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January 4, 1988

34th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L032 - Mon 4 Jan 1988 / Lun 4 jan 1988

WRIT OF ELECTION

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

HOSPITAL SERVICES

ONTARIO PLACE

NIKITA MARNER

SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS

WORLD JUNIOR HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP

FUTURES PROGRAM

WORLD JUNIOR HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

PRA INTERNATIONAL INC.

RESPONSES

PRA INTERNATIONAL INC.

ORAL QUESTIONS

PRA INTERNATIONAL INC.

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES

PRA INTERNATIONAL INC.

FIRESTONE CANADA INC.

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES

IDEA CORP.

COUGH SYRUP

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

EMPLOYMENT ADJUSTMENT

BARRIE JAIL

PRA INTERNATIONAL INC.

EMERGENCY TELEPHONE NUMBER

SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS

ANSWER TO QUESTION IN ORDERS AND NOTICES

ORDERS OF THE DAY

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES (CONTINUED)

The House met at 1:30 p.m.

Prayers.

WRIT OF ELECTION

Mr. Speaker: I beg to inform the House that a vacancy has occurred in the membership of the House by reason of the resignation of Ronald George Van Horne, Esq., as member for the electoral district of London North, effective midnight, Thursday, December 31, 1987. Accordingly, I have issued my warrant to the chief election officer for the issue of a writ of election for the said electoral district.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

HOSPITAL SERVICES

Mr. Breaugh: I rise today on something that is really quite unusual, a front-page story in the Toronto Star today about a Bowmanville mother who was taken to Toronto East General Hospital to deliver triplets, in this instance, and thence was flown to Kingston General Hospital.

I know the Kingston General Hospital is a fine hospital, but this is truly a most bizarre situation that has arisen. The statements from both the minister and the minister’s parliamentary assistant seem confused, to be polite about it. There seems to be no public reason given for this rather bizarre set of circumstances.

One cannot imagine why someone would be turned away from a hospital in Toronto and flown then to Kingston General Hospital. Are there problems in the downtown Toronto hospitals that we are not aware of? Are there problems in all the other fine hospitals in and around Metro, including the Oshawa General Hospital, that they cannot handle this?

It certainly does appear to reflect what the parents are quoted in the story as saying, that the hospital is open from Monday to Friday, but on weekends it is closed and the nearest available one is in Kingston. This is truly one of the most bizarre medical instances that I have seen as a member here. I anticipate we will get a statement today from the Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) with a full explanation of the circumstances surrounding this case.

ONTARIO PLACE

Mr. McLean: My statement is for the Minister of Tourism and Recreation (Mr. O’Neil). I was dismayed to learn from his ministry’s annual report that attendance fell by some 14 per cent this year at Ontario Place and that Toronto’s waterfront tourist attraction lost nearly $900,000, even after his government doled out about $4.9 million worth of operating and capital grants. The annual report indicates that without the provincial grant, Ontario Place losses on day-to-day operations would have been a staggering $4.1 million this year.

It was right that the government got involved in setting up this innovative form of attraction 15 years ago, but it is also right that the government should be considering selling this losing facility to the private sector so the taxpayers will not have to continue pumping millions of dollars into it annually. I believe public funds were used wisely to establish Ontario Place, which served as a catalyst for waterfront development in Toronto and provided entertainment and recreation opportunities for visitors throughout Ontario and the United States.

But attendance has steadily declined and that decline will probably worsen when the Toronto Argonauts and the Toronto Blue Jays move from Exhibition Stadium to the new domed stadium in 1989.

Ontario Place could be sold to the private sector for $100 million or more and the proceeds divided equally among 10 Ontario municipalities that could develop theme parks of their own to attract tourists and boost their local economies. The time is right to consider letting the private sector run Ontario Place. I think the minister should give that serious consideration.

NIKITA MARNER

Mr. Faubert: I rise today to pay tribute to Nikita Marner, who passed away Sunday, December 27, 1987. Mr. Marner, a Scarborough artist, was one of Canada’s most talented painters and was, and is, an inspiration to all Canadians. He will be greatly missed by those who knew him personally as well as those who enjoyed his art.

Born in England to parents of Russian background, Mr. Marner emigrated to Canada in 1960. He trained as an architect and worked full-time at that occupation until 10 years ago when he devoted his full time to painting. Mr. Marner possessed the gift of being able to capture the essence of life in his works. As all great artists, he will indeed live on through the art he has left for all Canadians to enjoy, and future generations will come to know of his passion and generous spirit.

The legacy which he leaves for all of us reflects the spirit of this country. His paintings of Scarborough, downtown Toronto, rural Ontario, the east coast and the Arctic are examples of this legacy. He also painted in the West Indies, Mexico, the United States, Europe and China. The Chinese were so impressed with his art that they invited him to return for a three-month teaching term. One of his most celebrated works was a 1986 series on the street people of Toronto. He spent months in the hostels and on park benches to better capture the hopelessness and despair of those living in the streets.

In 1984, Mr. Marner earned the city of Scarborough civic award of merit for his striking style and emotional approach to art. He was a teacher at the Cedar Ridge Creative Centre and artist in residence at two Scarborough secondary schools. It is a privilege and an honour to have known him.

SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS

Mr. Breaugh: Those of us who are interested in housing and the homeless welcomed the New Year’s Day statement by His Eminence Cardinal Carter to have the entire Catholic Church get involved, each of the parishes finding its own resolution to this problem. We have watched with admiration as the United Church and many other church groups saw this as part of their social obligation, not just during an international year of shelter for the homeless, but all through the history of Ontario.

What would make it an extremely good start for this new year would be to see the province of Ontario now officially say it will look for initiatives from church groups and service groups across Ontario, some of which may well have land but cannot afford to develop that land to provide housing for low-income groups, for single-parent families, for the homeless. It would be nice now to see the government of Ontario devise new programs which would, in effect, make all of those good intentions become reality as quickly as possible.

We are aware that around Ontario there are a number of church groups which do have facilities that, with some moneys from the government of Ontario, could be converted into providing decent housing. We know they have now clearly stated their public intention to try to do that. The missing link in all of this is to see the province do the role that a government ought to do, provide the financial incentive and the expertise to make this something that is really worth while and to do so on a large scale.

WORLD JUNIOR HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP

Mr. Harris: I am delighted to comment briefly on the world junior hockey championship won by Canada today. It is the second world championship won by Canada in two months -- a second gold medal by Canadians. again right in Moscow.

Again, as I noted in my comments on the Isvestia championship last month, it is a time to consider how we think of ourselves and what other nations think about Canada as a nation. In so many areas, we are clearly the best in the world.

In the hockey tournament, we beat West Germany, we beat the Russians, we beat Czechoslovakia, we beat Sweden. We beat the Americans, and today we beat Poland 9-1 to win the world championship. Today these young Canadians have proven we are the best in the world, and this is only one example.

Many people have commented during the free trade debate about how we as Canadians view ourselves. Those who oppose this deal often portray Canada as an insignificant power. They say we cannot compete. Those who favour this deal, both inside and outside Canada, know we can be the best in the world in so many areas and that, in fact, we are the best in the world. This is how other nations view us in so many ways as well.

The members of my party offer hearty congratulations to our junior Canadians and share the pride that all Canadians feel today.

On a personal note, I want to put it on the record that the people of North Bay already knew our junior team was the best in the world. Coach Bert Templeton proved that last year. This year we brought home the gold.

FUTURES PROGRAM

Mr. Adams: There are fears in Peterborough that special youth employment and training programs such as Futures are at risk under so-called free trade. The argument is that such programs will be viewed as hidden subsidies.

Futures is a provincial employment subsidy program that helps integrate less-advantaged youth into the workforce. It allows young people with minimal qualifications to build work skills and experience. One assumption behind Futures is that the young in our society are particularly hard hit by the pace of technological and other change. Also, this is a group which can be scarred for life by the ravages of unemployment.

In essence, Futures is designed to permit young people to gain a foothold on the employment playing field, a playing field which, far from being level, is often tilted against them. This is a home-grown response to the problems of youth unemployment in Ontario, something we should be proud of. Far from being an unfair subsidy in some abstract concept of free trade, it is a small but effective move towards social justice, which also has the effect of making Ontario’s workforce more competitive.

In the Peterborough area alone, Futures has already given more than 1,000 young people a boost towards productive careers. This is not a nontariff barrier. Better, it is a humane effort to keep Ontario competitive.

WORLD JUNIOR HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP

Mr. Breaugh: I just want to join the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris) in congratulating the Canadian junior hockey team. We have some boys from the Oshawa Generals there. There is even a kid from Napanee, Rob Brown. From all the members of our caucus and, I am sure, all the members of the assembly, congratulations to a junior hockey team that this year did it right.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

PRA INTERNATIONAL INC.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I would like to respond to the question raised in the Legislature last Thursday concerning a company known as PRA International Inc. The company manufactured laser equipment in London, Ontario, until it went into receivership in May 1987. However, this company had received funds from the government since 1979. I am satisfied that the allegations of the leader of the third party of impropriety by the government on this investment are unfounded.

PRA International Inc. has had an active involvement with the Ontario government dating back to 1979. In 1979, Photochemical Research Associates Inc., a predecessor company of PRA International Inc., was awarded a grant of $300,000 under the then employment development fund, but the company utilized only part of the funds. In 1980, the company was awarded an Ontario Development Corp. export support loan of $250,000. In 1981, Photochemical Research Associates Inc. received a grant of $300,000 under the employment development fund.

In October 1983, the company submitted its first application to IDEA Corp. IDEA rejected the application for commercial reasons. In September 1984, PRA made a new application to IDEA Corp., and IDEA reassessed its view of the company.

I would like to quote from the minutes of IDEA’s management committee meeting of December 19 and 20, 1984:

“A senior IDEA official reported that this proposal of PRA International Inc. had been declined by IDEA in the past, but that since that time there had been a significant management turnaround and that the business was also starting to turn around. The management committee agreed to move the proposal of PRA International Inc. to priority review, possible investment.”

The key decision that this company be given priority status for investment was made by IDEA in December 1984. IDEA Corp. took this decision in accordance with the mandate established by the previous government. This subsequently led to the actual investment of $1.5 million in October 1985.

In May 1985, the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt), then Minister of Industry and Trade, signed an agreement approving the new corporate structure and permitting the new company, PRA International Inc., to assume the obligations under the employment development fund grant agreement to which I have previously referred. Orville Parkes, president of PRA International Inc., also signed that agreement.

By early fall 1985, the company showed a small profit. In October 1985, IDEA Corp. approved an equity investment of $1.5 million. In December 1985, the Ontario Development Corp. authorized an increase of its export support loan to $500,000 from the previous line of $250,000. The export support loan was fully repaid in August 1987. As of today, the total outstanding debt to the Ontario government under the EDF program of $300,000 remains. The equity investment of $1.5 million is lost.

Members will recall that the Ontario Develop-ment Corp. assumed responsibility for the investment portfolio of IDEA Corp. on July 1, 1986. Since assuming responsibility, ODC has actively supervised the PRA investment. Within two weeks, a senior ODC staff official was nominated to PRA’s board of directors. Other departments within ODC associated with the export support loan and EDF programs also tracked the company’s progress, and all decisions regarding the government’s investments in the company were made at the senior management level of ODC and were solely based on commercial considerations.

Unfortunately, the commercial prospects of PRA International changed significantly in early 1986, and at the request of the company’s directors, a major chartered bank appointed a receiver in May 1987.

I would like to inform the Legislature that the Premier (Mr. Peterson) received a letter dated April 16, 1987, from Mr. Parkes, who had been president of the reorganized company since October 1983. He requested $500,000 in financial assistance. The Premier routinely acknowledged this letter and referred the matter to the then Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, the member for Quinte (Mr. O’Neil), who referred it to ODC for consideration in view of ODC’s responsibility for the IDEA portfolio. ODC declined to provide further assistance.

I will table today key correspondence and other related information on this transaction. I have also asked the Provincial Auditor to conduct a detailed review of the matter. Members will be aware that the auditor has access to all government files. Additionally, staff will be instructed to assist him in every way possible. The auditor will doubtless wish to consult with all officials involved as he conducts his review.

I recognize also the general concern members have about the entire IDEA matter. Accordingly, I am asking the auditor to conduct a complete review of the IDEA Corp. including the work being performed by Mr. Biddell and any relevant police information, to conduct interviews with all relevant officials and to identify any issues he thinks merit the attention of the House or its committees. Again, every single document in the government’s possession will be made available to him and all relevant staff will be accessible to him at his convenience.

I have asked the Provincial Auditor to review this on a priority basis and to forward his full report to the Legislature as soon as possible.

RESPONSES

PRA INTERNATIONAL INC.

Mr. Philip: IDEA Corp. has written off some $19.4 million of the taxpayers’ money. Whatever statement the minister may make, he cannot remove the fact that $16.7 million has come about under this administration, not under the previous Conservative administration.

If you look at the announcement made today by the minister, he says that the company has been in fact receiving government funds since 1979. The fact of the matter is that the majority of the funds that have been lost have been lost under this government and have in fact come after the announcement by the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) in October 1985 that IDEA Corp. would be phased down.

The minister later goes on to say that a letter dated April 16, 1987, from Mr. Parkes, who had been the president of the reorganized company, came to the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and that the Premier in turn sent it or referred it to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. Kwinter), who in turn then referred it to IDEA Corp.

One must ask, how incompetent can this government be that it announces very much earlier the doing away of the corporation, a corporation that the Premier himself said was a boondoggle and a loss to the taxpayers, and then refers requests for still more money after these announcements and after these policy decisions to wind down the corporation have been made?

If you look at what has been requested now of the auditor, there is a request that he look into the matter. It is fairly clear that the government has not had the courage to ask for a complete forensic audit by the auditor. If it had wanted to get to the bottom of this, it would have asked for a forensic audit that could have traced exactly where the money was spent, where it went.

Remember that this is the second of the two major companies that have lost money under this administration where there are very strong suspicions that some of the money, some of the assets, some of the software has disappeared outside the country. Surely the minister should have the courage to ask for a complete forensic audit that could be reported back to the Legislature, so that we could get at the bottom of this kind of waste and squandering of the taxpayers’ money.

This is not the problem of the previous government, it is the problem of this government, a government that said IDEA Corp. is finished and that did not have the management skills either to convey or to enforce on its crown corporation its intention, which was announced by the Treasurer.

We have had yet another corporation that has gone down the drain-$1.5 million. That amounts to almost $10 million on three corporations alone under this government, three corporations loaned $10 million that has been lost under this government’s direction after it announced that it would stop this kind of nonsense. I say disgrace on them.

Mr. Brandt: I would like to endorse the comments made by my colleague the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale (Mr. Philip). He has very succinctly summed up some of the problems that we have concerns about as they relate to IDEA Corp.

Specifically relating to the minister’s statement, I would like to call the attention of the House to one of the dates, October 1983, when IDEA Corp. rejected the application of the restructured company for further funding from IDEA Corp. It was within a year and a half after this that the additional funds were granted to IDEA Corp. by the new government.

In the minister’s chronological order of events as they relate to this company, he slipped in a comment with respect to a former Minister of Industry and Trade -- namely, myself -- and he elicited a fair amount of support and applause from the members opposite as it relates to my involvement with this particular firm. I think I should call the attention of the House to the fact that at that particular time the minister’s involvement was simply to approve of the restructuring of the company, not to grant additional money to that particular firm.

It is also interesting to note that virtually every sum of money that was granted to that company from 1979 to 1983, virtually all of those moneys, was recovered. The amount outstanding -- namely, the $1.5 million that we brought to the attention of this House -- took place under the approval of and under the term of the current government and had nothing to do with IDEA Corp. in its previous administration.

What is interesting about the minister’s release today is the items that he has left out of the report, which are also relevant to the granting of the $1.5 million. As an example, he has made no mention whatever of the fact that this company, just prior to the granting of this $1.5 million, was fined some $25,000 for having inappropriate business activities with the Soviet Union at that particular time.

In addition, he has not mentioned the fact that one of the key scientists, who was literally the pillar upon which this company was being constructed, rather unexpectedly died during that same time frame and that changed the nature and the direction and the strength of that company very significantly, since he was probably the leading edge of the technology that was being developed by that firm at that particular time.

Where the minister indicates that in 1983 there was a somewhat better attitude, if you will, towards IDEA and that the company had restructured and improved itself, it would appear that there were reasons to believe the company had also slipped back considerably.

I will have some additional comments to make with respect to this item in questions that I want to raise directly with the minister and with the Premier a little further on in question period, but I want to say by way of closing that an auditor’s report as it relates to IDEA Corp. and this deal specifically, after all the time that has passed now related to Wyda Systems, related to Graham Software and related now to the corporation under question here in the House, is simply not acceptable to the members of the opposition.

We are looking for far more than some auditor’s report which will not get into the relevant details as to what went on, how these moneys were in fact forwarded to these respective companies, and how IDEA Corp. got into the mess that it is in today, of some $20 million in moneys unpaid back to the government.

ORAL QUESTIONS

PRA INTERNATIONAL INC.

Mr. Philip: I have a question of the Premier. As I mentioned, he will be aware that IDEA Corp. has lost $19.4 million and that $16.7 million was lost while his Liberal government was in power. The Premier will also be aware that the three major corporations that lost this money, Graham Software, Wyda Systems and now PRA International, have cost the taxpayers close to $10 million and indeed, in the case of the last two companies, some of the moneys may well be outside the country.

Today the government announced that it will ask the Provincial Auditor to look into this. Will the Premier do what his government refused to do in the case of Wyda, when the auditor wrote to him and asked for a forensic audit, and use his powers under the Audit Act to request a complete forensic audit under the supervision of the Provincial Auditor so that we can find out where the moneys were spent and, in the case of PRA International, where the money is now and how much may still be left in Canada?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: My understanding of the intention of the honourable minister’s statement today is to look into all aspects of the situation, all details, talk to all relevant persons and look at all relevant documents and all aspects of IDEA Corp.

The Provincial Auditor is a servant of this House and will be reporting to the honourable member as well as to me. If my honourable friend has specific things that he thinks the auditor should be looking at, if he wants to write him or convey to him his ideas of things he would like him to look at, I am sure he would take that into account. I think that would be most helpful. I agree with my honourable friend that every single fact should come out through this servant of the Legislature.

Mr. Philip: I take it from the Premier’s statement that he is saying to the Provincial Auditor, “Yes, I am calling for a forensic audit; you may hire whatever outside consultants are necessary to do that kind of specialized inquiry, not just a normal inquiry by the Provincial Auditor and his staff.” Do I take it that is what the Premier is promising the House today?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Absolutely.

Mr. Philip: In October 1985, the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) announced that IDEA Corp. would be wound down. Later, in February 1986, the announcement of the wind-down was made again and June 30, 1986, was set as the date.

Can the Premier explain to the House how we have evidence of yet another corporation which, following the announcements and the policy decision by this government that the corporation would be folded, that he would cut his losses, that he would stop the boondoggle -- which I believe are his words -- why it was that his directions and the directions of this government were so poorly conveyed to IDEA Corp. that IDEA Corp. could spend money on all of these corporations, the last one of which we have just been considering today? Why would that happen, if the Premier were properly at the helm of the ship?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: When we came into office, we decided -- I cannot give the member the precise date, but it was very shortly thereafter -- to look at all aspects of the IDEA Corp. IDEA Corp., as my honourable friend will be aware, has been plagued by management problems and a number of other problems. We sent in someone to look at all aspects of that. IDEA was carrying on. It was a board constituted by the other government. The chairman was then, I think, lan Macdonald, a former deputy minister of the Treasury and someone who was well-known to the previous government.

He was in charge under that current order in council and his management team, Mr. Blakley and other people, were involved there.

I understand that what happened -- and I am not trying to defend this, because I say to my honourable friend in all candour that in retrospect I wish we had chopped it the very first day -- was that there was certain work in process, as I understand it. For example, this particular PRA International situation was work in process, as my colleague the minister has pointed out to the member. There were certain things going on, certain work being done, just as today, for example, we still have certain assets of the IDEA Corp. under administration, trying to salvage those assets. IDEA has been wound up.

It is in the hands of the Ontario Development Corp., which has been audited. We are trying to do the best we can with the circumstances, but I think the operating principle at the time was that work in process, those files that had been taken into account and were being worked on, were going to be worked out to their logical conclusion.

The sense was -- again, judgement will be passed on this -- that it would be unfair just to chop it absolutely without winding down the corporation in an orderly way. It was in that period, I think my honourable friend would agree, that some investments were made that obviously, in retrospect, were not wise investments; but as I understand it, no new responsibilities were taken on, no new work was taken on in that period, it was just winding down the portfolio it had at the time.

That would seem to be the most commercially viable and indeed fair way to conduct the affairs of IDEA Corp. while it was undergoing that review. We came to the conclusion at the end of the review that it should be wound up, and that is exactly --

Mr. Speaker: Order. New question.

Mrs. Grier: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley). I understand he is expected. If that is still the case, I will stand down my question.

Mr. Speaker: I believe your request was to stand down your question. Is that agreeable?

Agreed to.

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES

Mr. Brandt: My question is to the Premier. It is related to the historic document that was signed on January 2 by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada.

Mr. Breaugh: Why were we not sitting on January 2? We missed that day.

Mr. Brandt: It is an important day, I realize. I was waiting with anticipation to see if the agreement would be signed.

In light of the fact that the signing has now taken place, and in light of the fact that this House has been tied up in debate for some number of weeks now on a resolution which some of us feel was inappropriate in the sense that it was brought forward at the 11th hour and brought forward in a manner we find somewhat out of sorts with the way in which this House conducts its business, would the Premier now withhold this resolution until the standing committee on finance and economic affairs has had an opportunity to discuss the entire free trade agreement and reports back to the House with its findings?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I appreciate my honourable friend’s suggestion, but the answer to his question is no. Let me tell him why.

My honourable friend would argue that we brought forward the resolution at the 11th hour. The reality is that the free trade agreement was brought forward at the 11th hour. My friend was quite prepared to stand up and support it even prior to seeing the agreement on December 11, but he was prepared to stand up and extol its virtues and indeed prepared to give it his unequivocal support, even though he did not know what was in it, which is fine.

But then, I say to my honourable friend, as soon as we had that agreement we introduced a resolution in the House and started the debate. I believe it was fair for the Prime Minister and others to know the Ontario government’s position on this matter. We have conveyed the government’s opinion, but I think it is important as well to convey the Legislature’s opinion. There are lots of people who are concerned about this debate who will be reading the contributions of the various members, his party included, and who will want to know how he feels about this situation. I think they have every right to so do.

We have started this debate as we said we would do. We have also allowed the committee to investigate it even further. This is a major issue, as my honourable friend knows, and I think it deserves a lot of attention. We on this side of the House look forward again to the thoughtful contributions made by him and the members of his party, as well as by all members of this Legislature.

Mr. Brandt: As the Premier is well aware, the arrangement that was agreed to by the House leaders did not call for a debate in this House but in fact for referral to the committee. The committee was then going to study the free trade agreement in detail and report back to the House, following which we would have a debate here in the House with respect to the positions we were going to take respectively on the free trade matter. However, we do have a basic and fundamental disagreement on how all of that particular matter unfolded.

Let me just remind the Premier that now we do not have six and three quarter premiers, as he has stated so often in this House, in favour of a free trade agreement. We now in fact have seven tall premiers, all full-size premiers, all elected appropriately in their respective provinces. As a matter of interest to him in his former profession, we also have 70 per cent of the lawyers in this country who have now indicated that they support a free trade agreement --

Mr. Harris: That is the one thing that worries me.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. Brandt: -- gentlemen who are educated in the law and who have in fact reviewed the details of the agreement and have found it not to be wanting, as he has suggested.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Hon. Mr. Scott: How many funeral directors support it?

Mr. Brandt: Is the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) putting down the proud profession that he was at one --

Hon. Mr. Scott: Not at all. I want to know where they stand on this issue. I thought you might know.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Was that your supplementary?

Mr. Brandt: My supplementary is simply this. With all the various indications we have from right across this country, with seven premiers now very solidly in support of the free trade agreement, will the Premier do the right and proper thing and refer this entire matter to the committee and not attempt to get a resolution in this House prior to study by the finance committee?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I do not want to be unkind to members of my former profession -- I guess I am still a member of that profession -- but I think that survey I read about as well, showing 70 per cent of the lawyers support it, clearly confirms that we are right on this side of the House. I read that

article and a lot of the lawyers are in favour of it. As I read the article, and the member will correct me if I am wrong, I think they were not very happy with the deal but a lot of them saw a lot of money in it with a lot of companies moving south and a lot of commercial work in it. Whether it appealed to their higher instincts or their lower instincts, I have no idea, but I think that survey said a lot were not particularly happy with some of the aspects of the deal.

I say to my honourable friend that I do not think this government can ever want to be guided by lawyers, whether it is a majority or not. I understand that my colleague the Premier of Nova Scotia came the other quarter of the way a couple of days ago and is now fully supportive. There are no surprises in that to me. I guess where I disagree with my honourable friend opposite -- he is now into taking polls on this matter or taking head counts on this matter -- is that I do not believe --

Mr. Brandt: And you are not?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: No, we are not, as a matter of fact. We have stood resolute on this matter. We have put forward our view in a thoughtful and forceful way and it does not depend on whether the lawyers, the doctors, the funeral directors or the music teachers are on side, because this is too important for this country, now and in the future, just to submit it to some poll.

Mr. Brandt: No one’s opinion is relevant but the Premier’s. His is the only opinion that counts in this House. Because he has taken a position on this particular matter, he feels that is all that counts. All of the other premiers and all of the other groups and organizations that have indicated their support are of no relevance to the Premier.

Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, why we on this side of the House have some difficulty in accepting the Premier’s position. He has consistently promised us that he will provide us with the government’s reports, the data, the information that he has garnered as a result of his studies, through the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology and other ministries of the government, that are relevant to the free trade deal.

Since he has not provided us with that information, would he in fact table that information as soon as possible -- hopefully, this week? I would imagine he has had an opportunity to peruse it and he has based his decision upon the relevant data that his ministries have been able to provide. Will he make that information available to all members of this House by tabling it so that the standing committee on finance and economic affairs can study the matter in detail and it in turn can refer its decision and its position on this matter to the House, at which time we can then make an intelligent decision and vote on the matter? The next relevant date is June of this year.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: You mean my friend has made up his mind in the absence of any information? Is that what my friend is telling us? With great respect, his approach is nonsense. We have tabled in this House and shared with others legal opinions, both in Canada and the United States, with respect to the implication of the dispute settlement mechanism, that have come to the conclusion that virtually nothing was achieved for Canada. We are in the process of doing a constitutional audit under the direction of an extremely eminent lawyer whose opinion is valuable on these matters. That will be shared with the member very shortly.

The Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) and the minister have shared information. There is all sorts of information that has been shared with the member. I do not think my friend should get the impression that any secret information is being suppressed in this matter. We are sharing these things with him and are happy to do so. If my friend feels intellectually inadequate because he is not privy to certain kinds of things, I will arrange for briefings with him any time he would like from the relevant officials, or I will even give him one myself if he would so like.

I am sure that if the member sat down and studied the information and listened to some people who have been immersed in this deal as I have for the last couple of years, he would stand up and publicly recant and apologize for taking the position that he has.

Mr. Brandt: Three words in response to that: I doubt it.

Mr. Speaker: New question to which minister?

Mr. Brandt: I will go ahead with my second question. I believe the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) has not arrived yet but I can proceed if you would like, Mr. Speaker. I was going to give the floor back to the official opposition, but I believe I will carry on with your approval.

PRA INTERNATIONAL INC.

Mr. Brandt: My question is with respect to the matter that we discussed briefly earlier today regarding PRA International and the president, Orville Parkes.

In response to my question last week, the Premier indicated that he did not know PRA, nor did he know Mr. Parkes. I accept that as the sort of passing contact we all make in politics, even though Mr. Parkes has subsequently indicated that he was a neighbour of the Premier, that he knew the Premier very well, that he knew the Solicitor General (Mrs. Smith) and that he in fact worked for the husband of the Solicitor General. I accept all that. I am not suggesting to the Premier that there were any improprieties as a result of his having some casual relationship with Mr. Parkes.

However, having said that, I want to ask the Premier why, after some five months in office and after the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) of his government indicated that he was winding down IDEA Corp., his government would proceed with a $1.5-million loan to this particular firm when he had already made it very clear that he was no longer going to keep the operation of IDEA Corp. as a viable entity of the provincial government? Why would he do that?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: My friend makes light of the situation that four years ago Mr. Parkes lived down the street from me. To the best of my knowledge, I have never discussed the matter with him and frankly was not aware that he had that $1.5-million loan at the time my friend mentions. There was, as the honourable minister made public today, some correspondence a couple of years later that I referred on routinely. My honourable friend would want to be most careful if he is trying to draw some implication from some association, because if that is my honourable friend’s intention -- and he is an honourable man -- then he is completely barking up the wrong tree.

I say to my friend that the government did not approve of that $1.5-million loan. It came from IDEA Corp., I believe in October 1985. IDEA Corp., as created by that member’s government, was independent. My honourable friend, as a former minister of the crown, will understand that it did not require cabinet approval, it did not go through the committees, there was no referral to me or to any other minister that I am aware of, or to any other bureaucrat that I am aware of. It was handled completely by IDEA Corp. -- that member’s appointments, not our appointments.

So one of the things that the Provincial Auditor will want to do is to find out from Ian Macdonald, Mr. Blakley and other members of the IDEA board who made this decision, on the basis of an updating, I gather, in the quality of their assessment of that situation prior to our taking office, why they made that decision.

Obviously, in retrospect, it was not a very good decision, but we will want to know the answer to this. I can say to my honourable friend that if there is any suggestion he would want to make -- and I am sure it is unwitting if he were doing so -- that anyone was involved in any political way, it is completely, 100 per cent false.

Mr. Brandt: Let me say to the Premier that in my opening comments, the

preamble before my question, I made it clear that we all have political contacts of some sort or another that we make through life. I am not drawing any direct relationship between the fact that the Premier had a neighbour who ultimately got $1.5 million as necessarily being wrong or inappropriate. I am simply saying that at the time I raised this matter in the House, the Premier indicated that he did not know the individual or that he did not know the company. I accept that. I am not suggesting there was any impropriety there.

However, what does disturb us, and disturbs us very greatly, is the fact that we have a number of corporations that are already under the review of the government through the Ontario Provincial Police investigations that have gone on for well in excess of a year now. We have Wyda Systems Inc., we have Graham Software and now we have another corporation in London which has a loan that was made that has not been repaid, assets that have been disbursed to various banks and also to the United States. We want to get to the bottom of what this is all about.

Since the Premier indicated some time ago, and I quote him directly, “The important thing is to move expeditiously and immediately,” surely well in excess of a year after he made that statement is not moving expeditiously. Will he now move to a judicial inquiry of this entire matter through IDEA Corp. and get to the bottom of what happened with respect to Wyda, Graham Software and now the new corporation in London?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I share with my honourable friend the view that every single aspect of the IDEA Corp. must be made public. Mistakes were obviously made. We should apply our minds to why they were made and who made them. I believe all that information should be made public and that is why we have chosen to do that quickly and expeditiously through the Provincial Auditor, a servant of this House who will report to this House. He will have the full co-operation of everybody in this government and, I assume, in the previous government as well who was involved in the creation of IDEA, in the creation of the board and in a number of those loans.

There were mistakes made. I hope we can at least salvage what we possibly can out of them. I tell my honourable friend that a lot of those assets have been turned over to the Ontario Development Corp. As the minister has said, there is a set-aside for bad loans, and I think the member said a few days ago when he originally raised the question that he understands mistakes being made in the high-technology business.

Some of the assets, they believe at the current time, can be salvaged, but there is a reserve for certain bad debts if they cannot be salvaged, according to prudent ways. We have a feeling now that under the Ontario Development Corp., Mr. MacKinnon, it is in competent hands and those investments are being monitored. As a matter of fact, as I understand it the auditor has looked at the administration of the IDEA assets through the ODC and has come to the conclusion that it is doing the best it can possibly do, but we will revisit all of those questions.

I think all aspects should be looked at expeditiously and objectively. If mistakes are made, then prices have to be paid -- there is no question about that -- but let all the facts come out. I think our approach to this is the most prudent one and the most expeditious in the circumstances.

Mr. Brandt: By way of question, let me offer some assistance to the Premier since he asked for specific suggestions. It is interesting to note that 60 per cent of the entire portfolio of IDEA Corp., some $27 million, was approved during an 18-month period by his government. When the Premier talks about taking over a bad idea from a former government, it is interesting to note that the $27 million was all approved during his term of office and is fully more than double the entire amount of money that was approved by the government during the life of the IDEA Corp., in that 18 short months.

Since most of the deals that have gone sour to this point in time -- Wyda, Graham Software, and now the PRA International in London -- since all of those firms have now gone bankrupt and the assets have been lost to the government of Ontario, the three corporations I have mentioned alone being in excess of $10 million, will the Premier now submit this whole matter to a judicial inquiry, since that is the only way the members of the opposition and others can have some input into the relevant details as to what went wrong with this particular deal?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I think my honourable friend is making one mistake. He is suggesting that our government approved of those loans and that is not the case. The case is they were approved of by IDEA Corp., which was independent, at arm’s length from that corporation. That is why we did not have any approval of those loans and one of the reasons it was closed up.

I say to my honourable friend in all candour, I wish we had axed the thing the day we came in. This has turned out to be a profound embarrassment to all of us in this House, including the people who created the IDEA Corp.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: That is why I want the member to have input. If my honourable friend has evidence or information, I would like him to take that to the Provincial Auditor. I would like his friends opposite, if they have any views for the Provincial Auditor, things he should look at, leads he should follow, then they should do that. But I think the member would share my faith in his independence and in an unimpeachable integrity, so he can bring that report back, not to the government but to this Legislature so that all aspects of it can be studied and members will have all the information.

I am sure my honourable friend would want to be helpful, and if he has information in this matter, particularly as a former minister, or leads that the Provincial Auditor should pursue, he would want to refer that.

In response to the question from my friend the member for Etobicoke-Rexdale (Mr. Philip), I think the Provincial Auditor should have whatever advice he needs, independent of government, to get to the bottom of this situation. I think we can do that expeditiously, have all the facts there, and then people can form their judgements on what went wrong.

FIRESTONE CANADA INC.

Mr. Mackenzie: I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. His deputy minister, Patrick Lavelle, has been quick off the mark to blame Local 113 of the United Rubber Workers Union for the refusal by Cooper Tire and Rubber to buy the Firestone plant in Hamilton. I refer to the articles in the Globe and Mail and the Hamilton Spectator where Lavelle refers to the smoking gun at everybody’s head.

On December 23, Mr. Lavelle called Charlie Scime, the president of the local, demanding acceptance within half an hour of the company’s terms of ignoring seniority and hiring non-Firestone workers. The union, which was never involved in the negotiations, was prepared to make major concessions to allow renegotiation of the contract and to go through the seniority list and decide who could do the jobs. However, the minister’s deputy left no time for the company and the union to come to an agreement.

Is it not true that his deputy minister held a smoking gun to the head of the union and that if the union had been involved in these talks from the beginning, there might have been a better chance of reaching an agreement and saving that plant?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I welcome the member’s question. First, I should say to him that no one has accused the union of doing anything that contributed to the demise of the negotiations.

Mr. D. S. Cooke: Read what Lavelle had to say.

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: Let me tell the member that I met with Charlie Scime and his people on December 22. They had told me that in their opinion things were progressing well and they had every expectation that this deal would be made. As everybody knows, subsequent to that Cooper Tire announced that it had aborted the deal.

I am sure members will know and will want to know that tomorrow morning I am going to Findlay, Ohio, to meet with Cooper to find out what really did happen.

I suggest it is not contributing to the resolution of this problem to be pointing fingers and saying it is their fault or someone else’s fault. No one has said whose fault it is, and we are trying to salvage what is a very difficult situation for the people in Hamilton. I can tell the member that the main thrust of this government is to try to protect those jobs.

Mr. Mackenzie: The minister will know that I had to make a statement in this House on December 10 to get him to meet with the union a month after it had requested a meeting with him. They were not involved in the negotiations at any time. What they were hearing were rumours.

This government has not got a strategy for economic development in protecting jobs in this province and we have not got legislation that requires plant closure justification information which might have allowed a better opportunity for all parties to take a look at this particular situation, find out whether there were any other options, including entrepreneurs who might be interested or an employee buyout. That was not possible.

Is the minister now prepared to tell this House that he will proceed with plant closure justification legislation that he did make a commitment to during the period of the accord in this House?

Hon. Mr. Kwinter: I can tell the member that we are looking at the whole area of what is happening to the industrial restructuring of this economy. We are looking at all those things.

I am sure that in the fullness of time the Minister of Labour (Mr. Sorbara) will bring forward his legislation. I again want to reassure the member that we are doing whatever we can to help those workers, particularly in Hamilton, with various programs that they are participating in. It is this government’s commitment to do what we can for them.

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES

Mrs. Grier: I have a question of the Minister of the Environment and it concerns his attitude towards the Mulroney-Reagan trade deal and the environment.

Last week, in reading Hansard, I see that the minister expressed his concern and acknowledged that there were environmental implications in the deal. This is somewhat at variance with the statement of his federal counterpart, Mr. McMillan, who has said that the pact is simply a trade agreement that does not really concern environmental matters. On the other hand, the federal Minister of Energy has said that in terms of environmental protection, Canada’s interests are fully safeguarded.

In the light of these contradictory statements at the federal level and of the concern that the minister has expressed here in Ontario, can the minister tell the House what studies he has initiated on the impact of the Mulroney-Reagan trade deal on Ontario’s environmental laws and, if there are such studies being done, when they will be tabled in this House?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: If one examines first of all the evidence that is before us and compares the Canadian jurisdictions -- and I can speak only for Ontario -- with most American jurisdictions, it becomes quite obvious to our officials within the ministry that our rules and regulations and our legislation all are somewhat tougher than one would find in most states of the United States. This is why we have that concern.

I have gathered information over some period of time and I am at present gathering from my ministry officials -- l have not commissioned a consultant’s report or anything -- the kind of information that the member, I think appropriately, would like to have available; that is, indicating what the differences are and what kind of pressures we might face.

The member knows that we are implementing a new air pollution regulation, a new water pollution regulation, and that particularly the multinational companies but also other companies are going to want to come to Ontario and to other provinces and the federal government and say: “There are no more tariff barriers left when this free trade agreement is implemented and, therefore, we have to compete head to head with these companies. We do not believe you should move as quickly or as comprehensively.”

As soon as I have compiled all this information, I will be happy to share it with the member and with all members of the House through the estimates process and I think, more important, before that.

Mrs. Grier: I think the information that the minister says he is gathering is more important than just to be gathered within the ministry.

We have had statements from the government on the implications of free trade on a number of sectors of the economy. Surely the environment warrants a specific study and a specific time frame within which it can be tabled in this House so that we will know, in fact, what the implications of this deal are for such regulations as are being devised under the municipal-industrial strategy for abatement or as are being discussed under the green paper on regulation 308 on air pollution. The minister says quite grandly that we have tougher regulations than anywhere in the United States.

We have not, in fact, effective regulations for the control of water or the control of air pollution, and my concern is precisely as the minister has said, that when we do get those regulations they will not be strong enough.

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mrs. Grier: In the face of this, how does the minister intend to ensure that when we see the new regulations under MISA and the new regulation 308, they will in fact be regulations that protect Ontario’s environment and not compromises dictated by the trade deal?

Hon. Mr. Bradley: The reason the member will be able to see that, of course, is that we are presenting all of these for consultation. I know there are some in Ontario -- some in the House, in fact -- who have been critical at the pace at which we would move to implement new environmental laws. One of the things I have indicated to the House is that it is because there must be a meaningful consultation process as we go through these steps. I know the member is speaking to that meaningful consultation process at the present time. So the public will have that opportunity.

I want to indicate to the member as well -- and she would agree with me on this. I am sure that environmental groups are playing a very important role in this particular debate, because they have provided information to me and to the public at large and, I am sure, to the federal government on what they believe to be the downsides of a free trade agreement which would place our industries in direct competition with United States industries.

In regard to the rules and regulations we have, I find it interesting from time to time that we have in the United States people who will talk about their good rules and regulations, but they always seem to have worse problems than we have in Ontario. I think that is because we, through the efforts of all members of this House, have put in place some good mechanisms for dealing with our environmental problems, and with the resources provided by the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) to the Ministry of the Environment we have been able to implement those.

Mrs. Grier: I do not know whether the minister is deliberately missing my point. My point is not the consultation process within this province; my point is that we heard from the Premier (Mr. Peterson) all during the last election campaign the conditions under which we would have a free trade deal. We know how meaningless that proved to be, and the public is expressing concern about the implications of free trade.

What the people of this province want to know is, what is the Minister of the Environment going to do to maintain our procedures in this province, to maintain our right to adopt the highest and best environmental standards, regardless of the free trade deal? That is what we want to know, and that is what we are not hearing from the minister.

Hon. Mr. Bradley: It is our intention to do so. We make the rules and regulations for Ontario, and it is my intention to ensure that those rules and regulations and the legislation passed by this House are all implemented in the fashion all members of this House would like.

As for the federal government and its particular concerns, I cannot speak for the federal government and what it might do according to the competition it may get from the United States, but I want to tell the member that as far as I am concerned, the free trade agreement is not going to affect my outlook on the implementation of any of our programs.

But when there is a tribunal set up --and this is one of the problems where we did not have the details of this for a number of months --or when the two countries start implementing the free trade agreement, if they start saying, for instance, that the federal-provincial program which assists smelters in meeting their obligations as they relate to acid rain or any other program we might have provincially which could be seen in any indirect way as a subsidy is in fact a subsidy, then that becomes a major incident between the United States and Canada. Those are the kinds of concerns I have had.

I expressed those as early as August of this year at a special meeting of the Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers here in Toronto. I made a speech which was not very popular at that time because it was --

Mr. Speaker: Order. New question.

IDEA CORP.

Mr. Harris: I have a question for the Premier about the Biddell report. Whether the Premier likes it or not -- and l accept what he said today; I accept all the statements he has made on this matter with the London firm -- he surely must realize there is a public perception problem. With IDEA Corp., we have had two companies with connections to the Liberal Party which received amounts of money that are now under Ontario Provincial Police investigation.

Now we have a firm in London turned down by IDEA, then a letter to the Premier in his home town referred to the former Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, then to the IDEA Corp., and then it got the money, the $1.5 million we lost.

I accept what the Premier says --

Interjections.

Mr. Harris: Well, I do. But if those people do not think there is a perception problem out there, now with the third firm and given the history of events, then there is something wrong with their thinking.

The Premier can help clear that up by releasing the Biddell report, which he says he virtually finished last February. In June we were told it was only temporary, and on top of all that the appearance is that the government has been covering up this Biddell report for almost a year now. When are we going to see that report that might shed some light on this?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I understand, as the honourable member says, that frequently in life there is a difference between appearance and reality, and I understand that some people want to put a cast on that appearance in order to create some sort of impression one way or the other. I will give a perfect example of that: the member’s question just now.

The facts that the member recited are 100 per cent wrong, so let me give him the proper facts. When he understands the reality, then he will have a different perception.

The letter I received from Mr. Parkes was a year or two after he got the money from IDEA Corp. He sent a letter to me asking for another $500,000. In the normal course of events, I referred that to the minister, who did not refer it to IDEA Corp. but to the Ontario Development Corp., in whose hands it then was. The member has been wrong, as he put the question, in about three facts.

As the member can see, when responsible legislators like himself stand not knowing the facts, giving a wrong impression about reality, how can we expect other people, who are not as familiar and do not have the same high standards of integrity and truthfulness expected of them, to form the proper impression? My honourable friend may want to stand up in the House and say that his facts are wrong, and therefore the impression he is trying to thereby create is wrong as well.

Mr. Harris: My facts, as the Premier outlined and as he understands them, may be wrong as far as the letter goes; I do not know. My facts as far as the Biddell report goes, and three companies with Liberal connections or perceived Liberal connections, are very accurate and they are there.

I do not understand why the Premier continues to cover up, for over a year, the Biddell report. Surely that will help shed some light on this company. Biddell was commissioned to do a report, after two of these companies with Liberal connections failed and got money when the Premier took over, to look at the rest of the companies. One of them, presumably, was the company we are dealing with today. Surely there must be some information in there that will shed some light on this.

Second, the Premier talks about wanting the Provincial Auditor working on it. The difference between what the Premier wants and what we want is that we want it all out in the public. The Premier says there are some connections back to our party; our party set it up. Fine; let the public have at it. Why will the Premier not release the Biddell report and why will he not have a judicial inquiry?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: My honourable friend stands and promiscuously uses the words “perceived Liberal connections.” I assume his implication is that Mr. Parkes has some special inside track. I just tell my honourable friend that is completely false. Let my honourable friend use again his highly trained mind to look at the board of directors of PRA International, to look very carefully and ask himself if, from the chairman on down, those are so-called Liberal insiders. My friend will find very much the contrary.

When he stands up and says “perceived” this and “perceived” that, we have an expectation of a much higher degree of perception from members of this House who promiscuously throw accusations across this floor. I understand opposition as well, and I understand the difference between perception and reality, but I also understand the standards expected of members of this House.

The Biddell report, which is in the process of being done, as my honourable friend knows -- some has been completed, some is still being worked on -- will all be referred to the Provincial Auditor, and he will be in a position to make everything public that is appropriate in the circumstances. Surely at least the member has faith in the Provincial Auditor.

COUGH SYRUP

Mr. Adams: My question is for the Minister of Health. The US Food and Drug Administration has recalled cough syrup made by My-K Laboratories to determine how many bottles were tainted with a potentially fatal tranquillizer. A six-year-old boy was kept overnight in hospital for observation after taking this syrup. What is the minister doing to ensure that this medicine is kept off shelves in Ontario?

Hon. Mrs. Caplan: Let me thank the member for his question and for bringing this matter to the attention of the public. The information I have is that this syrup is not distributed in Ontario. However, it may have been purchased by travellers or tourists, and I would advise anyone who has this cough syrup in their possession not to use it.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr. Breaugh: I have a question for the Minister of Housing concerning affordable housing for low-income single persons.

The government leaked its intention to provide some kind of affordable housing for single persons to the Toronto Star in early December. It even went so far as to leak it to the Toronto Sun in mid-December. We have not yet heard what the minister’s program will be to provide affordable housing for people who are single. Did this good intention get scuttled in cabinet, or when may we expect an announcement of a new program for affordable housing for persons who are single?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: The honourable member opposite may have been there in estimates debates just before Christmas when this same accusation was made by the critic from the third party. We did not leak our document to anyone. I have no idea how that information made its way into the press.

As to the question of low-income singles, I am glad to be able to confirm for the member that our announcement of initiatives for homeless people will in fact benefit low-income singles through matching funds for permanent housing and through various solutions that we expect to be developed by the committees that are going to be working in the various communities and the various community groups that now work with homeless people. Those solutions will be available to low-income singles as well.

Mr. Breaugh: Obviously the Globe and Mail has not got its leak yet.

Let me just quote to the minister and get her response to this. In the Toronto Sun, the document of record, a story written by Lorrie Goldstein on December 17 says:

“And there’s a major change in government policy on the homeless. Low-income single people, the most frequent users of hostels, will become eligible for assisted government housing.”

That is pretty straightforward and pretty clear. He must have got the information from somebody in the ministry. When will we see that program?

Hon. Ms. Hošek: In addition to the various initiatives we have already talked about in this House, we will be talking to local housing authorities about the situation of low-income singles, and we are taking a very hard look at extending eligibility to low-income singles for affordable housing.

EMPLOYMENT ADJUSTMENT

Mr. Jackson: My question is to the Premier with respect to the pending Firestone closing.

Last week, I asked the Premier what his government was doing to meet the retraining and relocation needs of Firestone employees. He said at that time, and I quote Hansard: “If he would like me to read the long list of things we have been doing, I would be happy to do that, but it might embarrass my friend to realize that we are way ahead of him in this particular regard.”

I checked with his ministries of Labour and Skills Development, and we have determined that the specific programs targeted to help Firestone workers are confined to two: one program is a counselling service to help unemployed workers start a small business, the other is a resumé writing service at Mohawk College. The government’s financial contribution is limited to a $1,000 contribution to the federal industrial adjustment service, yet to date the feds have contributed over $500,000.

The Premier was willing to commit $30 million of interest-free loans to an American corporation. He was willing to give this money to them without even sitting at the negotiating table to see where it was going. Will he not use some of this money now to specifically target and help retrain some of the 1,300 unemployed workers at Firestone?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: Of course we will work with the workers. My honourable friend has done some research into the matter and will realize that we have one of the most successful employee adjustment programs, chaired by Anne Jones. There has been a lot of conversation and counselling going on. We have been aware of this problem for some time.

If my friend is asking me to make a connection between the $30 million and the assistance to workers, I am not sure that is appropriate in the circumstances. However, I assure my honourable friend, being given this very troublesome situation, we will do everything we can with the workers using existing programs, and other ones if necessary, to try to retrain them and relocate them as best we possibly can.

Mr. Jackson: Last week and today the Premier has indicated that his government has some form of commitment. He has even been on record as indicating that his Transitions program has somehow been successful, but he made an election promise last August in Hamilton when he knew that the seat of the Minister of Culture (Ms. Munro) was in some degree of jeopardy in the Hamilton area, he made a clear promise to the workers in Hamilton that $14 million would be spent on Transitions programs.

To date, according to his own minister’s response to an Orders and Notices question, he has spent $62,000 on Transitions programs in all of Ontario. He is training 23 people in the whole province of Ontario and the federal government has 75 Firestone workers alone training at Mohawk College.

The election is over, the member won her seat but the Premier has not kept his promise. When will he start spending the necessary dollars to keep retraining commitments to older, unemployed workers, such as the Firestone workers? He made the election promise to spend the money and now he will not.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I hate to disagree with my honourable colleague in almost everything he has said, but he is completely wrong. For example, he gave the impression that the honourable Minister of Culture’s seat was in some jeopardy in Hamilton. The only seat that was in jeopardy in Hamilton during the last campaign was his. My honourable friend knows that. If Hansard could only record the fear that is coming forward on his face at the moment, it would be delicious reading for all.

When we have a program, a budgetary allocation is made. We are prepared to sign up to the amount of the budgetary allocation, depending on the uptake of the program. It is a program that is relevant in this particular circumstance, and obviously one does not spend it before there is a demonstrated need, but it is there and the uptake is ready for the workers as deemed necessary.

BARRIE JAIL

Mr. Owen: I have a question for the Minister of Correctional Services. The present Barrie Jail was built in 1843 to accommodate 32 men. It is still there, still in use and two subsequent additions have increased the numbers up to 82 men. On a typical day it would accommodate close to 100 men, plus women. In the old part of the jail there is no light in the cells and no toilet facilities; they have to use a pail under the cot. It is very crowded. What can be done to help alleviate this situation of crowding and inadequate facilities at that particular location?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I appreciate the member for Simcoe Centre giving me all the details about the Barrie Jail. I visited the Barrie Jail about a month ago, as the member knows, and I share the concern that the member has for the facilities there.

I hope the member would know that we have embarked upon a long-term capital improvement program. The Barrie Jail construction is under way right now, and I hope to be able to announce in about three or four weeks that the initial construction has been completed.

As far as the long term is concerned, I am also making sure that the Barrie facility is high on the priority list of further capital improvements because I do share the concerns of the member.

Mr. Owen: As has been pointed out, the original building is a heritage building and I think we have probably the only remaining circular wooden staircase remaining in a jail in the province. I have seen some others, but they all seem to be of other construction. If the minister is proposing an addition, as opposed to a completely new facility, what will be done to preserve the heritage aspects of the Barrie Jail?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I would assure the member that any additional work or rehabilitation to the Barrie Jail will make sure that the historical integrity of the building in kept intact.

PRA INTERNATIONAL INC.

Mr. Philip: I have a further question to the Premier, who will recall that John Kruger was appointed by him to review IDEA Corp. and to set up the phasing out or phasing down of lDEA Corp. In the 1985-86 Ontario Development Corp. report, it lists a loan in the amount of $500,000 to PRA International. Is it safe to say that John Kruger would have been aware of that loan, and can the Premier tell us what the purpose of the loan was? What exactly was the process of approving that loan that was listed in the ODC report?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: The member is referring to a loan from the ODC? My honourable colleague went through a number of loans that had been advanced to PRA under a variety of programs, export development and others, but I am not sure if there is something there I am not aware of. I have no idea whether Kruger was aware or not.

Mr. Philip: I am sure the Premier is aware that ODC took over the IDEA portfolio. It lists a loan of some $500,000, and my question was fairly specific. Would John Kruger have been aware of that, and therefore indirectly would the Premier have been aware of it? What were the direct connections in the approval of that $500,000?

My further supplementary to that is: Is it not fair to say that the Biddell report, which Mr. Biddell told the standing committee on public accounts was finished in February, would in fact, under its term of reference, have dealt with the specific matter? If so, why will the Premier not release it to the Legislature so that we can all see exactly what happened to that money?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I understand that my honourable friend has concerns. The minister laid out some of the advances that have gone through, export support loans for $500,000, up from a previous line of $250,000. That may be the amount of money my honourable friend is referring to. What he was aware of, I am not sure.

As far as I know, the details of the specific loan applications were not dealt with by Mr. Kruger. He was doing an overall review of the general policy implications.

If my honourable friend has concerns, and he may well have a legitimate concern, I would recommend that he get in touch with the Provincial Auditor and ask him to investigate that particular aspect of it. I am sure all those facts will be made available to him and to all members of the House.

EMERGENCY TELEPHONE NUMBER

Mr. Eves: My question is to the Solicitor General. Can the Solicitor General tell the Legislature whether or not the Ontario Provincial Police are hooked into the 911 emergency service number throughout Ontario?

Hon. Mrs. Smith: No. At this point the 911 number is hooked into many of the municipalities and areas in the province, but some of the areas are into the 5500 number, I believe it is.

As the member has suggested, we are looking into the possibility of expanding the 911 service; indeed, efforts are already being made to expand it. There is one person on staff who is working particularly on this issue of expanding this service. It is an expensive service. Where it does not exist, the 5500 number does exist.

The important thing is that when you make a call it get to the proper police who are closest at hand at the right time, so this is a very mechanical system. At this time we take advantage of the best machinery available to get the person who calls to the closest police car.

Mr. Eves: I am glad to see the Solicitor General has broadened her knowledge somewhat on 911 since Tuesday last week, when I asked her the question. However, she says “a number of municipalities.” The exact number covered in the province by 911 is 11 out of 800-odd municipalities in Ontario.

While there may be different emergency service numbers, the whole purpose of 911 is to have one number province-wide to provide emergency response service in the least amount of time possible. In the last few months the lives of several residents in Ontario have been lost, as a result of lack of response time, by using 911 when it was not available in their area of the province.

The Solicitor General could make the commitment here today to the people of Ontario that she will take steps to ensure that the 911 service is made available to every single community and person in Ontario. Would she not agree that a very good place to start would be by implementing it province-wide for the OPP, the police force that comes under her jurisdiction, the provincial police force? Would she make that commitment today?

Hon. Mrs. Smith: Indeed, it would be impossible to make a commitment today to a service that is not technically possible or municipally acceptable today. This is a very costly service. It is done by the municipalities as part of their policing effort.

What will be done is to continue our efforts to make everybody aware of the proper call to make in an emergency and to make sure that the response they get is as immediate as is possible in their particular locality.

SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS

Mr. Callahan: My question is to the Minister of Housing. Recognizing the fact that the minister has probably one of the toughest portfolios in this government, and recognizing the fact as well that there is a scarcity of temporary as well as permanent housing, I would like to put this question to her.

Many university and community college students, who either by choice or by necessity live off campus, lease accommodations for a 12-month period. Since the school year, university or community college, is roughly about eight months, there are four months left of leasable time throughout this province in the various areas where we have universities and community colleges.

I would ask the minister if any consideration has been given, either by herself or by any of her colleagues, to the use of this leasable space as temporary housing.

Hon. Ms. Hošek: There is certainly nothing to prevent students from subletting their homes for the summer to people who need accommodation. As I understand it, there are various municipalities that maintain registries of people who need accommodation, so that would be one way of getting the people who need the space together with the people who have it.

Our concern about people who do not have accommodation is providing permanent accommodation, and that is the reason we have made the announcements we have made about providing permanent accommodation for homeless people. It is also the reason we will be announcing later in the month the 6,700 allocations to the nonprofit groups that will be building permanent accommodation.

Mr. Speaker: That completes the allotted time for members’ questions.

Mr. Callahan: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I specifically looked at the clock and there was one second left when I rose for the supplementary question.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. As has been the custom in the past, when the 60 minutes have elapsed, I have therefore said that the time for oral questions has expired. Do I have agreement of the House to allow the member --

An hon. member: No, certainly not.

Mr. Speaker: No? Sorry.

ANSWER TO QUESTION IN ORDERS AND NOTICES

Hon. Mr. Conway: I wish to table the answer to question 27 standing in Orders and Notices.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

TRADE WITH UNITED STATES (CONTINUED)

Resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to government motion 8 on the proposed trade agreement between Canada and the United States.

Mr. McLean: I am very pleased to take

part in this debate. It has gone on for some time and I want to put a few things on the record.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Is there a problem here?

Hon. Mr. Conway: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I might stand corrected, but I have been following this debate with great interest and I believe the member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman) adjourned the debate on the last day. I presume, if I am correct, he is not returning today to continue that speech. I am very anxious to hear my friend from Simcoe East, but I just wanted to indicate that the member for Ottawa South (Mr. McGuinty), on the rotation, was prepared to address the assembly with his remarks as well.

Mr. Speaker: That is the usual process of rotation. The member for Ottawa South.

Mr. McGuinty: Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence and that of the honourable members. I would offer a few comments on one aspect of motion 8 dealing with the matter of the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States which I believe thus far has been but slightly treated.

My comments have to do with the cultural implications of the free trade agreement. What I have to say is with particular regard to an old maxim which I have been unable to trace, but it has such distilled wisdom it must be Irish. It says very simply, “Let me write a nation’s songs and I care not who writes its laws.”

President Reagan stated recently, “The free trade agreement constitutes a new economic constitution for North America.” William Randolph Hearst Jr., editor-in-chief of the Hearst newspapers, has written: “The momentous move toward uniting the two countries economically is very gratifying for me. For more than a decade my father urged in his newspapers that Canada become part of the United States.”

Premier Peter Lougheed, co-chairman of the Canadian Alliance for Trade and Job Opportunities, stated: “Let’s not...talk about culture; we’ve heard all about that....Let’s look at the merits of the deal and what it will do for the economy.” When Mr. Lougheed and others on his side deal with the cultural implications of free trade, I would respectfully suggest that they are attempting to deal with something beyond their intellectual depth and are blissfully unaware, ignorant and indifferent to the cultural implications of what he and his colleagues are up to.

In 1983, Brian Mulroney stated: “Free trade affects Canadian sovereignty and we will have none of it, not during leadership campaigns nor at any other time.” Perhaps the most telling of all is the recent reaction of Mrs. Pat Carney to the United Church of Canada and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, who endorse the United Auto Workers’ advertisement opposing free trade for its cultural and economic implications.

She stated, “There is a lot of danger in a church group lining up with the opposition parties on economic issues.” She is reported to have stated that she might even launch an inquiry to determine whether the automobile workers’ statement fits into the category of misleading advertising. Actually, she threatened this.

Liberal House leader Herb Gray has commented, “The free trade issue is bigger than the Constitution, bigger than the national energy program, bigger than the National Transportation Act -- even the Confederation debate. For the free trade deal in fact constitutes a large and probably irreversible step into the American embrace.”

I do not understand the full scope and implications of the deal, having read it and having focused on

article 2005 that has to do with the cultural industries and the qualifying articles 401, 1607, 2006 and 2007. But then I feel that I am in good company with the Canadian people and with other observers more qualified than I.

My contribution to this debate is based upon some studies of the notion of culture over 35 or 40 academic years, with the good guidance of people such as Thomas Carlyle and Matthew Arnold, T. S. Eliot, R. H. Tawney, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, John Courtney Murray, Northrop Frye, L. A. Cormican, Sir Richard Livingston, and the king’s treasures they passed on.

These names are not as well known perhaps as the newspaper editors and columnists who were cited by my honourable colleague the member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman) last year. Proponents of free trade preoccupied exclusively with the economic implications would doubtless look down their noses at such authorities, but I respectfully remind them that their noses have a peculiar 20th-century length.

But of all the influences, I think I am indebted most of all to my parents, people who served this country more effectively than I could and who loved it much more unequivocally, and my children; also to those many people whose love of this country, and sacrifice and service, took the idea of culture out of the abstract and who imparted a sense of pride, a love for Canada, a desire to pass on something of value to our children. They have contributed most of all, ordinary people who served our country well, who loved it, and some of my buddies who died for it.

But they were a type of so many ordinary Canadians today who feel deeply about our country, about the cultural effects of the proposed economic union with the United States which free trade will bring about.

Culture is sometimes limited, in error, by its reference to a kind of intellectual elite, the highest level of cultivated intelligence. This presentation will impose no such narrow limit. Canadian culture refers to the whole pattern of life and thought in Canadian society. It is the embodiment and reflection of Canadian cultural identity in social institutions and patterns of life, thought and behaviour.

Our culture is reflected externally in the arts and sciences, religions, systems of technology, political practices, social institutions and programs, and even in the small intimate habits of daily life which reflect, however subtly, distinctive Canadian concepts, attitudes and interests which go to make up our cultural inheritance.

Culture is not only about the arts. It is about the way people live, the atmosphere in which they imagine and express themselves. From this aspect, Canadian culture is something ingrained in the hearts and minds of Canadian people, a product of history, race, environment. It is a matter of the heart rather than the head, of emotion. Love of country is an emotion, and so is greed.

We share a country which has inherited the visionary vision of our forbears, a patrimony passed on by our Fathers of Confederation, who made

an act of faith without parallel in modern times and acted heroically to build a nation, to make economically viable a political union with little capital and industry, to link together the people of this country into a nation; and they undertook that project in the face of obstacles which, in retrospect, make their ambitions seem almost an impertinence: men of courage and vision, the courage of farmers and explorers facing a harsh landscape, not the courage of businessmen speaking the language of the American marketplace.

In fact, our Fathers of Confederation gave a good example with regard to free trade. In 1878, Sir John A. Macdonald won an election on the issue of the national tariff policy, and he stated, “You cannot get anything by kissing the feet of the people of the United States.” The Conservative Party has reneged upon the visionary zeal of Sir John A.

Then again, in 1911, the Liberal free trade deal with the United States was decided in an election. Sir Wilfrid Laurier put the issue to the Canadian people: “The issue, my fellow countrymen, is in your hands and to your decision His Majesty’s government in Canada is well content to leave it.” The decision of the voters was against free trade.

Canadian cultural identity is something about which Canadian people continue to have strong feelings and which they have not yet been given the opportunity to express, because they have not really been asked the proper questions.

In keeping with precedent, it would be contrary not only to our constitutional tradition but to the very principles of democracy for any government to change our society so fundamentally without first receiving a clear mandate from the people, an election where all politicians of all parties will put their jobs on the line. Mr. Mulroney has no such mandate.

The Tories have nearly 12 months before the proposed agreement comes into effect in January 1989. Because party policies on free trade are so diametrically opposed, an election would be a good way to gauge public will. Elections on such matters are clearly a part of Canadian history, a kind of constitutional tradition. The free trade issue of this moment must be seen in the light of the past, in the perspective of history past and as it may unfold.

Those who would endorse free trade most vigorously, without reservations, are reminiscent of Thomas Babington Macaulay, who, in the Victorian age, personified the smug, self-satisfied complacency of his time with his trust in the self-sufficiency of material progress alone, his inability to see the developments of the present in the light of the future. Men such as Carlyle and Ruskin, Newman and Arnold were men of vision. They were concerned with progress and reform in terms of other than material things and they reprobated Macaulay’s complacency and trust in machinery, mechanical and political.

On Macaulay, Carlyle passed the severest verdict, simply, “He had no vision.” And so it might be said of those who would rush into free trade in the light of immediate economic effects alone. In this debate thus far attention has been focused on the ideas of a few and those preoccupied with the economic dimensions of free trade:

A Prime Minister without vision, whose formative years were spent as an American branch plant manager; a negotiator, a man I have known for 30 years, better known for his flamboyance, abrasiveness and financial acumen than for his vision which does not go beyond the economic, a man proud of his humility, who says, “I am proud the Prime Minister reached out and picked the best man for the job”; a Minister of Finance with the kind of cultural insensitivity and vision which Bay Street engenders; a chairman of the royal commission on the economy, Donald Macdonald, who reprimands opponents to free trade in terms that I remember from the Harvard Business School, terms of the American marketplace when he says, “I don’t see Canada as a sort of sheltered workshop for the inefficient, the incompetent or the less than capable.”

Others are limited to provincial views or reflect as much insensitivity to the issue of Canadian culture as they do for the problem of acid rain. This is to be lamented. Free trade does not deal merely with a tax hike or highways or cheaper American wine or used cars or duty free shopping in the United States.

Free trade is not, all of one piece, economic. In fact, it is entirely a question of culture, a matter of the kind of society we will pass on that is comprehensive, encompassing the ownership of our resources, the right to manage our economy, trade, regional development, social programs and cultural industries, to be master of our own house, a house in which our historical development, east-west, would be diverted.

This has to do with our cultural identity, our control of the areas and issues which go to make up Canada’s identity so as to enhance and preserve it, our vision of society and the responsibility and the right to pass on something of value to our children and to theirs, for surely we do not inherit the land from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.

Those in the foreground of this debate thus far would appear to be oblivious to the cultural implications. This is to be expected, for the creative insights into the heart of this cultural matter are in fact most powerful where they are least recorded and most difficult to observe and most ignored by the media from day to day: in the minds of everyday people and in the traditions of working Canadians. Polls in this regard have been notoriously misleading. The operative word in, “Are you in favour of free trade?” is “free” and responses are predictable, as they would be if the question were with regard to lunch or speech.

It is significant in Maclean’s magazine of today, in the Decima Research used by Mr. Mulroney, that if we look back over the last three years, in 1985 when people were asked, “Do you think free trade is a good step?” 75 five per cent said yes; in 1986, 67 per cent; in 1987, 49 per cent. Conversely, when they were asked, “Do you think free trade is a bad step?” in 1985, 22 per cent; in 1986, 30 per cent; in 1987, doubling that of 1985, 44 per cent. In other words, the leadership of this government is not out of directive in response to polls. Our leader is leading the polls.

What if we asked the Canadian people, “Are you in favour of giving up those things which have developed as reflections of Canadian culture and identity?” -- things that enter the daily lives of most Canadians: health insurance, unemployment benefits, regional subsidies, magazines and periodicals, recorded music, subsidies for the arts, autonomy in foreign affairs, our ability to behave independently in the world and visibility in the arts and entertainment. Given to understand what the real issues are, the Canadian people will not be lured by the false profits promised by false prophets.

Canadian culture is reflected in many ways. We have a country bilingual and bicultural, with due respect for the distinctive language and culture of our two founding peoples, a country with a heritage British and French, where the rights of multicultural minorities are denied along with the corresponding duty to recognize these rights. This is contrary to the American melting pot approach: to reduce cultural identities to the lowest common denominator.

We have a country with social programs with respect to medical services, regional subsidies and social assistance, all of which reflect a people humane. These programs will be vulnerable to challenge under the US trade law as unfair subsidies.

We have a country where forces have been set in place to unify: the CBC, the Canada Council, national theatres and countless regional bodies. As a result, Canadian people have a sense of history, tradition and identity and are striving to maintain it. It is paradoxical that, in some ways, those Canadians but lately arrived tend frequently to be more sensitively appreciative of that distinctive character. I have learned so much from my Italian friends in this regard.

We have a country different from the United States, with a quality of life envied around the world. This is not only a descriptive statement; it is a qualitative judgement.

We have a country which, in its present state, is a product of our forbears, men of vision, with a vision of a caring and decent and fair-minded society, and we have practical programs to reflect this: medicare to ensure that all are provided with a basic health and decency standard of medical care and social programs which care for the needs of the elderly, the needy and the homeless.

We have a society caring and compassionate, with feelings of mutual responsibility for one another, with recognition of the fact that the rights of all are diminished if the rights of any one are infringed. Our multicultural environment is flourishing. Our cities are vibrant and healthy and safe. We live in security and we are continuing to build on the visionary foundation of our forbears.

This view of Canada is not mere self-satisfied, complacent chauvinism by a few who would look for the excuses to be negative, who are “dominated by fear and weak of will,” as Mr. Wilson alleges, as he speaks at us in terms of the American marketplace. Nor is it based on a conservative, inward-looking, outmoded, status quo vision of the world by some few who would maintain, as Mr. Reisman says, “a small Canada, a protected Canada,” for we do not have a perfect society. Too many are poor and homeless and in many other ways the fallout victims of impersonal economic laws beyond our control.

But there are mutual feelings of concern which transcend political differences. No one of our parties can lay exclusive claims to a social conscience. Canadians of all political parties can continue to work together to make Canada a better place, to build on our inheritance and achievements and to look with confidence to a bright future.

Free trade will restrict our ability to solve our problems in our own way. Culture may not be measured with the kind of standards applied to economics, nor can the eroding influence of free trade upon cultural identity be projected in quantitative terms. Culture is a concept somewhat more elusive, intangible and, as such, may be somewhat beyond the comprehension of those who think only in economic terms. It is more a feeling of the heart than of the head.

But then the heart has its reasons, and we have seen it in Canada, in the people that this culture of ours has produced, Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, Ursula Franklin, Davidson Dunton, Lester Pearson, Margaret Lawrence, Margaret Atwood and the Group of Seven. We should ask ourselves, could these people have emerged from the American melting pot?

Ordinary Canadians may be somewhat limited in their capacity for thinking about principles involved, are perhaps unable to defend their convictions or state their fears in sophisticated, philosophical terms. Perhaps they have been sometimes confused and intimidated by issues which have been made to appear complicated. While they might not reflect an intellectual grasp of culture, they share a grasp of fundamental truth, an interest in fundamental things. With their intuitive grasp, they appreciate and share our concern for Canadian cultural identity which has been traditionally a humanistic aspiration, connatural to Canadian hearts.

They are convinced that in Canada there is something distinctive of value, which they would not give up, for their children and theirs. They see around them a culture that nurtures, feeds and protects their children, not one of fear and violence with 20,000 murders a year, where more people are murdered each year in Oakland, California than all the people killed in the bloody years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. That is one of the products of modem American culture.

We know, ordinary Canadians know there is a big difference between our culture and the culture of the United States. We do not want to be a part of the melting pot. I have lived in that culture, in Chicago, in Boston and in Dallas, and Canadians have a right and an obligation in this regard. What we have going for us in Canada is surely something different than things American.

Are there Canadian parallels for the redneck atmosphere of Dallas? The ghettos of New York? The American tendency to measure all things in terms of dollars -- American, that is. Is there any part of Canada where anyone over the age of 21 is permitted to pack a concealed hand-gun, a knife, a club or tear gas, a Florida right mercifully limited to exclude certified lunatics and convicted felons?

Would the Canadian temper give rise to the National Rifle Association, with its distorted

interpretation of the constitutional right to bear arms? Do we have a paranoic sensitivity of the kind that would exclude that well-known intemational conspirator Farley Mowat from entry? Do we view our culture as the Amencans view theirs, with the assumption that their culture is culture in the absolute sense, a view reflected in American foreign policies, economic and political?

Culture may be taken also to refer to a particular sense of advancement of a civilization, the characteristic features of such a stage. In this sense, a culture has been described as a community which owes its unity to common beliefs, far more than to any uniformity of physical type. Surely American cultural identity in Canada is at such a stage.

To consider Canadian culture at a particular stage, embryonic, tentative, somewhat unsure, is relevant in the context of considering the cultural implications of free trade, relevant in the sense of being pertinent and timely in a vital sort of way. The present state of Canadian culture is one in which our cultural identity is somewhat formative, fragile, pathetically susceptible to extemal influence, the effect of our vast region, the dispersement of our population, the bilingual, bicultural, multicultural aspects of our character, our regional disparities.

Comparison with the European Community simply does not stand up. If you have visited Europe, you have visited countries, adjoining neighbours, whose respective cultures are rooted for thousands of years in the past, not as ours.

Americans tend to think of their culture as culture in the absolute sense, the culture by which all others are to be measured, with the implicit assumption that everyone everywhere would benefit from and welcome their infusion and domination. This is an effect of American schooling which ingrains this view from infancy, and of a host of other influences, social, political, economic. Their ignorance of Canada and other places, geographical and social, is commonplace, and their attitude towards Canadian culture is at best insensitive and indifferent.

Put that to the acid test. It is a fact of our cultural existence that we have had to strive in years past to resist the almost inexorable dominance by American cultural influences, influences the effective force of which free trade would surely intensify. Canadian content regulations, publication subsidies, the Canada Council, Secretary of State subsidies to the arts have all been set up for this purpose. The school, as an agent of enculturation, works to this end, and the home and the church, safeguards deemed to be necessary. How much more so in the future?

Whether or not Canadian cultural identity is targeted directly with respect to the cultural industries, as they are called, the economic intrusion and dominance into Canada of the kind that free trade will bring about will have spinoff effects, restricting our ability to promote and preserve Canadian cultural identity. This is a predictable fact, and that fact has implications.

To paraphrase and reapply the imagery of Cardinal Newman, quarry the granite rock with razors or moor the vessel with a thread of silk, then may you rely on such precarious safeguards as cable operators’ copyright fees, domestic content requirements on Canadian TV productions and book publishing regulations to contend with giants, the forces of economic union, the acceleration of the impersonal economic and social laws which will produce cultural fallout, outsiders who do not understand or appreciate the roots of our Canadian culture.

This has serious implications for our future and for the land that we will pass on to our children. There is need for vision with respect to what may unfold. For what avail would be an increase in our material prosperity if there should be a qualitative decline in the standards of our culture?

What would be the fruit of social and economic changes which will surely follow hard upon economic union if they do not work for the total betterment of Canadians, whose lives they surely will condition? Of what avail will be increased material affluence if purchased at the price of a distinctive Canadian cultural identity, which is reflected in a thousand ways and which makes us distinct?

Will we move in that direction as foreseen 50 years ago by Sir Richard Livingston, “a civilization of means without ends; rich in means beyond any other epoch, and almost beyond human needs, squandering and misusing them because it has no overriding ideal; an ample body and a meagre soul”? Will our children and theirs, who will face the problems of the third millennium, live in that world envisioned by T. S. Eliot, with the mass of men wandering the wasteland of the spirit without clearly defined goals, looking back to our achievement on this continent, our only monument “the asphalt road and 1,000 lost golf balls,” depleted oil wells, gutted mines and ravaged forests?

Failure to achieve identity, to lose it, is with all the propriety of theological definition, hell. In diminished forms, it is insanity. It would not fare well for the Canadian giant to go lumbering about the international world in the next century without identity or with a character little more than a limp shadow of its American cousin, or absorbed, having tried to ride the back of the tiger and ending up inside it. For Canada to do so would be to surrender a great vocation, to exert an influence for good, throughout the world, not merely by our material strength but by our civilization.

The built-in safeguards to ensure Canadian cultural sovereignty in the free trade pact would appear to be mainly with respect to the so-called cultural industries: television, book publishing, magazine distribution, recordings and, notwithstanding such cultural safeguards, American dislike of future policies could provoke countervailing penalties.

In fact, the claim that Canada will retain full capacity to support cultural industries in Canada is untrue. The agreement does not state that Canada retains full capacity to support its cultural industries, and they may be threatened, as they have been in the past. Americans would retain the right to redress any future programs supporting cultural industries; in effect, a right to veto future cultural development policies even though Canada in future considers new policies to be necessary in the interests of maintaining Canadian cultural identity.

The deal does, in fact, limit our powers to introduce new initiatives on the cultural front and grants the legitimacy of US retaliation against measures we take to support our culture.

The definition of what is to be a legal subsidy, and which industries are to be affected by their

definitions, is to be determined over the next seven years. In future, after Canada has given away its major bargaining chips, we will have little influence on the way the US wishes to define an illegal subsidy, of particular importance to what may happen to cultural issues. Many of Canada’s current practices may be considered unfair barriers to trade.

Let me ask members to consider: Even were such safeguards, as stated, to be effectively operative over the cultural industries, would this be sufficient? In fact, the very phrase “cultural industry” is misleading, offensive, itself uncultured. It reflects a superficial insight into the matter at hand, the whole issue of the impact of economics upon culture, one which even baffled the mind of the philosopher Hegel.

The phrase “cultural industry” implies that culture is something produced by magazines, television and radio. These are not agents for production so much as the reflection. Culture is something operative and productive in the minds of people, reflected in attitudes and interests. Culture reflects how a people lives. When people no longer live as Canadians, independent, different, distinctive, in control of their destinies, why would one want to be a writer in Canada, a Canadian writer?

The fact that our Canadian film industry will peter out, that our literary magazines, upon which young writers depend for market entry will disappear will be somewhat academic, for these reflectors of Canadian culture will no longer have much of value, distinctively Canadian, to reflect.

The home, the school and the church are our primary agents for enculturation, means whereby the older generation protects itself from the younger. The cultural industries play their part as reflectors, but it would be naive to rely unduly upon them, even if protected, for they are surely dubious agents on which to rely for something so important; a perilous place to deposit what ought to be kept more safe and transmitted more constantly and more completely.

The cultural industries, like the public mind, which is itself a repository of our cultural heritage, is subject to the corrosive rust of scepticism, the voracious appetite for the sensational, the incessant thieveries of indifference and the intrusive demands of market profit.

I conclude by saying that emphasizing the issue of Canadian cultural identity in the free trade debate has been dealt with in ways at best superficial and inadequate. Some participants thus far have reflected insensitivity, blissful ignorance, an intellectual depth inadequate to come to terms with the issue in substantive ways and, worst of all, without vision.

The Canadian people must be given the opportunity to express their views, for they share an intuitive insight in this regard beyond the understanding of those whose views are exclusively economic. Many Canadians are concerned about the cultural identity effects of the free trade pact, effects which could go far beyond what is surely the intent and is not envisioned.

Unless those who are concerned stand up, in the not-too-distant future, our children will look back and speculate about what might have been but was left undone by those of us who are here to preside over the erosion of our Canadian cultural identity and the days when our time ran out. No one ever made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only little. I hope that others in Ontario and other parts of Canada will stand up and contribute to this debate, those in the arts and humanities as well as the social sciences. The economists have had their say. Everyone has an obligation in this regard.

Universities have an indispensable role, and I ask my colleagues of 35 and 40 years in Ontario universities when they are going to stand up. Universities are the critical, reflective intelligence of our society, with a responsibility to promote the growth of knowledge, understanding and judgement, to increase awareness, perception and enlightenment in society at large. As public institutions open to the public and supported by public funds, they have a responsibility in this regard to serve the public good. One would expect they will have something of value to contribute to this debate.

I am convinced that those who express concern about the impact of free trade upon Canadian cultural identity speak not on behalf of a small, eccentric group of cultural nationalists existing on the periphery of Canadian society, but on behalf of many Canadians who are concerned about the welfare of our country, present and future, people who believe that our future is Canadian -- not continental and not American -- Canadians who want to be who they are and are concerned to strengthen our resolve.

It is in this spirit that we should exercise our right and our duty to join our fellow Canadians from all parts of Canada -- this is not a provincial matter -- as co-operative partners with a common task to ensure that forces at work are consciously controlled, not merely allowed to happen and to do this in debate of the kind which is the mark of the civilized community.

Not with name calling, in heat.

But with light.

And with unfailing courtesy.

Which is much less

Than courage of heart or holiness

For in all my Walks

It seems to me

That the Grace of God

Is in courtesy.

Mr. Adams: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I know there is no provision for us to comment on such a magnificent, thoughtful and moving address. There was a technical point in it which, I think, if it were enshrined in Hansard, might cause some problems. I wanted your guidance on how I might address that.

The Acting Speaker (Miss Roberts): With respect to your point of order, I do not really understand what you are trying to get at, but I assume your point of order deals with the standing orders. I think you should confine yourself to the standing orders and not to the information that was in the speech itself, so I do not find it to be a point of order.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: On a point of assistance to the member through a point of order, Madam Speaker: The only way the member can correct the record is if you tell him what his mistake was and then he can stand and correct his own record.

Mr. Allen: Madam Speaker:

When I went up to Ottawa, I met a man who sang tra-la.

What did you do with the country today?

I gave it away to the USA.

That little jingle by Dennis Lee, probably Canada’s most famous children’s poet and adult poet of no mean proportions, does not say too strongly what happened on January 2, both in Ottawa and at the holiday hideaway of President Reagan when they signed the so-called trade deal linking our two countries, not in a form of free trade per se, but in a deal which strikes, I think, in the longer run at the very roots not only of our economy in Canada but also of our culture.

I want to say that I was very moved by his address. I wanted, too, to come back to some of the cultural issues the deal raises for all of us, but not before having made some additional and preliminary comments.

l think it is a time when we all might be a little personal about this debate because so much of it so far has been in terms of the economic issues at play, held at arm’s length in the press, written about here and there by journalists. But seldom have I heard individuals stand up and say how their lives have been enmeshed with the very fabric of this country and how that has happened and how it relates to their understanding of who they are and how it then relates, finally, in turn, to this kind of economic arrangement which threatens so seriously the very structure and indeed the history of our country.

My family came to the northern half of the North American continent from several routes. They came as prerevolutionary loyalists from Rhode Island into the Maritimes. They came as Yorkshiremen from England to Nova Scotia. Part of that family got itself mixed up in such a way that part of the roots of my family go back to Charles Le Moyne, the famous seaman of New France. Irishmen from Ireland in the 1840s arrived in Upper Canada and are part of my past. All those segments of my past progressively marched westward across this country.

The Maritimers moved to Quebec and then they left for British Columbia. The Upper Canadians moved from Upper Canada to Saskatchewan and thence to British Columbia. In my turn, I have marched backwards, having grown up on the west coast, having worked and lived in Saskatchewan and now in Ontario, having lived at least a year of my life in Quebec, and having married a Ukrainian girl whose parents came in the 1920s and were part of the opening up of northern and northwestern Ontario. People like myself and like those who sit in this chamber have a deep and intimate sense that their roots penetrate every aspect of this country. Our westward march was typical of the way this country was opened.

There has been a long ongoing debate in Canadian history over the issue of whether this country is an artificial construct in defiance of geography, whether it should not have been a part of the north-south grain of the continent because it seems so logical that the parts that lying on either side of the border belong to each other. But when you ask yourself the question, as our principal historians of the 20th century did in the wake of that seductive continentalist theory by Goldwin Smith in the 1890s, you come to one inescapable answer.

The answer is that the logic of the North American continent was that it had to be opened up east to west, that the cultures and the trade patterns that developed there had to run that way by virtue of the staples that were pursued across this continent, whether it was beginning with cod, moving on to timber, into fur, on to wheat, into mineral extracts or what have you. They led us across the nation and those different sections of the nation traded with each other on an east-west basis and then west-eastward across to the European metropolis.

The whole foundation of the nation and the logic upon which it was built was east-west, and properly; this was not an artificial construct as a nation; it is a nation that is properly east-west in its foundation.

The second thing that needs to be said about our history as we confront this debate is that the American Revolution, we must all remember, created two nations on the North American continent with very different traditions, both of them proud traditions but very different traditions. We all know the upshot in our constitutional structures, that on the one hand the fundamental presuppositions of the American republic were individual life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that the fundamental orientation of the Canadian Constitution and the bias of our culture has been peace, order and good government.

There has been a social and cultural dimension, a collective dimension to Canadian life which was not expressed in the fundamental assumptions of the American republic. The elements the previous speaker referred to, for example our different gun laws, reflect in very fundamental ways our different concepts of society and the relationship of each individual to that society, and what one could count on as an individual person in terms of the social supports.

It is not that one had a right to wander around with a weapon to defend one’s self, but that one could count on the community, that one could count on one’s society and on one’s government to provide the kind of order and structure of life that made it unnecessary for each individual to have a gun in his bedside-table drawer at night.

That is a very fundamental conception, a very fundamental difference. If you ask yourself further about the culture of this nation that one is attempting to preserve as a Canadian under all circumstances, whether in the context of this debate or any other debate that has far-reaching implications for Canada, one has to recognize also that the roles of government in those two societies have been dramatically different.

As I said in another context to another group, one could almost say in a sense, as far as the Canadian experience is concerned, in the beginning was the crown corporation. Government was that prominent. From the beginning, when our primeval trading arrangements began to exploit this country, they did it through government initiative. When it came to the railway-building era, we had a massive intersupport system between private enterprise and government, such that it was possible to say that the day after the Canadian Pacific Railway goes broke, Canada goes broke.

The interesting thing about that was that it was a very different kind of way of doing things. That mix of private and public enterprise in Canada ushered in the only transcontinental railway in North America that did not go bankrupt. In other words, our way of doing things in terms of that kind of mixed economy, in terms of private-public co-operation, proved itself in one of the very fundamental east-west institutions created to maintain our country. We know that was not the only one but it was the major early example of