opposing it because it is politically motivated rather than socially desirable, had the government wished to use the alternatives. Sure there has been three weeks of staggering inconvenience to the people of Metropolitan Toronto, and for that reason we would have wished the strike had never taken place. This legislation is not the act of a government rescuing the public. This legislation is the act of government rescuing itself from several months of public negligence; the government can’t expect us to support that kind of legislation. It had every alternative at hand.

Mr. Speaker, to simply close it, let me say that as a party we have said to the transit workers before, and I say it now, that when the Act becomes law it should be obeyed, because it is a law -- a bad law, not a good law, but it is a law -- and I am not particularly interested in seeing or in encouraging civil disobedience in the Province of Ontario and I hope it won’t take place. I hope, as a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, that the transit workers are sufficiently worked up about what the government is doing to them that they will provide it with reciprocity approximately one year from now in a fashion which is rather more effective, by bringing this government to an end --

Mr. O. F. Villeneuve (Glengarry): That is why the member is speaking very well.

Mr. Lewis: -- that they will join a great many others --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That is a great way for the member to set out his position.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I understand; divine law; they rule forever over there. Nobody dares intrude.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Well, all things come to an end, good or bad, and this government is doing a remarkably artful job of undermining its own position. This bill aside, that is the case. This bill included, that case is emphasized.

l know the bill is going through; I know we will have to live with it; I hope it is observed; I know it will choke in the craw of many of the workers, but it strikes me that they will’ probably observe it. In that sense, Mr. Speaker, let me end by saying to the Premier, the workers involved, by observing the legislation, have a far greater commitment to public responsibility and to public transit than his government has shown for the past four months and three weeks.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, at the commencement of my remarks I did want to say a word about the shabby and stupid trick the government tried to use at the beginning of this debate, the playing about with the order paper --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member is out of order.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): Grow up.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member is out of order. I would ask him to stay with the principle of this bill.

Mr. Singer: This is within the principle of the bill, Mr. Speaker; it is within the principle of the legislative privileges that we have, and it is --

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member always tries to --

Mr. Singer: Oh, I thought the member for Peel North was the listener and he didn’t heckle. He was objecting a little earlier to that. Now I want to tell the House that that shabby and inept trick is typical of the way the government stands aside from responsibility in matters such as this --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Singer: -- particularly, Mr. Speaker, with regard to labour matters.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I am going to ask the hon. member to stay to the principle of this bill.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): It’s a massive principle that’s at stake here.

Mr. Singer: Oh, Mr. Speaker, I was just bringing it back to the principle. I was saying that what the government tried to do in avoiding their legislative responsibility is typical of the principle of this bill, and they are doing exactly the same thing when they bring this bill forward.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: You see, Mr. Speaker, when this attempt is made -- and I just don’t want anybody to miss it -- when this attempt is made it is an indication that the government holds the legislative process in absolute contempt when it tries to circumvent the rules that have been established in order to get its own way with a minimum of debate.

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): Get on with it.

Mr. Singer: It doesn’t want to hear the opinions of the people of Ontario and it doesn’t want to hear the opinions of the opposition, so rather than live up to the rules that are in this book, rather than live up to orderly bargaining in labour disputes, it tries shabby, mean and stupid tricks. That is why, Mr. Speaker, these facts have to be emphasized in the course of this debate.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Now talk about the bill.

Mr. Singer: All right, I will. I have got a cartoon here, Mr. Speaker --

Hon. Mr. Davis: That is not talking about the bill.

Mr. Singer: I am going to talk about -- oh, I will be around to that, I will be ground to that.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Singer: I thought the Premier would like to hear about a cartoon that appeared in the Sun on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 1974. I went looking for the original but I understand the Premier beat me to it; he already has it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He is a constituent of mine.

Mr. Singer: That’s good. It was drawn by a fellow named Donald Owen. I don’t think there has been a better expression than this cartoon of what has gone on insofar as this strike is concerned.

Mr. Speaker, in case you haven’t seen it, let me tell you what is in this cartoon. There is a picture of a fellow who I guess is supposed to represent the hon. member for Peel North. He looks a little unshaven. I don’t recall that the hon. member for Peel North comes in here in need of a shave. He is ripping off his shirt and there is a great big “T” on a crest in the middle of his chest. And he is saying: “This looks like a job for Mr. Transportation Man.”

Hon. Mr. Davis: This is so typical of the Liberal Party. They have nothing to offer. Nothing.

Mr. Singer: I’m sorry if this is bothering the member for Peel North, but I am going to say it anyway, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Davis: There are a lot of important things to do here.

Mr. Singer: I am glad he listens and he doesn’t heckle, I am glad he is so quiet.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Relax, it is a lot of sound and fury; he’ll support it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s right.

Mr. Singer: And then, Mr. Speaker, at the bottom, is: “More powerful than a GO train. Faster than the speeding bus. Able to leap unfinished expressways with a single bound.” That describes the approach of the Premier to this particular labour dispute.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s the member’s reference to Spadina; there it is now.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, let me ask, where has “Mr. Transportation Man” been up to the last few days? Where has his Minister of Labour been up to the last three or four days? It’s fascinating to hear now the bleats from Mr. Godfrey and from Mr. Mallette; and from Mr. Crombie the suggestion that came forth a few days ago. But where have those people been for all the four months and 13 days, the period of time that the hon. leader of the NDP was talking about? Where have they been?

Mr. F. Drea (Scarborough Centre): Where has the member for Downsview been?

Mr. Singer: Was it reasonable, Mr. Speaker, to expect that this situation, being allowed to fester, being allowed to develop into a real abscess, was going to be solved by the last-minute intervention of “Mr. Transportation Man”? Of course it wasn’t. Surely when we have a Ministry of Labour and a brand new Minister of Labour -- and I have great respect for him personally -- with capable civil servants, Mr. Dickie, Mr.

Speranzini and the others who work with them, surely an inkling must have leaked through to them somewhere along the line that there was trouble in the TTC maybe as early as last January, and somebody at Queen’s Park might have felt that there could be serious trouble unless this situation was resolved. Surely, “Mr. Transportation Man” or his new Minister of Labour could have had the initiative to say: “All right. We cannot possibly allow a strike of the transit workers in Metro.”

What is Metro? Metro is the core of the province. It has a third of the population, and anybody with a quarter of a brain must have realized the kind of inconvenience, the kind of harm, that a transportation strike would bring to this centre if it was allowed to go on.

Therein lies the fault, Mr. Speaker. Therein lies the negligence. Therein lies the ineptitude of this government. With all of its facilities, with all that it must have known, with unlimited funds and with unlimited ability to research, with unlimited ability to call people into session, they didn’t get into action until the last four or five days.

The Premier is the big transportation man. He plans, he stops, he builds. And this is what he has, in fact, created, because neither he nor any of his advisers had enough initiative to get into this thing when the first signs appeared. They just let it fester and they just let the disease spread until finally the boil rose to the top and it exploded and now we have what we have and we are called here to legislate 5,500 people back to work.

Let’s think about that for a minute, Mr. Speaker. I would hope -- and this view has been expressed earlier -- that the members of the union who are affected by this bill will, in fact, go back to work when Her Honour has given consent to this bill sometime later, perhaps today or even tomorrow.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: If she can find it without looking at the order paper.

Mr. Singer: Yes, without looking at order paper 77(

a) or (

b) or (c), if we have another one.

Hon. Mr. Davis: She will have no trouble.

Mr. Singer: However, I wonder, Mr. Speaker, and I think this is the key question that has to be asked, how long can we create crises and expect that, by the dramatic move of calling the Legislature back to work on a Friday of a holiday weekend, we are going to pull the Premier’s chestnuts out of the fire? How long is it going to be that another compulsory arbitration statute is going to work in the Province of Ontario? What is the government going to do if it doesn’t work?

Is it going to build concentration camps and put 1,000 people in this one and another 1,000 in that and another 1,000 in that until there are 5,500 people in jail? What is it going to do to enforce it if the union says: “We don’t think this is a fair bill and we won’t go back to work”? How long is it going to be before this union or another one says: “We are not going to listen to the sanctions”? This has been happening.

The hospital workers didn’t listen to the government’s sanctions. The teachers didn’t listen to its sanctions. One of these days, I hope it isn’t on Monday or Tuesday, a big union is going to say: “We are not going to pay attention to that piece of paper which the Legislature turned out at an emergency session.”

The remark of a cabinet minister from Quebec the other day when he was asked --

Hon. Mr. Davis: We’re hearing a very responsible, helpful approach!

Mr. Singer: I just want to draw this to the attention of the Premier and to make him realize the seriousness of the things he is doing.

Mr. MacDonald: Don’t support bills which are going to do that then. Don’t be so illogical.

Mr. W. Farrier (Cochrane South): Is the member for Downsview going to vote for it?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Downsview has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Don’t be such a hypocrite.

Mr. MacDonald: The Premier is right there.

Mr. Singer: The other day, Mr. Speaker, a cabinet minister in Quebec was asked by a member of the press whether or not it was likely they would pass a compulsory arbitration statute to solve one of their more current labour disputes. That cabinet minister stated: “What is the point? The people who are presently on strike are on strike against an existing statute which prohibits them from going on strike.” I hope we don’t get to that position in the Province of Ontario where the power and the sanctions of this Legislature in labour matters become meaningless.

Mr. MacDonald: Let the Liberals continue to support bills like this and we’ll get there.

Mr. Singer: This is the kind of thing, Mr. Speaker, which causes me very grave concern. I suggest this function today was absolutely unnecessary. Had the government from the beginning realized what was going on -- and it had a duty to realize and a responsibility to realize and an opportunity to realize -- this strike would never have taken place.

It has been asked by some of the members here on my left why, if I feel this strongly about it and I see all of these dangers, should I support this bill? I’ll tell them why I support this bill. I support this bill because as a representative of a riding in Metropolitan Toronto I know what is being done to this community.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The member for Downsview wants the expressway built.

Mr. Singer: Something has to be done -- and hopefully it will work -- to help the people in this community and not to hinder them any longer. That’s why I’m going to support this bill.

I find it a little difficult to follow some of the remarks of the leader of the NDP. He says there was bad faith. I agree with him on that. He says it never should have happened. I agree with him on that. But he says his party will vote not to order the people back to work. I don’t quite follow how he is going to solve the present dilemma in Metropolitan Toronto by voting against the bill. I hope the bill will work. I will vote to support it.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): Tell the people to bargain in good faith.

Mr. Singer: I say, Mr. Speaker, that this is a situation brought about by the Premier and his advisers; brought about by his cabinet ministers. He’s messed around with transportation in Metro. He’s produced no alternatives.

Mr. MacDonald: So the member is going to save it?

Mr. Singer: He has brought this about by his sins of omission and commission. In debating this bill it has to be brought to mind and kept clearly in front --

Hon. Mr. Davis: Is the member for Downsview saying that if Spadina was built there wouldn’t be a strike?

Mr. Singer: -- that it is the responsibility --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The expressway would have solved all of it?

An hon. member: Think of the traffic jam.

Mr. Singer: -- of the government that this has happened. For goodness sake, let us hope that this bill will have its effect but never let it happen again. That is the responsibility of the people governing Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Davis: There are no Oscars tonight.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I believe he has won a couple already.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Windsor West.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this bill not because I’m not concerned about the resumption, as soon as possible, of public transportation in the city of Toronto, or indeed the restoration of the Gray Coach busline service to other centres in Ontario, but because it imposes yet again compulsory arbitration in a labour dispute.

The Minister of Labour earlier today, in his companion remarks upon the introduction of the bill, said there were only two other instances of bills of this type before the Legislature in 14 years, but in point of fact there have been four compulsory arbitration bills before us in the last 17 months. In March of 1973 there was the elevator constructors’ strike. We had two bills imposing and embodying the principle of compulsory arbitration on workers, involving teachers, one in December and one in February-March. Again now, in August, we have this bill dealing with compulsory arbitration to settle the transit workers’ strike.

This is indeed a sorry record. When speaking to the bill on the elevator constructors’ strike, I expressed my deep concern at that time on two points -- first, that it was the first time in a private dispute that compulsory arbitration had been imposed; but secondly, once you had imposed it, it didn’t matter whether it was a private dispute or a dispute involving public workers, it would become easier and easier and easier for the government to see this as the means of solution to labour disputes.

This is indeed what’s happened. We have had four now in 17 months; and it is a sorry record of this government that that is what collective bargaining in this province has now become. It gets easier for the government to do it, and each time it does it, it is helping to destroy collective bargaining in this province. It is helping to destroy good-faith bargaining in this province.

Mr. Bullbrook: On a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: Point of order.

Mr. Bullbrook: Do our standing orders provide that you call 6 of the clock?

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Yes.

Mr. Bullbrook: The reason I put it to you is -- again the House leader isn’t here; we haven’t been asked. If the standing orders provide for you to call 6 of the clock, I suggest most respectfully to your high office that you call 6 of the clock or that the House leader advise what we are going to do. It just isn’t a one-way street. This is supposed to be a parliament.

Mr. Renwick: That’s right.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member has brought up a point. I am going to ask the member for Windsor West to continue his --

Hon. Mr. White: It is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, we are going to continue this debate through the supper hour.

Mr. Lewis: There was no such agreement.

Mr. Renwick: On a point of order, the rules of the House require --

Hon. Mr. White: I was informed by the House leader that he intended to proceed with this debate right through the supper hour.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That was announced earlier.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the rules of the House require the House to rise at 6 o’clock. The only way that can be changed is by unanimous consent. I do not intend to give unanimous consent. I ask you to enforce the rules of the House.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Now we see who is blocking getting the transit running.

Some hon. members: Nobody’s blocking.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: They have been talking about little rules and petty rules.

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

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, if one will follow the rules very carefully -- I have forgotten the number of the rule -- but you will note that in order No. 3 the hours of the House are set Monday through Thursday and Friday. There is no prescription for hours after that and we expect that we will sit on.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: They want to nitpick? There they go.

Mr. Speaker: I call on the hon. member for Windsor West to continue.

Mr. MacDonald: Talk about the House being manipulated by the executive. Members should all read the Camp Commission.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, before the motion is put with respest to sitting through or whatever the ruling of the House leader has been, because it is not a ruling, there is a requirement in our rules which states that in all contingencies unprovided for -- and I suggest that this is a contingency unprovided for -- the question shall be decided by the Speaker. And in making his ruling, the Speaker shall base his decision on the usages and precedents of this Legislature and parliamentary tradition.

We have already today had one example of the rules being broken by the Speaker of the House interpreting the rules as saying that in contingencies not provided for he would do what he wanted to do.

Now, let’s be clear about it. This is an unprovided for contingency. The House is sitting today as a regular sitting day. The House doesn’t usually sit on Fridays. Precedent, usage and everything else require this House to rise at 6 o’clock.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could speak to this matter. By rule No. 3, if the business of the House is not finished during the week at 6 and there are evening sessions, then as you know, Mr. Speaker, the House does rise until 8. The only reference to Friday I’ve been able to find is under rule 2(

d) which refers to the fact that when the House adjourns on Friday at 1 o’clock it stands adjourned until Monday. I would suggest that the matter should be resolved by the House leader making a motion that we do continue to sit and if that motion carries, of course, the matter can be attended to.

Mr. Lewis: The only way we can do it is by unanimous consent.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, to be governed by the rules, I think you will find also in the rules it says “unless otherwise ordered”. It has not been otherwise ordered and the House did sit at 3 o’clock. Despite what the member for Riverdale says there are no provisions for Friday and I anticipate that the House will sit through.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, you just --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: No, let the Speaker make his ruling.

Mr. Lewis: What does the minister mean: “Let the Speaker make the ruling”? The government can’t run ragged over the House like this; we’ve got to have some motion for God’s sake. Who the hell does the government think it is?

Mr. Bullbrook: The Speaker doesn’t need to make a ruling.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I invite the members on that side of the House to go back and read the Camp commission. It speaks in the most scandalized terms of the fashion in which the whole legislative branch is reduced to something that is a puppet in the hands of the executive. We’ve had today two or three examples of manipulating and playing games with the rules to do precisely that kind of thing. The government is destroying this Legislature; that’s what it’s doing.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, it is utter nonsense to suggest that. We came here and members were brought in from all over this province to engage in this very important debate on this very important piece of legislation and to suggest that we in the government --

Mr. Germa: It was important three weeks ago, too.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: -- or on this side of the House are attempting to destroy the legislative process when we have to take advantage of every moment we have to debate the bill --

Mr. Renwick: Of course they are.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That’s just bad judgement.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The opposition is nitpicking away at a very important hour and its members will have to take the responsibility for the terrible display of nitpicking in this fashion. That’s utter nonsense.

Mr. Renwick: Don’t talk nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Everybody came here, Mr. Speaker, on the understanding that we were going to be here as long as is necessary to get this legislation through.

Mr. Speaker: The time is now 6:07 p.m. I rule we are still in session. I call on the member for Windsor West to continue.

Mr. MacDonald: The speaker is just a puppet in the hands of the government.

Mr. Foulds: On a point of order, if I may Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: A point of order.

Mr. Foulds: A parliament is not run by understandings. A parliament is run by tradition. It is run by its rules. It is run by motions; and it is run, Mr. Speaker, on points of order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The Speaker has made his ruling.

Mr. MacDonald: The Speaker is a puppet in the government’s hands.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Why didn’t the minister have the common courtesy to make it in advance?

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I urge you --

An hon. member: He’s spoiling for a fight.

Mr. MacDonald: I’ll invite the real fight. If he wants to fight on that issue I’ll get the whole Camp commission on my side.

Mr. Foulds: I urge you, Mr. Speaker, to make your rulings not on the basis of private understandings with the House leader or innuendos thrown across the floor but in the spirit of the rules of the House. The spirit of the rules of the House is very clear --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It is exactly what I was talking about.

Mr. Foulds: -- that we adjourn at 6 unless unanimous consent has been given.

Mr. Breithaupt: Or on a motion.

Mr. Foulds: Or on a motion. If the House leader was not the buffoon that he is but was on top of his job and had --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I’m going to ask the hon. member to withdraw that remark.

Mr. Lawlor: There is nothing wrong with that remark. It is a good parliamentary remark.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the remark “buffoon” if the Speaker finds that objectionable.

An hon. member: It is very accurate and descriptive.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Doesn’t the member find it objectionable?

Mr. Lewis: Not at all; I find it temperate.

Mr. Foulds: If the House leader were not the incompetent oaf that he is, he would have --

Mr. Speaker: I am going to ask the member to withdraw that remark also.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): The guy’s at least a buffoon.

Mr. Foulds: If the House leader were on top of his job --

An hon. member: Delete it. Expletive deleted.

Mr. Foulds: If the House leader were on top of his job he would have provided for this contingency. But as the member for Riverdale had pointed out, the contingency was not provided for. I ask you, I plead with you, to interpret the rules that we do adjourn.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Why does the member want to adjourn?

Mr. Foulds: I may tell you, Mr. Speaker, that during our caucus discussions this very point came up. I was one of those who came out of the bush in northern Ontario, closing my holiday to get down here for this debate, and I argued, Mr. Speaker, against stopping the debate at 6 o’clock. I said: “Let’s give unanimous consent. Let’s agree to the motion.” But the way this Legislature has been treated this afternoon --

Mr. Speaker: I have listened to the member, but I have already made my ruling that we are still in session, and I am calling on the member for Windsor West to continue his remarks. Does the member for Windsor West wish to continue?

Mr. Bounsall: In the absence of a challenge to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, I will then continue. I was speaking on the fact --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Sounds like he is continuing regrettably.

Mr. Lewis: He is continuing regrettably.

Mr. Bounsall: Yes.

Mr. Lewis: You know, there is just no such thing as a non-partisan Speaker left in this House.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: With all respect, Mr. Speaker, the way you are being used by the government --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, the member for Wentworth --

Mr. Lewis: -- you have made a mockery of the Chair. The minister should put a motion -- that’s his job as House leader -- and we vote on it and we decide.

The Speaker is no longer a non-partisan person in this House. They are turning the Speaker into a tool of the government. We can’t have that.

Mr. Foulds: The government is manipulating this House the way it manipulated the strike.

Mr. Germa: Resign. Resign.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, you should not allow yourself, sir, to be handled that way. The House leader moves a motion, it is voted on, it is passed or denied, and we have legitimate rules. You just can’t treat the House this way.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor West has the floor.

Mr. Lewis: Sure the member for Windsor West has the floor, because the incumbent of the Speaker’s chair right now, the member for Beaches--Woodbine (Mr. Wardle) -- Tory member, partisan, with no respect for the Chair -- rules that way. I am tired of it. We sit through it week after week in this place.

Mr. MacDonald: A private deal with the government.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: That’s nonsense.

Mr. MacDonald: It is a private deal with the government through which the Speaker’s chair has been demeaned in the process.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lewis: It wouldn’t happen in Ottawa. At least in Ottawa the Speaker rules in a non-partisan way.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lawlor: I wonder if the people of Ontario know we have a partisan government.

Mr. Bounsall: Mr. Speaker, the government’s record in solving those few disputes, those three or four per cent a year which go to strike and which cause problems, is indeed a sorry one.

Four times in the last 17 months we have seen legislation coming forth embodying compulsory arbitration, compulsory binding arbitration, as the means of settling disputes. I warned at the time of the elevator constructors’ strike that this was a precedent in the private sector and I was very concerned about the development of the new style of compulsory arbitration in other disputes.

Any time that the government or the editorial writers of our newspapers, or the public, got a little tired of a particular dispute they would call for compulsory arbitration to be imposed and then we would have it; and this appears to be the very regrettable way that labour relations have moved in this province. It destroys the collective bargaining process a little bit more each time it is done and it encourages the destruction of good-faith bargaining, as indeed I think happened in this dispute.

You had the Toronto Transportation Commission and commissioners feeling that if the strike lasted a few days it would be almost inevitable that the government would have to bring in some sort of legislation to end the dispute. And throughout, including the four months prior to the three weeks of the strike, they did not engage, as the record is clear, in good-faith bargaining to reach a solution to this particular labour dispute.

The sorry point is that the imposition of compulsory arbitration, leaving aside for the moment the issues and the feelings of the workers involved, does not really solve anything, because the decision that is reached compulsorily by an arbitrator or a board of arbitration is one which neither side particularly has thought through or in essence been finally in agreement with, but it is a situation imposed upon them -- under which they must live, in this case for possibly up to two years for the workers involved -- and which by its very self, by that very fact has not been arrived at, however reluctantly, by a meeting of the minds of both parties in the bargaining situation.

There not being a meeting of this sort, of the minds, with some explanation capable to be given by both sides as to why they arrived at that particular situation and then going on to solve internally problems which arise from that agreement, they find themselves with a decision imposed upon them, with both sides in many cases living with the frustration of that type of agreement. This is what is so destructive about the imposition of compulsory arbitration, the result of the final decision on both parties that are involved.

Mr. Speaker, the record of opposition of the New Democratic Party over the years has been a good one and a strong one in this respect. Away back in 1960 in the dispute with Ontario Hydro, we opposed at that time the imposition of compulsory arbitration. Throughout the years we have opposed the general legislation imposing compulsory arbitration that this government has brought in as a means of settling disputes.

I refer to the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act, on which we have argued, urged, appealed for repeal; and we are seeing the fruits of that very bad legislation in the hospital disputes that are arising around this province. My leader expressed it very well when he pointed out, again I might say, that there had never been strikes in the hospitals in Ontario until this odious Hospital Labour Disputes Act was brought in.

We opposed in this House not very long ago the Crown Employees Bargaining Act, which deprived the civil servants of Ontario of their right to strike, in imposing arbitration as the only means they could have, compulsorily, of settling disputes which they couldn’t settle themselves; and its companion bill on the teachers in our community colleges, which has now created so many problems throughout the Province of Ontario.

We opposed right from the start legislation doing the same to teachers in the Province of Ontario in those situations where they had not settled their contract by a certain date. Again, we opposed it with the York county board because of the destruction of labour relations which arise each time you impose it, and the encouragement, in essence, of bad-faith bargaining on the side of at least one of the parties to the dispute.

Indeed, in some sectors they can always count on the fact that they don’t have to settle, they don’t really have to strive for a meeting of the minds after long hours of bargaining and looking for ways in which a solution might be reached, because they know if they delay long enough the province will come in and impose compulsory arbitration upon them.

This is a sorry situation in the Province of Ontario. It is a sorry record now for this government to have, and I can see in the future, regretfully, an ever-increasing number of disputes in which there is not good-faith bargaining occurring because one side to that dispute can always count upon the government or might be thinking that the government will come in and impose compulsory arbitration for them.

It is for these reasons, Mr. Speaker, that I and my colleagues in this party will be opposing this particular bill.

Mr. Speaker: The member for St. Andrew--St. Patrick.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I hadn’t intended to engage in this debate because, quite frankly, I was of the opinion, as I’m sure most of the members of this House were, that because of the urgent nature of this; and because we have brought members in far distances at great inconvenience to some members who have perhaps taken this period of time for their vacation, at great expense brought them in on both sides --

Mr. R. Gisborn (Hamilton East): It doesn’t look like many of them are interested.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: All the minister’s buddies have left because they kne