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January 31, 1983

32nd Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

Hansard Transcripts

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

STATUS OF RENTAL BUILDINGS

BILD PROGRAM

UNEMPLOYMENT

METRO TORONTO BILL

SEAWAY TRUST

DEATHS AT HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN

CORNWALL CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY

FACILITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTALLY HANDICAPPED

USE OF TIME IN QUESTION PERIOD

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS

ORDERS OF THE DAY

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, PROVINCIAL SECRETARIAT FOR RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

LEGISLATIVE PAGES

Mr. Speaker: Before proceeding with routine proceedings I would ask all honourable members to join with me in welcoming new pages, and I would like to read their names into the record:

Mark Basciano, Erie; Tricia Berry, Scarborough North; Tamara Boldireff, Bellwoods; John Di Sabatino, Mississauga East; Eric Douglas, Grey-Bruce; Melissa Fox, Welland-Thorold; Andrea Girones, Cochrane South; Mark Hamilton, Victoria-Haliburton; Jack Julian, St. Andrew-St. Patrick; Laura Kemp, Lakeshore; Michael Leschuk, Kenora;

Paul Maltby, Simcoe East; Natalie Marchesan, Hamilton East; Shawna McCaffrey, Armourdale; Michelle Moore, Sarnia; Watson Morris, York East; Steven Pataki, St. George; Elspeth Sadinsky, Kingston and the Islands; Dwayne Smith, Haldimand-Norfolk; Jennifer Snoeks, Prescott-Russell; Stephanie Suppa, Downsview; and Patrick Voo, Dufferin-Simcoe.

We will now go to routine proceedings: statements by the ministry. Oral questions.

Interjections.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, if the Premier would like to tell us how he voted on the weekend I would very happily give my place to him; if in fact he was able to get an X on the ballot. If he would like to tell us about it, I would be very interested to step down for a minute or so.

Mr. Speaker: Is that your first question?

Mr. Peterson: No.

Hon. Mr. Davis: In answer to the Leader of the Opposition's first question?

Mr. Peterson: No, it is not my first question.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have got to tell you, it is better than some you have asked.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, if the Premier chooses to purge his conscience in this House, then who am I to deny him that opportunity? If he wants to unload, if he wants to tell us, then we would all be curious, as would a lot of other people.

Mr. Bradley: Tell us all about it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to inform the Leader of the Opposition, who goes around to every cocktail party being critical of his national leader and probably never supports him either privately or publicly, that unlike him, I have done two things all my political life, I have supported our national leader publicly and privately, including at the ballot box.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable Leader of the Opposition with his first question:

Hon. Mr. Peterson: In response to the point of privilege: The beleaguered federal leader of the opposition asked me to convey his thanks to the Premier for his help in the last federal election. He is very grateful to him.

Mr. Conway: I liked that Globe and Mail cartoon this morning. Didn't that tell it all?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Question, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The community party of Ontario.

Mr. Peterson: They are doing well, are they not?

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Great record in by-elections so far, David.

STATUS OF RENTAL BUILDINGS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

The minister is no doubt aware of a recent report in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record which talks about the tenants at 11 Overlea Drive in Kitchener. They apparently received, on January 17, a notice to pay their rent to the Victoria and Grey Trust Co., the first mortgagee on that property. The second mortgage was held by Seaway, as I understand it, and Kilderkin has a third, wraparound mortgage on that particular property.

I am going only from press reports but I understand the payments on those second and/or third mortgages are in arrears and as I am sure the minister is aware, there is a great deal of anxiety among those tenants as to their status, the situation of those buildings, who in fact owns them, who is operating them and who is going to look after the maintenance of those buildings in the next month or so. Could the minister inform the Legislature as to what is happening?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid --

Hon. Mr. Davis: I understand on Friday they were all in favour of Player over there.

Mr. Kerrio: Why would the minister know what is happening now? He does not have information.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Your leader does not know what is happening.

Mr. Conway: Maybe Eddie Goodman knows.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I just want to let everybody settle their disputes so that we can get on with this.

I am sure the member can appreciate that the specific facts relating to that specific situation would not be immediately available to me. I will endeavour to find out if that information is available and can be released.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, this speaks to a much broader problem that is about to descend upon the minister's shoulders today or tomorrow. I use that as one example. There are many more examples. CFTO-TV has reported there are 500 units contained in two buildings in Ottawa, the Southvale apartments, which apparently were controlled by Andrew Markle. They have failed to meet their mortgage payments. The Supreme Court has appointed receivers as of Friday, and no one knows the status of those buildings either.

Amid rumours that Kilderkin cannot bank, that Maysfield Property Management may or may not be liquid at the present time or may or may not be in a position to honour their responsibilities with respect to those buildings, I am inviting the minister to make a statement to this House and to the people of Ontario as to what is the status of Kilderkin; the status of Maysfield; who, in fact, owns those buildings, not only the Cadillac Fairview-Greymac buildings, those buildings subject to the great sale, but also other buildings controlled by Kilderkin? Can that company bank? Do they have the capacity to meet their financial obligations over the next month?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, when that information is available to me and when it can be released, I will be pleased to do so.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the tenants of more than 500 units on Southvale Crescent in Ottawa, they are now being told to pay their rent into two separate locations; one, the location of the original mortgagors, who have put the property into receivership, and the other, the people in the Seaway-Kilderkin group.

Will the minister report on that specific situation? What advice has he to give to the tenants? Will the minister now intervene in order to establish a trust account into which their rents can be paid until the matter of where the money should be going can be resolved?

2:10 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I am well aware of the legitimate concerns of tenants about where rents should be paid, and I will endeavour to find the information the member wants about that specific building. But if there has, indeed, been a receiver appointed by the court, then I suspect the tenants have a good idea where payments should be made.

Mr. Peterson: We have been asking this question for some time now. Is the minister able to offer any assurances as to the status of those buildings? Has the minister made any inquiries as to what is going on? Has he requested information? Or is he just standing up in the House saying he does not know or does not care about the situation?

Surely the minister has had time to inquire into this situation as time is conspiring against him. Now I am asking the minister to stand up in the House and to make a statement so that those tenants, who are obliged under the law to write rent cheques tomorrow, know to whom they should write their cheques, and to assure them that those buildings will be looked after. Surely that is not an unreasonable request.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, if the Leader of the Opposition is under the apprehension that I have not taken any steps with respect to the three trust companies involved and the particular buildings he has referred to, then he is the only one in this province who does not know that the government has taken steps, that there is a Morrison examination going, that the registrar is in possession and control of Seaway and Greymac and is carrying out certain investigations, and that, when I have information to report on that to the House, I will do so.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Right after you talk to the editorial board writers.

Mr. Peterson: We and he may not be here next July. However, that is another story.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I will be here. I would not count on the member.

BILD PROGRAM

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer. I want to thank him at the beginning for his very fine invitation to allow the Premier (Mr. Davis) to walk us through the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development exhibition this week. Walk us through, crawl through, slither through or take us for a ride, I have no idea of the method of transportation.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: However, let me ask the Treasurer a specific question about the BILD program. In his 1981-82 estimates, the Treasurer listed estimated expenditures of $150 million, which meant that the target amount for expenditures in each of the five years of the program would be $150 million. However, in a number of speeches he has tended to reduce that amount slightly.

In January 1982, he spoke of "$145 million of new money" in that same month the first BILD review was published, which listed expected expenditures for 1981-82 of $131.4 million. However, volume 3 of the 1981-82 Public Accounts of Ontario lists actual expenditures of only $113.4 million for BILD. That is a 24.4 per cent shortfall from the original target. Moreover, this amount was significantly less than the $123.9 million spent in 1980-81 by BILD's predecessor, the employment development fund.

Regardless of the numbers the Treasurer projected or used, how he can justify the foregoing, in a province that is fraught with unprecedented economic difficulties and problems, unemployment, plant shutdowns -- the list goes on and on -- as the person responsible for economic policy in this province, how can he justify such a feeble response to the dismal problem we have in this province?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition has used so many figures that I suppose some of us will have to read the record to sort them out, but I am sure he recognizes we flowed some money for BILD before last year's fiscal year began. In fact, we could literally take him for a ride on the preflow, because it was for Urban Transportation Development Corp. technology. He will find it is one of Ontario's leading areas of technological innovation, one we are proud of and an area in which we are winning in the United States in a very competitive world. We have won in Vancouver --

Hon. Mr. Davis: In spite of the fact the member from Wentworth recalls the mayor of Vancouver saying not to buy it, we welcome all --

Mr. Cunningham: Mr. Miller's nephew is running the project.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. F. S. Miller: If the Leader of the Opposition read the Ontario Finances of Friday afternoon, he would find the actual expenditure for this year is $166 million. I have to add that the current problem at BILD is not how to spend the money but how to tailor the demands to the amounts we are given each year.

Mr. Peterson: The Treasurer knows how to take an old program and put a new name on it and try to get credit for it. That is the real problem with BILD. Since the Treasurer is citing his accomplishments, does he include in his accomplishments under BILD the Liquor Control Board of Ontario warehouse in Oshawa or in Durham, which is listed as a BILD project under the Ontario buy-Canadian program when, in fact, the warehouse construction was announced on November 13, 1980 the same day the first mention of BILD was made and before any strategy was developed?

The warehouse is financed entirely from LCBO profits and receives no money from BILD. The only BILD project there was some guy adding it to the list of BILD programs --

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Peterson: Is that the Treasurer's idea of an economic strategy to fight unemployment in this province?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, again I wish the honourable member's research had been fairly thorough on this, because I think he will find that any BILD money involved there will be for certain technological handling of goods inside, as there will be a small amount for the "office of tomorrow" in the Ministry of Revenue. The basic money comes from the budget of the ministry, not all of the money, as the member is implying.

I would invite the Leader of the Opposition to come with us tomorrow, Wednesday or Thursday to Cambridge and please explain to the people of Cambridge that he is not in favour of the computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing centre when we open it up --

Hon. Mr. Davis: McGuigan is in Chatham today taking credit for all of that big opening there. He is right there, front and centre.

Hon. F. S. Miller: He can explain to them that he does not want us to have technology transfer centres, explain that he does not believe in high technology, as we do, explain that he does not think there should be venture capital for that kind of thing. Then he will find out perhaps that some people in the province do believe in BILD.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, does the Treasurer not think there is something very wrong when the total amount of BILD investment is substantially less than the profits the government takes from the LCBO and when there are still literally hundreds of thousands of young people, middle-aged people and old people, men and women, in this province who are unemployed, who are not receiving severance pay, who are now on welfare and who are looking for permanent job creation from this province? Does the Treasurer not think he has gotten his priorities a little screwed up, to put it politely?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, if that is politely, I do not want to hear it impolitely.

The BILD budget, as my colleague does know, I am sure, represents an estimation of roughly half the total spending we hope to see put in by other sources; the private sector, the federal government, whoever. So far we have been putting up most of the money from the province, but we hope and believe we will get some co-operation from the federal government. We know we will get some from the private sector.

When we talked about a robotics centre, we had two cities in Ontario competing very heavily for robotics and CAD/CAM technology. Leading those offensives on behalf of the cities were companies like Canadian General Electric, and the municipalities themselves were willing to put up money to help us make our money go further. I think you are going to find more and more of that happening.

The honourable member should not pretend -- and I am sure he will not -- that the only money Ontario spends on resource development, labour training, all of those things, is in the BILD budget. If one puts all the moneys together, they come close to $2 billion a year.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Put it all together and it would come to $23 billion.

Mr. Peterson: By any name -- BILD, other resource budgets, budgets from any part of his ministries that he wants to collect --

Mr. T. P. Reid: You had $244 billion --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Peterson: Do you have a supplementary, Pat? I defer to my colleague.

Mr. Speaker: Final supplementary.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, the minister can call it anything he likes: BILD, recycling the moneys -- I do not care where it comes from, the results have been dismal. In reality, we have lost close to 200,000 jobs in the past year. BILD program and all, we are in a very much worse position than we were a year ago.

Given the fact that no one else seems to be participating to any degree in the government's programs -- the municipalities, the federal government and the private sector are sceptical of the political document the government created some two years ago with BILD -- if the government increased its participation up to what the minister said they would make it, if they had hit those targets and if other people had participated, how many jobs would they have created rather than having lost the 200,000?

2:20 p.m.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition does not want to agree with me anyway, so I do not know how to get him to. The very first one was a biotechnology investment, as I recall. Labatt's were in that with us and I believe the Canadian Development Corp. was in that one putting up money. We only put up about 20 or 30 per cent of the money. The rest of it came from the federal government or the private sector, because they believed it was worth an investment.

We talk about the problems of immediate unemployment. I hope the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the New Democratic Party differentiate between the purpose of the BILD and immediate unemployment problems. They have kept on hammering me year after year for never having a medium-to-long-term plan. They have got a medium-to-long-term plan in BILD, working on the upgrading of skills, the upgrading of technology transfer and the upgrading of investments in the province. That is what we have to do, apart from anything else we have to do, for immediate short-term problems.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr. Rae: The Treasurer is doing it on the cheap, but I want to ask my question to the Premier, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier will be aware, though I know he was away on Friday and Saturday -- the Tories created at least one job over the weekend, or at least appear to have created one job over the weekend. It is not a new job; I do not know whether it is a short-term job or a long-term job.

I want to ask the Premier about what the Treasurer said. This is a quote from what the Treasurer said on Friday, "Our best estimate, which will be confirmed, changed, varied or whatever by the time the budget is out, is that we will see something like 100,000 people return to work in Ontario during 1983. That, on average, will give us the figure that looks like last year's, 1982."

I would like to ask the Premier: why should the people of Ontario be satisfied with a rate of unemployment in 1983 similar to that in 1982, which, as the Premier will know, was the highest rate in the province's history since the Great Depression? Why should that be some kind of an objective for the government, rather than something that they are ashamed of?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think there were one or two observations and perhaps one question in the rhetoric of the honourable member. He did make some reference to a very important meeting in Winnipeg, and no matter what the results may be in the longer term, I can only guarantee him one very simple fact of life, which is that whatever emerges from that, ultimately, the Progressive Conservative Party will form the next government and Ed Broadbent will come in a poor third again, as he did before and as he will at any time in the future.

The NDP should not talk about leadership too much. In fact, they have gone through several changes over there over the past few years and I have seen them over there since I have been in this Legislature, and that is now since 1959. That is some 23 years, 24 now. For 24 years, they have not been able to find their way out of any sort of political wilderness. I have got news for them; 24 years from now they will still be over there, if their party even exists. That is my answer to the first part of his question.

The sad part of it all is that the honourable member knows I am right. He knows I am right in his own heart of hearts, because I think he has a heart on some days. Now, what was the question?

Mr. Kerrio: Does he know that fiasco was on TV?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, members opposite should not talk to me about fiascos. Just look where the Liberal Party of Canada is today. They are so embarrassed, they will not even call themselves Liberals any more.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the Premier would just address himself to the question, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, you are quite right. But really there was a

preamble to the New Democratic Party's leader's question and I felt I should answer it.

The member for Niagara Falls, that sensitive community representative from that community --

Mr. Kerrio: I am supporting Joe.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is more than he did for Trudeau, because he certainly did not support him.

Mr. Bradley: We won't recall your support. You were in Fort Lauderdale.

Mr. Eakins: I think it was you who defeated Joe.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Interesting as this may be, it has nothing to do with the question.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I understand that. I know how committed he is federally to that group over there -- bunch of hypocrites. Now what was the question? I apologize, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Ruston: He knows what it is. He is one himself.

Mr. Breithaupt: We saw the cartoon.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I retract that statement. That term was too gentle. He always goes to the funny pages first.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would say to the member -- I think I remember his question -- that no one in this government is saying we are content.

Mr. Rae: I am glad the Premier takes job creation so seriously, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to ask the Premier to cast his mind back, if he can, to the statement he made to the Premiers' conference in Halifax on August 25, 1982, when he said, and I am quoting: "Our first priority must be to create and to sustain jobs. In this regard, the sharp increase in youth unemployment demands even greater allocation of public funds to job creation for young people."

In that regard I would like to ask the Premier, why have none of the programs -- even the small, tiny program which the Treasurer announced in November and December in co-operation with the federal government -- focused on the problem of unemployment among our young people? Does the Premier not realize that the young people of this province, 200,000 of whom are now unemployed and looking for jobs, are looking to his government for some degree of leadership and some initiative in creating permanent jobs? Can he please tell us why the government has not created permanent jobs for young people?

Hon. Mr. Davis: The honourable member, I guess, thinks lightly of a $500-million commitment. I think that is a rather substantial sum of money. If memory serves me correctly, what I said last August in Halifax was in fact correct, and those priorities have not changed; in fact, in my humble opinion, they probably have increased.

We see some encouraging signs even in the auto sector. We see certain callbacks and we see some greater optimism. Of course the honourable member will give the government no credit for that and I do not expect any, but I would just say --

Mr. Rae: You haven't done anything.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Don't interrupt; that is when you get into trouble.

I would say to the leader of the New Democrats that this remains a priority both with young people and with those who are chronologically more mature. We are not overlooking them either.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, in simple terms we have lost about 200,000 jobs this year. As I understand it, the government's policy now is to create 100,000 jobs this year. In other words, at the end of this year we will still be down 100,000 jobs net. Is it fair to say that is the Premier's objective as the first minister of this province?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Really, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition some days can be rather childish in the questions he asks. He knows full well that is not an objective.

He also knows something else, because I used to listen to him on odd occasions here in the House when he was not in our caucus office with his right-wing views. I used to listen carefully when I was here and I heard him say how all of this must be done within the private sector. I have heard him say even as recently as Friday, "Gosh, this bill offends me because we are intervening into the private sector."

I would say to the honourable member he has to fish or cut bait on some of these issues. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot go to the Young Presidents Organization and be critical of government policy because we do try to create jobs.

Let him look, Mr. Speaker, at the number of jobs that we have through government initiative, and yet he is the first one to be critical. I say to the Leader of the Opposition, really, he should not go the route of his predecessor by being on both sides of every single issue every day of the week.

Mr. Peterson: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: On this condescending little lecture that he is going to give me, would he not agree it is sort of like him going in front of the cameras and weeping at the same time he is trying to knife his federal leader? I say to him, don't give me a lecture on hypocrisy, don't give me your two-bit lectures; I am tired of your cheap tricks.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Will the Leader of the Opposition please resume his seat?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

2:30 p.m.

Mr. Rae: In the course of his answer the Premier did venture to say that it was very hard in the province at present to distinguish between a short-term job and a long-term job. He is right, and that is one of the tragedies of his government's policies: it is very hard for workers to know whether or not they have long-term jobs.

With respect to that, I want to refer again to the remarks the Premier made in Halifax when he said: "The problem of unemployment cannot be solved merely by subsidizing the creation of temporary jobs." How does the Premier square that remark with the fact that the programs announced by the Treasurer in May were simply the subsidization of short-term jobs and the programs announced by the Treasurer in November, in co-operation with the federal government, were simply the creation of short-term jobs?

What initiatives is his government taking, and will it take, to create long-term jobs in the public and private sectors to give a little hope to our young people and, indeed, to all our people that there are long-term jobs and not just short-term, make-work projects at the hands of the Ontario government?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will be delighted to answer that. I confess to the member that his approach would be for the creation of a lot of permanent jobs, as he defines them, in the public sector. That is how he would do it. He would spend his way out of the problem on a temporary basis and into bankruptcy on a long-term basis.

Mr. Rae: Your experience in bankruptcy --

Hon. Mr. Davis: If the member wants my humble opinion -- and I did not interrupt him when he was making his speech -- the answer does not lie in the creation of a large number of permanent public sector jobs. I do not think that is the solution. I do not think it would make sense to hire another 15 or 20 per cent, say, in the teaching profession when we have a diminution in student enrolment. Let him explain the logic in that to me.

I do not think there is any need for the government of this province to add another 10,000 or 12,000 full-time permanent employees in our government service. I do not think that is the answer either.

In terms of the private sector, we are not making any apologies for the initiatives that have been taken. One may not regard the construction industry per se as being permanent, except that the people I know who are involved in the construction industry, where there was a fair amount of activity in my home community because of the programs of the Treasurer and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett), think they were good programs and that they were permanent in that they are still gainfully employed in the construction industry.

I go back a little bit, because the leader of the third party was not a member of the House here when I had to sit and listen to his colleague right behind him, and one or two others, when we made substantial investments in the pulp and paper industry and in the Ford engine plant. He can go down to Windsor today and see whether he can get those same people to stand up on a public platform --

Mr. Martel: Oh, get off it. Who are you trying to kid?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- and say to the United Auto Workers that the government should not have made that investment. He should go back a little bit in history and see what has been done.

Mr. Rae: If the Premier wants to talk about the construction industry, let me say that there is 40 per cent unemployment in the construction industry in this city alone, and the rate is even higher right across the province. That is the record of this government. One does not have to be a historian. All one has to do is have eyes to look around him to see what the record of this government is.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

METRO TORONTO BILL

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, with respect to another attack by this government on employment in the public sector and in the private sector, I want to ask the Premier a question about Bill 127.

If the Premier hears evidence that the impact of Bill 127 will be to affect the quality of education in Metropolitan Toronto, is be prepared to be open-minded about this legislation and withdraw it?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am one of the most open-minded people I know. I just wish I could say the same of the honourable member and his theological approach to public policy in this province.

He asked me whether I will have an open mind. His party has not had an open mind on a single important issue. It is dogma with him. It is what his party convention dictates. He has to accept what they say to him, and he is not allowed to show any initiative on his own. I know that is how the member works, and I understand it, but I say to him, please do not ask me whether I am going to have an open mind.

The member may say my mind is not as great as his. I will never argue that, because of the humility I have always enjoyed, but I will say to the member that in terms of flexibility, in terms of endeavouring to solve problems and not being a captive of a philosophy or a dogma, I will not take a second place any day of the week to him or to previous leaders.

Mr. Rae: I do not think I heard an answer there. I heard a lot of blunderbuss and rhetoric and a lot of personal attacks. I do not think I actually detected an answer in all that rhetoric from the Premier.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I want to make it very clear that what I said in the answer to the initial question was not a personal attack. I was attacking the approach of the member's party, not him. I gave him credit for some intellectual capacity; how it is used is another question.

I do not think the leader of the New Democratic Party would expect me to give a commitment of that nature. I do not question at all the sincerity of the people who will be coming to see me, but does he really believe they will be totally objective? Does he honestly believe that? None of us is that objective when we become emotionally involved in a particular issue.

Mr. Martel: Even the minister?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, neither is the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel).

As for my saying today "if they persuade me;" they are going to come in with a point of view that they have been communicating to the members, the media and so on. They cannot be objective. I do not say that critically. The member knows they cannot. I know they cannot.

I still know a little about the school system in general terms. Nothing in Bill 127 is intended in any way to diminish the quality of the program. It is not. I will defend the quality of the program whether it is here in the city of Toronto or in the boroughs. I also say to the member that this government has a responsibility to see there is some equity throughout the entire Metropolitan Toronto area. In my humble opinion, we have a responsibility to see that the system is administered properly with as little division as possible in terms of some of the important issues.

I say with the greatest of respect -- I could not have said this 20 years ago -- that even now, in the great region of Peel, we have some of the needs and concerns that the member identifies here in downtown Toronto. Toronto is a great city, it has unique characteristics but, I say to him, please do not argue they are unique only to the city of Toronto.

Those who represent the boroughs would argue that some of the same concerns expressed by these parents are also there in the boroughs and are being met. I have also argued over the years that there is always a danger in equating equality in education to straight dollars.

I am not going to get into an argument with the member on what is the best class size. I can argue that one to one is best on some days. With the right teacher, one to 25 also makes sense. With a good teacher, maybe even one to 30 makes sense. At the elementary levels, it might be one to 35 if there is the right teacher.

Mr. Martel: Lovely, lovely.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I say that knowing the member for Sudbury East thinks he is an expert in the field of education.

Mr. Martel: I know as much about it as you do.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He has probably lost his certificate by now.

Mr. Martel: Oh, no.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am looking forward to meeting with those parents. I will listen to them very carefully, because I have never lost my interest. I am still a parent. I still have two children in school. I will listen.

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact the opposition to this bill is so widespread and, yes, is coming from certain people the Premier would say have a vested interest in not wanting to see it pass --

Hon. Mr. Davis: I did not say "vested."

Mr. Bradley: A direct interest, let us say; I am not trying to quote the Premier.

In recognition of the fact that the opposition to this bill is coming from a pretty good cross-section of the community within Metropolitan Toronto, and in view of the fact that members of his government feel there is a need to address some of the problems they perceive, does the Premier not feel it would be appropriate not to proceed with this bill at this time in this session, but to start again the consultative process with all those who have expressed concern and with those who have expressed support for this legislation?

2:40 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, none of us likes passing legislation where there is some opposition. It is not my favourite way of putting in an afternoon, an evening or several weeks.

I think the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) knows as well as anyone the degree of discussion that has taken place on this bill. There have been other bills that have taken more time, but there have not been very many, in my recollection, where there has been greater opportunity for discussion. No one can argue that. I do not even think the Metro parents who are coming in to see me will say they did not have that opportunity. They can say they disagree, but certainly they cannot convince me that they have not had a full opportunity to present their point of view. This is true of the teachers' federation also.

I have been getting pressure, not just from Metro but also from outside it. One of the underlying problems inherent in this, and one reason some members who are not residents of Metropolitan Toronto are being pressured, is the mythology that has been created, whether intentionally or otherwise -- and I am not here to suggest any motivations, but let us not fool one another in this discussion, the mythology has been created or has developed -- that this extends beyond Metropolitan Toronto.

I have made it abundantly clear -- I said this to the head of the teachers' federation, and I hope the media will pick this up -- I have given an unequivocal commitment that this bill applies here because of the unique characteristics in Metropolitan Toronto. The mythology that is attempting to be developed that this is some first step to province-wide bargaining or what have you is totally wrong and should be discarded from the debate, because it is not part of the policy of this government.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, it is not just a first step; it is a profoundly wrong step even for Metro. If the Premier will think it through in a nonideological, nondogmatic and nontheological way, I am sure he will come to the same conclusion.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Rae: With respect to the decision the Premier appears to have made not to listen in a completely objective way to the concerns that are being expressed by the parents' group, does he not recognize the advantages of the flexible system with respect to bargaining that has allowed teachers and the board of education in the city of Toronto to lower salaries in exchange for more teachers?

Why is it the approach of this government to increase the power of a nonelected, nonaccountable board at the expense of local democracy and local accountability, not just in the city of Toronto but also in all the boroughs? Does the Premier not recognize that he is exchanging a flexible system for a very rigid one, and a bureaucratic one at that?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the impressions of the actual effect of the bill as held by myself and the government are totally different from those of the leader of the New Democratic Party. This has been the approach that some members of his party have taken. They have created straw men in terms of how they see the application of this piece of legislation.

I want to correct one error in what the honourable member said. He indicated I would not listen to these people objectively. I did not say that. I said to the member, and I hope he will recall what I said, that I could not give any commitment that if they presented evidence to me -- this is the member's phrase -- as deduced by them, certain things would take place..

I say to the member, please do not say I will not listen with objectivity, but he should not create the impression that the group coming to see me can be totally objective, otherwise they would not be coming. They have a point of view. I am there, and I will listen.

Mr. Conway: And Tom and Larry.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

SEAWAY TRUST

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations concerning the operations of Seaway Trust. In this connection I need to quote briefly from an affidavit by Mr. Andrew Markle, the president and chairman of Seaway Trust, filed in the Supreme Court of Ontario. Mr. Markle states as follows:

"(

c) On November 5, 1982, a departmental examiner who I understand to be considered expert in real estate matters completed a lengthy examination to determine whether or not the department should require any reappraisals of the lands underlying the mortgages. He said that he saw no reason to require any reappraisals . . .

"In his speech to the Legislature on January 17, 1983, Dr. Elgie made very critical statements about the company's lending practices and characterized $151 million of its mortgages as 'related in some way to Kilderkin Investments Ltd.' and clearly implied that they were questionable and constituted improper lending practices. Aside from the $76 million arising from the Cadillac Fairview apartment sale, the remaining $75 million of these mortgages had for the most part been on the company's books well before the end of 1982 and in many cases before the time of the field examination."

Can the minister advise whether those statements are correct?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, with the greatest of respect, and acknowledging the learned status of the honourable member and the respect and admiration I have for him as a lawyer, he will understand that an affidavit that is currently before the courts, for which this minister and the crown are under subpoena, is not something upon which I intend to comment at this time.

Mr. Breithaupt: Can the minister comment on the suggestions made by Mr. Markle as follows?

"(

a) The company filed detailed reports semiannually with the department which list all mortgage investments over a minimum amount. At no time did the department to my knowledge ever write to say that there was anything amiss with any of the mortgage investments or invoke the power which the registrar has to require the company to divest itself of a particular mortgage.

"(

b) Following the end of the company's 1981 fiscal year, the departmental field auditors made their usual on-site examination of the company. To my knowledge, no questions were raised with respect to any of the company's mortgage investments."

Does the minister not agree that if these facts are substantially correct, it would appear his ministry has acquiesced for two years in lending practices on the part of Seaway which he now finds to be in violation of the Ontario Loan and Trust Corporations Act?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I mean it sincerely when I say I do not suggest that the member is endeavouring to take that affidavit out of context, nor is he seriously intending that this minister should respond --

Mr. Breithaupt: Yes, I am.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: The member may be intending that, but if he were advising me, he would tell me exactly what to do. I know that, because he has good common sense and I will do exactly what he would tell me to do. That is a matter before the courts, and it will be dealt with before the courts.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Talk to the Toronto Star editorial writers about it.

Mr. Kerrio: Are any heads going to roll this week over this?

Mr. Speaker: Order. New question; the member for Bellwoods.

Mr. Kerrio: Not a head has rolled, not one.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is extremely difficult to hear the person who is putting the questions.

DEATHS AT HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health on the Dubin report on the Hospital for Sick Children. I wish to ask the minister a specific question with respect to the review committee's documentation of what only can be called a systematic dysfunction within the hospital's laboratory. I am referring to page 120, where Mr. Dubin writes:

"One would expect that a high percentage of patients being treated with a drug that is monitored by the program" -- he is talking about the drug monitoring program -- "would have an assay done, either on admission or shortly after a patient was placed on the drug. This was not found to be the case. In addition, the results of the study indicate that appropriate adjustments to the drug regimen received by a patient are made in approximately only 40 per cent of the cases where adjustments are indicated."

In other words, as of the time of the study, in 60 per cent of cases where it was necessary to alter a drug prescription for a patient, these alterations did not take place.

Can the minister assure us that as of January 28, 1983, it is not the case, is no longer the case or is not still the case at the Hospital for Sick Children that 60 per cent of necessary alterations to medical prescriptions are not taking place? If the situation has changed, will he tell us what has been done to bring about the change and what the percentage is as of today's date? What is the precise percentage according to the most recent studies done of the number of prescriptions that are being altered when it is medically necessary?

2:50 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, obviously the most in-depth and clear indication we have of the status in that area is that contained in the Dubin report itself. As the honourable member knows, all that information now is in the hands of the hospital, and the hospital is going to be laying before me later this week its precise timetable for rectifying all problems in the hospital and for implementing all the report's recommendations.

It is only after all the changes have been made, particularly as they relate to the laboratory services, that the hospital will be able to satisfy me and I will be able to satisfy the public that the degree of correction is sufficient and adequate in the circumstances.

Mr. McClellan: This is precisely the problem, in that the minister is asking the public and the parents of children to have trust in the hospital but he cannot assure them about as serious a defect as the fact that 60 per cent of the prescriptions are not being altered.

Mr. Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. McClellan: In view of the fact that this hospital has been brought to a serious state of disarray, rather than putting the onus of burden of repairs on the board of trustees that led the hospital into this disarray, will the minister not consider immediately implementing the first recommendation, which is in effect that the present board of trustees, composed largely of "people of legal, banking and investment background," be replaced immediately by a more genuinely representative community group?

Second, will the minister establish an implementation team in his own office to work with a new board of trustees to make sure the quality of care in this hospital is restored?

Third, will he commission Mr. Justice Dubin to undertake a follow-up report independently and to report back publicly within six months with respect to the status of each of the recommendations in his report?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Let me put the problems in the laboratory in some context, because I think it would be unfortunate if anything the member said were to give the impression that patients are in imminent danger as a result of the problems in the lab and in the dispensing of drugs.

The situation is unacceptable. No one denies that; Mr. Justice Dubin and his committee do not deny that. The reality, though, is that they also go on to indicate there apparently have been no serious problems -- i.e., no illnesses or deaths -- resulting from that particular problem in the hospital. That may be a question of good fortune, which, if it is only that, is inadequate.

Mr. McClellan: There is nothing to indicate it is anything else.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I wish to put the member's remarks, which might otherwise frighten people, into some context. People can draw their own judgements, but I think they must do it in the context of all the facts.

For example, the member excerpts that part of the report -- a very serious problem. However, in making judgements, I think the public should keep some other things in mind. Later on that same page the Dubin committee goes on to say, "The review committee is of the opinion that laboratory services at the hospital are run by competent and dedicated scientists." It goes on in other areas to talk about the competence, excellence and expertise of everyone else in the hospital, including the competence of the trustees, the doctors and the nursing staffs.

Finally, Mr. Justice Dubin and his colleagues go on to say, and I think this is crucial, that the Hospital for Sick Children has earned an international reputation for the quality of services provided to its patients.

Mr. McClellan: That does not answer the question at all.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I am trying to address the question, the key question, which is that of confidence in the hospital and the security with which parents can take their children to that hospital --

Mr. McClellan: Just tell us the lab is functioning properly.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Why does the member not let me finish? It is an important matter.

Mr. McClellan: Well, answer the question with respect to the lab.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The imminent problem is whether, in view of the ongoing problem in the lab and in delivery of drugs in the hospital, people can feel confidence in the facility. The answer to that is contained in the words of Mr. Justice Dubin and his committee: "We are satisfied that the hospital is still deserving of that reputation and of the complete confidence of the public." Those are not my words, or the words of the hospital or the trustees; they are the words of Mr. Justice Dubin and his committee.

I just wish to put that serious problem in the proper context: while the problem has to be rectified, the confidence is still held by the committee and, I hope, by the public in that institution.

The member's other questions related to whether we were going to put in a team there or perhaps appoint Mr. Justice Dubin to certify six months from today or whatever period from today that the work has been completed. I want to make it clear that as Minister of Health I take my obligations under the legislation quite seriously and that ultimately I will have to satisfy the public that the board of trustees have done their job in making the appropriate changes, including those both to their own operation and to the operation of the rest of the hospital.

I take that responsibility because it is thrust upon me by law. I believe that my civil servants, together with whatever monitoring mechanisms we may devise inside the ministry, will be adequate to ensure complete implementation of that report. If I am wrong, then I stand in this House accountable. But the magic of Mr. Justice Dubin or anyone else to do that job, as opposed to ministry officials, should not be misunderstood. We are capable, as has been shown in the case of almost every other hospital in the province, of making sure that situations are corrected when they are brought to light, and that will be the case in this instance.

Finally, I should report to the member, who quite properly is concerned, as we all are, about early and quick implementation, that I spoke this morning with Douglas Snedden, the executive director of the hospital. He assured me that the members of the board had been meeting in special committee during most of this past weekend and had been reviewing the report. They have now categorized all the recommendations of the Dubin report into four categories: recommendations that have already been implemented, those that can be implemented within 30 days, those that can be implemented within 60 days and those that can be implemented within 90 days.

Further, he informs me they have set up a special steering committee to work with all the disciplines in the hospital to ensure that those timetables are reasonable and are met. Finally, he indicates that --

Mr. McClellan: You have had some of the recommendations since 1980 and you know it.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: If the member is not interested in this information, then I will not deliver it. I think many other members of this House might be interested. If the members of my friend's party, who did a lot of hand-wringing in the media, are not interested in the steps that the hospital has taken to implement these recommendations, which the member was out complaining to the media had to be implemented quickly, then let the record note that he and his party are not interested in the details of the action being taken. They have to account for that attitude.

CORNWALL CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Community and Social Services on the ward of the Cornwall Children's Aid Society.

I wonder whether the minister is aware of the story in the Saturday Star which charges that the Cornwall CAS or someone in his ministry has committed a breach of confidentiality by disclosing some information concerning the young girl's history? Can the minister confirm or deny this? Does he feel that the disclosure of such information, especially in regard to the area of birth control pills prescribed in the past, is harmful to either the ongoing investigation by his ministry or that by the police into the whole case?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I do not know anything about that at all, but I have said repeatedly, and I will draw it to the honourable member's attention again, that at no time during the entire case -- and that is not since the member has become interested in it -- has any employee of this ministry, the ministry or the minister given out any background information or anything else about the juvenile, the family or anything else in this particular case.

Mr. Boudria: It's public information now.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I do not know what the member is talking about. Does he want to send it over?

Mr. Boudria: Read it.

Hon. Mr. Drea: If he wants to send it over, I might look at it. But by the same token, I do not know where newspapers get their information. They have had all kinds of family background in the media since this case began. I have told the member and I have told everybody else that they did not obtain it, to the best of my knowledge, from me or my ministry. I can speak for myself, they sure did not get it from me; I can also speak on behalf of the ministry, because they did not get it from there. If the member wants to make an allegation that somebody in the ministry did it, then I say to him please do so and I will look at it.

Mr. Boudria: Given that, does the minister feel that the CAS investigation or any other investigation may have been prejudiced by comments made Saturday, allegedly by Constable Bush of the Lancaster detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police when he said: "Aw listen, a girl gets pregnant, she's gonna scream rape. We know that"?

Will he be asking his colleague the Solicitor General (Mr. G. W. Taylor) to remove that officer from that case if those remarks were, in fact, made by him, because they will influence the outcome?

3 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I do not know why somebody would get up in the House and say "if." Either the remarks were made by him or they were not. I find it incredible that a member would stand up, read out what somebody is alleged to have said and then say, "If it is true." Some time ago I asked my colleague the Solicitor General to get me as much information as he could from the appropriate detachment or personnel of the Ontario Provincial Police concerning allegations of criminal offences that had been made in the past. I am still awaiting that information.

Mr. Boudria: It is going to be prejudiced information.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I do not understand what the member's point is.

Mr. Speaker: Never mind the interjections.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I have been looking into this case for some time. Nothing anybody says will prejudice me, if that is the member's little problem. If he has a problem with the OPP, may I suggest he talks to my colleague the Solicitor General.

FACILITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTALLY HANDICAPPED

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I have a new question for the same minister. Last week at a meeting in Durham, Dr. Baker of the Ministry of Community and Social Services told some parents whose children had come out of Huronia and gone to the Durham centre that they should not be worried about their children going back to Huronia.

He said, and he used the Brockville case, "Only 20 of the children from that institution will be going back to large institutions." In other words one in five, if one takes the present numbers, will be going back to major institutions from which they came, most to institutions like Rideau.

Is the figure of 20 accurate, or is it not more likely to be between 30 and 40 of the residents who will be going back to other institutions? How can the minister talk about individualized program and deinstitutionalization if even one child leaves an institution of 100 and goes back to an institution of 1,000? Surely the minister's duty is to protect that one as much as it is to deinstitutionalize the rest.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I am rather amazed at the honourable member. Last week he did not want any facilities closed. He stood there last week at the prelude to an emergency debate, babbling away. Now this week it is down to one.

Mr. Swart: You have class.

Mr. Laughren: You are a real sweetheart.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I have a record to back me up.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Is it not 30 or 40?

Hon. Mr. Drea: The other night he was the great community man and here he is the facility man.

Mr. Speaker: Never mind the interjections.

Hon. Mr. Drea: If the question is about Brockville, 75 of the 100 residents of Brockville will be in the community.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Seventy-five.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Excuse me, 25 will be placed in other facilities.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Rideau and Edgar.

Hon. Mr. Drea: The one who was placed in Edgar would have been placed in Edgar anyway, regardless of whether Brockville continued today and tomorrow and everything else.

I can give a complete rundown of where the 25 are going. Not all are going to the so-called much larger institutions. I will be glad to provide the member with it, but I find his deep and abiding concern something of a change from one week ago.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I find it difficult to understand how saying I am against people going back to large institutions is somehow saying I am not for deinstitutionalization.

Mr. Speaker: Question please.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: I have one question about one instance. How can the minister explain this as a positive step at this time in terms of getting kids out of institutions and back to their local communities: A 22-year-old youth from Brockville who lived 18 years with his mother, who is still in Brockville, unemployed at the moment in Brockville and who is around the level of a 14-year-old, is being advised, and his mother is being advised, that he should go to Edgar in Barrie?

How can the minister morally countenance that as an appropriate move away from his family, or is he going to subsidize his mother to move to the Barrie area as well so she can be close to her child? Why do we have the small institutions in the first place if not to keep those kids close to their own communities?

Hon. Mr. Drea: I do not know of the particular case, obviously, but I would draw one thing to the member's attention. Edgar is also a training centre. From the very limited information he has provided, it would seem obvious that this person is in need of some additional training in order to continue to cope with the community.

Edgar is a very fine training centre. Edgar is such a fine one that the very popular game, Trivial Pursuit -- that seems like the story of all the questions from the side opposite, but that kind of trivial pursuit one cannot buy -- is assembled in the Edgar facility. That gives one an idea of the training and performance capabilities of Edgar.

USE OF TIME IN QUESTION PERIOD

Mr. Martel: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Regularly I hear the Speaker suggesting to members that they should get to the question much more quickly, and I concur with that. Should not the Speaker be saying to the ministers of the crown who are responding, led by the Premier (Mr. Davis) -- three times today you had to rise in your place to suggest they should be getting to the answer in dealing with the questions asked.

Mr. Speaker: I am glad the member for Sudbury East took note of what I was doing. However, I suggest that is not a point of order. I do not know which ministers he is referring to --

Mr. Martel: The Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman), the Premier --

Mr. Speaker: All right, let us take the Minister of Health. That is a matter of specific and great public importance at this time --

Mr. R. F. Johnston: A statement might have been good.

Mr. Speaker: I do not think it was a statement, with all respect, but I do keep an eye on it, yes.

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS

Mr. Laughren: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: You may recall that about a week or so ago I rose in my place and asked if you thought it was time to remind the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) yet again to answer questions on the Order Paper. At that time the minister replied that he had just signed some kind of response and he assumed it was in process some place. Here we are now, the last day of January, about six weeks late, and there is still no sign of it. Could you find out where the system broke down?

Mr. Speaker: I will remind the minister one more time.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Mr. Eakins: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make some comment about this ministry. I regret my colleague the member for Halton-Burlington (Mr. J. A. Reed) found it necessary to be away today. I know he has been very active in expressing his views on a number of issues. I would like to discuss some of this legislation with the minister and hope to have some comment from him before this is passed.

I believe just last month my colleague the critic brought to the minister's attention some of the concerns in regard to strategic land use plans. All interested parties in Ontario have expressed some serious reservations about strategic land use plans. We still have not seen the relevant legislation that will affect land use plans, such as the pits and quarries legislation. I will refer to that in a moment.

We have the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment calling for deferral of the land use plans. We do not know how the minister's plans will fit into the long overdue results and the expensive recommendations of this commission. The minister should convene a conference to find the common ground among all the interested parties and to bring an end to the confrontation that is plaguing this plan.

3:10 p.m.

I believe my colleague also has been urging the minister to convene, without delay, a conference on the future of the Ontario park system. Many members of this House, myself included, have been receiving communications almost weekly from various areas of interest in regard to the future needs of Ontario as far as our park system is concerned. At the present time the mood appears to be one of confrontation, but the future of Ontario's parks is a matter of increasing concern to many people. We believe they are a trust and that we have a responsibility to preserve and protect our unique and wonderful natural heritage for future generations.

There exist many interest and activist groups whose purpose is to ensure that our parks will remain sources of dynamic development combined with natural beauty and environmental enhancement. Some individuals and groups are primarily concerned with the question of crown lands, some with recreational opportunities, some with the needs of the environment and some with essential industrial and commercial opportunities. All have one thing in common; a desire to ensure that our parks fulfil their potential as a source of aesthetic, botanical or financial riches.

Frequently interests may conflict, but frequently they coincide. Somehow we must ensure that conflicts are reconciled and the common interest protected. Co-operative and ongoing consideration must be given to the stewardship by the people of today of the heritage of the past and of the inheritance of the future.

A conference aimed at bringing together people and groups representing a wide divergence of views and objectives will be a major step in ensuring that Ontario's parks continue to be a source of enjoyment, environmental protection and productivity. Along with my colleagues, I urge the minister to take that one major step at the earliest possible opportunity.

I would also like to say to the minister, we would like to know when we may expect something definite with regard to the legislation dealing with pits and quarries. I had the pleasure, two or perhaps three years ago, of serving on the committee dealing with the then Bill 127, when we had a very thorough discussion of the need for updating our pits and quarries legislation. Today, we are still waiting for that legislation.

We do not know which amendments made by his predecessor to that bill will be kept and which will be rejected. We are concerned that his 10-point policy on mineral aggregate, forcing municipalities to designate areas for gravel extraction, is being used throughout the province. Since time is passing, and especially since I receive letters from some of our municipal councils asking what has happened to the Pits and Quarries Control Act, I would like the minister to be able to give us something more definite so that the people in the municipalities can plan for their future.

I also suggest to the minister it is time that we in Ontario took a good look at preserving some of the history of our natural resources. I brought this to the minister's attention perhaps a year ago. I urge him to give serious consideration to the establishment of a natural resources museum in this province in an area which is accessible to all people of this province.

We already have the Leslie M. Frost Natural Resources Centre at Dorset, which is an ideal location. It would be an excellent tourist attraction and would be readily accessible to people from both the north and the south. I feel it is time that we in Ontario took a look at preserving some of the history of our natural resources.

These are just a few of the comments I wish to make. I would urge the minister to give them serious thought.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, it is good to have a second kick at the cat; not to imply that the minister is a feline.

Interjection.

Mr. Laughren: Just pugnacious, yes.

However, there are some questions that still are unanswered by this minister and, while I have heard it said across the province that the minister has really grabbed his ministry by the throat and given it a good shaking up, he still has not been able to extract from that ministry certain actions that we think are overdue -- perhaps a legacy of the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier), who knows. None the less, there are still some things that need to be done.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Do not provoke me.

Mr. Laughren: I know I should not tease the bears. I will not tease the bears until after the northwest bypass has been committed for the Sudbury area, then it will be open season on the minister again.

I am concerned about the whole area of forestry. We still are floundering in terms of sustained yield, in terms of whether we are going to achieve the yield the ministry states is still there. As far as I know, it is still shooting for nine million cunits by the year 2020.

I am wondering whether the minister has looked at that again in terms of, first, the goal itself; second, the need for that goal, whether or not we are going to need that much; and third, to what extent regeneration is going to be sufficient to accomplish whatever goal he has set. I keep expecting him to come out with a downwardly revised goal, but so far there is no sign of that.

Also, the question of traditional users in some of the areas is an issue that is causing us problems in the province because many of the smaller operators feel they are being muscled aside by the big boys. That is something we must be very careful about.

I know it is difficult when one of the big operators has a mill he must feed and feels he has to have that supply. In many cases the big operators are the ones who cause the problems but the small operators are paying the price for it by not having access to timber supplies or by having games played with the kind of supplies they are being granted in the forest. The minister needs to keep a very close eye on the traditional users of our forests.

The whole area of parks is one I find fascinating. I think there is a great deal of misinformation out there in the public. I suggest as friendly advice, if that is possible with the minister, that he has not been aggressive enough in countering some of the misinformation. That is true of the parks and it is true of the native peoples' fishing agreement, judging by some of the correspondence I have seen. I get copies of a fair amount of it as the critic.

Some of the information really is unfair in those letters, such as one that accused the province of taking away forestry from people who create wealth and giving it to people who do not create wealth. Perhaps the minister recalls that letter.

As someone who likes to talk about the creation of wealth, I was taken aback by that. It is a very simplistic way of looking at wealth creation, to look simply at the cutting down of trees and utilization of wood fibre. There are all sorts of ways of creating wealth and that certainly is not the only one.

3:20 p.m.

The other forms of creating wealth, such as tourism, occur every year

whereas forestry might occur only every 50 or 60 years. So we get a big bang for our buck with forestry but a lot of little ones with the alternate uses. I think that needs to be said out there more aggressively than it is being said. I suspect, quite frankly, it would also make the minister's job easier if he would counter some of that misinformation.

Can the minister also tell us, when he responds, to what extent the designation of parks is going to affect the supply of wood to the forestry industry and when we can expect to know the designation of the parks and their specific boundaries? In particular, I would like to know to what extent the parks that will be designated will affect the fibre supply.

Perhaps the minister has seen some of the material that my colleague the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) has written, which goes part way to putting to rest some of the misinformation. But I really believe the minister has a much stronger role to play there than he is playing in terms of putting the record straight when it comes to the utilization of our forests.

I will not get into a couple of the areas of forestry that I am tempted to, such as the whole question of the Black Bay Peninsula and who should get -- oh, the Minister of Northern Affairs almost fell over in his chair.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I wonder why.

Mr. Laughren: I promised I would not tease him until we get the northwest bypass designated as a firm commitment. Anyway, that is an area I will leave to my colleague from Lake Nipigon if he chooses to raise it.

On the whole question of environmental assessment, I can recall asking the minister in the chamber here before the end of last year if he intended to extend the exemption. The minister was terribly coy about it and said he was having consultation with the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton). Now we understand that is happening.

I have a letter from the minister, who tells me -- I do not have it in front of me; maybe it was something I read in Hansard. Anyway, it said that when the decision is made I will be told; the minister will let me know when the decision is made. Yet I picked up a paper and read that it had happened and I cannot understand why we had not been told. When it has been raised in the Legislature on a number of occasions it seems to me the minister has an obligation to respond to those of us in the chamber. I do not necessarily mean that he has to stand up and make a big statement, but I do believe that he should correspond with us.

As a matter of fact, environmental assessment is of such significance that it really is worthy of a statement in the Legislature anyway. I would like to know some of the details of that. Is it true an absolutely firm commitment has been made there will be a class assessment of forestry activities declared by the end of June? Is it true before it becomes absolute and enshrined in the regulation or law there will be some consultation out there with interested groups? Some of us are very concerned about making any kind of exemption, given the size and importance of forestry activities. I will look forward to the minister's response on that.

The other question I asked of the minister was when we were going to get the wood utilization study in our forests. I am wondering why the minister has not presented us with that yet. I believe it was supposed to have been done almost a year ago, but the minister has not been forthcoming. I look forward to that too.

I touched briefly on the fishing agreement. I thought if there was ever an example of how to do the right thing wrong, that was it. I do not want to be unfair but we in this party believe a fishing agreement is necessary and we have stated that publicly. I am distressed -- I believe that is the appropriate word -- at the reaction in Ontario to the fishing agreement by people who do not know its details.

I know it is a very easy thing to jump up and down and scream about how awful the fishing agreement is and that it is going to take fishing rights away from people in this province. I will temper my remarks, because I am tempted to say some things I should not say about some of the opposition to the fishing agreement, but I would tell the minister that the process was fundamentally wrong, and whether or not the minister claims he met with the appropriate groups -- I assume he did; he had some talks with them -- obviously it was not enough.

I can remember that before the Legislature adjourned for the Christmas break I asked him during question period if he would consider holding some public hearings, particularly in the northwest, in view of the heat that had been generated around the fishing agreement. I do not know whether the minister thought it was simply an opposition member trying to score points on him or not, but it was meant as a positive suggestion and I wish now the minister had taken the advice.

Since then there has been some attempt to consult, but it is very difficult to expect people to believe you are dealing in good faith when you deal with them after the fact, and that is really what has caused the problem. The sooner the minister can get those lakes designated the better off we will all be, because right now that is what is causing a lot of the problems.

I have thought for some time that we have needed an agreement -- the minister knows that; and I do not know of any previous time when our native people agreed to this kind of supervision or jurisdiction of the province over their aboriginal fishing rights. So perhaps the native people have given up something in this agreement too, perhaps a great deal, and I think that tends to be overlooked by opponents of the fishing agreement.

They have given up something that goes back a long way, something that is very precious; and perhaps when the constitutional talks are completed we will see a change in this fishing agreement, because who is to say that this will even stand up throughout the constitutional talks.

I hope the minister is more aggressive in selling the fishing agreement, because I know he has had problems with some of his own colleagues. Some of them have spoken to me about it and I have had calls and letters to my home and to my office. I know it is a delicate issue, but I also know that absolutely no one in this province has anything to gain if the proper information is not disseminated as quickly as possible. We all have something to lose.

I hope very much that the minister will do whatever he can to get the good word out there about the fishing agreement and to conclude the designation of the lakes just as quickly as is humanly possible, because I believe that is what is causing most of the problems.

There are a couple of other areas I believe the minister should think about. One is the whole question of single-industry towns in northern Ontario. In my own constituency in the last couple of years one town has been bulldozed to the ground, another town has closed up completely and in a third town now almost the same thing is happening. In other words, it is a forestry town where people are being told to move out of their company-owned homes, a little community called Ramsey, near Chapleau. There are not quite 20 homes.

These people have lived there for some time and raised their families there, and now the company says: "We are not going to have any more of these company homes. You must be out by this summer."

I think it is a bit much. It is not that they are going to walk away from the community. The operation is still there; the bunkhouses are still there; the cookery is still there; the garage to repair the equipment is still there; the whole operation is still there, the siding for the railroad and everything. It is simply more convenient and perhaps even more economical for the company, Eddy Forest Products, to have no company homes there, and the people living in those homes are feeling somewhat desperate. They have families. They do not want to live in bunkhouses. They do not want to commute from some other place, because places are not that close by, so it is causing real problems.

I wrote the Minister of Natural Resources and he replied that he had talked to Eddy Forest Products but could not do anything about it. I thought it was a rather cavalier response.

I then wrote to the Minister of Northern Affairs to ask him about it, in view of his role as protector of the north, and to see whether something could be done. He may not have my letter yet. I just wrote last week.

3:30 p.m.

It seems to me there should be some protection for people like that. If they were moving out of the community, if they were closing up shop completely, it would be a little different. But in this case, they are staying there and it is simply a matter of convenience for the company. They offered to put in some money of their own to help to pay for a water line and to provide volunteer labour, but none of that was heeded by the company.

I hope the Minister of Northern Affairs will look at it independently. The Minister of Natural Resources did not feel he could do it. Perhaps if there is some other policy the Minister of Natural Resources has implemented in the last little while that the Minister of Northern Affairs does not like, he could get even with him on this one by having the people stay in the community.

Mr. Stokes: He would not sit idly by and watch them close down Hudson and advocate they move into Sioux Lookout.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: We did very well in Atikokan, though.

Mr. Stokes: What does that have to do with Hudson or Ramsey?

Mr. Laughren: What does it have to do with Ramsey more particularly.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: We look after the north, do not worry.

Mr. Laughren: It is the way the minister is looking after it that bothers me, bulldozing it to the ground. If he does not stop this decimation of small communities, when he retires from politics there will be a statue on the front lawn with the Minister of Northern Affairs sitting on a bulldozer. That will be his lasting testimonial.

The Deputy Speaker: I thought this was concurrence for the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, it is, but I could not miss the opportunity to pass on a suggestion to the Minister of Northern Affairs since he is here and since it is conceivable he wants to get even with the Minister of Natural Resources.

I believe the fate of Ramsey and other small communities is partly the problem of the government not dealing with the one-industry town syndrome. There was a committee at one time, and I think it has been resurrected, though I am not sure. Is there not a report that was supposed to be done by the Ministry of Natural Resources on one-industry communities? Perhaps when the minister responds, he can tell us about the fate of one-industry communities. Ramsey is a very small community and it is a pure one-industry town.

There are other communities like Sudbury that rely largely on one industry, but Ramsey is totally a one-industry community. We need to have a policy so that, when something like this happens, people know what to expect.

An employer, in this case Eddy Forest Products, should know its responsibilities and obligations. Right now, an employer just issues an edict that the town will close and people will move out of their homes. I do not believe in 1983 we should have that kind of free-wheeling, laissez-faire operation in Ontario. There must be consultation with those people. Perhaps something could be worked out, but I suspect it will not happen without ministerial intervention.

Let us talk about mining for a moment. The minister is from a mining community, as I am, and he knows some of the problems of mining communities. When Sudbury went into its prolonged state of decline about a year ago, a number of suggestions were made to various ministers. My colleague the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) and I made some suggestions. The regional municipality made some suggestions. The unions made some suggestions. Yet I do not know what this government has done.

Here we are a year after the first layoffs were announced, and there has been nothing of long-term significance done in that community. Make-work money has gone in there. The Ontario Centre for Resource Machinery was already on the books and in place.

That decision was not made because of the shutdown. That was not why that facility was put in there. As a matter of fact, the actual operation to build machinery has had a setback since the layoffs were announced, so in some senses we have gone backwards, not forward. That is a sad commentary on the government's commitment to an important community like Sudbury.

A lot of the proposals we have made are proposals that came from this very government. By now I am sure the minister has read the 1977 report by a fine employee, Dr. Tom Mohide, who understands minerals even better than I do.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You don't know granite from gravel.

Mr. Laughren: I tried to say it with a straight face; perhaps even better than either the Minister of Northern Affairs or the Minister of Natural Resources.

Mr. Stokes: It makes even worse reading.

Mr. Laughren: The member is right. I should not say those things because it will be in Hansard.

In 1977 that report, called Towards a Nickel Policy for the Province of Ontario, had some pretty substantial recommendations and would stand us in good stead today.

We all know the mineral markets are cyclical and always have been. That should not stop us from taking action now. Every single recommendation my colleague and I made in our report, A Challenge to Sudbury, came from one kind of government document or another. They were not policies this government could not live with.

The government could live with more processing at source. As a matter of fact, I have heard this minister say he believes our resources should be processed at source. Of course, when he made that statement, he was talking about the phosphate deposits up near Kapuskasing. He chooses to make the statement when he is talking about Kapuskasing and to ignore that policy when he is talking about Sudbury.

He cannot have it both ways. He cannot talk out of one side of his mouth in Kapuskasing and another side of his mouth in Sudbury. That is not appropriate. Who does he think he is, the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon)? Sorry, I did not mean to say that.

Mr. Cassidy: Just a slip of the tongue.

Mr. Laughren: That was a slip of the tongue, Mr. Speaker.

Seriously, the minister should not make those statements in one part of the province and then not live up to them in another part of the province. We now know there are rich and substantial deposits at Kapuskasing. There is also a small deposit near Chapleau and we would appreciate a little stimulant to the local economy there as well.

We have an ample supply of sulphur dioxide in Sudbury when we are operating and, by combining those two, there is a happy chemical reaction called fertilizer. It would be nice to have a fertilizer plant in northern Ontario. If the minister wants to play his parochial politics and put the manufacturing plant in Kapuskasing, so be it. What we have said is we want fertilizer manufactured in the north to kill two birds with one stone.

Mr. Martel: They want to take it out of the north unprocessed.

Mr. Laughren: The government wants to take it out unprocessed. We are saying, process it in the north. I heard the minister say that himself.

Mr. Martel: That's what Topp said.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: What?

Mr. Martel: Topp. Do you want me to read your statement?

Mr. Laughren: Something tells me we are going to have trouble keeping the member for Sudbury East out of this debate so I will not deal with it any longer because I think he wants to tell members who Mr. Topp is. I would encourage him to get into the debate. I am not trying to discourage him.

We had a meeting in Sudbury last Friday afternoon, January 28. There was my colleague and I, the member for Sudbury. The federal Minister of Mines swept in for a few moments and swept out. The federal member for Nickel Belt was there and the federal member for Sudbury, Mr. Frith, was there for a while too.

We discussed what is happening now in Sudbury and where we go from here. The consensus at the meeting was, first, that Inco should be convinced with the help of this government to go back to work now or as soon as possible. The first shutdown occurred at the end of May with a strike. They went back to work. They settled their agreement at the end of June and Inco has been shut down ever since. That is a massive shutdown.

3:40 p.m.

We are saying they have had their way since the end of June. It is not a happy time for them, either; nobody is pretending that. But here we are at the end of January. They are scheduled to go back at the beginning of April, but they are even making scary noises about that, and we are saying they should be persuaded, through the use of moral suasion, to go back to work sooner to give the community a much-needed psychological and economic boost.

They are going to need to be talked to by the two senior levels of government. We think it would be worth either stockpiling or subsidy in return for equity participation in order to do that. We understand they have serious financial problems, but so does the community, and we think it is time that we put Sudbury back to work.

The unemployment insurance benefits going into that community are in the neighbourhood of $15 million a month. Welfare is about $1 million a month; and that is money with which no wealth is being created, if I can use that phrase. We think it is time to put that money to work to create wealth and to put people back to work.

But the company will not do it. It suits the company's purpose better to stay shut down for a little longer. I understand that, and I do not expect them to behave in a different way; but I do believe it is time we talked to them and that the government moved in with some muscle to convince them it is appropriate to go back to work early.

I do not think that is asking too much. It is a compromise, but the community has compromised a lot in the last year and I think the company could compromise a little bit here. I do not believe it is asking too much for the two senior levels of government to take

part in this whole process of either stockpiling or subsidizing the operations on a temporary basis. I do not believe in a permanent subsidy at this point, that would not be called for; but I do believe it is important to get back to work in Sudbury.

The other area -- and I know it is near and dear to the minister's heart -- is the whole question of the Fahlgren commission. I understand now that the commission does not want the minister to proceed with his land use plans, that it wants a deferral until the commission has completed its work on the West Patricia section.

The minister will recall that on several occasions we tried to get him to invite the commissioner to come before the standing committee on resources development of this Legislature. At no time that I know of did the commissioner say he did not want to come or would not come. The fact was that neither the Minister of Natural Resources nor the Minister of Northern Affairs was polite enough to invite him. They did not feel moved to invite Mr. Fahlgren in to have a chat about priorities or about his timetable.

It seems to me it would still be useful if Commissioner Fahlgren could come and talk to those of us who are on the standing committee on resources development. I know the minister does not like the idea of setting a precedent by inviting a commissioner to come before a standing committee. I do not think it is a bad precedent. If he does not want to come, he does not have to come, but it seems to me we could at least invite him.

In order to ensure that the minister has time to respond to the remarks of the critic for the Liberal Party and me, I will sit down in eager anticipation of the minister's response.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I only want to raise a few issues with the minister. I will not pretend that they are nearly as important as those previously raised, because of course they are more of a local nature pertaining to my own constituency, and I hope the minister will have time to respond to them when he is making his remarks at the end.

I wonder if the minister would like to elaborate further on the idea of the marina study that his ministry did for Carillon Provincial Park. I have written to the minister, and he has responded to my letter concerning the city of Hawkesbury which, as he knows, is in a very depressed economic situation at the moment. The city of Hawkesbury wanted the marina to be located in that city as opposed to the provincial park.

As the minister knows because he has friends in Hawkesbury and he has been there on many occasions, the park is only a few miles from the town.

In his response to me, the minister stated he never had intended for the marina to be in the town, although municipal officials who met with him were clearly of the opinion his representatives had stated Hawkesbury would have been a possibility for that marina. The study is now complete, of course, and the town of Hawkesbury is not even mentioned in the report.

I would ask the minister once again whether there is any way he can alter the decision that was made and look at the possibility of having that marina located at or near the town of Hawkesbury. It would obviously be of great benefit to that area and it would still serve the provincial park since it would be only a few miles down the road.

We have a problem in eastern Ontario that may sound trivial elsewhere but is truly very significant. It is the problem of beavers as it pertains to municipal drains.

Mr. Stokes: Eager beavers.

Mr. Boudria: Eager beavers, I guess, are constructing dams in municipal drains, ditches and culverts all across eastern Ontario. There have been petitions by municipal councils urging the minister to intervene in this area and see what he could do to assist the local people. All members will recognize we are spending, and collectively farmers are spending, a lot of money on municipal drainage improvements only to see these improvements totally destroyed by beavers.

I was speaking to a farmer only a few weeks ago who was explaining to me he had spent a whole day removing a beaver dam with dynamite and everything else one requires to remove one of those. He had completed the removal of it just in time to go home for dinner. When he came back the next morning it was just as though he had never been there. Everything was totally reconstructed as if nothing had happened. So the minister can understand the anger and frustration of the farmers of that area.

The minister's staff in Cornwall have been most helpful. They are doing everything they can and I would like to acknowledge that. They always have helped me in anything I have ever asked. Maybe this would be a good time to pay a special tribute to them, under the very good leadership of Richard Morin, who is the person in charge in Cornwall.

Mr. Nixon: I hope somebody sends him this Hansard.

Mr. Boudria: Maybe I should. He is not a constituent by the way, but he is doing a very good job for the ministry there. He has assisted me in that area. He has provided people to come and trap the beavers. I had one case, and the minister only wrote back to me recently, where I believe something like 75 beavers were trapped on one farm. There are still SO many of them that the farmer does not know what to do. This is on only one farm.

Of course, those farms that are close to areas such as La Mer Bleue or the Alfred Bog, or other areas of low elevation that are already surrounded by water, are particularly affected because that is a habitat which beavers prefer. It has led to a problem which is really serious. I know it may not sound as important as some of the other issues that have been raised, but for the farmers in eastern Ontario to do thousands of dollars' worth of drainage improvements and see all that work destroyed is certainly no laughing matter.

In spite of the fact the ministry staff has been very helpful, it just does not seem to be sufficient. I am wondering how we could address that problem. I do not know the answer to it. If the minister could dispatch a large number of people to remove some of the excess beavers we have in our area, or something like that, I think it should be done. I am sure all the farmers and the federations of agriculture in my area have complained about it; very many people have, including the municipal councils.

I just bring that to the minister's attention, recognizing that the beaver pelt is a rather lucrative thing to be found. Some trappers, perhaps in other parts of the province, who are not all that busy might wish to come to our area. I go on record right now as inviting them to come and assist us in getting rid of some of the beavers.

3:50 p.m.

It is a little tricky, I know, because speaking against beavers is like speaking against motherhood, because they are our national symbol. But those people who have a problem with beavers do not think about the national symbol business very much at this particular time. They are thinking that they cannot make ends meet with their farm and that their investments are being destroyed. It is a serious matter and one that we have to deal with.

Lastly, I think I have told the minister this before but while I am on my feet I should reiterate that in the last few summers I had several opportunities to visit campgrounds in the provincial parks. My family are camping enthusiasts and have visited campgrounds in other provinces as well, and the campgrounds in this province are far superior, miles ahead, of any I have seen elsewhere. I say that in recognition of the excellent facilities they offer.

I am not as knowledgeable as some honourable members in other aspects of the ministry, but being one who uses the ministry's campgrounds on a frequent basis I am of the opinion they are excellent. They are usually very clean, the staff is helpful and brochures are offered.

Mr. Martel: They do not have hot water.

Mr. Boudria: I realize that some of them do not have hot water but some of them do -- Carillon Provincial Park, for instance. By the way, while I am on the subject of Carillon Provincial Park, I want to say that the superintendent there, Mr. Brian Peck, has done a very good job of drumming up new business. He has attended shows in Montreal and other cities -- camping shows and that type of thing -- and has drummed up a tremendous amount of publicity for the -- I want to say that the superintendent there, Mr. Brian Peck, has done a very good job of drumming up new business.

He has attended shows in Montreal and other cities -- camping shows and that type of thing -- and has drummed up a tremendous amount of publicity for the park.

The minister is no doubt aware that the attendance at that park has just about doubled over a period of a few years. While the use of other provincial parks has been decreasing in the last year or two, attendance at Carillon is literally exploding, which illustrates the good job that is being done there. I would only wish that the area I represent, and which surrounds Carillon Provincial Park, could benefit more from the visiting tourists, who are mostly from the city of Montreal.

Perhaps with the co-operation of the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation we could persuade the tourists to stay in the neighbourhood for just a little longer than a Sunday picnic or an overnight stay in the park grounds. That would certainly help the economy in our area. I know the minister is addressing some of those things and he hopes the improvements he plans for the park will achieve that; but all of Carillon Provincial Park is being exceptionally well run right now. I thought I would mention that right now.

I also hope that in his remarks the minister will be able to address the marina study that I raised earlier; and the area of concern which is the beavers, as it pertains to the blockage of municipal drains.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, the first thing I want to say in the debate on concurrence of the estimates of the Ministry of Natural Resources, is how disappointed I was in this minister, and the perceived vindictiveness with which this minister handled the MacAlpine affair. As the minister knows, a grievance settlement board did find that Mr. MacAlpine acted with a good deal of professionalism and dedication in the way in which he applied himself as a professional forester in the employ of this ministry. The board went out of its way to say there was no malicious intent on his behalf.

His primary concern was to be a good civil servant and a dedicated professional forester, and his primary allegiance was to the resource itself and therefore, generally to the people in Ontario.

The minister will know, as will the Minister of Northern Affairs, that people close to the scene, of every political stripe, Conservative, Liberal or New Democrat, understood better than most people in the ministry what Mr. MacAlpine was trying to accomplish. The minister will know that of late an ever-increasing number of people have come to the belated conclusion that forestry is far and away the most important segment of our industrial complex. That is certainly true in northern Ontario, and more specifically in northwestern Ontario, where 75 per cent of all economic activity owes its existence, directly or indirectly, to our ability to manage and to husband that most precious resource.

I am not telling any tales out of school when I say that there have been interventions directly to the Minister of Natural Resources and to the Minister of Northern Affairs in support of the principle and the concept that was being enunciated by Mr. MacAlpine and a good many other dedicated foresters, not only in the employ of this ministry but in the industry itself and in the academic community, particularly those associated with the forestry faculty at Lakehead University.

It will be a long while, I predict, before there will again be the esprit de corps this ministry once had, because of the closeness, dedication and degree of professionalism that was so obvious within this ministry. I am not saying it was only the MacAlpine affair, but that more than any other incident indicated that dedicated professionals within the ministry could no longer count on people like the minister to come to bat for them when the going got tough.

I want to ask the minister if he has had the time and the opportunity to read a book that was released late in 1982, authored by J. W. B. Sisam, who is the dean emeritus of the forestry faculty of the University of Toronto. He does what I think is an excellent job of chronicling the forestry education program in Ontario and what, in effect, has been the evolution in forestry since the early 1900s.

4 p.m.

I do not know whether the minister has had an opportunity to read that. If he has not, I commend it to him and his colleague the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier), because a lot of the incidents, a lot of the benchmarks he refers to will bring back memories of their involvement in the evolution and, need I say, the sins of omission and commission that are outlined, particularly in

chapter 5, "The Critical Years, 1972 to 1982."

He says, "There is a tide in the affairs of men," and then goes on at great length to discuss in some detail the timber trade, supply and demand, timber reserves, transition from exploitation to management, forest management studies and conferences, the federal study and the Ontario study.

I know the minister will recognize what I am thinking of when I talk about the federal Reed study. He is now the deputy minister with Environment Canada, with particular responsibility for forestry matters to the extent that the federal government gets involved at all. There is the Ontario study; it deals more specifically with the Armson report in 1975 and 1976, but it is interesting that he goes back to the Colonel Kennedy report back in 1947. Then he talks about a federal report in the mid-1950s. He goes to the Brodie report in the 1967 era.

He did not mention the Ontario Economic Council report about 1969 or the Hedlin Menzies report of about 1970. But he does dwell upon the Armson report at some length.

When I was reading that, I saw the thread that went right through it, even from the days when C. D. Howe was the dean of forestry across the street at the University of Toronto. If one reads what was said in 1923 and 1924, going through the Kennedy report in 1947 and the Brodie report in 1967 right up to the most recent, the Armson report in 1975 and 1976, this ministry now is embarking for the first time upon a plan that will make the licence holder responsible for reforestation, regeneration and silvicultural practices and the government will pick up the cost of that management at the taxpayers' expense.

I want to ask the minister whether there will be a sufficient commitment, not only by this ministry but also by this government in concert, I hope, with the federal government, which is the beneficiary of 40 per cent of all the tax revenues as a result of the exploitation of our forests. They take in a fair bundle of the $4 billion in taxes that are generated by forestry resources and our exploitation of them each year.

If one goes into this book, one will see that there was a sort of half-hearted commitment by the federal government from time to time through the Canadian Forestry Service. Then in 1956 and 1957 they said, "No, it is primarily a provincial responsibility," and they withdrew a lot of the funding for their activities, particularly in the field of research. That is unfortunate, because more important than any other single factor, if we read what dedicated professional foresters are saying now, including J. W. B. Sisam in his book, is the kind of research that is required for us to pick up the backlog of indifference and neglect over the past 40 or 50 years.

I know the minister reads every word that people like Ken Greaves say from time to time. I know he reads Forest Scene, and in the most recent issue there is a diatribe by Mr. Greaves that I have taken exception to and I am sure the minister has on occasion. He has probably not been as vocal or as strident as I have found it necessary to be, but if the minister is going to be credible as the one person more responsible for turning our act around with regard to good forest management, he is going to have to become much more vocal, much more up front, much more straightforward, and he is going to have to put the facts on the table.

He might incur the wrath of people such as Ken Greaves, but so be it; it has to be done. I cannot do it all myself. I do not know of anybody out there who is trying to put some perspective on the state of the forest industry.

Mr. Greaves says that as a result of the minister's land use planning under the strategic land use plan, he is "in a fair way to remove an additional 24,000 square miles, including over 5,000 square miles recently taken from licensed crown lands, from Ontario's productive forests and could curtail existing forest operations in Ontario and threaten all future development in this sector.

He added that the forest products industry is presently permitted to operate in only 26 per cent of the forests of Ontario. What nonsense. He estimates that this additional removal from the productive forest land could cost the province $64 billion. That is the price of pretty nearly 128 Suncors, and by the minister designating some nature reserves in Ontario those very actions are going to mean a reduction of revenues to this province of $64 billion.

4:10 p.m.

What bloody nonsense. The minister will know, if he talks to his people in the parks branch, as I have, that there are about 20,000 square miles of all the land and water base in Ontario dedicated to a variety of parks such as wilderness, natural and environmental, and small nature reserves. That is about four per cent of the total land and water base in Ontario -- 20,000 square miles -- and we have roughly 134 parks in Ontario.

The minister will know that the largest park in Ontario, totalling 9,300 square miles of that 20,000, is Polar Bear Provincial Park. It is away up in the northeast corner of Ontario where James Bay meets Hudson Bay. It takes up almost half the total area in Ontario that is dedicated to parks.

If Mr. Greaves and his friends suggest that is merchantable timber land, and if he wants to go up there and exploit those values, I think he should run down to the minister's office and ask for the right to harvest it.

It calls into question the credibility of people who presume to speak for the forest industry in Ontario when they make nonsensical statements such as he has made and expect to be credible with anybody who is at all knowledgeable about forestry in Ontario.

Three thousand of the 20,000 square miles are in Algonquin Park. Mr. Greaves does not bother to say that we have had a forestry authority in Algonquin Park since the middle of the 1970s. I think it was about 1974 or 1975 that it was set up. We have an excellent forestry authority there that is cutting timber values on a very restricted basis. There is 25 per cent of the total area, I think, that is dedicated to a completely wilderness area, and there is very selective cutting on the other 75 per cent.

So one adds those 3,000 miles to the 9,300 miles that are up in Polar Bear park, and the remainder is much less than half of the 20,000 square miles that the government currently has dedicated to parks in Ontario.

The government has 1,700 square miles in Quetico Provincial Park. We had an advisory committee that travelled around the province for two years to make recommendations to this minister's predecessor three times removed, the Honourable René Brunelle. After we heard about 3,000 submissions across the province, and on the advice of people in the ministry, we were assured there was sufficient timber outside the park that we did not have to violate the park, that we could be assured of timber for the mills on the periphery of the park and that there would be wood in perpetuity. So they were chased out of the park.

But because of the forest resource inventory, upon which this ministry was basing all its decisions, it had no business making that commitment to the operating company in the area, which happened to be Domtar which operated the Sapawe mill at the time. They really did not know what was available.

What was the upshot of that decision? Domtar, which had an antiquated mill, was going to have to come up with $3 million or $4 million to upgrade the mill and make it competitive with newer mills. It was going to have to be assured of guaranteed volumes of timber to make it viable to invest $3 million or $4 million to upgrade it and make it competitive. It could not find it.

The ministry could not find them any additional timber. It was not able to make a deal with the other major licence holder in the area, Great Lakes Forest Products. What did it do? It started looking around, and it looked at the Fort William management unit and the now-famous Port Arthur crown management unit. That is how Mr. MacAlpine got himself into difficulty. When he was asked to recommend the issuance of a licence to Buchanan Forest Products to keep the Sapawe mill going, he said: "The data we have on hand is insufficient. It is inconclusive and I cannot, in all good conscience, recommend the issuance of a licence based on the outdated data I have."

When he asked for sufficient time and sufficient human resources to do a forest resource inventory and an operational cruise, he was told: "Never mind about that. You recommend the issuance of a licence." He said: "I am sorry. My reputation as a professional forester is at stake. At least give me sufficient time to gain some knowledge upon which to make a recommendation." As the minister well knows, he was not given that time. He was fired. What did the ministry do, immediately upon firing? It ordered an operational cruise. That is all he was asking for in the first place.

That was almost a year ago. What has happened in the interim? The ministry has completed the operational cruise. It is blending the information that was obtained in that operational cruise with the forest resource inventory. It is my understanding that was completed some time last fall, in October or early November. This is the end of January.

Ten days ago, I telephoned the district manager, and I said, "There is a lot of pressure on me from traditional users in the area that depend on the Port Arthur crown management unit for their livelihood, for their very existence. They want to know whether there is going to be sufficient volumes of timber for them, the traditional users, so they can make some plans for their future, as any good businessman would."

I was advised by the district staff that the work had been completed, that it was going to be forwarded to the regional office and that in due course we would get our answers.

That was the process that caused the problem in the first place. I fired off a letter to the assistant deputy minister last week, reminded him of all the events I have enumerated briefly this afternoon, and said: "All the groundwork has been completed. You have had sufficient time to decide how much wood is there, what the age classes are, what the volumes are, what the species are, and we have a right to know." We still do not have it, and I want to know how long it is going to take to get that information.

Is the ministry waiting until the judicial review comes down as to the future of Mr. MacAlpine? That would be very unfortunate. That has been suggested to me, and I said, "No, I cannot believe that." That information should be public knowledge if the minister wants to do himself a favour and gain the kind of respect a minister of the crown must have if he is to be credible, particularly in the field of forestry, which is of great importance not only to people in northwestern Ontario but also to literally every resident in Ontario.

4:20 p.m.

I did a critique on what the president of the Ontario Forest Industries Association said in a recent speech in Ottawa. I also did a critique on what two respected foresters said about the shortage of long fibre in northwestern Ontario and what these proposals for parks are going to mean in terms of a shortage of timber. I will not go on at great length, I have provided the minister with a copy of it and I hope he will react to it.

I want to follow up what my colleague the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) said. I have a letter which the commissioner of the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment wrote to the Premier (Mr. Davis) on December 17, asking him to intervene and to make sure the minister did not implement the provisions of the West Patricia district land use plan. After having read this I must say I have a little more empathy than I ever had before for the position that has been taken of late by the commissioner. I just wish he had done it two years earlier. It would have been much more believable.

He writes to our colleague the Minister of the Environment as follows:

"Dear Mr. Norton:

"Today I delivered my interim recommendations concerning the Ministry of Natural Resources' planning activities in Ontario north of 50 degrees latitude to the Honourable William G. Davis, Premier of Ontario. This recommendation reads as follows:

"'That all land use planning processes affecting Ontario north of the 50th latitude be deferred and not terminated or closed in any way and that the product of the Ministry of Natural Resources' planning activities and land use plans not be finalized until my findings and recommendations are released in the form of a public report and have been considered by your government."

That is what the commissioner told the Minister of the Environment he has asked of this minister. He also wrote a letter to the Minister of Natural Resources saying essentially the same thing, but he shared with us the notion that he wants to meet with the minister or senior members of his staff at the earliest possible date to answer specifically a number of questions. He said:

"The following questions were selected from a document dated November 24, 1982, entitled the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment to the Minister of Natural Resources, which were read into the record at a hearing at Ear Falls on December 2."

I am not going to read any of those questions. I simply want to ask the minister how he proposes to respond to those very legitimate questions the commissioner poses. My only regret is that he did not pose those questions, which were quite obvious to all of us, even two years ago.

I do not know how the Premier responded to Mr. Fahlgren about his request that the Minister of Natural Resources defer any decision or release of his report specifically on the West Patricia land use plan. I am not aware of any response or commitment from the Premier to commissioner Fahlgren, or what the nature of the response to him was from either himself or the Minister of Northern Affairs.

Everybody who is involved with planning, land use, resource development and the social, economic and environmental consequences of that kind of development, and we who are in the north and are called upon from time to time to answer these questions, have a right to know what the minister is saying.

That gets me to the final point I want to make, which is the right to know. I wish to echo the sentiments expressed earlier by my colleague the member for Nickel Belt regarding the fishing agreement.

I would be less than honest and straightforward if I did not say right here that I was one of the members in this House who were more vocal than any others in urging the minister to come to grips with this very serious and vexing problem that has raised its ugly head literally right across the province. It was not much more than a year and a half ago when it was a very serious problem down in Moraviantown in southwestern Ontario. There was another very serious altercation that led to charges in the Treaty 3 area up around Kenora.

Some members of the House are agonizing and wondering what they should say to tourist operators when they come to ask them about the fishing agreement and when they are talking to the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters about this agreement. I do not know where they have been all these years not to have recognized that this was a very serious problem. It is something that a number of Ministers of Natural Resources had been dealing with over the years.

If one looks at what the minister has said, perhaps rather badly on occasion or not as fully as he might have, the agreement formalizes what most of us who have cared a darn generally perceive to be the treaty and aboriginal rights conferred upon native people.

It is all very well for sports writers for Metropolitan Toronto papers to blow it up out of all proportion and say, "The Minister of Natural Resources has given the right to any native person in any of the 250,000 lakes in Ontario to get out his dynamite and to go out there and exploit the fishery for his own good." That has been said by so-called, well-respected writers of the outdoor community. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As far as I can understand from the agreement there will be no more than 50 lakes out of 250,000 lakes where there will be a zoning process where the traditional rights for native people to fish will remain with them. Where traditionally there has been a sharing of the resource on a particular lake, that too will be formalized in the agreement.

The most important part of the agreement, to my mind, is the stipulation that if and when the agreement is signed with the federal government and becomes a tripartite agreement, it puts the responsibility on our first citizens of monitoring and enforcing the agreement on an ongoing basis, something we have never had in traditional native fishing areas.

It puts the responsibility on them of becoming well informed about the Fisheries Act, which is a Canadian act, and about the Ontario Game and Fish Act and regulations, and it makes them responsible, along with traditional conservation officers in Ontario, for the good management and conservation of that resource and for the enforcement of the regulations dealing with it.

4:30 p.m.

I think that is a real step forward, and I just hope any member of this Legislature from whatever party, when asked a question about it by the 40,000-member Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters or by the tourist groups in Ontario, will take the time to sit down and read the agreement, although all of the i's are not dotted and all of the t's are not crossed. I even suggest that the Minister of Northern Affairs should sit down and read the agreement.

I do not think I am telling any tales out of school, but I attended a meeting over in the Whitney Block the day before the agreement was signed in Ottawa by this minister, the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Henderson) and the native people in Ontario and I was absolutely shocked to find out how many of the ministers who were there denied any knowledge of even the existence of this very important document.

I am not saying they were being dishonest or anything like that, but I find it inconceivable there would be ministers at the meeting, whether in the Justice policy field, the Resources Development policy field or the Social Development policy field, who would not be aware of the existence of that document and of all the very careful negotiations and all of the liaison they say goes on with their superministries and all of the relevant policy fields.

I find it inconceivable that even one cabinet minister would not be aware of the very existence of that document. They may not have known all the details of it, but since it did have cabinet approval, I am told, and since it certainly had the approval of the policy field, I find it inconceivable how anyone, certainly a member of the executive council, could lay claim to having had no advance knowledge.

I want to commend the Minister of Natural Resources for the initiative he has taken for the first time in many years to come to grips with an issue that is so important and so basic if we are going to prove to our first citizens that we are at least minimally concerned about native rights. This was a commitment that was ma