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January 5, 1989

34th Parliament, 1st Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L125 - Thu 5 Jan 1989 / Jeu 5 jan 1989

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

EASTERN ONTARIO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

SOIL CONSERVATION

EASTERN ONTARIO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

SOIL CONSERVATION

AFTERNOON SITTING

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

PUBLIC SECTOR PENSION PLANS

USE OF GILL NETS

CELEBRATION OF JULIAN CHRISTMAS

DOUG POLLINGTON AND BILL BROWN

RENTAL ACCOMMODATION

JOE AND BRIAN SHAW

FRANCISCO CHICO MENDES

ORAL QUESTIONS

USE OF HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS

RETAIL STORE HOURS

WINE PRICING POLICIES

FORENSIC AUTOPSIES

NONPROFIT HOUSING

ELECTRICITY DEMAND AND SUPPLY

FEMALE STUDENTS IN MATHS AND SCIENCES

ONTARIO PLACE CORP

RETAIL STORE HOURS

IMMIGRANT SERVICES

DEATH OF PIERRE POULIOT

HOME CARE

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE

MUNICIPAL-INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY FOR ABATEMENT

CONSERVATION AUTHORITIES

PETITION

TEACHERS’ SUPERANNUATION FUND

MOTION

COMMITTEE SITTINGS

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

ORDERS OF THE DAY

CHILDREN’S LAW REFORM AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

JURIES AMENDMENT ACT

METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE FORCE COMPLAINTS AMENDMENT ACT

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The House met at 10:03 am.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ PUBLIC BUSINESS

EASTERN ONTARIO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Mr. McGuinty moved resolution 53:

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. McGuinty has moved the resolution standing in his name. The member has up to 20 minutes to make his presentation and may reserve any portion of those 20 minutes for the windup.

Mr. McGuinty: I am pleased to offer this resolution because, during the first year of my service as MPP for Ottawa South, I had the honour of acting as chairman of the government’s eastern Ontario caucus and also the Ottawa-Carleton caucus, which is a subdivision within the larger whole. The eastern Ontario caucus has been particularly active during the past year with the purpose of asserting the presence of the government in eastern Ontario. Outreach programs were held in Cloyne, Kingston, Eganville and Hawkesbury, and one is to come in Cornwall within a few days.

The purpose of these programs is to allow government representatives to meet with municipal officials, businessmen, associations and others, to listen and to bring back to Queen’s Park the concerns expressed by local people. While at Queen’s Park we are concerned with the formulation of policies, politics is not merely policies; politics is people. We travelled to outlying parts of eastern Ontario, listened to people and brought back their concerns to Queen’s Park.

The eastern Ontario caucus is further broken down into the Ottawa-Carleton caucus with eight members representing constituencies in that regional municipality. The Ottawa-Carleton caucus meets monthly in Ottawa and receives briefs from various bodies dealing with matters which transcend riding boundaries.

Groups presenting briefs included boards of education, hospital hoards of directors, district health councils, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome committee, the children’s aid society, universities and visiting homemakers. In all, some 40 groups made presentations while I was chairman. In addition, the caucus met with various local ministry officials to ensure that members of caucus were better informed of the work of these ministries in the area.

Whether with regard to health services, education, transportation, housing or day care, the caucus brought back to respective ministers the concerns of people. Particularly effective were our presentations at Queen’s Park to the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon) and other ministers with regard to hospital budgets and school board allocations. I am pleased to report that allocations to hospitals in eastern Ontario were some 18 per cent higher than the provincial average.

In this way, the elected members at Queen’s Park from eastern Ontario provided an open line of communication from groups, associations, regional bodies, municipal politicians and others to Queen’s Park. While a caucus can claim no direct causal relationship in every case between its representations to various ministers and funds allocated, there was definitely an influence for good exerted in this regard.

In total, over $1 billion was allocated by various Ontario ministries to eastern Ontario in 1987-88, a lot of money. At last, the people of eastern Ontario are getting the kind of good government they deserve from Queen’s Park. I meet these people, and from Killaloe to Cloyne, Kingston to Cornwall and Osceola to Ottawa they are saying, “Thanks a billion.”

Included in this total is over $275 million for community and social services; transportation, $266 million; health, $139 million; industry, trade and technology, $71 million; environment, $65 million; skills development, $57.7 million; education, $40 million; housing, $27 million; colleges and universities, $26 million; tourism, $4.6 million; culture, $3 million. This compares very favourably with allocations by the previous government and with the Conservative government in Ottawa.

In addition to grants, ministers have personally visited people in eastern Ontario to hear their concerns at first hand as never before. We are an open government that listens to the concerns of people throughout Ontario. Our Minister of Health (Mrs. Caplan) made four visits to the Ottawa-Carleton region and the Ottawa Valley last year, meeting with boards of directors, health councils and others involved in the provision of health services.

Our Minister of Tourism and Recreation (Mr. O’Neil) visited widely with those involved in the tourist industry in eastern Ontario, as did our Minister of Culture and Communications (Ms. Oddie Munro), our Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mrs. McLeod), our Minister without Portfolio responsible for disabled persons (Mr. Mancini) and our Minister without Portfolio responsible for senior citizens’ affairs (Mrs. Wilson).

Our Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. Kwinter) recently announced a $25-million economic development program under which his ministry will provide technical and financial assistance to eastern Ontario communities to develop strategic economic plans and to fund specific strategic projects associated with these plans.

The object of the program is to promote a balanced economic growth in eastern Ontario and to foster community self-reliance and local initiative in programs designed to encourage and support communities to work together in undertaking strategic planning to enhance their long-term economic development.

The aim of this program is to foster cooperation between communities and to provide wide-scale benefits such as more effective co-ordination between federal and provincial economic programs. In the long term, this improved level of economic activity will lay the groundwork for a more balanced regional growth, new jobs and a higher degree of community ownership.

As a teacher for over 30 years, as a trustee for 16, I think that perhaps the most notable achievement of this government has been the establishment of a homogeneous French-language school board which would regroup all the francophones of the Ottawa-Carleton region from kindergarten to grade 13.

I dealt with the matter during my 16 years as a school-board trustee and over 30 years as a university professor, and with regard to this and to other matters in eastern Ontario, particularly with regard to education, in days past we sometimes had the distinct impression that Queen’s Park was 2,000 miles away.

This seemed most obvious with regard to the question of the francophone school board in Ottawa-Carleton, and many people in eastern Ontario experienced over the years of past governments a pattern of foot-dragging and less than enthusiastic recognition of Ontario francophones’ reasonable and just demands.

I can remember from personal experience in days past when the school dropout rate of the French was tragically higher than the norm. During the 20 years when this matter was discussed one fact emerged with abundant clarity, and that was simply that the francophone community wanted its own school board. This hope was a logical evolution from the scandalous situation a few years ago when it did not even have its own schools, and the support for the board was endorsed by the Mayo commission, by municipalities, local school boards and teachers’ groups.

The formation of the francophone board was logical because it is to be expected that trustee members of the francophone community immersed in its culture, speaking its language, would be more understanding, responsive and sympathetic to these schools by virtue of their particular identity and particular needs with regard to books, busing, staff and programs. Control of the means best serves young francophones surrounded by an anglophone environment.

It is surely right and reasonable that these schools should be developed by francophones and for francophones. I am very proud of the good work of my government in this regard.

As parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Skills Development (Mr. Curling) I am delighted to report that the activities of the Ministry of Skills Development are particularly impressive in eastern Ontario. As mentioned earlier, $57.7 million were allocated in 1987-88.

Ministry programs are delivered through community colleges in Nepean, Belleville, Brockville, Cornwall, Kingston, Peterborough and Lindsay. There are 10 skills development offices located in eastern Ontario. These offices served 1,300-plus employers in 1987-88, and in eight months of 1988 they served 1,375. The Ontario skills program provides partial support for the direct cost of workplace training, and from April 1, 1988, to October 31, 1988, 1,853 employers accessed this program in eastern Ontario.

Of the province’s 55 community industrial training committees, 12 or 22 per cent of the whole are operative in eastern Ontario, bringing together business and labour, education and government to identify and respond to local training needs.

The Ontario basic skills program allocation for eastern Ontario by the Ministry of Skills Development has been $2.5 million in both 1988-89 and 1987-88, representing 13 percent of the total provincial allocation. This program provides literacy and numeracy and other basic training.

Eastern Ontario is served by seven district field offices of the apprenticeship branch, in Ottawa, Brockville, Cornwall, Kingston, Pembroke, Peterborough and Belleville. In 1988, from April to November, over 1,600 new apprentices were registered.

The Futures program is active, with 10,371 or 28 per cent of the young people availing themselves of this program in Ontario as a whole coming from eastern Ontario. The Transitions program, which gives a credit of $5,000 to older people for retraining in the workplace, has taken care of 389 people in our region, or 20 per cent of the provincial whole.

Perhaps equally impressive, meaningful and more convincing regarding the action taken by the government to assert its presence in eastern Ontario is an account of a recent tour that the Minister of Skills Development made. Meeting with the Minister of Mines (Mr.

Conway) in Pembroke, we went on to meet with the Renfrew County Board of Education; drove over to Killaloe and met community groups there which had been subsidized through the ministry and from Killaloe down through the residential part of the Ottawa Valley to Eganville and Douglas; bypassed Osceola because we hit it at the rush hour and went on to Arnprior and Renfrew, where we visited factories whose skills training had been supported.

One of the highlights of the visit to the Arnprior plant where we provided funds for Japanese second-language training was to hear Ottawa Valley natives speaking Japanese with an Ottawa Valley accent.

In these ways, firsthand involvement with communications with such groups as we met at Pembroke, Killaloe, Eganville, Renfrew and Arnprior by the minister and his staff asserts the presence and the concern that our government has for the people of eastern Ontario. Such tours facilitate communication and bring ministers in firsthand contact with the needs and problems of those who avail themselves of our ministries’ facilities.

The guiding norm for ministerial contacts with the people of eastern Ontario has been based on a simple principle. That norm has also guided the activities of our caucus with its Outreach program in the various parts of the eastern Ontario region. That is, very simply, politics is not merely policies; politics is people. This government has as its foremost aim to serve the needs of people, and this we have done and will continue to do in a manner not common in days past, through the work of the eastern Ontario caucus and our ministers, to assert the concerned presence of our government for eastern Ontario.

I thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will reserve the rest of my allotted time for rebuttal at the close of this important debate.

Mr. Runciman: I very much appreciate the member for Ottawa South (Mr. McGuinty), so it is difficult to be overly critical, but I have often heard that academics lack imagination, and this sort of self-congratulatory pap confirms that in my mind. I think the member and most of the so-called eastern Ontario Liberal caucus must have sore arms from continually patting themselves on the back.

When I take a look at the intent of this resolution, really, I do not know whether to laugh or cry. It is indeed quite sad when you take a look at the reality of the situation with this government, now in power for almost four years.

If we want to talk about the Ottawa caucus, the member for Carleton (Mr. Sterling) raised the issue just this week with respect to the government’s closing down the innovation centre in Ottawa and the impact that closure is going to have on that important part of the province and inquired, “Where was the Liberal caucus when that was occurring?”

Recently, we have had the government announce with great fanfare something it is calling the eastern Ontario community economic development program. I want to read into the record some excerpts from an editorial that appeared in the December 28 issue of the Prescott Journal.

“The ‘Alice in Wonderland’ logic of the powers that be at Queen’s Park has struck again and a number of Eastern Ontario communities, including the town of Prescott, have once again found themselves holding the dirty end of the stick.”

It goes on and then it says: “Unfortunately, many area officials later learned that all that glitters is indeed not always gold and while there still is $25-million in provincial funding to be had, there are also a number of loopholes and conditions which mean that the money won’t be going to areas where it is needed the most.

“The whole mess is a larger version of the old saying, ‘You can’t get a job without a union card and you can’t get a union card without a job.’

“For years Eastern Ontario residents have felt alienated and ignored by those in Toronto and central Ontario who seem to have all the power and make all the decisions. The Eastern Ontario Community Economic Development Program was designed to change all that and it has failed before it has even started.

“Once again Eastern Ontario people have seen how ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same.’”

I think that I had difficulty with the program from the inception, without getting into the nuts and bolts of how it was going to work, which took, I think, close to a year and a half from the time it was announced in the budget until the formal announcement of the program a short time ago.

When we talk about $5 million per year being injected into the region over five years and when we look at it on that basis, it is not a great deal of assistance, when we look at things occurring in the Toronto area like 30 million of provincial taxpayers’ dollars going into the most opulent stadium in the country. We see provincial taxpayers’ dollars going into an opera centre in downtown Toronto. We see millions and millions of dollars going into the waterfront in downtown Toronto: taxpayers’ dollars, Ontario taxpayers’ dollars, eastern Ontario taxpayers’ dollars.

We can go on and on ad nauseam in respect to the significant amounts of funds that are being funnelled into Metropolitan Toronto in southern Ontario from taxpayers right across this province. We are supposed to be terribly enthusiastic and pleased about the provincial government giving us poor folks down in eastern Ontario $5 million a year for five years, which in fact is not going to help many of the communities that are facing difficult circumstances.

One good thing about this particular program, I will say, is that apparently they have eliminated the Ottawa-Carleton area from the program, and I think that is an appropriate move. Too often programs are applied province-wide and do not recognize the different circumstances in the various regions, and that certainly applies to eastern Ontario as well.

Ottawa-Carleton is one of the most successful areas in eastern Ontario -- I would say perhaps the most successful -- and having the federal government centred there is one of the prime reasons for that, I would suggest. But a study carried out by the federal government a little over a year ago showed that when you take a look at the statistics of people and families earning under $10,000 a year and families earning under $5,000 a year, eastern Ontario has the highest percentage of people living on less than $10,000 a year and less than $5,000 a year. That is the reality of the situation. It is not the glorious picture the member for Ottawa South was trying to paint a few moments ago.

I want to talk about some of the things the government could be doing in this area. One of my complaints over a great many years is the fact that there is no recognition within government of a clear definition of just what constitutes eastern Ontario. Every ministry has a different definition. In some instances we have eastern Ontario, through the Eastern Ontario Development Corp., extending up into the Oshawa area. We have the program that I just mentioned going up into the Peterborough area. We have various

definitions within various ministries.

I think the bigger that one makes that pie in terms of the people eating from it, the real eastern Ontarians are the folks who suffer. I think that has been a problem for a great many years -- and I am not laying that solely in the lap of the current government, but it is something that this government has failed to address. I hope that it will indeed take a hard look at it, work with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario to develop a standard definition of eastern Ontario and then use that definition with all ministries in this province.

I want to talk about the fact that the Premier (Mr. Peterson) has seen fit to appoint, I believe, an assistant deputy minister for Metropolitan Toronto in the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs. This is a minister who is going to work with various ministries and work with the local governments within Metro to try to resolve problems and concerns within Metro.

Okay, that may be fine, but again, it is a case of Metro’s problems being the focus of this government, Metro concerns being the focus of this government.

We have a Ministry of Northern Development. We have an assistant deputy minister in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology dealing with northern Ontario.

What does eastern Ontario have? Nothing. When officials from eastern Ontario met with seven officials from the Ministry of industry, Trade and Technology to talk about eastern Ontario, there was not one member of the ministry sitting there with any knowledge or any background of eastern Ontario. That is the reality.

Mr Mahoney: They’ve got a development corporation down there. That’s the reality.

Mr. Runciman: The reality is that is not functioning as it should, and I am not going to get into interjections with my limited time. I have talked about Toronto, the focus on Toronto, and I think one of the initiatives this government could undertake is also to follow suit in terms of what it has done for Metro Toronto: appoint an assistant deputy minister in the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs to deal with eastern Ontario matters.

I am not talking about a significant enlargement of the bureaucracy. I am talking about two or three people to co-ordinate efforts to ensure that there is a significant voice at the senior levels within government bureaucracy to deal with eastern Ontario concerns. That is all I am asking for, and I think it is an appropriate initiative, based on what the Premier is doing with respect to Metropolitan Toronto.

I want to take a look at meaningful initiatives in eastern Ontario. We have a land bank, 10,000 acres in Edwardsburgh township, owned by this provincial government. What is being done about that land bank? Absolutely nothing. Nothing is being done to promote it.

If it wants to do something meaningful, why does the government not look at developing a program of providing hard services for the development and expansion of industrial parks in eastern Ontario? That is the kind of program that is going to get people who are coming into Metropolitan Toronto, which is facing congestion, increased crime, rocketing housing prices, a multitude of problems, but they are still coming here because this government is not encouraging them to take a look at other areas of this province, especially eastern Ontario.

They can do that by coming up with some innovative programs. They have a 10,000-acre land bank. Why do they not go in there, service that and make it available, at cost, to industry? That would be a tremendous incentive to get industry into eastern Ontario.

Why do they not look into providing programs of low-cost loans to a variety of small and medium-sized municipalities in eastern Ontario to extend services in existing industrial parks and to develop new industrial parks?

That is the kind of meaningful initiative that they should be undertaking, and up to this point, what do we have the eastern Ontario members of the government doing? Getting up and congratulating themselves, slapping themselves on the back at every opportunity and not really giving us a meaningful voice on the government side of the House.

We do not have a minister with significant impact in that government. We do not have one minister from eastern Ontario in an economic portfolio. This government is really continually ignoring the very valid concerns of eastern Ontario.

Mr. Cleary: As chairman of the eastern Ontario caucus, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this resolution.

Before I begin my address, I must think of the positive approach the Ontario government has taken to eastern Ontario.

I would like to congratulate the member for Ottawa South on his excellent speech. Like the member for Ottawa South. I must commend the efforts of the Liberal government since coming to power in 1985. The residents of eastern Ontario can rest assured that the government’s unprecedented efforts to recognize the interests of this region will continue in the coming years.

Less than one month ago, on December 12, I had the honour of attending the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology’s announcement of the eastern Ontario economic development program, a five-year, $25-million development plan. The plan relies on local initiative. For its part, the ministry will provide technical and financial assistance to eastern Ontario communities.

As a result of this technical and economic assistance, the eastern Ontario communities will develop strategic economic plans and fund specific strategy projects associated with these plans. Under the program, municipalities are encouraged to group together at the county level to work on planning, implementing and strategies for growth. Thus the counties of eastern Ontario will be mapping their own destinies. The fact that eastern Ontario economic development programs do not include the Ottawa-Carleton region should not be viewed in a negative light.

The Ottawa-Carleton region already has extensive planning resources at its disposal and already has developed a sound long-term economic strategy.

The improved level of economic activity which will be stimulated by this economic development plan will lay the groundwork for eastern Ontario and a more economically balanced region. There will be growth, a higher degree of community ownership and new jobs in sections of eastern Ontario which have not already been as fortunate as the Ottawa-Carleton region.

While addressing some of the government of Ontario’s initiatives in eastern Ontario, I will limit myself to speaking on the progress that took place since September 1987 when I had the honour of being chosen to represent the people of Cornwall at the Ontario Legislature. Further, I will focus on economic initiatives in relation to tourism, recreation, skills development, housing and the Eastern Ontario Development Corp.

The Ontario government has not only recognized tourism as vital to eastern Ontario, it has created Destinations East, a program designated to propose and enhance tourism and recreation in eastern Ontario. Under the program, eastern Ontario municipalities, the private sector, tourism developers and tourist-oriented nonprofit organizations are eligible for funding as long as their activities have the potential to improve tourism in eastern Ontario, create new jobs and increase tourism opportunities.

Funds can be used for everything from developing tourist facilities to funding feasibility studies for determining the merits of a tourist project to assist tourism businesses to put together marketing strategies for the first time. One of the local motels in my riding was awarded a $10,000 marketing assistance grant for marketing a campaign and a bus tour market in Ontario, Quebec and the northeastern United States.

In the past few weeks another motel received over $27,000 to assist in an upgrading project. The project is an excellent example of how eastern Ontario can improve its position as a first-choice tourist destination.

The Worldfest/Festimonde Cornwall, a nonprofit organization that organizes an annual multicultural festival and attracts talented folk groups from every corner of the world, benefited from a $23,950 grant. Worldfest is using this money to provide a video and a brochure to attract corporate investors.

Tourism grants which directly and indirectly stimulate eastern Ontario’s economy have also taken the form of capital grants for new recreation facilities. In the past year the township of Cornwall received a $220,000 grant to construct a bicycle path. To illustrate his ministry’s commitment to the development of eastern Ontario’s economy through tourism and recreation, the Minister of Tourism and Recreation was on site at the official opening.

My colleague the member for Ottawa South (Mr. Chiarelli) talked at length about the government’s interest in the eastern Ontario economy, with the Minister of Skills Development touring the region.

I would also like to deal with the Ministry of Skills Development’s commitment to eastern Ontario. In my own riding the commitment was made evident in the ministry’s renewal of funding for the Cornwall Youth Employment Counselling Centre.

In May 1988 the centre received $107,256 from the ministry. The counselling centre is a community-based organization to help unemployed youth. The centre raises money for the community and the moneys raised are then matched by funds from the Ministry of Skills Development. This is the fourth year that the community has provided such support for the Cornwall centre. During the past year the centre has served more than 850 young people.

The young people of Cornwall, like those in other communities across Ontario, are the key to our future economic stability. The government’s efforts on the part of eastern Ontario youth are a concrete indication of its commitment to the eastern Ontario economy of tomorrow.

Another Skills Development program benefits Cummins Recon, a Cornwall company that builds diesel engines. The company received $122,730 to set up a workplace literacy and skills program. The funds will be used to increase workplace literacy as well as a hands-on training session assisting women developing the skills of nontraditional occupations. The employees benefit by acquiring not only the basic skills but updating of training as well. The company and the economy as a whole benefit through an ample supply of skilled workers.

When the government’s new economic development plan started and got into full swing, local economic strategies in my riding can call on the Stormont Dundas and Glengarry Industrial Training Council, a community industrial training council that operates in the heart of my riding. This organization, which is made up of members of various backgrounds, provides a source of planning knowledge and can be relied on to participate in the training needs.

In essence, as employers become increasingly aware --

The Deputy Speaker: Your time is up. I am awfully sorry. The member for Sault Ste. Marie.

Mr. Morin-Strom: I am pleased to speak to this resolution with regard to economic development in eastern Ontario. Although I am not a member representing a community in eastern Ontario, I do understand the concerns of areas outside the heartland of the Golden Horseshoe of Ontario, being a member from northern Ontario. We in the north experience similar problems to those communities in eastern Ontario with regard to economic development and in particular with regard to getting this government to act on their behalf to stimulate economic development in those important regions of our province.

I find it interesting that the Liberal government and its backbench members from eastern Ontario can do such a job of patting the backs of the government in terms of initiatives for that region, when in fact the feeling in that region is quite the contrary when it comes to those economic development initiatives. I would just look at what the reaction has been to initiatives in terms of eastern Ontario economic development, in particular the major announcement recently by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology with regard to the eastern Ontario community economic development program.

This initiative has not been well received in eastern Ontario, particularly with regard to smaller communities, those communities that really do need the economic development in those regions.

I will just quote briefly from an editorial from the Prescott Journal, a paper that I think reflects one of the smaller communities in eastern Ontario and the sentiments of people in that region. Its editorial of December 28 starts, “The ‘Alice in Wonderland’ logic of the powers that be at Queen’s Park has struck again and a number of Eastern Ontario communities, including the town of Prescott, have once again found themselves holding the dirty end of the stick.”

The editorial goes on further in terms of this particular development project and states, “Unfortunately, many area officials later learned that all that glitters is indeed not always gold and while there still is $25 million in provincial funding to be had, there are also a number of loopholes and conditions which mean that the money won’t be going to areas where it is needed the most.”

The editorial concludes: “For years Eastern Ontario residents have felt alienated and ignored by those in Toronto and central Ontario who seemed to have all the power and make all the decisions. The Eastern Ontario Community Economic Development Program was designed to change all that and it has failed before it has even started.

“Once again, Eastern Ontario people have seen how ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same.’”

In terms of this government’s initiatives for eastern Ontario, one has to question where it is going and whether initiatives like this are new funds, new programs or just replacements for other programs that are being cut by this government in the same region.

I point out that just yesterday in question period, we had a question from the member for Carleton (Mr. Sterling) with regard to the innovation centre at the University of Ottawa and the closing of that centre that has recently been announced by this government.

The answer from the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology was: “It was decided the money could be spent with greater effect through other programs that are in place. As a result, the decision was made to inform the various innovation centres that after their term was up, which is now going to be the end of the month, they are going to be wound down.”

We have a clear statement from this government that what is happening is that programs are being cut in order that the funds be spent in other areas. These kinds of major announcements are not new funds, but are just taking funds that had been going into other programs in the region.

When it comes to economic development in eastern Ontario, as in northern Ontario, one of the major initiatives in recent years from the government has been the development corporations. There are both the Northern Ontario Development Corp. and the Eastern Ontario Development Corp. But if one looks at the amount of funds that has gone through these corporations, one sees that the recent Liberal government has been underspending the budget provided to these development corporations in both these regions, and in fact the total budget is down considerably over the last five years.

I have the figures here in terms of the estimates budget figures for the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Technology. If one goes back five years to the last full fiscal year before the Liberals got into government, the actuals for the year 1983-84 show that the actual spending in the Eastern Ontario Development Corp. was $8,195,000; more than $8 million. I look at what the estimates are for the current fiscal year, five years later, 1988-89, and the amount in the budget is $3,993,000 -- under $4 million.

We have gone from a budget of more than $8 million for the Eastern Ontario Development Corp. to a current budget of under $4 million, a cut of more than $4 million in terms of annual funding in that development corporation. That is the kind of commitment we have seen for development in eastern Ontario, and it is similar to how this government has treated other outlying areas of the province as well.

I point out as well that just yesterday, in the standing committee on resources development, we started the budget review of the Ministry of Transportation and we had the major opening remarks from the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Fulton) with regard to initiatives in transportation. If there were ever an area of economic development of importance to outlying regions of this province, it is our transportation infrastructure, and in particular our highways.

Let’s look at what this government says are its new major expansion projects already under way onto commence in 1989. The minister lists them and they include the E. C. Row Expressway in Windsor; Highway 406 to the city of Welland; Highway 410 from Highway 401 to Bovaird Drive in Brampton; Highway 403, Brantford to Ancaster; Highway 115 from Highway 35 to Peterborough; Highway 401 from Neilson Road to Brock Road in Pickering; Highway 401 within the city of Cambridge; and Highway 69 from Waubaushene to Port Severn.

A very high priority for the ministry is the construction of Highway 407 from Highway 27 to Dufferin Street. These are the expansion priorities for the Ministry of Transportation in terms of highway development.

I think anyone who looks at that list will recognize none of them are in eastern Ontario. Eastern Ontario is not a priority in terms of economic development or development of the infrastructure in this province. We in northern Ontario know that we have not been a priority of this government and have got less than our share of spending by this government. The same certainly applies to eastern Ontario. That continues to be the case the longer this government has the kind of representation it does and the lack of input, particularly from the backbench Liberal members who have not been effective in advocating for their own residents in that part of the province.

We look at the rail sector. We did not see the provincial government active in trying to protect the overnight rail service between Ottawa and Toronto, a service that has been threatened and is of vital importance to that region of the province. In fact, in the Ministry of Transportation, as in other ministries, the priority is greater Metropolitan Toronto. The priority of this government is to enhance the growth and continue the growth of the Metro area.

We should be looking at what kind of development possibilities exist in other areas of the province. We could have a more balanced economy in this province. We should have economic stimulation in areas such as eastern Ontario. That is a very important region of this province. It has a very strong growth centre potential around the city of Ottawa, but much more can be done in a lot of the smaller communities in eastern Ontario to stimulate economic development in those areas and provide a better way of living for everyone in eastern Ontario. I encourage this government to do so.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): The next speaker is the member for Frontenac Addington (Mr. South).

Mr. Cureatz: Wait a minute. We have a rotation here, Mr. Speaker.

The Acting Speaker: Excuse me, the third party, the member for Durham East.

Mr. Cureatz: As you were casting your eyes about, Mr. Speaker, I know that for some strange reason you missed my obvious presence. Now that I am here, it is a great privilege to have the opportunity of speaking to this resolution by the honourable member for Ottawa South.

I am so flabbergasted by the resolution that I am almost at a loss for words. However, from the depth of my soles on the bottom of my shoes, I have been able to gather up one or two trivial bits of thought about this resolution. Of course, for any of the lawyers who are listening this a.m. and, if not, maybe on the repeat tonight, I will have to begin, and the lawyers will appreciate this, by saying that I have nothing but the highest respect for the honourable member for Ottawa South.

This should lead into the obvious fact that this resolution is absolute b-u-n-k. I did not do very well in spelling. Does that spell bunk? Because that is what this is. I am embarrassed profusely for the honourable member for Ottawa South, for whom I have nothing but the highest regard -- a man of his stature who has a very large family, most of whom voted for him and that is why he got elected. He is a presence in the educational field.

As a matter of fact, when I grasp through my memory banks all the various attributes this member has, I am flabbergasted he has come forward with this kind of nonsense. I am really getting worked up now. I mean, of all the things -- oh, I almost felt like saying something that would be unparliamentary -- a Liberal backbencher could be doing.

Do you know what I have to do for a moment, Mr. Speaker? I have to go into my backbench speech because the member has not learned a thing yet in a year and a half. I started off a year and a half ago and I said: “Now, Liberal backbenchers, here is how this game is played. Listen very closely.” Of course, it is the old story. If you want to fool them, tell them the truth because they do not believe you. I am going to try to tell him the truth again.

I say to the member for Ottawa South, bringing forward this resolution does absolutely zilch for him; nothing at all. What is he going to do? Go back to his riding and say, “I spent half a morning at Queen’s Park bringing forward a resolution complimenting what a great job the Premier (Mr. Peterson) the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway), the member for Brant-Haldimand (Mr. R. F. Nixon) and the member for St. George-St. David (Mr. Scott) have done.” I mean, really, in his riding, who cares? Does he think they are that concerned that he is complimenting the people who are really running the show?

Few people have the opportunity, first, of getting elected, and then getting on the ballot to present to these chambers a possible piece of legislation or a resolution. We all know that process. Holy smoke, you have to go through the gauntlet. Finally, the member for Ottawa South comes forward.

I have to say selfishly -- I am not even getting into my remarks, doggone it -- that when I evaluate my opportunity of speaking in the morning for private members’ hour, I take a look and say: “What would be helpful for the people of Ontario? What might be beneficial for the people in my riding?” That is so at some future time lean come forward either through a newsletter or at election time and say: “On behalf of all of you in Durham East, I had this proposal brought forward. I spoke on your behalf and I brought it forward to the Legislature.”

Now, Dalton -- I have to call him Dalton; we have been on committees together and we have had a couple of chuckles -- how in the heck are you selfishly going to be able to use this? Know what happened? I can remember when I once sat over there where the member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) is. George Ashe -- who then outmanoeuvred me and got into cabinet way before I ever did, and of course I guess this is how he got into cabinet -- at private members’ hour brought forward a resolution that they should be electrifying the rail train from Oshawa to Windsor or something.

I went over to George and said: “You know, George, actually that was not a bad idea. As a matter of fact, it is a good idea, and l know you; it did not come from you.” He laughed a little. He said: “You are right. I got it from someone on the front bench.” I said, “Aha, so someone is feeding old George and he is playing the game.”

The member for Ottawa South has fallen right into the trap. Someone over there -- it must be the member for Renfrew North. He is the only one I can think of who would be suave enough to cajole him into coming forward with this resolution.

Then they are saying: “Don’t worry, Dalton. We will be there at election time. The Premier will come through your riding and we will look after you when it is called. Pat us on the back a bit.”

I mean, this is so self-serving that I am embarrassed for him. It is just unbelievable that he thinks he can get away with this. Then on top of that, as if he was not on the Sunday shopping committee in Ottawa. For all members who were not there, what a road show we had. Of course, it is not over yet. We all heard yesterday from the Premier about closure. If I have the opportunity, I will be saying a word or two about that. But reading this resolution, it is as if he was not in the Ottawa hotel. Well, he was. I saw him in flesh and blood. It was not a phantom of my imagination.

Members should have seen the protest groups there against that Sunday shopping legislation. The animosity in that room was unbelievable. You could see the electricity bouncing over the walls. And there was the member for Ottawa South, sitting in the back row with his legs crossed. He did not come up with us. I will tell members who came up with us, who took the real heat. It was the member for Ottawa West. Oh boy, was he under the gun.

Did we see the member for Ottawa South coming to his rescue when all the press was there with the microphones giving the devil to that poor old member? As a matter of fact, I even felt sorry for him because I have been in that spot once or twice myself, and of course no one came to my rescue, so I thought: “Why should I go to Bob’s rescue? He is getting hung. Too bad; it is his riding. It is his home town.”

The member was there. He saw how antagonistic those groups were from his own home town, all the religious organizations, the large businesses, the unions, the various aspects, individual people. They were screaming at this government and the member sat in the back row, smiling like a Cheshire cat, grabbed a free coffee, went out in the hallway for a smoke, and then he comes down to Queen’s Park and he gives us this rubbish. It is unbelievable.

Of course, the Liberal backbenchers are getting away with this all the time. They are telling about all the funds that have been spent and allocated. Let’s get some specifics. The member comes forward talking about the large percentage of increases in hostel spending in his area.

It comes as passing strange, if I may use that turn of phrase, that he made no reference specifically to that promised increase to school boards across Ontario, no doubt more particularly in his home area, and the lack of funds that are coming forward to those school boards. He could have talked about that.

Why does he not play fair and give the member for Renfrew North a little whack? He tells us on the wonderful tour by the Minister of Skills Development and the government House leader through eastern Ontario, what a great reception they had, except through Osceola because there was a huge traffic jam. The traffic jam was because people were running away from the House leader and from the member and the Minister of Skills Development.

They began to see the maya of it all: the arrogance of this Liberal administration in arms of Sunday shopping, passing on that onerous responsibility to the municipalities; housing, passing that on to the municipalities with an increase in lot levies; the waffling on insurance.

I have not attacked the Minister of Energy (Mr. Wong) yet about the possibility of brown-outs in Ontario in the wintertime. I told him we could stand it in Ontario in the summer -- if it gets too hot, you sit underneath a tree in the shade and pant -- but what are you going to do in the wintertime when you do not have electricity and you do not have any heat for people across the province?

He does not bring forward any of that stuff. He comes forward with a pat-on-the-back resolution that I am totally embarrassed about. A man of his experience and intelligence should have known better. I do not know what the deal was. Is the member for Renfrew North taking him out for a nice dinner at La Scala or something, saying: “Bring this one in. Tell us what a great job we are doing and we will look after you for a nice meal.”

I am waiting now for the rest of the backbenchers to come forward with resolutions about how wonderful the government is going to be in western Ontario, in the Niagara Peninsula, in mid-northern Ontario and in northern Ontario. What about in Metro and the garbage crisis we have here? No, first we have this and now we are waiting for the rest of the backslapping we are going to get from the Liberal backbenchers.

The Acting Speaker: There is time remaining only for a windup by the member for Ottawa South.

Mr. McGuinty: After the remarks of the member for Durham East (Mr. Cureatz), I am not sure if I should offer a rebuttal or leave and go to confession at St. Basil’s.

What I did, and he probably was not listening, was that I outlined in some

chapter and verse the expenditure of $1 billion in the east. I spoke of specific examples of our Ministry of Skills Development, our ministerial presences throughout the area, our caucus hearings, our listening to caucus briefs, our outreach program, all of these things.

The member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Runciman) chose to refer to this background information as “congratulatory pap.” I can only assume he is still suffering the lingering effects of the traumatic shock administered by the electorate in 1985 and 1987.

I think it is also significant that in searching for a source to quote, an authority to quote, which is critical of our government’s activity in the east, he chose to go to the Prescott Journal. It would be like the Orange Lodge going to L’Osservatore Romano to look for a congratulatory comment.

The member for Leeds-Grenville alluded twice to years of neglect, years of neglect. We agree there have been years of neglect. I think one of the questions he should be asking himself is where he was in the previous government as an economic minister during these years of neglect. I think it is also significant that the only evidence the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Morin-Strom) could muster was that which was fed to him by the member for Leeds-Grenville, who chose to quote the same editorial, showing the poverty of sources of reputable comment they had to draw upon. The same editorial was used by both people.

So I do not apologize. I also would respectfully suggest to the member for Sault Ste. Marie that it is a bit presumptuous of him to tell the backbench Liberals from eastern Ontario that they are not properly tied in with their constituents and that they do not properly respond with feeling and understanding to the needs of the area. I think that is a bit presumptuous. I think we do.

As I have said, we have had our outreach programs. As he does, we spend time in our constituency offices. We travel throughout the eastern part of the province. We do it regularly. We meet here. We meet elsewhere. We meet in Ottawa and outlying areas. I think we do; we have done. I think there has been a causal relationship between the expenditure of ministry funds in our region and the work of our eastern Ontario caucus. For this we do not apologize. It is not a matter of back-slapping and congratulations; it is a matter of statement of facts.

I ask for your support for this resolution.

SOIL CONSERVATION

Mr. McGuigan moved resolution 41:

That, in the opinion of this House, the Minister of Agriculture and Food should develop a lease form for voluntary use by owners and renters of farm land that would give credits to the lessor for lessor-financed long-term conservation measures which, when totalled at the end of the lease period, would recompense the lessee for the residual value of the improvements to the land owned or controlled by the lessor and which would, at the end of the lease period, recompense the lessor for the deterioration or damage due to faulty tillage and farming practices to the land owned or controlled by the lessor; and that the minister should provide personnel to act as evaluators and arbitrators in the event that disputes over the residual value of the soil building and conservation measures develop at the time of termination of the lease and in the event that arbitration fails, the minister should provide expert witnesses when such disputes are taken to a court of civil law for settlement and that the minister, as a long-term policy, should advertise, promote and encourage the use of such lease agreements in the province of Ontario.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. M. C. Ray): The member will know he has up to 20 minutes for his presentation and may reserve any portion thereof for his windup.

Mr. McGuigan: The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines “land reform” as follows:

“Land reform includes the redistribution of agricultural land among existing or new owners, including consolidation or subdivision development or settlement of holdings; adjustment of rental charges; compulsory reimbursement of costs incurred by the tenant for improvements made on the lands he cultivates; increase in the security of tenure; adjustment of policy and procedure in the taxation of agricultural land; and the adjudication of registration of land and water titles.”

With this resolution, we are dealing specifically with the third item of land reform, “reimbursement of costs incurred by the tenant for improvements made on the lands he cultivates.”

I would like at this time to put on the record my very sincere appreciation for the work of Yvonne Lavelley. Ms. Lavelley was a parliamentary intern in my office in the spring of 1988 and assisted me in the gathering of research material for this resolution.

The history of the world since Grecian times has been marked by bitter struggles between the landless and the land owners. In England, one of the guarantees forced on King John in 1215 by the Magna Carta was that religious bodies would have limits placed on their land holdings. Those struggles are going on today in Mexico, Latin America and South America. Recent documentaries addressed the pointless destruction of the Amazon rain forest by the Brazilian landless.

Over the years, in the United Kingdom the burdens imposed on tenants were somewhat relaxed by more clearly defining their obligations to their feudal lords. In North America we have been partially insulated from the ancient problem because of free land available in the early days. Now that there is little, if any, new land available, pressures on rented land to produce immediate income due to the competition among lessees are showing up in the form of a faster rate of soil degradation on leased land than on owned land.

This resolution addresses the problem of agricultural land tenure, which has been widely recognized by farmers and researchers who study the causes and effects of soil degradation. This resolution looks to the future and to trends that are apparent in Ontario at the present time. Agricultural production in Ontario, while still a very large figure, something in excess of $5.6 billion at the farm gate, is giving ground to industrial production. Full-time farmers are a decreasing percentage of the farm population, particularly in the cash-crop counties of southern Ontario. For the 30,000 commercial farmers in Ontario, only 30 per cent of their income comes from the farm.

Due to changes in production systems, economic pressures brought on by exploding land prices in the 1970s, declining commodity prices in the 1980s and emerging industrial employment practices, a great many farmers now work both on and off the farm. Also, due to declining farm land values and forced bankruptcies, farm homes and properties are now attractive to urbanites who have the opportunity to sell their city homes for prices that are more than sufficient to buy a country home and the attached productive farm land.

The end result is that both established and new farm property owners are faced with the problems and opportunities to lease out their farm lands to both established farmers and new, young operators who have the expertise and the equipment to farm more acres but who do not or cannot purchase the land outright.

Historically, North American farmers have lived poor and died rich. They lived as frugally as they could, pouring their savings into the land and then selling the farm, which had usually gained considerable value, and retiring with a comfortable nest-egg.

Today, partly due to taxation policies of all government levels, partly due to their own rising expectations and largely due to world subsidy policies, particularly in the European Community, the United States and to some extent our own agricultural commodity subsidies, younger farmers look to the earning capacity of the land plus government payments rather than to the capitalization value of the land. Lending policies of both private and government agencies today, as never before, look at the productive value of the land rather than to the capital value of the land.

Also, under our capitalistic system land must produce a return to the land owner sufficient to his or her lifetime needs. Land must return money sufficient to pay the local taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, equipment purchases, repairs and other miscellaneous costs. In short, the land must pay for itself in every generation. By comparison, publicly owned lands such as roads, bridges, canals or parks pay for themselves only once.

The result of these circumstances and policies is that between 25 per cent and 35 per cent of the Arabic land in Ontario is farmed by farmers who rent or lease the land, generally on yearly terms. I believe this trend will slowly escalate and, in my opinion, the above pressures will increasingly come to bear on our agricultural economy, due to the free trade agreement. As a result, more and more land will be farmed under lease. In the United States, from which the pressures will largely emanate, it is estimated that 50 percent of the crop land is leased.

To appreciate the purpose of my resolution, I believe it is necessary to step back a few hundred years to examine our system of land tenure. Except for the province of Quebec, the Canadian system of land tenure comes from England. After the Norman conquest in 1066, all land in England was held by tenants from feudal lords upon various forms of feudal tenure.

By the end of the 15th century, a large part of the agricultural land was let to tenants on leases, either for a term of years or for life, at fixed rents generally established on the basis that the owners provided the land, house and necessary buildings while the tenants supplied the livestock and working capital. Part of the terms of the lease was to maintain the fertility of the land. By the latter part of the 18th century, leases of seven, 14 and 21 years were offered.

Both the common law and the superior bargaining power of most landlords tipped the scales against the tenants. In Britain, the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1851 and the Agricultural Holding Act of 1875, followed by similar statutes up to the present time, gave more power to the tenants. Under Second World War emergency conditions, new legislation gave the state control and power to evict inefficient farmers. These later powers were repealed in 1958, but the act continued the protection of tenants in an improved form.

It should be noted that in Canada, the government of Alberta passed the Agricultural Service Board Act in 1970. This act has very wide powers over treatment of land and the province may, under certain circumstances, take control of the land away from the owner and issue an order of land reclamation.

In the United Kingdom, everything that was put into the soil or was attached to the land became the property of the land owner without recompense to the tenant unless otherwise agreed. Tenants claimed that, as a matter of justice, they should receive residual benefits of any improvements they had made to the holding and in many districts, custom upheld their position. In the act of 1851, tenants were able to remove certain agricultural fixtures, but other improvements, such as breaking up of scrub land, were naturally irremovable.

In Britain, the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875 gave tenants the right to compensation for the unexhausted value of improvements made by them, but most landlords contracted out of the act. The act of 1883 invalidated contracting out unless the lease gave the tenant terms not less favourable from the statutory provisions.

The Agricultural Holdings Act of 1923 gave improved protection to the tenant; compensation for improvements; compensation for “high farming,” that is, for adopting a standard of farming more beneficial to the farm than that required by the tenancy; compensation for disturbances on the termination of the tenancy, and provision to receive a year’s notice to quit, thus preventing termination of a tenancy while the crops were still standing. The act was amended as late as 1986.

The system of land tenure developed in England is unique. The real control of land in the United Kingdom lies with the tenant. On the other hand, apart from communist regimes, over the great part of the world the occupiers of agricultural land are the owners of it. Farmer proprietorship is predominant, and where there are dual interests in the land, the most common system is some form of métayage.

The term is French and describes what was probably the dominant type of land tenure in 18th-century France. It is a form of sharecropping involving sharing half the annual output. The landlord would provide the land and fixed capital items and some of the machinery and half the cost of annual inputs. The tenant would provide half the inputs and all of the labour.

The system existed in France, Italy, India, Japan, eastern Europe and the southern United States, and was predominant in southern Ontario until recently with high-labour-requirement crops such as sugar beets, tobacco and some vegetable crops. The system has largely given way to the farm owners taking over these crops now that mechanization has been substituted for manual labour.

The system does, however, persist and is used in Ontario today to share the risk in growing grain corn, soybeans and small grains. It also persists for the reason of federal tax benefits to the landlord. Commonly, the landlord supplies the land and receives 35 per cent of the gross sales and the tenant supplies the inputs and receives 65 per cent. There are, of course, some variations in those ratios.

I believe the British system evolved from the feudal landlord system, from their inability to produce all of their food requirements and from their wartime experience of food shortages. I am not suggesting that we adopt this system. I am suggesting that we look to the British model to improve our land leasing practices to shift towards a more even balance of power between landlord and tenant for the long-term benefit of both.

If you examine the terms of lease forms printed by the Dye and Durham Co. Ltd., form 85-88, in pursuance of the Ontario Short Forms of Leases Act, you will see that the power lies largely with the landlords. There are general terms to protect the land.

“That the lessee will cultivate, till, manure or fertilize and employ such parts of the said lands in a good farmer-like and proper manner and will in like manner crop the said lands by a regular rotation of crops so as not to impoverish, depreciate or injure the soil.”

The lease form also says that when notice to quit is given by the lessor, “The lessee shall be entitled to be compensated for the value of the crops sown and then growing, or of the ploughing done on the said lands in preparing for a crop, the amount of such compensation to be determined by arbitration if the parties cannot agree thereon.”

There is no mention of compensation for the long-term improvements to the land and property, residual value which will accrue to the landlord or to the new purchaser of the land. The absence of such a clause discourages the tenant from doing anything to improve the land. In fact, it encourages the tenant to look only to his short-term benefits.

This oversight in leasing practice has been noted by soil conservationists. Senator H. O. Sparrow, chairman of the standing committee on agriculture, fisheries and forests, in the 1984 report Soils at Risk, Canada’s Eroding Future, says: “Many leases are verbal agreements with no obligations spelled out in detail and most are for one or two years at a time. As a result, the renting farmer is reluctant to take any conservation measures for which the payout is only in the long term.” One of the studies shows that in 1987, 68 per cent of all agreements were verbal.

The Science Council of Canada, in its September 1986 report A Growing Concern: Soil Degradation in Canada, expresses concerns about leased land. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, in their annual briefs to cabinet, have noted the need for long-term leases to encourage good stewardship of the land.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food, led by the Honourable Jack Riddell, has moved in this direction by providing three sample leases that, in their

preambles, give good conservation advice but follow the same terms as the Dye and Durham forms.

In these samples, when the tenant leaves the farm, the tenant agrees to pay the landlord reasonable compensation for any damages to the land for which the tenant is responsible, but there is no mention of recompense to the tenant for improvements to the leasehold. The only compensation to the tenant in the event the landlord sells the land is for the value of the crop sown and then growing or the plowing done on the said lands in preparation for a crop.

The minister has made further progress. On March 3, 1987, the minister announced that in order to contribute to the development and promotion of sustainable farming systems, a new land stewardship chair will be established at the University of Guelph, backed by a $1-million fund provided by the ministry. In December of the same year, the minister announced a new, three-year, $40-million land stewardship program.

In co-operation with the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association, it provides grants to encourage farmers to adopt conservation practices that will improve food production, soil resources and water quality. It also funds research, education and extension services, including 12 additional field crops regional advisers.

A part of the program is the stewardship lease component to encourage landlords to require tenants to farm their lands. Under the stewardship plan, a grant of $10 per acre per year will be paid to the land owner when the land is leased under an approved, minimum three-year stewardship lease.

The maximum grant available is $3,000 per applicant. Agdex 570, December 1987, offers a land stewardship lease,

schedule A. This sample lease sets out cropping and tillage practices for the minimum of three years. It also provides a chart to be filled out by the two parties as to the responsibilities for installation, payment and maintenance of erosion control structures but leaves the choice of responsibilities up to the parties.

In the event that the tenant pays for the erosion control structure, the sample lease is silent on the question of any compensation for the cost of such structures in the event that the landlord terminates the agreement at the end of the three years.

The stewardship lease and the $10-per-acre payment partly address the issue but presently have a life of only three years, and the funds are already oversubscribed. I hope that the program will continue and be augmented by further funds, but regardless of the outcome, I believe a need exists to bring an appreciation of the need for a greater balance between the power of the landlord and the power of the tenant.

The sorry state of the world environment is because we have allowed economic considerations to prevail over environmental concerns. I would prefer to see our future programs be long-term, tying incentive payments to environmental programs.

It is this deficiency in all of the ministry sample leases that my resolution is designed to correct. I realize, of course, that any agreement could have a compensation and arbitration clause inserted by the two parties, but I believe this is not likely to happen in the absence of such a clause in the sample agreement. My purpose is to legitimize such a clause and to encourage OMAF to promote the concept to be used in a voluntary way by both landlord and tenant to mutually agree upon the ethics of land stewardship.

The history of concern about soil erosion in Canada began in the 1930s and ended in the 1950s, when the technology developed in the wartime period briefly eclipsed the need to conserve our soils. The escalation of grain prices due to the Russian great grain robbery of 1972 and the subsequent stimulus to production brought about the reawakening to concerns about soil degradation in the 1980s.

Environment concerns of today are acid rain, waste management, ozone depletion and man-induced climate changes. I believe that from a worldwide perspective, soil degradation ranks among this list but is likely the most easily managed once the political will is motivated to do so.

The Soil Conservation Society of America, Ontario chapter, says, “Soil erosion may well be the most underrated yet most damaging natural resource problem of the 1980s.”

We have begun the task. This resolution is another small step. The concept is a big step that could set the direction of future actions. I respectfully request the support of all members for the legislation and I reserve my time remaining.

Mr. Wildman: I rise to support the resolution. I want to congratulate the member. It is always interesting to hear his concerns and views, particularly because he has such a breadth of knowledge in the agricultural field and in economic development generally. While I do not always agree with the views of my friend, I always find them interesting and most often very well researched, and so for that I appreciate the opportunity this morning to hear his comments in support of his resolution.

I support it because I believe that there is a need to develop a greater balance in the relationship between tenants and landlords. Obviously, an owner of land that is leased to another farmer must be protected to ensure that the land is not in any way harmed by inadequate farming methods, techniques or even laziness on the part of the person who is leasing the land. But on the other hand, there must also, as I believe the member has indicated, be some provision to encourage the person who is renting the land to make improvements, and one of the ways to do that is to in some way make it possible for that person to be compensated for those improvements.

As the member also indicated, there must be a need for longer-term leases. If a person is only leasing land for one year at a time, for instance, it would not make any sense for that person to invest very much capital in improving the land.

In my area in northern Ontario we have a particularly unusual problem, I think, in that in some cases land that has been farmed in the past has reverted to the crown for lack of payment of taxes. Neighbouring farmers would like to lease that land for cropping or pasture or haylage.

In many cases this land is not properly fenced, and if a farmer is going to be using the land for pasture, obviously it needs to be fenced. But if the farmer can only arrange a one-year lease with the crown, it does not make sense for him, even with the subsidies that are available, to build a proper fence. So obviously there must be provision made for longer-term leases so that the farmer knows that if he makes improvements to that land, it will benefit him not just for the one year but for the foreseeable future, if he hopes to have a longer-term operation in that particular location.

I noted in passing that the member mentioned the historic competition for land, the demand of the landless for land, and the control that the few have tended to have historically over land, whether it be religious organizations, aristocracy or plutocracy. That is indeed a historic situation that we know of in feudal Europe and which was actually imported to North America at the time of the seigniories and so on, and it is still a major problem in many, many parts of the world.

Although the member said that in most parts of the world, other than the communist world, land tenure is usually a situation of ownership, in fact there are many, many areas he has mentioned like Latin America and Asia where a few, an oligarchy, tends to own the vast majority of the land.

I noticed that the member mentioned Latin America and he talked about Brazil and the destruction of Amazonia. The fact is that about two or three per cent, I think it is, of the land owners in Brazil own 40 per cent of the land. Most of the good land is in southern Brazil.

You have many people who are now dispossessed and are moving into Amazonia. The only way they have of turning that land into agricultural land is by doing what we did historically in many parts of southern Ontario and the Maritimes: just burning down the forest. There were fires last summer in Amazonia which were larger than the area of Prince Edward Island. This is a tragedy, not just for Brazil but for the whole world, because the rain forest in the Amazon is one of the main producers of oxygen on this planet.

It is interesting that after we have destroyed our forests in Europe, and in North America to an extent, we are now turning to the people in the Third World and saying, “You must not do what we did because it will cause problems for the whole globe,” while at the same time we own enormous debt owed to our banks by the people of the Third World and by their governments.

Would it not be interesting for North Americans and Europeans not just to say to Brazil, “You must stop the destruction of the Amazon rain forest,” but to say, “In exchange for that we will cancel debt”? That would have serious ramifications for the banking system. They would survive, but it would mean a tremendous effect on our economy.

We all know that just around Christmastime, Chico Mendes was murdered, not because landless people were attempting to develop areas of the Amazon which he was trying to preserve but because big land owners, developers, were opposed to his efforts to preserve the rain forest, efforts which were recognized by the United Nations two years ago. We are seeing a concerted effort by developers, not just the landless in Brazil, in many cases financed by governments. Even the Canadian government until recently was providing assistance for “development” of the Amazon.

This has led to the concerted destruction of the rain forest, the habitat for the Indians and for many species of animals. That has meant the destruction of many Indian tribes and the extinction of thousands of species of plants and animals. The irony of all this, in this particular case, is that the land is not very good. It only lasts for about two years as productive land after the forest is cut down.

I got somewhat sidetracked but I appreciate the fact that this resolution was brought forward this morning and that the member put it in a historic and a global context which enabled us to look at some of the aspects of difficulty faced by people who need land, who want to obtain land to farm and want to be able to make improvements on that land which are useful not only to them but also to the owners of the land.

I applaud the stewardship program which has been proposed by the provincial government; in effect, the provincial government. I would, again, support the member’s proposal in his resolution for expertise to be made available to enable people who are leasing land to get advice as to what they should be doing to improve the land.

I would again support the proposal that there be a standard lease form available, which could be used on a voluntary basis, that would both enable the landlord’s interests to be protected and ensure that the tenant, the person who is renting the land and farming it, can make improvements and have the possibility of compensation for those improvements.

Again, I support the resolution.

Mr. Villeneuve: It is also a pleasure to participate in the debate of the private member’s motion from my colleague the member for Essex-Kent (Mr. McGuigan) on that great area of southwestern Ontario known as the Sun Parlour, certainly an area that is very agriculturally productive and sound.

The resolution, however, concerns me in a number of areas, and I hope to touch on them in the limited time allotted to me. It certainly tries to find ways to improve soil quality on leased land, and we can appreciate that. It is a problem that I believe the land stewardship program has attempted to assess and to look into, however with some degree of difficulty in getting off the ground and certainly limited funds, as alluded to by the member for Essex-Kent.

The idea behind the resolution is certainly good because it can be argued that a farmer will work less hard and spend less money and less time maintaining the soil on rented land than he would on land which he has title to and owns. However, in suggesting that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food develop lease forms and provide evaluators, arbitrators and witnesses to decide how soil has been treated goes way too far, I think, in the creation of unnecessary costs, bureaucracy, possible litigation and disputes. That is the area of concern I have as an individual, as one who has leased and rented land in the past and as one who owns and farms land at the present.

There is nothing wrong with the ministry suggesting that lessors of farm land insist on clauses that will result in soil conservation and improvement measures being practised by the lessee. There is nothing wrong with the ministry providing information as to soil and cost benefits of different conservation and farming methods.

But I do not believe that government bureaucracy should closely monitor or control individual lease agreements. In my opinion, that is going a little bit beyond what I feel should be within the jurisdiction of the man who has to derive a living and meet his financial obligations. The courts provide an existing vehicle to determine if the terms of a lease have been violated.

Soil conservation issues have been growing in importance this decade and we continue to learn more about soil itself. As recently as 10 years ago, soil conservation was not considered to be a serious issue or a great problem in Ontario. However, in the last 10 years, we have certainly looked at the subject in a very much different light.

When the age of chemical farming, sprays and fertilizer came on, it was thought that as long as the soil received enough chemical nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potash, minor elements, and the photosynthesis process occurred, a crop was produced and that was all that was asked for. It is a lot deeper than that. As we have looked at the monoculture, particularly in later years, the issues of soil compaction, chemical runoff, leaching and erosion all became more prevalent and cause for great concern.

In 1983, the province announced a five-year, $25.5-million program, the soil conservation and environmental assistance program. Prior to that, there was only an older farm productivity incentive program in place. Since then, there have been additional programs as our understanding of soil issues has increased and as we have watched some countries across the world go from being a breadbasket to actually living famines.

Education has played and continues to play a very important role in soil conservation as well. The effects of soil degradation are usually gradual and are generally not noticeable by farmers unless they are aware of the problem and can spot the soil and crop losses. We as farmers have all gone to the field in the spring and, my goodness, there is a gully that was not there in the fall when we harvested. I think we have to look at crop rotation, leaving residues on top and minimum tillage practices, which are very much incorporated and being promoted by the land stewardship program.

Over 10 or more years, it is easy to see the effects of degradation, but year over year it is a little less visible. As a result, it has often been difficult to convince farmers to take action, particularly, as the member for Kent-Essex knows, on rented land, which is a very large portion of some of the agricultural operations in the area he represents, certainly a lot more so than in the area I represent.

Government incentives have therefore been very useful methods to encourage farmers to undertake conservation measures. That is why the member for Essex-Kent may have better spent his time asking for a more solid commitment for ongoing funding for the land stewardship program and for extended soil conservation and environmental assistance programs. These are now in place. I always dread an additional layer of bureaucracy.

We should also remember that there are three ministries involved in dealing with soil conservation and erosion questions. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food’s responsibility is for erosion and municipal drains and for soil conservation programs on food land. The Ministry of the Environment looks after water quality and the Ministry of Natural Resources -- and certainly the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Natural Resources, the member for Essex-Kent, would know that water management and the actual in-stream quality system works. I am sure the parliamentary assistant knows that.

More should perhaps have been said about municipal drains, the Ministry of Natural Resources and what that ministry is trying to do to some of our conservation authorities. I have had occasion to speak to representatives of the three conservation authorities in the riding that I represent: the South Nation River Conservation Authority, the Raisin Region Conservation Authority and the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority.

There are a great many unanswered questions and indeed concerns as to what is happening to conservation authorities. Their very name says it all. They are also part of what we are addressing here this morning -- conservation and the maintaining of soil in the areas that produce our food.

Certainly there is concern in the fact that the amalgamation of these long-standing conservation authorities is of great concern to us all. Eastern Ontario has not received adequate attention in this regard. As a matter of fact, I remember well having met not long ago with the member for Essex-Kent, the entire group representing the South Nation River Conservation Authority regarding a fairly major capital expenditure that is required in eastern Ontario.

I would love to have had time to address the previous private member’s motion earlier this morning, but I had to be in committee. The Liberals are saying that eastern Ontario is getting so many good things. I have a number of things that certainly have to come to eastern Ontario. The dredging of the south branch of the South Nation River must be addressed and it must be addressed soon, because more than 10,000 acres of tiled land presently are silting in because this river has not been dredged recently.

It is an absolute must to at least maintain the tile drainage system that is presently in place. I know the parliamentary assistant heard our concerns and I am sure he remembers well. However, we have received very little, if any, financial support. The studies are in place, and we have to address this particular problem.

Hiring ministry personnel to evaluate soil buildup and other measures also undermines the ministry’s current co-operation with the soil and crop improvement associations, and they are the ones that are responsible for the land stewardship program, which I feel is a very important program and should be funded adequately.

I have notes here: $499,000 was spent in Dundas county, one county that I represent, used by 70 farmers. Well over 100 would have applied; however, the funding was not there. The program per farmer for seeding down was $4,558. I did not have time to check the other three counties that I represent in part. However, that is in Dundas county alone. That is in place. We need more funding for the stewardship program.

In conclusion, three years ago the Honourable John Wise, the then Minister of Agriculture for Canada, warned that we could lose topsoil needed to feed ourselves within the next 50 years. Africa, as was mentioned by my colleague earlier, is a perfect example that demonstrates how soil can be completely destroyed if not properly administered.

There are some who have predicted that Ontario is heading for famine. I like to think that our farmers, provided they can produce enough income, are the best stewards of their land and will take care of their land. Famine can certainly be avoided, but we have to remember that Ontario is still losing close to 15 million tons of soil annually and that this loss has to be cut.

Some specific information should probably be directed at those who rent out their farm land, encouraging soil maintenance, crop rotation and leaving residue on top. However, let’s keep the army of bureaucrats to a minimum.

Mr. Miller: It is a pleasure this morning to rise and support my colleague the member for Essex-Kent in his drive to preserve our agricultural farm land. Conservation-minded as he is, over the years he has contributed so much to the agriculture industry through the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and as a lifetime farmer.

Again, I would like to congratulate him for that and for the initiative he has taken with this resolution 41 in bringing it before the Legislature in this new year of 1989 at the first private members’ debate. I think it is fitting and it was interesting. I listened carefully to the comments of our members and the remarks of the members in the official opposition and the third party.

I would like to indicate too to the Legislature, to the members here this morning, that as a farmer myself, I can recall leasing land as far back as 1945. My father passed away and we were share-cropping with our neighbours because it was after the war, there was not a lot of help and food was needed. The farmers were not able to work it themselves. We worked on a share-crop basis.

We had considerable experience over those years. Even today, our family is working much more land than it owns because there do not appear to be farmers willing to take the chance to work that land because of the return on the investment. As we all know, the farming community generally has been very hard hit, particularly the cash-croppers because of low commodity prices, the return on investment and the high price of equipment.

Again, our area has played a role in conservation over the years with the sand plains within my riding of Norfolk. The forests were cleared. The fields were cleared of trees and they thought they could work the land, until it started to blow and of course they soon found out they were in trouble. Conservation has played a role.

It has been replanted and reforested and is now again productive with tobacco. The tobacco industry is being devastated. Tobacco has always played an important role in conservation. They would take their crops off and seed down with a rye crop to hold that soil. Conservation has played an important role in my part of Ontario as far as agriculture is concerned.

I am pleased today to rise to respond to the resolution initiated by the member for Essex-Kent and to speak on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell). The Minister of Agriculture and Food has developed a voluntary lease form for use between renters and those who lease farm land that would allow financial compensation to renters who practise sound land stewardship practices.

Conversely, the person who leases the land could receive financial compensation for damages and deterioration of farm land caused by poor farming practices. The resolution also requests that the Minister of Agriculture and Food provide staff to evaluate the extent of land stewardship practices and to arbitrate disputes concerning these practices between renting parties.

I fully support the principle of the request, but I have some serious reservations about generally drafted leases and the provisions of arbiters. Under the minister’s current land stewardship program, the minister has developed a lease to promote stewardship practices. The renter receives a grant of $10 per acre if a conservation management plan is carried out on the rented land.

However, the recommended changes suggested in resolution 41 would require a specific lease to be drafted by the ministry, and the staff act as arbiters and expert witnesses. To do this, a program of inspection and evaluation would have to be established. This evaluation presents a major difficulty. Evaluating the benefits and degree of conservation management and setting an agreed financial settlement between two parties is difficult, if not impossible.

The government would not want to provide arbiters for this virtually impossible task. Complex lease negotiations are best left to the private sector. A review of the three Ministry of Agriculture and Food publications providing general guidelines on lease creation shows the complexity of farm leases. Differences in farm types, landlords and tenants cause problems with a generally drafted ministry lease and could in fact mislead the land owner or renter.

It is the jurisdiction of the courts, and not the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, to deal with contractual and conveyance matters. I am in agreement with the principle of the resolution. A long-term lease that recognizes and rewards conservation management practices is ideal.

Again, from my experience as a farmer, with short-term leases you cannot plan year to year. At least five, 10 or 20 years is perhaps best, because when you put fertilizer on this year it is going to have an effect, and the management you use down the road is going to be there for many years ahead. If you get proper drainage --

Mr. Wildman: Take it all out of the hands of the lawyers.

Mr. Miller: Does the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) know how to get the water off the fields? Does he run a ditch and shovel it out?

Proper drainage plays an important role in farming and if you do not have that proper drainage so you can get on the land at the proper time in the spring, your crops can be failures.

This year was a good example regarding timing because you only had a few days. Some who were able to get their crops in at the proper time had good results; the ones who did not had to pay the price because of the drought situation. One has to use the moisture that is there.

The government will fully support the long-term conservation lease concept. The current lease forms will be reviewed and the ethics of land stewardship will be advertised, promoted and encouraged. Again, I would like to congratulate the member for initiating the resolution this morning. As I said, he has been a leader in the field as far as agriculture is concerned, over his lifetime. I am sure the Legislature and the ministry will be responding and taking the comments that have been made this morning and dealing with them in the best interests of agriculture in Ontario and across Canada.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Durham East.

Mr Cureatz: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It is nice to see you in the chambers this morning. It is too bad you missed my tirade earlier, but I am sure you caught it on television. It is a little difficult for me to tone down from this morning’s earlier resolution. Now that I have calmed down a little bit, I will keep my remarks at a more reserved decibel level, especially because it is coming from my learned colleague the member for Essex-Kent, whom I have had the opportunity of sitting on with a number of committees. Interestingly enough, he and I –

Mr. Wildman: When did he sit on you, Jim?

Mr. Cureatz: Sitting alongside then; all right?

Interestingly enough, I think he and I have, believe it or not, similar approaches to politics: that is, first and above all, we are concerned about our respective constituencies and the people we represent; second, there is the overall concern about the people of Ontario; and third, I do not think he takes too seriously, as I do, the amount of game playing that takes place in terms of whatever caucus you are in, be it the government, opposition, or yes indeed, our own humble little 17-member caucus.

Indeed, one has to participate to a degree, I guess for a little bit of survival, but I think he and I see eye to eye on that concern. We set that aside because our desires are to look after as best we can and reflect the concerns of the people of Ontario. That goes specifically then to his proposed resolution, which I have to tell the member I am not overly supportive of, but it certainly is not because of the substance; it is only because of the procedure.

Needless to say, I can hardly speak on behalf of farmers in my community, never mind Ontario, although I am from a farm background. Our family originally had mixed farming and apple orchards. The honourable member, I believe, is involved in the fruit aspect of farming. He has never invited me to his farm when the cherries are ready to be picked, but I know next summer I will get an invitation to participate in the cherry pit spitting contest. I know I will be beaten hands down by Liberal backbenchers in a cherry pit spitting contest.

I want to say, though, that if I can do my best to try to capsulize my thoughts about the resolution, again, it is not about the substance, because the honourable member has had the opportunity of touring part of my riding, and more particularly of some concern to us, the Kendal hills and the Ganaraska forest. My family and I are new residents in that area.

I will not go into a large history, but the Ganaraska River had become depleted with deforestation and a large, almost sand-dune atmosphere was created, I guess, in the 1930s and 1940s. It took a long time through the initiatives of the provincial, federal and local governments to establish a large conservation authority to replant that area and protect the soil. As a result, there is a beautiful forest of some 10,000 acres, which is holding down what neighbours of mine, Helen Boyd and Fred Wilson and Senator Andy Thompson, indicated to me at one time was just sheer blow sand.

The honourable member certainly is coming from a direction of concern about good soil conservation and soil use. The problem I have, though, and I say this respectfully to my colleague, is that I am just a humble, little, quiet, mild-mannered lawyer from Kendal and I like to, as they say, KIS, or keep it simple.

Looking at the resolution, and I have read it over a number of times, I am wondering if it was drafted by a lawyer. The member indicated one of his assistants participated in drafting it.

I did find it awfully wordy and complicated. In terms of trying to get his point across, it would not hurt to do it again, actually, because this is the kind of worthwhile resolution a private member can participate in to try to reflect concerns. I have seen many members over the years come forward again and again with the same kind of resolution developed in different ways, learning through the process of debate. I suggest to him taking another look at it and maybe meating out the substance of what he is really after and trying to do away with the large procedural aspect that it would seem to me he is trying to portray.

I have only a few minutes. I would like to bring to members’ attention, of course, that there was a Senate committee on agriculture, fisheries and forestry which identified soil erosion. I have to give credit to our researchers, because they did some work for us, which we appreciate very much. There is erosion -- 98 per cent of losses are due to water and two per cent to wind -- pollution of rivers and lakes caused by silting of nitrogen and phosphorous and soil compaction and damage to the soil from acid rain and heavy metal contamination.

There was a program set up by the Progressive Conservatives of Ontario when they were the administration and I give credit to the Liberal administration for extending that program to 1990. It is called the Ontario soil conservation and environmental protection assistance program. Notwithstanding particular politics, I think when it comes down to issues that are of concern to all of us in Ontario and to the members in these chambers, we set aside the political aspects, and governments, no matter who is in power, centre in on particular concerns, that being one of them.

It would seem to me that possibly the member might have proposed a consolidation of all soil and water conservation programs under one provincial ministry agency. Of course, here I am saying on the one hand that the resolution is awfully wordy and awfully procedural, yet I am saying that maybe we should be looking at another ministry or another global umbrella aspect.

I listened very closely to the member’s remarks and he gave a little history of a tendency of our common law system that far surpassed any lectures I had at law school.

Mr. Ballinger: Did you go to law school?

Mr. Cureatz: Well, the diploma on the wall says so, anyway.

I give him credit for the in-depth research he made on that. Let me say in conclusion, without going into further aspects of my research, that with my representation of the farm community in my riding of Durham East, I have found interesting aspects. I have had occasion, when I have been out driving in the community and seen a farmer in a field, to get out and have a little talk. The odd time, if the farmer knows I am coming by, happening to know I am a lawyer, he will have a copy of a lease and will say, “Take a look at this and see what you think.”

It is interesting. When two farmers get together there is a stewardship. I must admit, in the farm community, of which I am so proud. It is obvious that one farmer is unable to use that land for two or three years or whatever length of time. The other farmer is also concerned about the land. He wants to use it, but there is a give and take between them. There is not the aspect of using the land outrageously for an individual’s purpose. There is a stewardship in the farm community that I see time and time again.

Quite often, it works the same way with a large land owner who is not farming but who entrusts his farm to a person who is a farmer. I have seen this time and time again, I can think in terms of a small fruit grower in my constituency. There is another corn producer who has taken over a property. He is very delicate with the land. He is very concerned about the way he manages it and uses it because he has the feeling it has to be passed on and does not have to be overly abused.

I guess I am saying to the member that I compliment him on the substance. I am not so happy about the procedure. I am happier that this can be resolved within the farm community itself.

Mr. McGuigan: I want to thank all members who contributed: the member for Algoma, the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve), the member for Norfolk (Mr. Miller) and the member for Durham East. I will not address them individually, hut I will try to answer some of their very legitimate criticisms.

I point out that the program I have suggested is voluntary. My expectation is that it would only be entered into by a relatively small number of people. Due to the fact that it is voluntary, they would have to have a good soil stewardship ethic or they would not have joined in the first place. I anticipate that it would not be a largely litigious exercise. Nevertheless, I do recognize that the ministry is probably reluctant to get involved in these items, particularly of arbitrating between people. It may rather be that private arbitrators would come to take over such an undertaking.

My main purpose was to highlight the fact that we have an increasing amount of rented land out there, and that land is under greater pressure in most cases than is owned land. Therefore, we should be addressing it.

I said in my speech, “I would hope that the program would continue and be augmented by further funds.” I was talking about the stewardship program. I am very much in favour of it. In fact, I hoped this whole debate would be helpful in providing strength and encouragement from all parties to the Minister of Agriculture and Food, and I see it has done that, towards increasing and continuing that program.

I might mention to the member for Algoma that certainly I agree with his comments about the Brazilian rain forest. While I am not a great supporter of the banks, I think it should be noted that our Canadian banks have, up to date, set aside about 45 per cent of their outstanding loans to those developing countries and have forgiven them. I hope they will forgive further amounts, because we are contributing to the destruction of the world when we are part of the World Bank program that is bringing about the destruction of those forests.

I thank everyone. I thank them for their very constructive advice.

Mr. Speaker: That completes the allotted time for debate on ballot item 51 and ballot item 52.

EASTERN ONTARIO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The House divided on Mr. McGuinty’s motion of resolution 53, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes

Adams, Ballinger, Callahan, Campbell, Cleary, Cooke, D. R., Dietsch, Elliot, Epp, Fawcett, Ferraro, Fleet, Furlong, Henderson, Keyes, Kozyra, Leone, Lipsett, Mahoney, Mancini, Matrundola, McClelland, McGuigan, McGuinty, Miclash, Miller, Nicholas, Nixon, J. B., Oddie Munro, Offer, Pelissero, Polsinelli, Reycraft, Roberts, Sola, South, Sullivan, Tatham, Wilson.

Nays

Breaugh, Cureatz, Farnan, Grier, Hampton, Harris, Philip, E., Pollock, Pouliot, Sterling, Villeneuve, Wildman.

Ayes 39; nays 12.

SOIL CONSERVATION

Mr. Speaker: Mr. McGuigan has moved resolution 41.

Motion agreed to.

The House recessed at 12:09 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

MEMBERS’ STATEMENTS

PUBLIC SECTOR PENSION PLANS

Mr. Farnan: Government employees are concerned that the government has mismanaged their pension funds. They are paying seven per cent of their wages into these trusts and they are concerned about the security of their investment.

They are justifiably upset that the government now intends to take another chunk off their paycheques in order to pay for past mistakes and mismanagement of their pension fund. With proper investment, this $4-billion fund could generate the cash necessary, not only to cover existing commitments to pensioners, but also to fund improved benefits.

The Slater report found that it would be in the best long-term interest if employers and employees entered into full partnership and joint trusteeship of pension funds. Unfortunately, senior officials of this Liberal government have refused to enter real negotiations with the union. They have also indicated that employees must pay for past mistakes made by the government overseer of the fund.

I call on the government to bring in an amendment to the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act to make it possible for collective bargaining of public service pensions in this province. Government employees deserve the right to negotiate to determine the best way for these funds to be handled.

The pensions of union members ought to be separate from those of deputy ministers or other special friends of the government. Pension funds must be at arm’s length from the whims of government ministers. The best way to keep it honest is at the bargaining table.

USE OF GILL NETS

Mr. Pollock: I have received a number of letters in my office from members of the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Coalition. The members of the coalition are extremely active in attempting to enhance recreational fishing opportunities in Lake Huron and, in fact, all across the Great Lakes.

The coalition remains seriously concerned over the incidental catch of nontarget fish species in gill nets. They spend many dollars and countless hours on fish culture programs and other enhancement projects and frequently see the product of their labours end up as the incidental catch in the commercial fisherman’s gill net.

The members of the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Coalition are of the opinion that the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) is soon going to release his position on what should be done with the dead incidental catch. Since the minister appears reluctant to meet with it, the coalition remains justifiably concerned that his decision will be made without knowing all the facts on the issue.

The Minister of Natural Resources owes it to those who work so hard on a voluntary basis to enhance sport fishing in Ontario to consult with them before a decision of this magnitude is made. The members of the coalition have stated that they will meet with the Minister of Natural Resources at his convenience. I hope that the minister will take them up on their invitation.

CELEBRATION OF JULIAN CHRISTMAS

Mr. Fleet: [Remarks in Ukrainian]

For those who do not speak Ukrainian, merry Christmas. I extend this greeting on behalf of all people, including members of my own family, who celebrate Christmas on January 7 in accordance with the traditional Julian calendar. This calendar, named for Julius Caesar, long precedes the Gregorian calendar established in 1582.

Christmas is celebrated on January 7 by people of Ukrainian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Russian origin. It is an opportunity for families to gather together and for people to express their religious commitment. This year it marks the conclusion of the millennium celebration: 1,000 years of Christianity in Ukraine. The freedom to honour one’s religious beliefs is truly a blessing in our multicultural society and enriches the lives of us all.

Also using the Julian calendar, but celebrating the birth and baptism of Christ on January 6, are those members of the Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Christian faiths. This includes people of Armenian origin. For Armenian families, this Christmas is one when, more than ever, their faith will be called upon to sustain them. Our hearts go out to them.

I ask all members of the Legislature to join me in extending best wishes of the season to those now marking the festive and holy celebration of Christmas.

DOUG POLLINGTON AND BILL BROWN

Mr. Farnan: The response of Canadians to the Armenian earthquake, inspired by our fellow Canadians of Armenian heritage, has been magnificent. Today I wish to recognize two distinguished and much respected Cambridge citizens who left their homes and families in order to assist in the relief effort. I speak of past and present Cambridge fire chiefs Doug Pollington and Bill Brown. Their eight-man team of experts in disaster and emergency control was headed by Doug Pollington, a past president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and an ambassador with the People to People program.

They were able to enter Armenia and be involved in the rescue efforts. Their expertise was underutilized, and for the most part they worked with their hands to remove rubble in the hopes of saving some lives. They endured considerable hardship, living on meagre rations and sleeping in tents in subzero conditions. Both Doug and Bill were extremely moved by their experience. They have been able to provide eyewitness accounts of the earthquake aftermath and the ongoing relief effort.

They are determined, as a result of their experience, to work towards the creation of an international relief management control agency that could respond to similar situations in any part of the world and assist in directing relief efforts. They intend to work through People to People, and ultimately their hope is that the United Nations will spearhead this project. Doug Pollington and Bill Brown, Cambridge is proud of you and Ontario salutes you.

RENTAL ACCOMMODATION

Mr. Harris: I would like to continue today the year-end review of the province’s housing situation which I started briefly yesterday. I note that during 1988 the option of home ownership grew increasingly remote for most Ontario residents. The alternative, of course, is rental housing. Here are some of the highlights of past year in the area of rental housing.

In 1988, rental housing became more scarce. The vacancy rates in Toronto and other Ontario centres are now lower than they have ever been. The minister’s Rental Housing Protection Act has not served to protect the rental stock in Ontario. Despite promises of action, nothing has been done to assist unrelated persons who are compelled for economic reasons to share accommodation.

Furthermore, for those who are successful at finding accommodation, they are faced with a rent review process which is hopelessly backlogged. It is enormously frustrating for both the tenants and the landlords. In thousands and thousands of cases, claims are laid a second time before the previous year’s claims are even considered. In 1988, the rental housing crisis clearly got worse.

Finally, let me mention another trend which became disturbingly more evident over the past year with the Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek) and also with the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and the Treasurer (Mr. R. F. Nixon). That is this trend to wash their hands of the responsibility for dealing with the problems and important issues facing this province and to try to blame somebody else.

The outlook for the new year will be bleak unless this minister and the other members of the government stop looking around for someone else on whom to lay the blame for their difficulties and face up to their responsibilities for provincial housing in Ontario.

JOE AND BRIAN SHAW

Mr. Mahoney: Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to your attention and to the attention of my colleagues a very tragic loss to the city of Mississauga with the passing of firefighter Joe Shaw and his son Brian, also a firefighter. Brian died as a result of injuries received in a traffic accident, and a short two days later his dad Joe succumbed to a long fight with cancer. I would like to extend the sympathies of all members of this House to Glenda Shaw and her family on this most tragic loss of her son and her husband.

While I did not have the opportunity to know Brian, I considered Joe a friend as well as a true and loyal servant to the citizens of Mississauga. He was always volunteering at community festivals and he was also known as a minor hockey coach in the Mississauga Jets organization, where Brian also played. Joe was an outstanding athlete in his own right, having led the Mississauga fire department fastball team to a championship held last summer at Canadian National Exhibition stadium.

All too often, tributes to an individual only come forward after that person has left us. It is a true mark of the esteem in which the community of Mississauga and the firefighters across this province held Joe and Brian when you witness the number of people in attendance at their funeral earlier this week.

This is a double tragedy of incomprehensible proportion for Glenda Shaw and her family, but it is also a tragedy and a loss to the city of Mississauga. At least Joe and Brian are together.

FRANCISCO CHICO MENDES

Mr. Wildman: I rise to express our sympathy and outrage at the cowardly murder of Francisco Chico Mendes, internationally recognized ecologist and union leader in Amazonia. This morning I made some comments about this in the House. It is evident that there must be international pressure to ensure that the Amazon rain forest is preserved and that these kinds of politically motivated murders do not go unpunished in Brazil.

In the past, pistoleros have been convicted of these kinds of violent acts, but never the people who finance them and hire them. It is impossible for us to prevent large land owners from using this kind of violent action to ensure that they can further destroy the rain forest unless we, in our banking system and our governments, put pressure on the Brazilian government not to turn a blind eye to the violence that continues in Amazonia.

ORAL QUESTIONS

USE OF HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS

Mr. B. Rae: I have today some questions for the Solicitor General, as well as for the Premier (Mr. Peterson). I assume the Premier is coming momentarily.

In the absence of the Premier, I wonder if I could ask the Solicitor General a number of questions now emerging about control over the police by civilians, and indeed by the government and by the politically appointed people, and of control over access to weapons as well as to ammunition.

I wonder if I could ask the Solicitor General a very specific question: Could she tell us precisely what controls exist in the province today with respect to general access to 38-calibre hollow-point bullets?

Hon. Mrs. Smith: The 38-calibre hollow-point bullets to which the member refers are not specifically referred to in the regulations to the act at all. What are referred to in the act are specifications as to what is permitted rather than what is denied, plus the special circumstances clause, which says that in certain circumstances, this regulation does not need to be adhered to.

Mr. B. Rae: This morning, an associate of mine went to a sports store and asked if he could purchase some 38-calibre hollow-point bullets and he was told: “Of course you can. How many boxes would you like and what kind would you like?” He was able to purchase for some $18.65 a box of hollow-point bullets for a 38-calibre pistol.

This is not a hunting bullet. This is not something used in hunting. This is specifically a pistol cartridge, a hollow-point cartridge, of which he was able to purchase three boxes at a sports store.

I would like to ask the minister: Just how realistic and how tough is her control over access to this particular hollow-point bullet when anybody off the street can walk into a sports store and, without being asked for a permit, without being asked for anything, can simply pick it up?

Hon. Mrs. Smith: I would point out that my control is under the Police Act and under the actions of police officers. It is not related to the general public or to anything done in the sports stores; it is to the use of these things and ownership of these things by police forces.

Mr. B. Rae: There is a basic question here. If anybody off the street can simply walk into a store and purchase these bullets without any restriction in terms of access, without any questions being asked with respect to what you need or want them for, without even any requirement apparently that you have a gun permit, surely the Solicitor General has to appreciate that she appears to have no control over general access to this stuff, as well as no specific control herself over what guns, what ammunition and what general arsenal apparently the police across the province have.

By way of final supplementary, I wonder if the Solicitor General is in a position today to tell us if she knows what guns, what ammunition and what arsenal the police in the province, operating under her general authority as Solicitor General, have. If she does not know, why does she not know?

Hon. Mrs. Smith: As I have pointed out already, the question was never raised. To me, the regulations seemed to be quite satisfactory. They are very specific and had always been assumed to be adequate. As soon as the matter was raised to me, I sent out a questionnaire to the police to find out if in fact these police forces have ammunition other than we thought and, if indeed they are using it, in what ways they are using it.

I think the member does no service to the public or to the members of the Legislature to confuse federal law and provincial law on firearms in general. We are talking about the Police Act and what the police can and cannot do.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. B. Rae: By means of a new question I would like to go back to the Premier again today and again focus his attention on the question of Sunday shopping and on his continued refusal to meet with those groups that continue to be opposed to the government’s legislation.

I would like, quite simply, to ask the Premier why he continues to refuse a meeting with representatives of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario as well as with the interfaith committee coalition and other members of the coalition against his legislation? Why will he not simply sit down with them and at least agree to a meeting with them before he decides to force this bill through by using closure?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I think my honourable friend misrepresents the situation. There have been endless meetings with the ministers concerned and with staff. I have met with AMO and a whole variety of people on this matter. I do not mind meeting with anybody. I do not mind hearing their views.

We have had an opportunity to discuss this in this Legislature for the last nine months. If the member feels they can shed some new wisdom on this matter, then I am very happy to have the benefit of their points of view, but I can tell him there have been endless meetings for the last nine months.

Mr. B. Rae: Is the Premier saying that on the critical

section of the bill,

section 4, which is the

section that deals with the question of the local option, his mind is closed?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I am saying that the government has put forward the bill. That is the government’s position, and that is the basis on which we are proceeding.

Mr. B. Rae: I asked the Premier very clearly, not whether or not the government was proceeding. Obviously the government is proceeding. What I am asking is, why would the Premier refuse to have a meeting when there are going to be literally thousands of people affected by this legislation, when there are literally hundreds of people who presented their positions in this Legislature?

Over 400 people heard by the committee were opposed to the legislation, and only 26 groups specifically said they were in favour of the legislation as it stood: 26 in favour, over 400 opposed. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia both tried the local option and both rejected it after the experience of two years because of the injustice that it created.

Why is the Premier’s mind so closed on an issue when there are clearly so many people in the province who feel differently and who are in fact opposed to his own position?

Hon. Mr. Peterson: I think my honourable friend is a little, shall we say, alarmist about this.

Let’s look at this in its practical effect. Look at, for example, the Niagara Peninsula. There you have a situation where Fort Erie is open, Niagara Falls is open, Niagara-on-the-Lake is open. Those tend to be tourist areas, or special circumstances with respect to Fort Erie. But Welland is not open, St. Catharines is not open and Thorold is not open to the best of my knowledge.

This situation works very well. It has not destroyed families. It has not ruined people’s private lives. What I am saying to the member is that is how the law will operate. What we do have is a new enforceability. We have a situation where people can make their own judgements based on their own circumstances.

If my friend wants to stand up in this House and say that Sault Ste. Marie should not open, then he can go ahead and say so. I think they should be allowed to if they want to be. What we have is a very tight regulatory framework.

Mr. Wildman: They are already open.

Hon. Mr. Peterson: If they are already open and it is working, what is he getting so excited about? Stand up and say we are just regularizing the law.

WINE PRICING POLICIES

Mr. Brandt: I would not want to get excited about some of the pressing issues in Ontario with the Premier, but I do have an issue that I am somewhat agitated about, and that relates to the Premier’s words back in July of last year when he indicated, in speaking on the free trade agreement, “If the people of this country speak on an important issue, I have to accept the results of that.” Then on November 21, to reinforce what he had said previously in July, he made a statement that was much the same, “I have no way of stopping it. Let us respect the voice of the Canadian people.”

Is it the Premier’s intention to live up to his commitment? I just spoke his words as they relate to the free trade agreement. Is he prepared to continue and honour his promise as it relates to what he has specifically stated with respect to the free trade agreement?

Hon. Mr